The Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and the Cloud of Unknowing

by William A. Meninger

"A powerful, even stunning job of explaining contmeplative prayer...an excellent guide for anyone interested in deepening his or her Christian prayer life." - Publishers Weekly

Genres: Spirituality, Prayer, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Jim Baesler]

...reader friendly translation of *cloud of unknowing* as a way of contemplative prayer based on meninger's 30+ years as a trappist monk...divided into short chapters...the message is deceptively simple...G loves you, in loving G in return we enter into the heart of G and love all that G loves...similarities to thomas keating's and basil pennington's centering prayer, but meninger uses an understanding of the cloud and scholasticism as foundations...an older audio taped version of meninger's version of contemplative prayer, which i happily found at the well retreat center in the mid 1990's, is a valuable introduction to contemplative prayer and a good companion to this book...

[Kathleen Basi]

Read slowly... pray through. Repeat. I borrowed this book, but it's going on my list to purchase, if for no other reason than for the litany of blessing over friends/loved ones, expanding to strangers, and then to enemies. We all need this book.

[Netanel Miles-Yepez]

In this work, Father Meninger gives his own presentation of the contemplative message of The Cloud of Unknowing, especially as interpreted by the Centering Prayer practice which he developed based on the Cloud. However, it is not actually a commentary or a rewriting. It is more accurate to say that Meninger takes the Cloud as his starting point.

[Chandler]

Open note to people who tagged this book as a "To Read":
Get this book, read it, and then read it again. Father Meninger's explanations of and invitations to contemplative prayer are simple but powerful.

[Catherine Corman]

This is why so many of the great mystics were poets. They realized that the only way they could talk about their experience was through the language of poetry.

-William Meninger, The Loving Search for God

[Marianne Mersereau]

Fantastic! A wonderful book especially for those who love "The Cloud of Unknowing." I highly recommend anything written by this author!

[Bob Towner]

I have read this twice. First all at once and then one chapter at a time with a group learning to meditate. Changed my life, for the better.