Moving to My Re-activated Website

Something quite wonderful happened to me on my way to blogging this week.  I found the key to my old WordPress blogsite:  Praying Daily Blog.  Now that an opening is this "old" blog is now available, my work within this newly re-activated blog allows for a more robust presentation of content and images, among other amenities.  For this reason I'm asking my readers to head on over and join me at Praying Daily Blog.  If you're new to Praying Daily Blog, you may wish to subscribe to the RSS Feed by entering your email address in the upper-right textbox so that you will receive automatic notifications whenever something is posted.  As you might rightly suppose, I'll not be posting anymore here.  So drive down the street and meet me at our refurbished Praying Daily Blog.  You'll like what you see!

The Cloud of Unknowing: Study Guide for Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Read Chapter 11, “How to evaluate each thought and impulse and avoid being careless about venial sin” (34).

In this short chapter Anonymous  asks us to examine the way we think: how we use our thoughts and how our thoughts use us.   Review what we said last Tuesday as to what our Desert Mothers and Fathers, St. Hesychios the Priest, and Paul Evdokimov have said concerning the movement of our logismoi (thoughts, passions) as they begin, develop, and reach conclusions within us.  Watching thoughts-- the act of spiritual attentiveness, watchfulness, and the guarding of one’s heart-- has always been a key practice among contemplatives throughout the great traditions of the world.

Once again St. Hesychios the Priest provides numerous insights as to how we may effectively “watch” our thoughts.  Among his suggestions are the following two which are especially helpful.  First, do some “thought watching” at dawn.  In other words, get up a bit early and quietly, before you do your Centering Prayer, allow yourself to see what you are thinking.  That practice, begun at dawn, can then be carried on periodically during the day.  One stops and looks as his or thinking and thereby get to know something true about one’s self.  Second,  St. Hesychios recommends that we couple our watchfulness with fasting.  Strongly encouraged by Jesus himself, fasting (perhaps by not eating till satiation, but being just a bit hungry after eating) is to accompany prayer (see Matthew 6.5-18); the two complement each other.

How do you, as Anonymous recommends, “[pay] attention to the sudden allure of each thought?

Read Chapter 12, “How contemplation destroys sin and nurtures virtues” (35-36).  For the first time, Anonymous mentions “virtues,” and you should read Butcher’s note to understand our use of the word.   In medieval times, the Seven Deadly Sins were often presented as opposites to the Virtues .  (I will provide a handout in class showing you the two trees.)

Over the centuries, however, the presentation of “virtues” moved in directions that did not always compare them with the “seven vices.”  As a consequence, the so-called seven virtues were divided into two classes: the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues, and often they were discussed with the fruits of the Holy Spirit as St. Paul describes them in Galations 5. 

As good as all this is (and difficult to keep straight as to what goes where), perhaps the Boy Scout Oath is about as good as it gets (outside The Cloud of Unknowing) when it comes to describing a virtuous life:  "A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent."  And yet, as Anonymous will remind us, there’s more to it all than that.  No self-help program comes close to his wisdom.

As Anonymous encourages us to think about vices and virtues, he admits that some practices are “good” and that “they help [us] grow in grace.”  (35-36).  What are such practices?

But as good as these habits, disciplines, and practices are, they are not equal to the one practice that truly helps us destroy sin and nurture the virtues.   What is that “work” that “trumps everything else” and how does he describe it?

Anonymous’ final paragraph in Chapter 12 is powerful, well worth reading over and over, many times, so that it sinks into our awareness of what’s important when we wish to cultivate a life characterized by everything that’s on the tree of virtues.  What two virtues—Anonymous will discuss them at length in the upcoming chapters-- are especially important to cultivate as a contemplative?

Next week's class will be on Monday, July 30,  at 10:00 a.m.  Our special guest will be Cherry Haisten, whose introductions to the practice of praying The Welcoming Prayer is known throughout the world.  Do be sure to come as she shares her insights of this contemplative practice with us!

Getting Ready to Discuss The Cloud of Unknowing on Tuesday, July 17

Study Guide for Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boston: Shambhala Press, 2009).

Chapters 8-9  

Read Chapter 9, “How even the holiest thoughts obstruct rather than help contemplative prayer” (30-31).

Where, in particular, does Anonymous stress the importance of not confusing good and lovely thoughts “about” God (or anything or anyone else)  with entering the cloud of unknowing”?

Locate and underline the three times that Anonymous in this chapter calls what we do in contemplative prayer “work.”  Then take a look at Butcher’s comment on page 137 (Chapter 3, note 4) and ask yourself, “Does it help if I consider Centering Prayer “work”?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

Read Chapter 10, “How to tell which thoughts are sinful, and which are mortal or venial” (32-33). 

Here Anonymous wants to consider how we handle “bad” thoughts.  We are to be aware, he says, that not all thoughts, especially “bad” thoughts are the same.  As Butcher explains in her endnotes, Anonymous was accustomed to dividing sins into two categories: venial and mortal.  He assumes that as contemplatives who have “honestly renounced the world,” we do not have a overly serious problem with mortal sins.  We should, however, be on guard against their dangerous entrance and presence in our lives, and consequently he gives us examples as to how the so-call “seven” deadly sins my inveigle their way into our thoughts and actions.  As you look over the list, which one or ones do you consider personally most dangerous to your spiritual life?  Why so?  When and how in your work of contemplative prayer do you handle them?

