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.”