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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."

Psalm 23

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.

True Wisdom emerges silently, rising up from the Mystery of the unseen Source within all.

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.

Humility as a virtue has to do with knowing ourselves as human, as earthy, as the clay into which the divine breath has been breathed . . .It is to live the paradox of our blessed and broken natures, to know that matter matters, that flesh carries spirit, that life is discovered at the precise meeting place of the human and the divine.To practice humility is to live deeply into this truth, to lift oneself to the mountain top of prayer and aspiration and to embrace the lowly valley of our own abjection.

We are striving for humility in our lives, to draw closer to God . . .It is not an accident that the humus, or the soil, comes from the same word.It's the base from which everything grows.Gardening and the spiritual life go together.

Humble amazement is a prerequisite for
coming to know God.