To be fully human, we must recognize the full humanity of all other people. Each of us will be fully human only when we recognize the Aliveness of all Creation, when we learn to speak of God in Everything, and to humbly admit our interdependence and Oneness with the Great Web we call Creation.
All things belonging to the earth will never change—the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff whose arms clash and tremble in the dark . . . all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth—these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever . . . Under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful coming into life again like April.
~ from YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN by Thomas Wolfe, quoted in An Almanac for the Soul by Marv and Nancy Hiles
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
IN MEMORIAM
Nan Crerie Merrill, December 3, 1931—January 23, 2010
On January 23, 2010, at 11:15 p.m., Nan C. Merrill, founder and director of Friends of Silence, slipped through the veil to her Beloved. The daughter of Ernest and Merle Crerie, Nan was mother to 3 sons and 2 daughters; "Nana" to 6 grandchildren; and "Auntie Nancy" to 6 nieces and nephews. She is also survived by one sister and a whole host of friends and colleagues across the country and abroad.
Nan touched the hearts of thousands of people through her monthly publication of Friends of Silence. She started this newsletter over 22 years ago in Detroit, Michigan, where she spent several years as a lay volunteer in an inner-city church. FOS has grown from a beginning group of about 40 members who came together at the church to pray silently over the city to more than six thousand subscribers world wide.
Nan shared her deep spiritual insights and love of writing by authoring six books and editing numerous others. She encouraged and nurtured everyone who came into her path. Nan has led retreats, worked with inner city residents and been involved in prison ministry for many years. She had a wonderful sense of humor and was an avid sports fan who enjoyed watching golf, basketball and football.
Nan and I met by mail through her FOS newsletter nearly 20 years ago. As she did for so many, she mentored me by being my "pen pal" for several years before we met face to face. Nan assisted me along the way through the intense spiritual search in which I was engaged, lending an ear or a shoulder as needed. She became my dear friend and colleague as the years passed, and I will sorely miss her. Still, I am so aware that she is here, that she lives on, not only in her published work, but also in our memories and our awareness of her strong spiritual presence in our own lives. Friends of Silence will continue in her footsteps.
April 24, 2010, 1:00 p.m.
Holy Family Church
2103 Broadway
Hannibal, MO 63401
Reception in the fellowship hall following the service
It would be helpful to know how many to expect; please write FOS at 11 Cardiff Lane, Hannibal, MO 63401; e-mail annestrad@sbcglobal.net (please note “NAN” in the subject line); or call Anne at 573-221-4031 if you plan to attend.
Friends of Silence is interested in archiving Nan’s letters and other writings (poems, prayers, etc.). If you have any of these you are willing to share, please send them to Anne at 11 Cardiff Lane, Hannibal, MO 63401.
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."
O my Beloved, you are my shepherd, I shall not want; You bring me to green pastures for rest and lead me beside still waters renewing my spirit, You restore my soul. You lead me in the path of goodness to follow Love’s way.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow and of death, I am not afraid; For You are ever with me; Your rod and Your staff, they guide me, they give me strength and comfort.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of all my fears; you bless me with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the heart of the Beloved forever.
Blessed are you who walk with goodness, who stand for the right, who live in truth. . . . You are like an acorn planted in fertile soil that grows into a mighty oak. Your life blesses others, you radiate love; joy delights your heart.
Listen deeply to others and encourage their aspirations by word, by deed, or in deep silence. Live in a way that draws peace, beauty, harmony, and justice toward others and all of creation. Become an ambassador of peace through loving service.
As Mechtild of Magdeburg said, "The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw -- and knew I saw -- all things in God and God in all things." Everything else suddenly fell into perspective in the light of this awareness. In time, I was to discover that once Life had found me, once Love had taken me by the hand, there was no way I could stop the inner pilgrimage. . . . There was no turning back. . . . To choose Life with deep conviction and commitment is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves, our families, our global neighbors, as well as the planet and ourselves.
Awakening is an ongoing journey. To begin to see and to turn our lives around is only the beginning. . . . This road humbles us and gives us strength to repent, to ask forgiveness, to simplify and discard all that is not Life-giving, and to abandon ourselves into Love’s hands. . . .
I’ve learned to love and to trust the Mystery not needing to know the future. I no longer take Grace for granted -- it is pure gift. . . . My essential course of action is simply to be in the Eternal Now, ready to follow the small, still voice heard in the Silence.
Warm greetings, dear friends, on a cold winter's day! The sun sparkles on a field of snow, dazzling us with a sudden awareness of the miracles Love wrought in creating our beautiful world. Perhaps one of the greatest of these miracles is that a spark of the Great Love also exists in every one of us. The seeds of Love are planted in our hearts that we may blanket the world with fields of love. We have only to open our hearts to enable that love to grow and bloom and spread across our world. Look deeply into your own heart as you sit within the silence . . . find the love there, and as the husk falls away from the seed, allowing it to grow and bloom, allow any hardness of heart to dissolve into the flame of Love. Love can change the world!
We must suppose that we go deep within ourselves, deeper and deeper into our most hidden self. There in our innermost being, in the very core of ourselves, we will find a place where there is peace, stillness, and above all, love.
After having found the place, we must imagine that we are seated there, immersed into, surrounded by the Love of God. We are in deepest peace . . . All of us is there, physical body and all; nothing is outside, not even a fingertip, not even the tiniest hair. Our whole being is connected with the Love of God.
Our lives are interwoven; use me as You will. We are bound together, in You I am strong. Every strand of my life is filled with Your presence. In Your hands my life has purpose and meaning. Bind me close with cords of love.
Separation, fragmentation, fear, insecurity, hostility result because we have lost touch with the continuum of life that is the Source of all creation. When we are there we realize that the self is no other than this unity, and this unity is no other than the self. With this realization comes compassion. With compassion comes love, and with love comes peace . . . When love rises in us, it will rise in the world as a whole. A new reality will be apparent that is laid on the foundation of health, happiness, and personal freedom.
"It is the time you waste on our flowers that makes your flowers unique," the Little Prince said when he realized that the world was full of flowers that looked just like his own. It is love that transforms the vast unknowable, the anonymous universe with all its chaotic eruptions of pain and joy, its life and death, with a world that we can live in and make sense of in some way.
Love is who you are, what you have come into life to give. Love is the cooperative, harmonizing, accepting, forgiving essence of your being. Love does not give up nor demand what it does not have. Love doesn't force itself on others in order to feel better about itself. Love doesn't attack to avenge itself nor does love withhold itself. When we learn to see ourselves as love and to be present with others in loving ways, love will be anchored in our consciousness and on the planet.
What is all inclusive cannot be limited to form. Love does not choose . . . the moment of its expression. Love extends to all at all times. Love is without conditions; that is to say, without form. . . . When you establish conditions on love, you experience the conditions, not the love...the form, not the content. Love expresses only through an open heart.
Love has its price. God wants to make us alive, and the wider we open our hearts to others or the more audibly we cry out against the injustice which rules over us, the more difficult our life in a society of injustice becomes.
Love by its very nature is a gift freely given. And yet, this gift is known only as it is given again . . . Give as love gives -- just as the sun that gives its light to all who ask, or the sparrow that sings for the song itself. When you give love, love is your reward. When you judge some people worthy of your giving and other people as undeserving, you have forgotten love's law . . . The secret of unconditional love is that we are all the same, holy beyond imagine. This is what the release of fear reveals . . . This is what you will find when you open your heart to every element of creation.
