The Cloud Of Unknowing

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING and THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING are the first explorations in the English language of the soul’s quest for God. Written in Middle English by an unknown fourteenth-century mystic, THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING expresses with beauty a message that has inspired such great religious thinkers as St. John of the Cross and Teilhard de Chardin, as well as countless others in search of God. Offering a practical guide to the life of contemplation, the author explains that ordinary thoughts and earthly concepts must be buried beneath a “cloud of forgetting,” while our love must rise toward a God hidden in the “cloud of unknowing.” THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING, also included in this volume, is a short and moving text on the way to enlightenment through a total loss of self and a consciousness only of the divine. William Johnston, an authority on fourteenth-century mysticism and spirituality, provides an accessible discussion of the works, detailing what is known about the history of the texts and their author. In a new foreword, Huston Smith draws on his extensive knowledge of the varieties of religious experience to illuminate the relevance of these works for contemporary readers.

Contains The Cloud of Unknowing, The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, The Book of Privy Counselling, and An Epistle on Prayer. Against a tradition of devotional writings which focussed on knowing God through Christ's Passion and his humanity, these texts describe a transcendent God who exists beyond human knowledge and human language. These four texts are at the heart of medival mystical theology in their call for contemplation, calm, and above all, love, as the way to understand the Divine.

A “gripping” mystery revolving around a family tragedy, and a woman who may or may not be descending into madness, by the Edgar Award–winning author (Entertainment Weekly). David Sears grew up terrorized by the ravings of his schizophrenic father, a frustrated literary genius who openly preferred David’s sister, Diana, for her superior intelligence. When the old man died, David thought the madness had finally left with him. But the Sears family was not through with its troubles. The drowning of Diana’s mentally ill son was ruled a tragic “misadventure,” but she believes other factors were at play. After hastily divorcing her husband, she sets out to prove his guilt. Her increasingly manic behavior is becoming hard for David to ignore. He finds himself afraid for his own family’s safety—and must choose his words carefully when answering the detective . . . Thomas H. Cook explores the power of blood to define us, bind us, and sometimes destroy us, in a novel of “consuming suspense almost too concentrated to bear” (Daily News, New York). “So spare and precise, it feels as if it has been chiseled in stone with something like a surgical instrument.” —Joyce Carol Oates “What’s at stake isn’t so much the resolution of a mystery as the integrity of a family.” —Time Out New York “[An] unusual, chilling mystery . . . Cook reveals all the pieces of the shocking story with an absolutely steady hand.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This text is one of the most important and yet approachable works produced by Cyril. It was written after the Council of Ephesus (431) to explain his doctrine to an international audience. Cyril argues for the single divine subjectivity of Christ, and describes how it encompasses a full and authentic humanity in Jesus - a human experience that is not overwhelmed by the divine presence, but fostered and enhanced by it. Christology becomes then, for St Cyril, a paradigm for the transfigured and redeemed life of the Christian. There is an introduction to the historical and theological background of the time, of the text and to St Cyril himself.

Funny, tough, and heartbreaking — often all at once — Mimi Lipson’s debut collection is a grand tour of bars, diners, bus stations, dog parks, hardcore clubs, vacant lots, and other places that draw people whose inner lives are richer than their wallets. Lipson’s alter ego, the sharp-tongued and sharp-eyed Kitty, appears in a variety of guises: as a seven-year-old on a Florida vacation scammed by her roguish father, as a college student who receives a stunningly crucial education outside the classroom, as a passenger whose life changes on a cross-country bus. After meeting her parents, her brother, her friends and coworkers, we are introduced to Isaac, the sui generis man-child who becomes both her lover and her charge, a human roller-coaster who swings her between delight, exasperation, and mortal peril. Like a dinner composed of appetizers, Lipson’s book is very nearly a novel, in mosaic form, without all the boring parts. Her wit is as sharp as a serpent’s tooth, her sentences as percussively satisfying as billiard balls clicking into the pocket.

Those who turn to spiritual classics for guidance and inspiration often find their style daunting. The original texts still have much to offer but their diction and idiom, chosen for another era and audience, pose an obstacle to many contemporary readers. The Cloud of Unknowing for Everyone is the latest in a series that aims to make some of the greatest Christian teachers accessible to all. The Cloud of Unknowing, written by an unknown fourteenth century author, points out that all we can know of God is slight; God in Godself is unknowable to our limited intellect and thought. Only love can bridge the gap, love like an arrow of longing simple, straightforward and direct. All who feel called to a life of prayer will be captivated by the balanced, precise and practical insights of The Cloud. In her retelling of this classic, Obbard invites contemporary readers to join previous generations who have discovered the riches of this classic text.

Gathers six works by an anonymous fourteenth century mystic concerning spiritual life and faith.