Cloud of Unknowing, The: for Everyone (Classics for Everyone)
by Elizabeth Ruth Obbard
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elizabeth Ruth ObbardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-15
ISBN: 1565482808
Number of pages: 64
Publisher: New City Press
Book Reviews of Cloud of Unknowing, The: for Everyone (Classics for Everyone)
Book Review: Accessible Spiritual Riches
Summary: 5 Stars
The Cloud of Unknowing is Elizabeth Ruth Obbard's fourth book in the Classics for Everyone series, which preserves the style and content of classical spiritual writing while updating the original's diction and idiom. Obbard's treatment of the Cloud of Unknowing, whose author is unknown, grants access to spiritual riches that have often been considered beyond the average lay person. She introduces "Cloud" as one of four best known classics of English spirituality. All are from the fourteenth century, a time marked by widespread desire "to return to a life of simplicity, poverty, solitude, humility and a conscious imitation of the Savior." These same sentiments, Obbard points out, are resurfacing in the modern world.
The author of the Cloud writes for a young man embarking on the hermit's path, "but what he has to say can apply to all who feel called to a life of prayer." Obbard describes the book as balanced, precise, and practical. The premise is that God is a cloud, not knowable through the human intellect and reachable only through love, likened to an arrow aimed at the cloud. The analogy includes a cloud of forgetting between the individual and the cloud of unknowing. In this forgetting place we must tame our ego through meditation on the life of Christ, prayer, and works of mercy.
Against this mystical background, Obbard's work on the diction is especially engaging. Of the advice against judging others, she writes, "...look to your own behavior and leave others alone! Anything else is very dicey!" On God and sin: "Too much attention to minutiae takes your mind away from the work at hand, which is continual prayer....Want God. Avoid sin. Everything is summed up in these two words."
Summary of Cloud of Unknowing, The: for Everyone (Classics for Everyone)
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.Mysticism Books
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