just one who comes to him with a child's heart so it's a game of kind of hide and seek and we see that in the canticle of canticles it's kind of an alluring and then stepping back and but we don't want to seem absolutely desperate
we'd bruno and i were the inhibition it was almost an unspoken principle that we had to get into that three the fourth mansions by six month and probably the fifth mansions by the night and there was a little too will fall in a clutching at it and if a super you just set it aside
and touch then not then it happens it's like you try to remember something and you and then if you just stop trying very often he can pop there or two very much want to sleep will just give up on why my my sleep tonight and start doing something else than you might go to sleep
op it's that kind of paradox
comment sir
and he gets a beautiful kind of counter so we are the area of paradox industry and cent coin here in that kind of thing
desperation too much ourselves here are bringing up
no
yeah
yeah and too much of ourselves i really thought of the ego the ego can very much going to the contemplative life and this is the highest location of all and i'm going to get god other people are just after cars and bank accounts and i after god you know what i'm going to get god and so sometimes god would have that book of mertens
a sin in the birds of appetite he's very good on that people were
i want to clutch god and possess got it won't happen is i tried to clutch the cloud possessed the cloud
so i think that's what he's trying to get out and it's very important thing so a certain what your detached even about that card says yeah we will to be one with god but a certain point we have to non will
we we know that is the highest wisdom of god that's what we yearn after but we've got to urine as much as to not knowing that's not mr that's not willing non lo it's a paradox that is already there and pseudo dionysius
it's all the way through sin this frame which helps the dialogue with eastern religions
and so what donald across as think what is it that way to get everything is desire nothing in the waiter know everything is to know nothing and whole series of things
so the way to get contemplation is not to will to get it to be disposed at some level to yearn with all our heart into that that thing but with a caterer and english reserve i should think you you mask this you keep it control actually become quite a seven
that book accomplish
no such as a time course
intensity is also
yeah it does not going to with it that is precisely where you can make an object though it can't be an object that wanna go as you can have gathered watching
on your idea
right place
yeah want this that that that i can't want god and anything like that way and i know this that i can't know god any so that that
who knows that ever
why containing some
and that not wanting is totally other than jester
we're giving up a kind of blah say i have a disciplined and replacement of spirituality
so forth her like in god come godstone draw a who
found in line for a wanting god didn't really want to god i wanted but i mentioned got a m and got like her when i came out here
this is true to a real extending interpersonal relations in love relations i remember
a college friend of mine who said he was wildly love with scale up and he had these movies or dash my well we live with her or in my wildly in love with romantic love to think it would want in a girl takes a lot of work to see isn't really that other person or how much more you know
the my love with god as god remained love with the idea of be as a great saint possessing guard greatness to kind of thing
one a big difference being with another person by person can come to your their terms and you know that this person god is not like back he however this isn't the presence and mouse so mean my experience anyway to women that other person would just read a shot and hold your hand
and and assure you that now that's where i forgot to do but in some students we god can be a deep level to have personal never can so it's a great tub life essence which files that you never know as her
but you you start dancing the existence of other people
for it yesterday
so it's full of paradox
maybe came as creating a radical and we can do it
have some good and where it can be gnosticism to your secret five million secret knowledge
i love at the americans
yeah my really sets it up or rely more on job easier sheer brute force salt levels is a waste of my head check tell me to relax marriages
system that planet knew have a link to an i remember a novice master telling am very zealous intense nervous just coast the novice scandalized because that's one thing he couldn't do he had to keep trying
and pounding etc there's lots of language in the cloud suggest the pounding etc but then there's these other techs was not in that sense you know suit has to be a young
effortless effort to ten kind of thing
but not slipping into quiet and sewer minutes slipping into kind of aboard do nothing so it's very young settled to distribute it
and then so there's only specific moments for this and yet he says if we keep at it it can come it can become virtually a bitch that is it it's can extend throughout the whole day
you could hope chapter of or page one forty

and he talks about the whole range of contemporary it and we are good don't aim don't think while the other person's like that so i should be really i get but if you look at the up
of the title of chapter under that that some people experience the perfection of contemplation in rare moments and ecstasy called ravishing while others experience it added they will admit the ordinary daily routine and here we're getting into who will see next time his brother lawrence when some kind of
