I've been pondering recently the concept of unknowing--not even so much forgetting as just being able to reverse history and eliminate the ability to know what is known.
A few years ago I took a course on medieval literature, and one of the pieces we read was a contemplative work called The Cloud of Unknowing. I admit at the time to having been exhausted by the end of the semester and not reading fully (not to mention, translating the Middle English required more than a little effort), but I have always been intrigued by the concept of its title, the idea that betwixt God and ourselves should be this cloud of unknowing.
The work itself is highly descriptive of the contemplative practice--something that I hope to study in greater depth at a time in my life when Greek is not all-consuming. My favorite quote at the moment: "For why, love may reach to God in this life, but not knowing."
Love, but not knowing. An interesting idea. One, I think, from which our modern minds shy away.
The idea in the work, as I have come to it, is not that we should avoid seeking to know things, or to know God, but rather, that between God and us, there is nothing in our knowledge that will bring us closer to Him. I think the writer here is saying that no matter what we know, or fancy, or imagine, in the end, the only thing that matters to God is the heart, and if we cannot approach Him as God and trust in His knowledge over ours, we will find ourselves far from Him.
Love as the center.
There are days when I wish I could unknow things, not so much in the context of the theological premises from this document that I reference, but in general life and work. I learned something yesterday that stuck another key piece into the hazy puzzle depicting this last year and a half. It fit; it made perfect sense; it was almost all too logical for words (ironically, as these times have defied logic in most other ways).
And yet: I longed for unknowing. To not know something about this person, and this person's interactions with other people, and the ramifications therein, and how they spun out destructively to hurt not only the intended party but peripheral others (such as myself) in the process.
Unknowing. There is a deep secret in the heart of forgiveness that must include some impossible combination of knowing and unknowing. I wonder if I shall ever truly master the art.
1 comment:
I also long to unknow things that I know and wish that I did not. I seem to also be in a situation where I know what a person has done (and why) that has hurt others, but wish I could remain oblivious to it, and that I could treat this person as I did before: as a friend. But this is really impossible. Knowledge has always been a powerful thing, whether it's Einstein's knowledge of matter leading to the invention of the atomic bomb or our knowledge of other people. Yet people will always seek knowledge. Knowledge of God, of the earth, and of other people. I must therefore conclude that this quest for knowledge is God-given, for it is inherent in all of us. And it is our job to use it in a manner that brings Him glory.
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