As many of you know, Nan published six books from 1996 - 2009. These are:
Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness--1996
Meditations and Mandalas: Simple Songs for the Spiritual Life--1999
Lumen Christi: Journey to Awakening--2002
Journey Into Love: From Fear to Freedom--2007
Walking with Wisdom--2009
These five titles are widely available in bookstores and online. The sixth, Peace Planet: Light for Our World, was self-published and can be ordered from Friends of Silence. Contact Anne (annestrad@sbcglobal.net or 11 Cardiff Lane, Hannibal, MO, 63401) for further information).
Psalms for Praying is perhaps Nan’s best known work. Over a period of years, she reworked the Hebrew Psalms, not, as she writes, "to replace the well-loved . . . Psalms of the Hebrew Scripture" but to "stand as a companion, a dialogue, if you will, of one age speaking with a later age."
Journey Into Love is perhaps the most autobiographical of Nan’s books. It explores the literal, metaphoric, and archetypal concept of the journey in the New Testament. It is the belief in, and discovery of, the story of Jesus as one's own story, a process she describes as reaching toward Love Consciousness.
Walking with Wisdom is "a stunning sequence of twenty meditations for our time. . . . In today's violence-torn world and in our fragmented everyday lives, Wisdom is needed as never before . . . When we seek this Wisdom of the Heart, we leave behind false emotions of guilt and fear, and we enter the Infinite Reality that exists beyond all time."
Both Journey Into Love and Walking with Wisdom were completed and published after Nan became ill. She remained true her Beloved’s call throughout her life.
Blessings of great beauty be with you all, dear friends of silence.
Without Beauty what a dull world this would be. For, when we are able to see and feel the beauty that abides within us, we, naturally, begin to see the beauty within everyone and everything. Beauty hides Her face only to those whose eyes see others and things as objects to be collected or used. We can, however, learn to see beauty everywhere through the eyes of Love abiding within our hearts. When you love — especially those you would rather turn from — Beauty will gently reveal Herself, if you are open to Her. Then, you will both begin to shine with the Divine Beauty of Love and extend it out to the world. Be still, silent, and see.
To me the realization of God first came in the Atlas Mountains and then in the beauty of nature which stirred my whole inner being. The flowers growing everywhere were absolutely breathtaking, and I saw in them such beauty and wonder that could not have been put there by humankind. When I picked the frangi-pangi flower and thought much about it, I saw Spirit Creator. Who else could have made such beauty? Once natural beauty had turned my heart to God, I found myself continually raising my heart to God, without words but in thought. That is prayer in itself.
Don’t fill up your life with petty knowing. Leave space for something more mysterious, more beautiful, more profound than you can presently even imagine. The Great Creator has more beauty in store for you than you can even dream is possible at this point in your life... Leave space for the Great Mystery to offer something new and wonderful! Everything is unfolding in beauty; we need only stop holding on to the familiar.
Teachings can only bring us back to who we truly are. Our lives and deaths can be of the Beauty Way. But we must start now; we must become refined—the grinding away process to become truly who we are ... beautiful.
Liken yourself to a beautiful original part of creation—a true work of art. Then each day ask yourself how you are living: either in ways that show gratitude for this beauty or in ways that indicate how you are defacing it.
There is a way to smile through your eyes: to see the beauty behind the appearance of things. Imagine looking at a person who is forlorn and broken and has a bad self-image, and seeing the hidden beauty in that person. When you smile, that person sees their beauty through your eyes. Imagine the gift you are offering that person... A silent, gentle gift of love.
She is from God’s world -- a direct disciple, I think, sent down to brighten our lives and teach us of higher things. To me she is beauty itself—the word came after her presence. Each time she smiles, I can only cry, and I think of something I read about the sadness of beauty: just to find it is not hard, but to bear it, that is impossible. If she were totally aware of the beauty she was creating, she would stop in awe of herself. She somehow makes life so much more than it is.
The most wholesome beauty is virtue-beauty, the beauty of the soul-emergence into the whole of life, producing a whole person. Virtue-beauty is centered in mortal and immortal goodness shining forth upon the countenance, the movements of the body, and the expression of the individual. The deep, sweet memories of a beloved face, of a beloved deed, passed on from a pure soul, leave the underlying mark of good which all yearn and hope for.
The lamp of grace keeps alive virtue-beauty.
~ from GALAXY GATE: the Holy Universe by Colton and Murro