The Cloud of Unknowing

On the morning after I heard from the dermatologist (David, who is also a good friend) to confirm that the fresh spot on my thigh had been diagnosed as a new melanoma deposit, these were the verses from the Bible that appeared in the Daily Light : 

        “When I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me”     Micah 7:8       

       “I will lead the blind in ways they do not know; along unfamiliar paths I will guide them: I will make darkness light before them….”  Isa 42:16         

      “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” Isa 43:3  

Wow, I am thinking, could that have been more closely related to my current situation, especially as I still wait for the results of two recent scans? It’s almost as if someone had selected these scriptures specifically for me, which would have been tricky, seeing that the November 20th selection had been chosen by Samuel Bagster as far back as 1875 when Daily Light was first published. It is by no means the first time, though, that God’s voice has come loud and clear through the daily selections of this wonderful little book.

So, yes, I walk in darkness, but in that darkness the Lord is my light. My path takes me along along unfamiliar ways, but he continues to lead. I feel I am in the middle of a flooded river, but it’s not gone over my head. It has made me think also of an anonymous work of Christian mysticism from the 14th Century. Called “The Cloud of Unknowing” it speaks about a way of approaching God through contemplation. 

       “For the first time when you lift your heart to God, you will find only a darkness”, he writes, 

“…and as it were a cloud of unknowing [...] this darkness and the cloud are between you and your God, and hold you back from seeing him clearly by the light of your reason and understanding…”

It appears that "not knowing" has an important part to play in this path toward knowing God and the way that he has set out for us. I feel I am only beginning to understand that. The trick for me, is to be comfortable with the “not knowing”, to rest, through trust and resignation, in the reality that I have no idea what lies ahead, but that it's in the hands of a good God.

T S Eliot in his set of four long poems called “Four Quartets” expresses it like this : 

    In order to arrive at what you do not know

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess

You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

  And here’s another quote that I like from the amazing Corrie ten Boom 

           “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God”.