The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

Dorothee Soelle's "The Silent Cry" appeared shortly before her death, and it's a fitting swansong for a theologian who spent her entire life exploring and living the intersections between action and contemplation. Her exploration of mysticism accomplishes three goals. In the first section of the book, Soelle works out a general definition of mysticism, arguing that it is a sensibility all of us possess even though it's rarely appreciated (much less cultivated) by either society or institutionalized religion. Her reflections (chapter 4) on mysticism's essentially uncommunicable insights into God and reality, and hence its search for a "new language," are particularly good. In the second section of the book, she explores five foci of mystical experience: nature, erotic love, suffering, community, and joy. Each of these contexts can birth awareness of the Beyond that is also Present. The chapter on eroticism is especially insightful. But it's in the third section that Soelle comes into her own and offers truly original and masterful work. Here she argues at great length for the thesis that mysticism isn't at all a private, individualistic mode of experience, but in fact is a mode of social resistance and liberation. Her position might be called "liberation mysticism." Of particular interest are her discussions of voluntary simplicity and nonviolence.All in all, a fantastic book. It's a very nice complement indeed to Evelyn Underhill's classic study. Thanks, Dorothee!