miss is ongoing way had this experience with the pots and pans and the cleaning and the repairing of shoes and the whole thing god was there
so if you go down to second paragraph about six lines yet
you see the yet here yet there are other so spiritually refined by grace and so intimate with god in prayer that they seem to possess an experience and perfection of this work almost as they like even in the midst of their ordinary daily routine but they're sitting or standing walking her kneeling
they managed to retain full control control and use their physical and spiritual faculties at all times however not without some difficulty perhaps yet without great difficulty so this is again our mountain thing our brother lawrence could do the cooking and then clean the pots and pans birch
and still be with god it's not in contradiction because god is at the summit and these other faculties and energies and activities work at other levels that's the usefulness of this model now it takes a certain stream but it can happen and then someone like brother in law
swords or something like the prayer of the heart or augustan baker these brief intense prayers during the day don't give us the means more and more to extend this experience throughout the day certainly in literature that's why are silent pauses are there
where that's why we want to prepare that's why we pray the same texts over again and again again so they'll get so into us that they can come from a deeper depth and we don't have to be playing with every image should cetera we can kind of prey and and through them that's why a prayer like a rosary etc
to extend the contemplative throughout the day this again shouldn't become intense we shouldn't beat ourselves when we add long periods of distraction or something sometimes we can set this is a goal i want to be constantly with god within the next year or something no it's not bad but just
to allow the and the ice block of forgetfulness to break up a biddle a little a little moments of preceding the waters beneath from something
just every now and then to make that it can as other the clouds as it can be in a split second one second pause between doing this and doing that remember why i'm doing this why during just invoke god with a brief word to see off with the cloud says that will go into the upper cloud
and then come down and do the things that need to be done if it with an image for diverse maybe with whatever
comments about that
so that's a view of contemplative prayer up through this classic i can consider for me a splendid teach also merton says glowing things about the cloud so obviously sure and coming out of the experience and duck helpful
what cetera
so next time we'll pop from this not a different level and will be looking at brother lawrence the practice of the presence of god how many you know that work and so oh well hurry to art
you don't know that cypriot i know that father hadn't read with a shame
good so up
why don't we
prepare for that and notice there's a critical edition over it and walk stores and that's something new but will just be using as are using the image edition of the cloud because of its successor gavi will use the image edition of the practice and i will pass out our sections it will be looking at
but i forgot to bring them so next time we'll go to the prey but think your homework assignment is how to shift this isolated intense moment in to throughout the day not necessarily with that intensity and immediacy but with something of that our awareness someone uses
the delightful image i think of peripheral vision that can be very focused on this and it's eleven or one now and still be aware of the flowers not not shut that off indeed some are wanting to encompass that in the awareness of time this kind of think of look at this book to be aware of youth
they're the mother the loving mother might be doing this that and that but she's aware of the child also on the floor and aware that the child might be wandering a little too close to the hot oven or something so it's that both and kind of consciousness which again that mountain allows that
we want to develop there's a mysterious passage and julian norridge that suggests that me at least for some people this is going on all the time even when they're not aware of it
and so when we come back to contemplative prayer it's not as if we start again something we left off two days ago or something but we just come back to an area it's going all the time were just to work now it's like a manual going up to the generator and checking in the generators always going whether he sucked aware of it or not
electricity which is sometimes these were directly aware of it with that's something like i said into the mountain so what brother lawrence wants to get us in touch with is just to be bored more in communion with god throughout the day was always thus ah and your refrigerator
stop
well it's in the library
the from should be going
all right
this is our fifth session on contemplative prayer according to the correct interpretation
and we have been looking at three dimensions throughout the day and contemplative prayer and your scopes intense moments when you are absolutely silent and it's a direct moving them to the apathetic prayer for us this is kind of formal
lives through that period after vespers and period after logs and this is the kind of order to to offer the cloud of unknowing was talking about with charge of the cross are also teresa as we get into the for conflict management etc
so this is extremely important source for the rest but it isn't the whole thing are contemplative life here is confined to that
get there are other saw them for moments of return to compare throughout the day wants maxiell use or less direct and amplify in fact or medium that you a whole series of sacred sites and a rights and the word of god
