Dear Friends ~ Last weekend, amid the slowly turning leaves of autumn, we held a celebration of Nan's life and her gift of the Friends of Silence network. Walking the labyrinth accompanied by the graceful notes of the dulcimer, we listened together for the whispering wisdom that comes out of the silence of our hearts. The verse from Psalms for Praying that I carried with me into the labyrinth ended with this line: "Who will enter the Heart of Love?" When Nan began 30 years ago to gather friends together to pray for peace in turbulent times in Detroit, I think she was asking that question. This humble little community has grown over the years and yet it seems as though this is still the crux of it. Slender threads reach out and create what one participant over the weekend called the "synergistic silence." Implicit in this is the belief that the inner, unseen work each one tends in silent solitude somehow reaches out and alters the cosmic energies so desperately in need of healing in our world. Cynthia Bourgeault wrote, "Mystical hope...has something to do with presence—not a future good outcome, but the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something intimately at hand." May we in this synergistic silence, held together by many slender threads, carry for each other mystical hope.
We send this November issue out to everyone, including those who receive the newsletter via e-mail, as an expression of gratitude to all our friends for your ongoing support and connection. From literacy classes prisoners hold for one another, to earth care and hospice care, peacemaking and social activism, we are encouraged and grateful for all the ways your contemplation spills out into the world in grace-filled acts of kindness and healing. Thank you.