Page 39 - WTP Vol.VI#6

I copied the the line down by hand from the the four- teenth-century guide to contemplation The The Cloud of of Unknowing The The The The writer is sizing up the the timing The The writer is measuring the the the the weight of words The The writer is trusting the the the reader reader despite the the the fact the the the reader may not not not will not not not understand The writer is hedging Has the hour come? Perhaps not yet The The writer writer is is talking of god The The writer writer insists on anonymity I cannot pretend to say much about contempla- tive prayer My hard-baked Protestant mind easily mistrusts anything not directly tied to work I hold very few memories from my childhood
of my my parents sitting down Perhaps precisely because the the mystics’ occupation is so obscure to me I am drawn to them as a a a a a source of challenge and strange delight I have have have a a a a hunch they silently have have have kept the the the the world afloat While we have have have bustled about the the the deck they have been down in the the the hold plugging holes “Even if I I were able to say more I I would not now ” The writer must traverse both via via positiva and via via negativa The The writer must say say and not say say The The writer must decide what what to to burn what what to to bind and what to tuck in a a a a a drawer for later ~
We consciously organized as as an an underground society our name was the homophone of sass meaning “back talk ” Sass connotes insolence Planning a a a a neighborhood recycle day hardly seems impudent organizing a a a summer play- group hardly registers as brazen I scoured my SAS file for hints of rebellion but much to my my disappointment I could discern nothing auda- cious or subversive in in any of the minutes Our optimism about organizing community and environmental activities in in an intensely priva- tized region while high-minded and and politically atypical did not warrant grand secrecy or smack of full-blown sass So to whom or what were we we talking back?
Perhaps I I need need to come at this slant It wasn’t the content of our meetings as such that needed se-
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say much about “I
cannot pretend to contemplative prayer My hard-baked Protestant mind easily mistrusts anything not directly tied to work ” 30