wow
and here about seems like st gertrude and data of by country they talk up in school tuition
lot of fun and contemplative in and true that the church cool father became a or it be coming talking about this should be possible you should have the possibility of of contemplative experience in better shape if it's just cut off at the moment of the religion that won't be prepped
pretty bad news some argue that this is the solid combination of our contemplative like others said a good morning britain others that it isn't difficult thing to do
but we don't want to exclude that
ah the liturgical moment is also contemplative moment if you were listening carefully to r
well our psalms are canticle sartre par une have just launched today for instance it's hard to really proclaim and sing those without being in some kind of contemplative space i think you have to make almost a conscious decision that well this won't be contemplative for because i'm not alone
own and in science etc but for instance that closing trope to the blessed suit and only sovereign to the king of kings the lord of lords to the one who alone possesses immortality dwells and inaccessible light no one has seen or can see be honor and power forever
all and so i think that inevitably moves us into a space of contemplative insight and adoration it's different from the first moment it's mediated but it's mediated by language word of god that somehow somehow mysteriously filled with the spirit
with gestures to very seeing brings and forth from us perhaps from a deeper level
and
then our canticle for my myzeo
no more shall they call you forsaken or your land be called desolation you should be called my delight your land shall be called the espoused for the lord delights sober you and your country should have its reading like a young man that marries a virgin virginia rebuilder show marry do which the bri
group rejoices so your god rejoices in new etc
so did this isn't silent apathetic but it's certainly the language of contemplative love and the mystics who are into the apathetic will take these kind of texts to comment precisely to explain what happens in the most silent and ineffable this language about of
of the mystery of god about spousal love it's being what contemplation it's all about et cetera
so to remain definitely open throughout these saw moments of the day
of liturgy up to the contemplative experience if you want to get further into it read somewhere my father by the chimney of the geological dimensions of the literature reviews chat about mysticism etc
for saint gertrude etc
then the third movement is throughout the day not limited even sacred moments and silence but in any moment in any situation some way that god was there that's the basic biological principle god is there a
yearn for intimacy in your new was also in that now so if we're not we've gone it's an odd spot it's not as getting guides said this is not a contemplative old was the no longer you can find a secret language and symbols said your goodbyes contain me
apple's somehow recycling and holding themselves
people know jesus uses in everyday happen even so life for his parables this is warm enough idea and surgery
ah
for instance the woman who takes eleven and puts it into the dole this is the language of the kingdom this some serious but the marriott
parable that is he saw his mother mary and putting rather in the brain somehow that brought an insight about god's presence percents of the kinda in the dog sentra but whatever the things that don't work out the way we like a display shoes and wishes etc somehow
goggles there so be looking at a brother lawrence the practice of the presence of god just a bit and be looking at career of the heart which once absolutely to extend throughout the day up here so we've got these three models any questions comments search
directions about that
we want to be careful again because started contemplative literature tends to focus on tvs go there is some contemplative it should also extends because we want to extend it
otherwise it is constricted but the three moments are not isolated one from another order in rivalry or hostility or something and so this is our simple your which is a great trinitarian simple
but it wants to suggest how one dimension flows into the other and compliments it and brings it into its foreign army etc
the eastern church talks in the mystery of the trinity a certain in session that circumcision but certain in session which means the flow of the life of the father into the life of the son of a good life spirit and it's one ongoing going dynamic of the one god father is not the so
and it was not the spirit and yet they're not cut off from each other you can have a father without a son you can't have a son without a father something profoundly into about penetrated with this is the way it's swedish three dimensions of our prayer every day and should work
a say will take this highest is the silent apathetic suffered so i put return to up here some pretty rough and eight a clue whatever you put up there that saves the silent
that if that is deep will inevitably deepen liturgical and one who come alive to goes and of contemplative
a significant suits and depths of the text of the music of a gesture of the reading of scripture cetera and fan shrub a day would we counter so in someone's in angers are over jewelry or so work has to be done or something that also go love
will be strengthened and deepened
as we sit last and brother lawrence said do you have time to homes be recollected in the moment of silent prayer well don't forget god throughout the day it'll be a cheeks your advice the person this is a deployment than it's the more you see throughout the day drag these little moments presence
