Sometime during the last half of the 14th century, somewhere in England’s East Midland area, some anonymous Carthusian monk (or priest) created one of the most enduring how-to books on prayer—The Cloud of Unknowing. His intentional anonymity illustrates his main message: Christ must become more visible as his followers grow kinder and humbler. Anonymous wants readers “sincere in their intentions to follow Christ” in love. A series of letters written by this master teacher to his student, the Cloud represents the ancient tradition of Christian contemplative wisdom. This tradition began with the third-century Desert Mothers and Fathers who practiced a life of prayer in Egypt’s Scete desert, followed by the earliest Benedictines who dedicated themselves daily to regular times of lectio divina—the “sacred reading” of Scripture done in a deliberately prayerful manner.
For the first 16 centuries of the church, all Christians engaged in this silent form of prayer. Both then and today, contemplative prayer is practiced in the orthodox context of communal Christian worship and intense Bible study. Since it acknowledges the inadequacy of language to describe God, contemplative prayer is often called the via negativa (“negative way”). In the 16th century, John of the Cross embraced this prayer, saying that it purifies us and prepares us to love. Teresa of Avila taught that this “prayer of quiet” revives a “desolate and very dry” soul, creating an intimacy with God that is like “rain coming down abundantly from heaven to soak and saturate” the gardens of our hearts. Christians of all backgrounds are returning to this simple Jesus-centric prayer to grow their souls and learn to love in an increasingly complex post-modern world.
In Anonymous’s timeless teaching on Christian contemplative prayer, the Cloud, he shows us how to pray and reconnect with a very personal, very forgiving God of love:
From the Preface
Dear spiritual friend in God, examine your life. Pay careful attention to the way you live. Thank God for your blessings, and his grace will help you stand strong in the face of subtle attacks from within and without, until you win the everlasting crown of life.
From Chapter 1
Here’s what my humble searching has found true about growing as a Christian. God created you from nothing and later paid his priceless blood for you when you followed Adam and got lost. With an irresistible kindness, he nudged your love awake, fastened it to a leash of longing, and led you.
From Chapter 3
So lift up your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love. Focus on him alone.
From Chapter 6
We can’t think our way to God. That’s why I’m willing to abandon everything I know, to love the one thing I cannot think. He can be loved, but not thought. By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking.
From Chapter 7
You only need a naked intent for God. When you long for him, that’s enough. If you want to gather this focus into one word, making it easier to grasp, select a little word of one syllable, not two. The shorter the word, the more it helps the work of the spirit. God or love works well. Fasten it to your heart. Fix your mind on it permanently, so nothing can dislodge it.
From Chapter 37
When frightened by fire, someone’s death, or something else, you cry for help. A person in danger won’t pray a long string of words, or even a word of two syllables. Why? When desperate, you can’t waste time. If you’re scared to death, there’s no babbling or big words—you scream, “Fire!” or “Help!” and this one-word outburst works best. Watch how this little word, “Fire!” penetrates a dangerous situation, getting the attention of those who can help you. The same is true spiritually. When a little word of one syllable isn’t just thought or spoken but is an expression of your spirit’s deepest intentions, it’s the height of prayer.
From Chapter 3
The first time you pray this silent prayer, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing. You won’t understand it. You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. This darkness and this cloud will always be between you and God, whatever you do. It keeps you from seeing him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and blocks you from feeling him fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to him over and over again, because you love him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth.
From Chapter 9
When love motivates us to reduce ourselves to nothing, we’ll desire that God be all. God protects those who’ve made love their business, who’ve stopped worrying about themselves. They are amazingly unflappable and unassailable; after all, these unpretentious peacemakers live out the courage and strength of their love. If you haven’t tried this yet, you should risk everything to learn how to love.
From Chapter 25
If we want to be mature disciples of our Lord, we must strain every spiritual muscle learning to love our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. For their salvation we must sacrifice all, as Christ did on the Cross. How? Our Lord didn’t play favorites. He sacrificed himself for all people, not just for family, friends, and those who loved him best.
From Chapter 2
So pray. And let’s see how you do. God is ready. He’s only waiting on you. What will you do? Where will you begin?
Carmen Acevedo Butcher is associate professor of English and scholar-in-residence at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia.
Learn more about this outspoken, wise, likeable, strong-willed, amazingly articulate, bright, down-to-earth, caring teacher in The Cloud of Unknowing, with the Book of Privy Counsel (Shambhala Publications, 2009) by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. The translations above come from this work. Slight modifications have been made to fit the column format. For more background information on The Desert Mothers, see Mary C. Earle’s book by that title (Morehouse Publishing, 2007) and for The Desert Fathers, see Benedicta Ward’s book by that title (Cistercian Publications, 1987). Sharon Gartland describes the ancient Christian practice of lectio divina in her article, “Living Water: Sacred Reading,” published in the InterVarsity-sponsored online journal, The Well.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History & Biography magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History & Biography.
