More wisdom from the Cloud of Unknowing - a gentle way

I’ve been studying and translating passages from the great fourteenth-century work The Cloud of Unknowing. Written as a practical guide for a young student, it is a text of great importance for the practice of meditation in the Christian tradition, what the anonymous author calls the ‘work’ of contemplation. I’d like to share some of the author’s teaching from Chapters 45 and 46 of The Cloud. What he shares is very important. But how he shares it is equally important. As I read his words, he speaks to me in a way I have valued greatly in my own teachers, a blend of no-nonsense directness, tenderness and humour.