and it'll be easier for the liturgical moment not just to be hours of the called smells and bells are ringing screaming it not just for and theater but indeed a kind of a sacred begins with god or something the any questions comments about that
and
so will you get a particularly focusing your promise as we have time we're going to sit down and like is just briefly to fill it up hoping that the other either yourself
but we than the main people to do this each one of us ourselves then just again to review last time we were looking at this image of the sacred mountain which is very much there in the cloud as a model of the human person each one of us
us is interior mountain we have these different levels of our keeps faculties dynamic capacities to would have can see and perceive and pondering mall and cetera
and up the mountain model has its own distinct limits but it suggests
oh the things can be happening maybe on different levels at the same time so that there's something that very much catches my attention that the subtle colors of the flower with cancer that's to be there but that doesn't have to mean that i lose every deep fought or
every memory or every realization would have to be done this afternoon or something or even maybe some kind of deeper communion of god at the summit
and so we were looking at this model which is in the cloud which is always very much in the other mystical writers read right back to origin gregory of nyssa right forward to china the cross the ascent of mount carmel et cetera so we were looking at will worry as the mountain in scripture
and we came up first of all with sinai in the great mount of the covenant then up cardinal the the amount of the
the amount of the profits and then mount zion and the amount of be attitudes and amount of the transfiguration and the mount car of mount calvary and then not mount bethany and then dot and amount of fuck
that we can be with attack but a very important mounted the transfiguration think we said a very important moments of the ah funny of manifestation of the dog divine and sacred history they often have happen on the mount suits kind of archetypical and we saw that yeah
also in the other world religions sort of native american youth center it's very much there then we want to see this complimentary archetypical image of the cloud so we were going to think about the cloud and scripture what did we come up with as our homework assignment where do clouds appear in scripture
matthew and mark geez did you come
jesus will do it
in his return absolutely so this is decisive so it's not only way back then but it's ahead of us up the consummation of time it's the clouds that kind of the throne of christ
that is still further it said he other day every day is the end of time just a dreadful headline were kind of wandering here but thirty or fifty up in canada committed suicide yesterday either they belong to these sects about the end of time and i guess the of time didn't come so they just killed themselves good thing but when it really
comes it'll be on the clouds so that's an important text also this is in revelation
christ will return on the clouds
other rubbed cloud images in scripture country
yeah what happens
everything disappears was
john on the version the whispering
and cloud as marriage as as i
and think the autism
i was a jesus
but monica one know
so this is our great feast as contemplative in his command deletes the mother sub the hermitage most of our houses are dedicated to the transfiguration and it jumped kind of culminates yes in this bright light of christ but can also in the cloud
and this causes to remember how in ancient and traditional iconography is the father presented to since an old man with a beard on top of the throne
yeah
are intercepted title which can you know thing
this is another yeah how we're going back to the old testament i was trying to get him to run iconography father to see what no the heavenly father's presented in iconography
yes there's the cloud
sharing site there's a kind of the have descended from
this is one of the rules i think it comes out at least one of the young ecumenical councils the father will not be represented in art because the father is inevitable so most you have this and descending from the cloud and they made son arrived in this sub
your car should be made a similar but that's the father that's the only way you can represent them
oh you to should show the cloud is seen in scripture and also in the whole one patristic and medieval period in the eastern church is kind of the dwelling place of the father the only way we can render present
the ineffable father and it's a wonderful simple because it in a certain way it makes present but more than that in veils and that's what our current the doj it's all of creation dose as what revelation does it makes manifest but it makes manifested in way that safeguards as it doesn't have over
hours so that's the function of the cloud and then we went back to the to in the temple there's a cloud
i'm which again represents the present this luminous stars
no other texts horses and ah a pen so that recalls back to this decisive beginning of it all of continent again we have sinai and then moses to approach god's presence where does he go into the cloud where you can imagine a or
introduces this and gregory of nyssa on and dollar sudo dionysius to china the cross etc etc
the pillar
oh absolutely so in the ongoing journey of faith shown across as it's the night it is are safe guide
but this is even a more biblical image it's the cloud it's are safe guide on the daily journey when we're in the cloud we shouldn't be perplexed and oh my god what's happening and where am i where where we should be we are virtually we should be who were in the club yes i'm noticing that they clap and
