"This is what you are to do: Lift your heart up to The Lord, with a gently stirring of love desiring him for his own sake and for his gifts. Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart. And so, diligently persevere until you feel joy in it. For in the beginning it is usual to feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were, a cloud of unknowing. Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated, for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the delight of his love. But learn to be at home in this darkness. Return to it as often you are can, letting your spirit cry out to him whom you love. For, if, in this life, you hope to feel and see God as he is is in himself it must be within this darkness and this cloud. But if you strive to fix your love on him forgetting all else, which is the work of contemplation I have urged your to begin, I am confident that God in his goodness, will bring you to a deep experience of himself.
The Cloud of Unknowing, penned by an anonymous English Christian mystic
in the Middle Ages, excerpt from Broken Open, How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow,
by Elizabeth Lesser.