For next Tuesday, July 24, read Chapter 11 (34) and Chapter 12 (35-36).

Getting Ready to Discuss The Cloud of Unknowing on Tuesday, July 10

Study Guide for Tuesday, July 10, 2012
The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boston: Shambhala Press, 2009).

Be sure to note that OUR PRACTICE AND DISCUSSION WILL BEGIN AT 9:00 AND MUST END AT 10:30 SO THAT LARRY and ANDY CAN DRIVE TO ATLANTA FOR A NOON MEETING WITH “GEORGIA LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.”

Read Chapter 8, “Answering your doubts about contemplation; why learning curiosity, and intellect must be destroyed; and the difference between the active and contemplative life” (26-29).  

Study the text so as to share you insights during our discussion that will work with the following questions:

1.      During contemplative prayer (for us, Centering Prayer), does Anonymous want us to make a distinction between good and evil thoughts?  Why or why not?
2.    What, in the opinion of Anonymous, is the danger inherent in engaging in good thoughts?
3.    In paragraph 3, Anonymous makes a distinction between two kinds of lives in the Church, the active and the contemplative.  What’s the distinction?
4.    Anonymous also says that both the active and the contemplative lives each have two stages.  What are they?  And how do they come together?
5.    What goes on in the  mind in the “higher active stage (lower contemplative [stage])?
6.    What goes on in the higher stage of contemplation?
 

Getting Ready to Discuss The Cloud of Unknowing on Tuesday, July 3

Study Guide for Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boston: Shambhala Press, 2009).

Chapters 5-7

Read Chapter 5, “How contemplation requires us to hide all people and all things past, present, and future, and all accomplishments, under the cloud of forgetting” (19-20).  Notice how Anonymous suggests that we place ourselves between two clouds: one above us and one below us. 

1.      What does he call these two clouds? 

2.    What’s the difference between these two clouds?

3.    Is it necessary that we always stay between the clouds?  Why or why not?

4.    Suppose we have some good thoughts about God.  What does Anonymous suggest we do with such thoughts?   Why?

Read Chapter 6, “A short look contemplation, through dialogue” (21-22).

5.    In this very short chapter (only two paragraphs), Anonymous makes one important observation.  What is it?

6.    What’s the purpose of your “sharp arrow of longing” and how in Centering Prayer do we shoot it?

Read Chapter 7, “How to deal with your thoughts during contemplative prayer, especially when curiosity and natural intelligence intrude” (23-25). 

7.    Is it possible to get rid of all thoughts in contemplative prayer?  Why or why not?

8.    Anonymous recommends that, “for the love God,” we are to “dismiss” wonderful thoughts about God when we practice contemplative prayer.  Why does he make that recommendation?

9.    To move us into the clouds, what practical suggestion does Anonymous make when we find ourselves wanting to focus with “a humble stirring of love”?

For next Tuesday, July 10, be sure to note that OUR PRACTICE AND DISCUSSION WILL BEGIN AT 9:00 AND MUST END AT 10:30 SO THAT LARRY and ANDY CAN DRIVE TO ATLANTA FOR A NOON MEETING WITH “GEORGIA LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.”  

Getting Ready to Discuss The Cloud of Unknowing on Tuesday, June 26

Study Guide for Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Cloud of Unknowing: with the Book of Privy Counsel, trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Boston: Shambhala Press, 2009).

Read Chapter 3, “How to do the work of contemplation, and why it is the best work” (11-12).

Notice the many different ways Anonymous emphasizes that it is God who brings us to himself as he begins to describe what happens when we use our sacred words to disentangle ourselves from thoughts in our monkey mind.  Here are some of the expressions he has used so far:  God leads you by “the desire of your heart” (7);
God nudges “your desire awake, fastening it to a leash of longing” (7-8); God wants to “lock your eyes on him . . . .” (10).   Now in Chapter 3, Anonymous says that what God does and what we feel is “a gentle stirring of love” (11) and “a simple reaching out to God” (12).   Read endnotes 2, 3, and 6 so you get a good feel for the Middle English words that Anonymous is using to help us understand.  The metaphors of stretching, reaching, intending all underscore the movement of love that we squeeze out with our sacred words as God leads us.

Why is such “work” the one that pleases God the most?

Read Chapter 4, “Contemplation’s brevity, and why knowledge and imagination can’t acquire it” (13-18).

In this chapter we find out what contemplation is not.  On the one hand, what is it not?  On the other hand, what is it?  What has time got to do with it?  What has love got to do with it?  And what has got to “be squashed” to that contemplation may occur with integrity?

For Anonymous words always present us with a problem because we use them to produce ideas.  He is worried about how we use words to describe the contemplative experience.  He cautions us as to how we are not to describe imagine darkness and cloud?  What, then, is “darkness” and what is “cloud” for the contemplative person? 

As always, if you  wish, let us know where you found something difficult in the text to understand.  And then too, let us know where you read something that made very good sense.  More than anything, come back next week ready for a good discussion, one you will enjoy.