that gathers it don't like on the sinai course the and transfiguration table has also the voice guide you can be coming out found the shining cloud is that means him so again cloud pics website
because of the minutes from the shutting up about voices heard
i had one or the in some circles surrounded by god in diameter
that's right that's the only proper setting for god is the cloud and darkness the to
and so to take that seriously as contemplative we sometimes want to go from light to buy two things can ever more clear and distinct and manageable but what this is all about us know we should rejoice his little children as we go deeper into the happy totally in not incomprehensible mystery
if you've ever seen a glorious bright cloud and the rays streaming through it usually just stops people the track their and that shit hint of that's almost the most of
what privileged symbol of the divine presence kind of thing but yeah the cloud and the mountain go together and delightfully they do a geographically it said the top of the mountain the when she will call it with discipline what happens when you have
can do up for macleod we have been he hadn't pick extreme that's right i was talking motor and pump just the up the weather conditions had gathered the but hopefully you do at a peak
so other texts a gerard came up with a delightful one that's another the little hand the little hand
but that is this is the cloud that is the symbol of the coming of the rain that's symbol of fuck the finally the overcoming of the drought of misery of fun so this is where it is archetypical of the cloud
but also brings that waterworks to light it here when it rains because it means water that the there won't be a shortage of water and means that the rainy season is cent less threatening but johnson know and love the rainbow splendid absolutely that's where these this
some great covenant sign that god will no longer devastate the earth it's in the cloud so let's a wonderful one
others
he gets about enough to a to hunch since it's so rich and scripture we can imagine it'll be another religion says it is if you look at the hindu iconography often are goddesses etc are in chariots are ripping along and top of clouds and things
and i've got this illustrated encyclopedia of traditional symbols gotta be union thing big section and clouds a cloud of light denotes for ya funny the reviving rains are also compassion center because we the chinese and japanese nor these things
so it is archetypical and then again if you trace it down through the
the literature here's gregory of nyssa way way back therein
what for century
the manifestation of god was first made known to moses through light then in the cloud the more tentative understanding of divine things leading the soul by invisible things to the invisible reality use as it were a cloud that obscure
moore's everything sensible the customs sold the contemplation of what is hidden surrounded on all sides by the divine darkness and if you look up cloud and jonathan cross it's all of a way through and in his earliest ascent of mount carmel it's what faces features and seeing distinctly
and knowing i believe and feeling that faith is moving into the darkness of the cloud when it's real faith
faith was foreshadowed in that cloud separated the children of israel scripture says of the cloud the cloud was dark and illuminated in the night
exodus fourteen twenty how wonderful it was a cloud dark itself but it could illumine the night this was related to illustrate how faith a dark and obscure cloud to us illumines and poor's light into the darkness of one's soul by means of its own darkness
etc so these images as central image of the cloud of unknowing up
theologically precise visually it kind of architect arc are our can typically he's speak to us to get a very very deep level
so and i think it's interesting theologically that and again the author of the cloud is a theologian but he has two clowns remember our to clouds the one is at the summit we must go into that cloud through the act of the will involve the highest act of the will
we can penetrate cloud to be with god but then were supposed to be this be putting ourselves this cloud of forgetting over all these other dimensions of families etc it can do so much in other moments during the day i can have so many ideas and brilliant insights said
audra console musical excerpts and so many imaginations and memories and all kinds of sense data but in the moment itself of silent apathetic career i put this crowd of for getting over all this stuff and go into the crowd that new me what's the relation
when these two clowns so they just the very same kind of cloud
why not call both a cloud of unknowing wanted to were called both have a cloud of forgetting why does he use very different on terminology for the one and the other
are they totally the safe never go on the analogous are they equipped good as well as such now
he's and the
noel how much that long getting you know well i'm not on the know he tries to when there's an exercise anything do enough
the unknowing remains a winger
i know i never get to know i think that's right on that is the author says we put the cloud forgetting their and by specific acts of the will we say no i'm going to set aside my ideas now however insightful and then says i've been memories and so this is our work
work and it will see he says that the contemplative exercises hard workers that it's at this month
but then don't go can be active here but it's a kind of paradoxical passive action as is basically must surrendered involve to the mystery i don't put the cloud of unknowing there as i approached god i just realized by move into enjoy i moved into the ineffable
