CowPi Journal

Desire to Be

8 October 2006, 8 am | Quote

From the last chapter of The Cloud of Unknowing:

It is not what you are nor what you have been that God sees with his all-merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.

The original Middle English written in the 14th century by the unknown abbott is quite readable to the modern reader:

For not what thou arte, ne what thou hast ben, beholdeth God with his mercyful ighe; bot that that thou woldest be.

Desire to be… Reminds me of a line from a Switchfoot song:

The tension is here…
Between who you are and who you could be

Desire to be…please purify my heart, oh Lord.