“The author of the book of job wrestles with such questions. Can faith in God be free of ulterior motives and interests? Can there be such a thing at all? Is there something like pure religion that does not act… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share Image
“What do ego-lessness and becoming unattached mean in connection with today's mystical way in the form of resistance? . . . What is missing is a reflection that shows more clearly how complicit we are ourselves in the consumerist ego that the economy desires. I want to elucidate this in terms of a question that every nonconformist group, every critical… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“If we had possessions, Francis would say, we would also need weapons. He held on to the inescapable link of poverty and peace.” — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share Image
“All mysticism is part of the endeavor to escape from this fate of language that serves the exercise of power, control, and possession. Traditional Western theology has most often defined the authentic relationship of believers to God as "obedience." This presupposes the separation between the one who commands and the one who obeys. How could creator and creature be united… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“This situation where we are not quite what we do, where we kiss, drink, work, laugh, or meditate only with part of ourselves, is the most normal of situations. We are not wholly present in what we experience; we are still watching ourselves, and we do not attain the self-forgetfulness of being one. We do not play as a child… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“One of the oldest longings of all people of mystical sensibility is to be rid of disguises to the point of becoming naked.” — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share Image
“In monotheistic patriarchal perception, a miracle is an external intervention that suspends the laws of nature. God's rule over nature, the body, time, and earthly reality is made visible through the supernatural event. Mystical amazement, on the other hand, sees the original miracle in being itself, in creation, in a rose blooming. Of course, the mystic also sees when the… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“The story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 1o) can he interpreted mystically in such a way that the question of the knowledge of God becomes its focus. The priest and the Levite, who walk past the man who fell among robbers and was seriously hurt, are pious God-fearing persons. They "know" God and the law of God. They have God… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to then" (Henry David Thoreau quotes here are found in Walden or, Life in the Woods, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience). Thoreau criticizes those who are content to have an "opinion," and he calls for… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“In such mysticism of prayer, the relationship of domination between God and humans has been transformed into one of love. That is precisely the mystical transformation that happens to prayer of supplication. The feudalistic patriarchal understanding of supplication often starts from the assumption that human beings have to go and knock on God's door and awaken "him" in order to… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“Matthew Fox who, particularly in his new reading of Meister Eckhart, depicts quite early in human history the mystical way of creation spirituality. Fox's way and that of traditional mysticism differ in two aspects. The first is where the way of mysticism is said to begin. In the understanding of mysticism inherited from the Neoplatonists Proclus and Plotinus, purging or… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“To he "over-choiced" with thirty different kinds of bread does indeed develop the shopper's awareness of differentiation and sense of taste. However, from the ego that is becoming dependent on such a surplus of choice, it also takes away the time and energy for other life pursuits. The ego is diverted and, with the help of the world of consumer… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
“The desire to possess is marked by an unceasingly growing, voracious element that manifests itself in the simple desire to have more, but also in the growing dependency on consumerist habits that people do not want to give up. The ego loses its benign distance from things to be used and is ruled by the urge to possess them. This… — Dorothee Soelle Copy Share
