Nurturing Spirituality

clouds1Cloud of Unknowing

Author:Anonymous (14th c. English)

Description:Some things never change, including the human need to connect with our creator.

Prayer and meditation on the divine are techniques that have been used for millennia to grow in the knowledge of God. Cloud of Unknowing documents techniques used by the medieval monastic community to build and maintain that contemplative knowledge of God. Scholars date the anonymous authorship of Cloud of Unknowing to 1375, during the height of European monasticism.

Written as a primer for the young monastic, the work is instructional, but does not have an austere didactic tone. Rather, the work embraces the reader with a maternal call to grow closer to God through meditation and prayer.

 

LIFT up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean
   Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look the loath to think on
   aught but Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but
   only Himself. And do that in thee is to forget all the creatures that
   ever God made and the works of them; so that thy thought nor thy desire
   be not directed nor stretched to any of them, neither in general nor in
   special, but let them be, and take no heed to them. This is the work of
   the soul that most pleaseth God. All saints and angels have joy of this
   work, and hasten them to help it in all their might. All fiends be
   furious when thou thus dost, and try for to defeat it in all that they
   can. All men living in earth be wonderfully holpen of this work, thou
   wottest not how. Yea, the souls in purgatory be eased of their pain by
   virtue of this work. Thyself art cleansed and made virtuous by no work
   so much. And yet it is the lightest work of all, when a soul is helped
   with grace in sensible list, and soonest done. But else it is hard, and
   wonderful to thee for to do.

   Let not, therefore, but travail therein till thou feel list. For at the
   first time when thou dost it, thou findest but a darkness; and as it
   were a cloud of unknowing, thou knowest not what, saving that thou
   feelest in thy will a naked intent unto God. This darkness and this
   cloud is, howsoever thou dost, betwixt thee and thy God, and letteth
   thee that thou mayest neither see Him clearly by light of understanding
   in thy reason, nor feel Him in sweetness of love in thine affection.

   And therefore shape thee to bide in this darkness as long as thou
   mayest, evermore crying after Him that thou lovest. For if ever thou
   shalt feel Him or see Him, as it may be here, it behoveth always to be
   in this cloud in this darkness. And if thou wilt busily travail as I
   bid thee, I trust in His mercy that thou shalt come thereto.

 

Nurturing Audio & Video

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Reflections to Consider

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Nurturing Publications

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Publications

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Nurturing Music

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Music

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Nurturing Reflection

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Audio & Video

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Favorites

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