history so right down and has to do with the wield the will which your bills to forget for the moment and then wills to love to penetrate into the mystery even though it's of mind or even though it's a going more and more into the darkness but it's a lumen
starnes yes and neither chris to say a simple formula formula going founded though
the car forget it no absolutely any of these things and least radical say let's say like home safe say yeah forget a and say that's writer
this is the round creatures this is around it to some extent i can understand and grasp i can imagine i remember
in some way i can approach the senses of this is an entire into the ground
so i've learned over other clothes i would have made this cloud of entirely different color but unfortunately i'm so he's a pretty dress analogous clouds and for the ferry i can love other people i can love these flowers and this beautiful shared i love god and entirely different way
this room there's people in this room there's blackboards as chairs bodies in this room wall cancer but god is in this room not just as another being a long side chairs tables people god is here in an entirely different way as source of
everything else as sustaining everything else is put forward as totally other than everything else so that's the adventure of the contemplative journey into the into the cloud we we want when we want to achieve the gotchas like everyone else god should be friendly and faithful to me like
everyone else inaccessible and are pretty into whatever it is as totally other so that's what these two clouds roll about and two different ways of loving i have people i love god and there is a strict analogy there because people and image of god but
it's in another way totally other cast gods not just have been people
but totally mr and so all of these we we admit these different modalities of human love feel yoga i love my father and mother science was the love of god that works but it doesn't work is the other famous gotten smaller but it totally different way than any of other we've ever known than friendship
i love my friends i of god as friend got his friend entirely different way god is mussa scott his lover a guy his spouse big entirely different way so we don't want to easy of and you never could use of these
and so what happens in the mountain is dark cloud real construct we just fine hair and surrender ourselves to that this we put here and try to keep parents is very difficult because these families are so lively and the ongoing battle with distractions
yes and so far as we use the word about the image of a most of them or something about we return them up because the cod overnight happening again
for this likely to buy all the out of possibilities of consciousness and flu
and reviews all particularly kick out of are getting rejected both to or and to one day on which is the whole of rejection and other is the illusion of governor one red orange or interesting or the whole of loving honest know each other
in a was allergic to have any
it's an interesting approach
oh well that's not it and he said absolutely it's just itself is a week image about something that mysteriously is totally other it by for word and was like the word meditation or and up got a british cloud
push ago the same say that he did real contemplative experiences more unlike obvious and it's like qubits and it's more like amount two minutes like a mountain and going into the mystery is more unlike going into a cloud than it is going so you always have to say that it could be
though that this kind of image helps us more than other kinds of image it's as churchill said of of the parliamentary system is the worst possible except for any other you can come up with kind of thing
so what you said presence of god as like the absence absolutely here and so all the apathetic paradox of boy did emptiness and darkness which is light and all that here
scouting around raise spectrum the collateral damage his reputation religious symbol
to what extent these eventually rejection
oh religious a plan to accept what is the jewish procreation be in restrictions
the pillar of cloud will lose yet seems to his so glossy more on contradiction in terms of
works the not on is about they were own
well
typical jewish and to say something in contradicting other thing you said yeah i that brings it so much pleasant talking about here know not to clouds at our yeah i'm not sure they're not to it correctly
notice that level of urban planning
images for most of it is the very empty promises and ashtray
like the last image are you going on know and it's very limited which itself just appeared to learn
i think we've all flung into a cloud and is fascinating because you see it and you print so baffling because as you say you can't grab a cloud you can see her you are it and so it's very appropriate you can penetrate a cloud that's why he likes it we penetrate it with these arrows of love and so
god can be there we just can see of god
so it's so
very imperfect and and satisfactory but it's a it can be the best we have and given that the god who encounters this in the mystery created clouds and mountains etc there is something that wants to be helpful there and uses these any chicks in revelations so i think we're closer i'm using
this language that maybe the language of i don't know
you know what new age of god encountered to crystal soar through can't new sweater p or two years
all right
so having said all that that some do we won't say anymore about that that's funny shot with the cloud the characteristics of the contemplative prayer as the cloud did you people bring your packets i hope you did of the it's not as
central of the cloud and i didn't bring more importantly for to do while i'll just read aloud and passages
