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Reflections from our Pastors
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
1st Week of Advent
Nan C. Merrill died in 2010 but not before she handed her newsletters over to Friends of Silence, a monthly newsletter she started in 1987. You may recognize her name because she was one of the inspired authors whose heard the Word of the Spirit, and whose words become some of our alternate readings and Psalm adaptations. Here she is speaking of silence, prayer and transformation:
“To pray is to be transformed. We become One in the Silence with pray-ers from every country who are scattering seeds of love and light into the chaos; thus, we blanket the world with a web of peace.
“Just as light dispels darkness, fear cannot exist where love abides…May we become peace, and may we know the gentle joy of co-creating with the Beloved on behalf of Earth: our home.”
Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, Preface. 2007
Nan Merrill wrote this poem which could have fit snuggly into this past Sunday’s liturgy:
Light dwells deep within each of us
ready to radiate forth
as our will freely surrenders
in alignment with our soul's purpose.
We are here on Earth to lift and deepen
our own awareness and that of creation:
co-partners in the Divine Plan
for the divinization of all creation.
Seek within and find the Source
of Love and Light.
Shine in unity with all whose joy
is to co-birth as a light
in the world.
~ Nan Merrill in LUMEN CHRISTI...HOLY WISDOM
From Friends of Silence, December 2025 (Vol. XXXVIII, No.11) concerning Nan Merrill:
“Dear Friends ~ It has been fifteen years since that winter day in Vermont, in a small house on Skunk Hollow Road, when Nan Merrill placed a colorful bundle of Friends of Silence newsletters into my hands. The air outside was cold and hushed, but inside, something radiant was stirring.
‘Here’s my baby,’ she said.
In that moment, a current passed between us—silent, sure, unmistakable. It was as if something leapt from her heart into mine not words or instructions, but a living transmission. My body trembled; my eyes filled. Later, when I found the courage to ask if she knew what had happened, Nan smiled gently.
‘Of course I do,’ she whispered. ‘I sent it.’
She was not simply handing over a file or a task. She was entrusting a spirit--her dream of a gathered community listening for the voice of Silence in a noisy world. She wanted to know if we could hold it with tenderness, if we could let it grow without her.
Nan died the following year…
So today, as we mark fifteen years of tending Nan's flame, we give thanks for her life, for her vision, and for the living Silence that continues to call us onward.
May we keep listening.
May we keep walking.
May we keep the flame alive.
~ Bob”
The link to the newsletter and website is here.
Praying together for a holy 1st week of Advent,
Pastor Jane
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