The range of mystical interlocutors and C.'s deft weaving of mystical voices with artists, intellectuals, and others engaged with ongoing struggles for justice make this work a fruitful read. It is a welcome addition for theologians who are seeking ways to bring the wisdom of the mystics to bear on the existential, political, and spiritual challenges of our time. * Amy Maxey, Theological Studies *
Seekers and contemplatives from other traditions, or no tradition, will find in The Insurmountable Darkness of Love a deep and attractive point of access to the riches of contemplative Christianity. * Fr. Isaac Slater, Abbey of the Genesee, Cistercian Studies Quarterly *
Intimacy and absence have rarely been explored in tandem with the care and attention manifest in The Insurmountable Darkness of Love, a book as valuable for the extraordinary range of voices it collects as for its conviction that loss and desolation are experiences from which we have much to learn. In the many sites, texts and personal memories it explores, Douglas Christie's book invites us to recognize and reflect on our own heterotopias, and what we might then offer the world, by dwelling in these spaces of otherness. * Constance Furey, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University - Bloomington *
In his powerful, original and important new work, Douglas Christie explores the intersection of personal loss, atrocity, and apophatic mystical texts, suggesting how a contemplative ethos can discover in the isolating experience of personal and social trauma the ground of a renewed and deepened solidarity. Seekers and contemplatives from other traditions, or no tradition, will find in The Insurmountable Darkness of Love a deep and attractive point of access to the riches of contemplative Christianity. * Cistercician Studies Quarterly *
I have been pursuing the love 'born of and nurtured by darkness' all of my life. In The Insurmountable Darkness of Love, Douglas Christie invites readers to embark on a journey of 'silent attention' awakening, shedding, and finally the embrace of what cannot be known. So, how do you write about something that cannot be captured in words? Christie uses vulnerability, life stories and memories as well as excellent scholarship. The end result is breathtaking! * Barbara A. Holmes, author of Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church *
With all the tumult, chaos and uncertainty in our world, we need a spiritual compass to navigate the pain and suffering that is part and parcel of being soulfully alive today. As our most poetic and compassionate scholar of contemplative practice, Douglas Christie guides us on a most profound journey into the darkness that underlies many mystical experiences, one that is ultimately redemptive. At no time in human history have we needed a prophetic voice like Christie's as we do now. * Gary Paul Nabhan, Ecumenical Franciscan Brother and author of Jesus for Farmers and Fishers *
Maybe the key word in all the world's religions is emptiness. But it takes a Laozi or a Thomas Merton to map it. Or generous and wise Douglas Christie. I cannot think of a book with more heart or with such tenderness for our 'apocalyptic psyche.' His lyrical, learned, gentle book holds us to the 'blank, unnamed, empty, unknown,' where 'Love itself is a desert.' * Lynda Sexson, author of Ordinarily Sacred and Margaret of the Imperfections *
Douglas Christie's The Insurmountable Darkness of Love is a moving exploration of apophatic experience and language in the contemporary retrieval of contemplation. The book daringly combines several different genres * personal accounts of loss and gain; meditations on the natural world and its role in spirituality; and reflections on the significance of major apophatic thinkers and poets. This is a book to be pondered, even savored.Bernard McGinn, Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology and of the History of Christianity, The University of Chicago *
The Insurmountable Darkness of Love is remarkable not just for its depth of insight and its mining of the rich veins of the contemplative tradition, but also for its piercing honesty. It probes the loves, the losses, the tender frailties of us all and reflects the author's unflinching conviction regarding the power of darkness to heal, to reveal love that never allows anyone to be lost. Readers will be grateful to be in Christie's debt for the gift of this book, for all the beauty, insight, trust, and hope it bestows. * Martin Laird, O.S.A., Professor of Early Christian Studies, Villanova University *
Douglas Christie's meditations on the terrible beauty of darkness, silence, and the limits to human understanding draw from the deepest sources of the Christian mystical tradition. We modern pilgrims, who so often have no idea where we are or where we are going, thirst for such wisdom, but we need a guide and interpreter. Christie is that sure guide, showing us how even wrenching loss can take us to a place of rest and reflection, preparing us for the next stage of the journey. * Columba Stewart, O.S.B., Professor of Theology, Saint John's University *
