Chapter 3) "It behoveth always to be in this cloud in this darkness"
how?
4) "And our soul by virtue of this reforming grace is made sufficient to the full to comprehend all Him by love, the which is incomprehensible to all created knowledgeable powers, as is angel, or man's soul; I mean, by their knowing, and not by their loving"
knowledgeable power v. loving power
4) for time is made for man, and not man for time
God does not give 2 times at once-- what does this mean?
"travail not in thy wits nor in thy imagination on nowise: for I tell thee truly, it may not be come to by travail in them, and therefore leave them and work not in them
darkness= unknowing; wot= to know/comprehend; list= to be disposed to
there is a cloud of unknowing between us and God
5) cloud of forgetting beneath (do not even think and praise God for His goodness-- better to love Him and praise Him for Himself)
8) contemplative better than active
Active life is troubled and travailed about many things, but contemplative life sitteth in peace with one thing
10-11) set aside all thoughts/distractions (even people) lest these distractions, if developed, lead you to one of the 7 deadly sins
12) meekness & charity-- 2 virtues that encompass all others
14) shouldest thou deceive thyself, and ween that though wert full meek when though wert all belapped in foul stinking pride
16) ... for it is the condition of a true lover that ever the more he loveth, the more he longeth for love
16) (Mary) And therefore she hung up her love and her longing desire in this cloud of unknowing, and learned her to love a thing which she might not see clearly in this life
---negative capability?
17) (Martha/Mary) Martha exhibits 1st stage of active life; Mary 2nd stage of contemplative life
20) Martha (an active) was preoccupied with things of this life (needed to abandon all them and focus on 1 thing [like Mary-- with Christ]) therefore Mary hath chosen the best part
21) 3 stages: good better best
_1)active-- good and honest bodily works of mercy & charity
_2)good ghostly meditations of man's wretchedness, Passion of Christ, and joys of heaven
_3) singular love in contemplation
26) charity: put others in cloud of forgetting, let God send you love for them (He will, don't worry) "He will peradventure send out a beam of ghostly light, piercing this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and Him"
--and then you'll feel inflamed with the fire of His love
29-30) when thoughts/sin stir in you
_1) travail, knowing it'll be over soon (look past them)
_2) cower, let God handle it?
33) no perfect rest in life as pain of original sin will always be upon us
35) contemplative occupied with 3 things: lesson, meditation, and orison (reading, thinking, praying)
37-8) a short prayer pierceth heaven-- prayed in full spirit; arouses pity.
prayer concerned with removing evil: "sin"
prayer concerned with getting of good: "God"
don't search for more words-- not by study but by grace
40) sin, sin, sin! out, out, out!-- prayer of contemplatives who feel "other" (sin) rising up in them
41) discretion (moderation) in all things but pursuit/seeking God's love (and moderation)
44) perfect sorrow: "sit full still, as it were in a sleeping device, all forsobbed and forsunken in sorrow"
47) hide the desire (even from God... or try), that it be more ghostly/less bodily: hide it from God lest you make a bodily shewing to Him, either in gesture or in voice or in word (and therefore impure)
48) author doesn't wish to depart "that which God hath coupled, the body and the spirit"
49) a good will is the substance of all perfection
51-2) misunderstanding of words "in" and "up" turn their bodily wits inward
53) nervous habits are the very tokens of unstableness of hearts and unrestfulness of mind
57) misunderstand "up:" make bodily God and angels-- too close (not discounting revelations [divine])
59) in hearing "lift up" or "go in" not stirring bodily but time, place and body be forgotten in all ghostly working (don't picture it-- it's ghostly work, not bodily) thus no imagination-ing
60) high way to heaven run by desires not paces of feet
61) all that's bodily is subject to that which is ghostly
62) powers of the soul, principal: memory, reason, and will; secondary: imagination and sensuality
64) reason: depart evil from the good. Before the fall reason might have done this by nature
will: power through which we choose good, then love/desire good and liking/consent to God
Memory containeth and comprehendeth it
65) Imagination: was obedient to reason pre-Fall
67) when thou feelest thy Memory occupied with... soul and their workings in ghostly things or of any creature that's ghostly and even with thee in nature by this learn to know thyself in furthering of perfection-- then though art within thyself and even with thyself BUT
when thou feelest thy Memory occupied with no manner of thing bodily or ghostly but only with the self substance of God as it is and maybe-- then thou art above thyself and closer to thy God (but how? reminds me of Rachel's experience in summoning a succubus, re: 'step 8: summon the succubus." thanks, loads of help)
68) thou shalt be nowhere; nowhere bodily, is everhwere ghostly
70) defailing of bodily wits= more readily coming to know ghostly things, defailing ghostly wits= coming to knowledge of God
73) 3 types/manners of grace: Moses, Bezaleel, Aaron
75) all holy desires grow by delays, if they wane by delays they never were holy desires
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