so what do we say about this mysterious prayer for we just sit there we place ourselves in god's presence true faith we don't have clear distinct ideas were not pondering specifically on bet lamb or jesus some across where there in this very mysterious silent
when deeply peaceful mysterious area but up and then old our faculties want us to be thinking about this imagining that feeling bad
so as point is a my mother thinks it's hard work i don't just sit there like a bump bottle log expect god to infuse mean with light and i passively enjoy it or interior own shit or something so chapter twenty six on page eighty three those who do have two texts can you
run look on chris with brutal here food
but i could learn
so then take up the toil of the contemplative work like the first paragraph with wholehearted generosity beat upon this high cloud of unknowing and spurn the thought of resting so it's hard work that's sometimes it can we think we have to sit there in the lotus position and
be a few strengthen for i tell you frankly that anyone who really desirous to be a contemplative will know the pain of arduous toil unless mrs possible god should intervene with special grace you will feel keenly the cost of constant effort until he is long accustomed to this work
work so that's one of the advantages of linking this particular prayer also the will i got to will to keep going i've got to will to persevere whenever i'm experiencing whatever the constellations who lack of constellations et cetera
so why is it difficult then he goes on to explain it he says not so much in terms of that higher mountain that higher cloud at the lower but tell me why should it be so difficult surely the fervent love continually awakening in the will is not painful nor for that is god's doing the fruit of his almighty power
our were over god is always eager to work in the heart of one who has done all he can prepare the way for his grace so again he links the highest active the will to love and that takes us right into god i think he might be a little romantic headache i think sometimes that can be hard work also but here he says that's not the main labor that why
as his work so toilsome labor of course is in the unrelenting struggle to banish the countless distracting thoughts to take our mind and to restrain them between and beneath the cloud of forgetting which i spoke of earlier this is the suffering all the struggle is on the human side and the effort you miss
made to prepare and sell for god's action which is the awakening of love in which he alone can do but persevered doing your part and i promise you that god will not fail to do is
so that's his understanding as his articulation and a guinea beans is rather rigorously so that contemplation is love contemplation is that deepest yearning in us of being want with god and if will do that not wanting specific memories or imagenation are in
sites are you need the senses going you don't happen but the problem is that there's such an area of our inner psyche that craves for the conservation of these other things and they are so autonomous in their activity that is a constant battle sometimes it can be a very painful battle
but he says persevere and again gently put down in the cloud or forgetting all the stuff including sense of sand including deep theological insights et cetera
comments about that
he then goes on to say sometimes it can be incredibly busy sometimes we're just carried into the ineffable mystery so it's not always hard work at all if you turn the page to eighty four and these are time to i don't give us the strength to go on
epic
so the top of the paragraph on page eighty four as time goes by our you will feel a joyful enthusiasm for it for this contemplative work and then it will seem light and easy indeed then you will be a little or no constraint for god would sometimes worked in your spirit all by himself
south yet not always true for very long as as it seems best to him when he does you will rejoice and be happy to let him do as he wishes so going into the cloud of unknowing is basically surrender to god and that's hard work to because we like control when we like to see and understand et cetera
then perhaps you may touch you with array of his divine light which will pierce the cloud of annoying between you and him he will let you glimpse something of the inevitable secrets of his divine wisdom so here we have the wisdom word and your affection will seem on fire with his love you they come together
so it's not some kind of hostile competition bruno between wisdom and love to come together i am at a loss to say more for the experiences beyond words
so are yes if it is even speak in their by
later we're talking about yesterday and beyond funny games like grandma's beauty year moments of love
absolutely enemy considered a god touching us with the rail i'm like absolutely beauty of nature and think he's certainly think primarily the first but he wouldn't deny these moments of nature mysticism or were just bowled over by
senate or a moment of
compassionate love for and because he talking about the work have been direct unmediated yeah but i think he would absolutely exclude the other and and that's where we can recover the other through giving space to these other dimensions and contemplative prayer

ah
so we're here we want to be monks we want to be contemplative and so we get into fasting and eating and solitude and community and bedrooms and what should we do more of what should we do less so what should we be speaking more should we be silent more we've seen that in his other tracked when those are means
ah all those her means so you don't absolute ice any of them
but contemplation that's an end in itself so this is finally something we can give ourselves to without limit we can't give ourselves to fasting without limit or will starve ourselves to didn't we can't give our system rituals without limit or with silence or solid to probably a
