Cloudy with a Chance of Great Books: The Cloud of Unknowing

(This post picks up on the story I told in my last post, though you can start here to. This is another long one folks. I'm having fun writing it, I hope you enjoy reading it. If you want to hear about the book and not about me, jump down to the end of the pictures)

I returned to following the call of Jesus during my first year of university. Through a crucial relationship with a Power to Change staff member (Thank you Trevor!) I signed up for a national summer project. 

I know, some of you have no idea what that means. Let me tell you. University students from across Canada sign up to go to one city (Toronto for us) for the summer and, while there, work during the day and do leadership training and outreach during evenings and weekends. Power to Change staff hand over leadership to the students after 6 weeks. 

A lot happened that summer for me. I learned how to scramble eggs, cook perogies, and survive on a rice only fast for several weeks (with multi-vitamins). I also learned a lot in terms of faith and leadership development. I met Kristina, my wife (yep, just going to slide that one in there; we'll come back to her :). And, most immediately for this post, I discovered Crux.

Crux is a theological bookstore that was in the basement of Wycliffe college (apparently they are in a bigger, better location now). I'm not sure words can describe this experience. 

You already know, if you have been following this series, that I am a bit of a fanatic for books. What you don't understand, or may not remember, is how different the world was back in 2001. 

I went that whole summer without a computer or internet device of any kind. It didn't feel weird. It was normal. For 4 months I had my first cell phone; that was all the time I could handle. It was a brick with pay as you go minutes and no texting. Amazon was around but it wasn't a thing like it is now. So, there I was, a book lover in a foreign city (yes, moving from Edmonton to Toronto is moving to a foreign city!). I'd lost access to my own books, libraries, and the friends who had been lending me books. I had brought a few books with me, and I had prayed that the Lord would provide (yes, I'm serious), but I had some real anxiety about how this was going to work out. 

Try to imagine my surprised delight and relief when I walked into this one room basement book store that was crowded with exactly the kind of books I craved, with books I'd never heard of, and with staff who could tell me about them! 

Pure joy. I am not exaggerating. If you live in Toronto, go check out Crux and try to imagine being me. If you live in Vancouver you can do the same at the Regent Bookstore. 

This quickly led to money problems. I was a student with little savings, a day job working for Pizza-Pizza (first in a retail location, then in a warehouse), and a deep hunger for books. I'm not sure how often I went to Crux, but I bought way too many books that summer. Legitimately. Part of the reason for that 'rice only fast' I mentioned above was that food is expensive. A few days of only rice = one more book purchase. (Here you thought I was so spiritual when you read that I did a rice only fast. Ha!). 

It got so bad that one of my close friends, who knew I was buying too many books and threatening my financial well-being and potentially my health, told me, in all seriousness, that if I bought one more book then I had to give all of my books to her. I even agreed to this deal. And it did slow me down. For a week... maybe two. I couldn't help it. I bought more books. 

Today, I am happy to say that all of my books belong to her. But that's OK; she married me. That's right, that close friend was Kristina. We were married in 2004. Now, I'm not saying I have Crux to thank for meeting my wife. I thank God for that. But I am thankful for the part that books played. And I am reminded that as I write about the books that have shaped my life the most important shaping influences on my life have been people.

Kristina has taught me, more than any book, what it means to love, to have a soft heart, to seek the wisdom of God, to show people you care, and more. If I had to pick between all the books in the world and her, I'd pick her in a heartbeat. Thankfully, she still lets me read her books, so I don't have to choose :)

Alright, that's a lot of story. What about this book? Many of the books I bought that summer fit into the category of "Spiritual Classics." Teresa of Avila, John Woolman, the Desert Fathers, Thomas a Kempis, and more. I bought more than I could read that summer. St. John of the Cross will appear later in this series; I bought his collected works at Crux.

The Cloud of Unknowing was one I opened right away. I was excited. I won't lie, part of the appeal was gnostic. I wanted secret knowledge, advanced courses in following God, something mystical and tinged with the forbidden. I was thinking this book might be it. It's not. 

I opened the book and read the introduction in which the unknown author warns you not to read this book for such reasons and, in general, if you are not already a devoted pray-er. His words hit with such conviction that I stopped. I put the book away and sat back to seriously reconsider what I was doing in my walk with God.

If you didn't catch it from what I wrote above I had become obsessive. My strong appetite for these books was driven by a seriously twisted ambition. I was going to figure God out. I was going to figure the spiritual life out. I was going to master this whole business, I was going to do it now, and then, renewed as a super-spiritual Jesus follower, I was going to stride out into the world with power! Corinthians much?

I had fallen to a common temptation. I had put God and faith into the same box that I put all skills and tools: a package of things under my control to be mastered for my purposes and utilized by my will in my way. As soon as I put myself over God, over His ways, over His word, it didn't matter that I was devoted to all of the 'right things' - I was wrong.  

What I needed was a strong check on this twisting of discipleship. The Cloud of Unknowing gave it to me. I am not, was not, and never will be the 'master' of the spiritual life, praying, or God. There is no secret knowledge that will give me more power, make me super-spiritual, or change the nature of day to day discipleship. Instead, there is the foolishness of God that is the gospel, the way of weakness and suffering that is discipleship, and myself, a fragile clay jar in which God has placed the treasure of the message of the Gospel and the person of God in the Holy Spirit (all of that is from Paul's letters to the Corinthian church). 

This, therefore, is the only book in my 40 that makes the list because I didn't read it!

Of course, I have read it since (though I'm not actually sure when I read it for the first time). It is a very good book and reading it did shape me. I had to wade through the medieval context but, on the whole, this book is full of useful guidance on contemplative prayer, pursuing God wholeheartedly, our temptation to think we know more of God than we do, and our habit of placing ourselves above God. 

If you pick this up know that it is not an easy read. It is a product of it's time. It is worth slogging through but that is what you will be doing. 

Note: This post is part of a series which I began here. To see all the posts in the series click the label at the bottom of this post "20yrs40bks".