Dorothee Soelle combined political activism and mysticism, unconventional thinking and passion for life. This epilogue written by her partner, the theologian and former Benedictine monk Fulbert Steffensky, reveals the feistyness and childlikeness of the liberation theologian and poetess.
[This eulogy of Dorothee Soelle by her husband, the theologian Fulbert Steffensky is translated from the German on the Internet. Dorothee Soelle was a liberation theologian with incrediblepassion, independence and activism who wrote “Suffering,” “On Earth as in Heaven,” “Thinking about God” and “The Arms Race Kills Even Without War.”]
[Translator’s introduction: “Why was I born in this culture of gas?” “God did not create the world finished like a thing.” “We must be wounded to be healed.” Dorothee Soelle combined political activism and mysticism, unconventional thinking and passion for life. This epilogue by her partner, the former Benedictine monk and theologian Fulbert Steffensky, reveals the feistiness and childlikeness of this liberation theologian and poetess. Links to free Internet books and articles follow the epilogue.
Christian ethics is resistance and solidarity. We live from those who said No to selfishness, herd instinct and conformism, to economic reductionism and resignation, to the triumph of appearance, short-term advantage, spiritless fundamentalism and consumerism. As Gunter Grass said, we are born in an egg and our life project is to break the shell. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, one act of obedience is more important than a hundred sermons. Faith is a leap across seventy thousand fathoms of water (Soren Kierkegaard) in sacrifice, truthfulness, renunciation, wonder and awe at transcendence. How happy life would be if all mankind took the time to journey to the center of the mind!
Education is the great transformer (John Kenneth Galbraith). Expanding awareness, replacing prejudice with understanding (Hans Georg Gadamer) and a culture of excess with a culture of access should be marks of an enlightened 21st century. Life is full of supernova explosions where stars remain invisible until they find their partner star. The vulgar materialist reduces all life to the material, measurable and quantifiable. The market fundamentalist reduces economics to profit maximization. There is a power in our decisions, our lifestyles and our questioning. The Great Unraveling (Paul Krugman) produces the Great Refusal.]
to read "Epilogue to a Life: Dorothee Soelle" by Fulbert Steffensky, click on
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2011/12/250592.php
Comments
Wow! What a discovery! I got to check this out! Thank you. So that is who coined the term "Christo-Fascism." So much to learn and so little time....purchased, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance.
"The Great Unraveling (Paul Krugman) produces the Great Refusal." Yep!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothee_S%C3%B6lle
She wrote a large number of books, including Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (2001) and her autobiography Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian (1999). In Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future she coined the term "Christofascist" to describe fundamentalists. Perhaps her best-known work in English was "Suffering," which offers a critique of "Christian masochism" and "theological sadism." Solle's critique is against the assumption that God is all-powerful and the cause of suffering; humans thus suffer for some greater purpose. Instead, God suffers and is powerless alongside us. Humans are to struggle together against oppression, sexism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of authoritarianism.[5]
Sölle was married twice and had four children. First, in 1954 she married the artist Dietrich Sölle, whom she divorced in 1964. In 1969, she married former Benedictine monk Fullbert Steffensky, with whom she organized the Politisches Nachtgebet.
Beyond The Greek Crisis Matrix
Well, I would put this book in the same category as "The Prophet's Way"; a sideswiping coincidence (post #440). What excellent timing!
I throw the institutional to Kierkegaard. However, it is the transition from the intellectual to the mystical that is the great barrier--a barrier that “trivializes” mystical experience and everything that is human. Soelle writes, “The trivialization of life is perhaps the strongest antimystical force among us. Some people are literally obsessed by the compulsion to trivialize everything.” (Ibid., p. 13). Until that barrier is overcome, all that is human is categorized as “trivial” by authoritarian ideology--specifically, logical positivism and it’s current dress uniform, scientism.
Wittgenstein provides us with the “ladder” to leap over the barrier between the intellectual and the mystical. It is being done now. And once one is on the other side, the ladder is no longer needed---for that one person.
I spent most of the last few days reading, Dorothee Soelle. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. What a profound work on mysticism with so much to digest. Her book revealed to me how poorly read I am in the history of mysticism. Most of the mystics she quoted from I never heard of before. This is my fault since I didn’t see the need to study mysticism if the mystical is seen as false, and trivial a priori so my energy has always been directed toward totalitarian epistemologies and ideologies. I can go to them now.
This seems to be so true. How many times have women started small spiritual groups, dragged the men in, then the men takeover and try to run it like a business so that everything gets regimented. I have seen it over and over again. And another surprise: the number of Muslim mystics she quoted.
Very exiciting! Thank you Demandside!