I’m travelling this week so I didn’t have time to write the usual essay and collect a few links. Instead I wanted to share a brief meditation on a passage that I’ve been thinking a lot about. I apologise if it is a touch obscure.
The Cloud of Unknowing is an English Christian text from the 14th century penned by an unknown author. The book is difficult. The author makes it clear that he does not expect it to be accessible to most people1. Nonetheless, it is often considered a classic of mystical Christian writing. It has been a powerful guide to the religious life for centuries.
The subject of the book is the contemplation of God. In particular the ‘work’ of not getting lost in any particular contingent idea of God but remaining focussed on God himself and thereby resting in a “cloud of unknowing”. About two thirds of the way through the book the question arises what relation this has to do with food, shelter, and the basics of everyday life. How can we, while engaged in the work of contemplation, make sure we are living rightly in this regard?
But perhaps you would ask me how you are to regulate yourself with moderation in food, in sleep, and in everything else. And to this I am inclined to answer very briefly, ‘Take what comes.’ Always do the work of contemplation [of God] without cease and without moderation, and you will easily know how to begin and end all your other activities with excellent moderation. I cannot believe that a soul that continues in this work night and day without moderation would be able to go wrong in any of these outward activities - and otherwise it seems to me that it would always go wrong. - Cloud of Unknowing
On first reading I think that for many modern readers this passage may come across as opaque and fuzzy, if not simply deluded. It may be worth suspending disbelief for a minute though.
Here’s an idea for what it might mean:
God does not act in the world like another being like a waterfall or a legal system2. Instead, God encompasses both the actions of beings in the world as well as the ideal pattern that each of these beings could inhabit - the possibility of heaven on earth3.
For the author these are not abstract concepts but concrete realities. The contemplation of God is an act of seeing this ideal while still within in our everyday life.
There is an ideal and it is present in being itself. If we will only put our hearts and minds to that ideal, without getting lost in any particular contingent story of what that ideal should be, we may find that our orientation will take care of contingencies we were previously concerned about.
Mood
How much more difficult for a modern audience that barely understands what could be meant by God let alone have a familiarity with the way of life described.
This is not to say that the analogy of God as a being is wrong. In fact it may be the correct analogy in almost any situation a person finds themselves.
Of course this itself is only a metaphor. As the work of the cloud of unknowing makes clear understanding God through any set of concepts, to ‘catch’ Him in a particular definition, is a fools errand. As Tolstoy would put it “Genuine religion is not about speculating about God or the soul or about what happened in the past or will happen in the future; it cares only about one thing—finding out exactly what should or should not be done in this lifetime”.