Silent Cry, Mysticism and Resistance (review)

Dorothee Soelle (b. 1929), formerly at the Union Theological Seminary (1975-1987), poet and long-time activist in the German peace and ecology movements, has written extensively on spirituality and political theology. Although themes and ideas in her earlier books also appear in The Silent Cry, in this work she seeks with renewed vigor "to erase the [unnecessary] distinction between a mystical internal and a political external" (3). In this highly provocative book, Soelle sets about awakening the souls, exciting the minds and inciting ethical response on behalf of justice, peace and the health of all of creation in her readers. The title, drawn from an anonymous letter from a fifteenth century German mystic (83), conveys multiple meanings. "The silent cry" is at once an address to God, a mystical name for God (6), an expression of union with God that no longer needs language (71), an experience of learning to listen that plunges one into the dark night of the soul (75), the source of resistance to the status quo (76 and passim) and a way of life.

The book is divided into three parts and includes a not particularly helpful "Afterword" in the form of a conversation with her husband about a few of the book's elements. In Part I, "What Is Mysticism," Soelle proposes that we are all mystics, because for her mysticism is not primarily about extraordinary phenomena like ecstasies and visions, although ecstasy in the sense of the enthusiasm born of mystical union with God is not neglected (44). Mysticism, for Soelle, is cogito Dei experimentalis, the perception of God through experience, (cf The Strength of the Weak, 86). Perceiving God through experience places us in touch with the heart of reality and, if authentic, is never merely an individual and private affair. True mysticism is never politics-free and never withdrawn from the world and blind to its suffering. Among her concerns in the initial chapters are hermeneutics and language. Acknowledging the importance of a hermeneutics of suspicion in the struggle for liberation, she calls for a movement beyond it to a hermeneutics of hunger. One may wonder why she does not speak of a hermeneutics of desire rather than hunger. Here Catherine of Siena could be helpful, for Catherine recognized the positive and extraordinary power of desire when she wrote that our desire is one of the few ways of touching God: "You have nothing infinite except your soul's love and desire" (Dialogue, 270). Some attention to the insights of contemporary authors, such as Sebastian Moore (e.g., Jesus the Liberator of Desire) and Philip Sheldrake (e.g., Befriending Our Desires) may have enriched her position. In the fifth and final chapter of Part I, "The Journey," Soelle dialogues with methodology traceable to Dionysius: purgation, illumination and union. In its stead she proposes a three fold dynamic of "being amazed," a via positiva of radical openness to wonderment, of "letting go," a via negativa of relinquishing false desires promoted by consumerism, and of "healing / resisting," a via transformativa that seeks to change the world through compassion and justice.

In company with Karl Rahner, she stresses that mysticism is the key to the vitality of religion for the new millennium (108). In Part II she explores the "Places of Mystical Experience," focusing on nature (Chap. 6), eroticism (Chap. 7), suffering (Chap. 8), community (Chap. 9) and joy (Chap. 10). Her overarching interest is to explore each of these "places" in ways that illumine how ordinary people might experience mystical amazement, letting go and wholeness. In these chapters one encounters an eclectic array of voices, including C.S. Lewis, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porète, Thich Nhat Hahn, D. H. Lawrence, John of the Cross, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Teresa of Avila, Edith Stein and groups such as the Beguines, Hasidim, and Quakers...