Unknowing for Lent:
A Journey into Christian Mysticism
40 Days with Christian Mystics on the Via Negativa
Beginning Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026
What if, this Lent, instead of giving up chocolate or social media, you gave up certainty itself?
This Lenten season invites you into the via negativa—the "way of unknowing"—a centuries-old Christian contemplative tradition that challenges our assumption that knowing God means accumulating correct beliefs. Six Christian mystics spanning eight centuries discovered something radical: God is encountered not through what we can confidently say, but through what we cannot say. Not through mastery, but through mystery.
This isn't comfortable spirituality. It's an invitation to release our grip on theological certainties, our need to have God figured out, our compulsion to reduce the divine to manageable concepts. The mystics ask: What if the darkness isn't absence but presence? What if not-knowing is its own form of intimacy?
Over six weeks, we'll explore:
- Pseudo-Dionysius and the foundations of apophatic theology
- The Cloud of Unknowing and practical contemplative prayer
- John of the Cross and the dark night of the soul
- Teresa of Avila and the interior castle
- Julian of Norwich and divine love
- Meister Eckhart and detachment
Each week includes a 40-60 minute podcast episode featuring:
- Accessible readings from these medieval mystics with contemporary context
- Guided contemplative practices you can integrate into daily life
- Connections to Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish mystical traditions
- Musical and visual art contemplations
- Modern psychological insights into ancient spiritual wisdom
What You'll Need: Just an hour per week and a willingness to sit with uncertainty, to question what you think you know, to encounter the God who exceeds all our categories.
Where to Find It: The Hour of Disquiet podcast at https://www.patreon.com/cw/HourofDisquiet beginning February 18th. Subscriber articles and additional resources available at the same!
This Lenten series offers both accessibility and intellectual rigor—an invitation to let your certainties die so that something truer can be born. It's contemplative spirituality for people who are tired of easy answers and ready for genuine transformation.
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." —Rainer Maria Rilke
Jason T. Larson, MLS, PhD (he/him/his)
Fellow, Awakened Schools Institute
Collaborative for Spirituality in Education
Instructor in Religion and Philosophy
Director of Spiritual and Religious Life and Chaplain
The Hotchkiss School
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