but to a god they loved to contemplation yes so if you go to page on hundred
yeah the fathers of the desert so what does the great queen of the virtues discretion moderation but does that mean we always have to be going to safe middle way with everything nor their somethings when we just thank god let out all stops
so chapter forty one that in everything except contemplation a person ought to be moderate
now if you ask me what sort of moderation you should observe in a contemplative word i would tell you none at all
in everything else such as eating drinking and sleeping moderation is the rule avoid extremes of heat and cold guard against too much too little and reading prayer social involvement in all of these things i say keep in the middle path but in love take no issue in
indeed i wish that you would never cease from this work with loud so contemplation again is a work but something we do but it's all grace-filled but with no moderation would have here we can be extremists here we can be wildly radical in our studies in our
reading and are composing the music and
everything else eating it again and so i think this is a wonderful luck this enables us to go crazy at a certain point
yes
when he says no cat here to talking about for example a canary he well as we hit this
i a time that we'd see very little marriage thing will it st and rule it's quite frequent that word now it's thought at this point i think by the latest
up scholarship that he was a cartoon should monk but the rule it's benedict is just decisive and also the district fathers talk about moderation is key and of course it's very much in the greek government but stoics etc so it's there
of the great hire middle way that isn't again we compromise between the two extremes were taking the best of this this and finding some kind of higher realization but saying all that
there are moments when you want to go wild
and up so i think he's right arm this is one of those moments
so i think he i think the room is present there and i think the desert fathers who do insist on moderation of their though you're certainly right there lot of the district father's where at all moderate and lot of arm can only see to around preached marriage and the urban yet was
oh lives means such as extreme as
so i wouldn't extremists but generous
courage
photo on r m turn on the getting to the stream and who's the other not know or criminal
but we're not arguing for an influence in the boudoir you cannot buy the a person kind of a universal wisdom and so on the the media
and geographies got accentuate the extreme at the same press seem to get suppression yesterday your part down as a clerk at all border
i and really be
the gospels seem to eat as much more to the middle way
in a monastic tradition the guy seems to have
don't the other's ways reading the gospel you know if you're right and eventual you cut her off of do not deny anything that anyone else turn the other cheek who wouldn't there's why aren't radical you know that the dead bury the dead and done so there's a wild stuff and jesus but there's also the compassion
schnitt and the patient and the abiding with and to don't build a tower unless you count them so there's i think both and
but i think there's this
i think the wildness comes in the patient and the faith and the love and trust and all the way to the cross kind of thing
greater love has no and that is to lay down one's life you know up some people would say that's not very modern but on the other hand turn know to be with sitters and eat and to not be with chon ah in the desert thinks them
the like to make than their work to one of discretion
and a passion of mine the a lot of discernment of spirits as plentiful as
yep they've go to some session know that
description discernment
there's a kind of funny one-liner we must be moderate in everything including moderation which is so that every now and then we've gotta say moderation but he says specifically here because otherwise our life is a little too controlled and balance to cetera
but we need that i think foundation lee
and so he balances this out with that so with the love and contemplation going for it you let out all of stocks but he says
this doesn't mean just wild abandoned of what subsequent called spiritual gluttony you know i wanted i want this experience of god i want this function i want to be a saint and sometimes when another bar people use this is i'm going to everything i possibly can to be a saint out
there's something not quite right about there so there's this delightful chapter recessed at least with god a mask your journey up kind of play up an amusing game of fun of moderates should have cautioned et cetera
chapter forty six page one of seven
so i say again avoid all a natural compulsion and learn to love joyfully with a sweet and gentle disposition of body and soul weight with gracious modest courtesy for the lord said initiative and do not impatiently snatch a go
race like a greedy greyhound suffering from starvation suits another side to it i speak have playfully now but tried to temper the loud crude sighing of your spirit and pretend to hide your heart's longing from the lord kind of play hard to get or something
this is traits settled but perhaps you will score in this is childish and frivolous but believe me anyone who as the light to understand what i mean and the grace to follow it will experience indeed the delight of the lord's playfulness so the lord perry often plays hard to get and we should to come
kind of thing you know we don't sit down in the rotunda and say god i've got to get shoot today i'm gonna catch you we probably won't get god so if for their attentive and prepared for god but saying god if you don't come that so right i've got other things to do of that's