Spy Recall: Remembering George Merrill

Editor's note: Like many of our readers, The Spy is finding Sundays a lot less fulfilling and a lot less fun with the absence of George Merrill's columns. George passed away on Easter Sunday at the age of 87, just hours after his last column for the Spy, in the loving care of his family. It will take time for the Spy newspapers to fill this huge gap in our publications and our lives. Still, in the meantime, we wanted to share again an interview with George we did in 2018 to remind ourselves and our readers what a real gift he was to all of us.
From November 6, 2018
The Spy Columnists: George Merrill
It seems somehow fitting that the Spy will be ending our series on our public affairs columnists with George Merrill on Election Day. Perhaps the most apolitical of the five writers that volunteer each week to offer their unique point of view with our readers, George, an ordained Episcopal minister, has been the most inclined to bring public debates down to questions of spirituality and the workings of the soul.
While George does not skirt the issues of the day, his Sunday essays have been more about his only reaction to the challenges of life than focusing on the foibles of a particular politician or policy. His intense interest in his own makeup encourages the reader to explore their own sense of soul as they work through the news of the day.
Now eighty-four years old, Merrill has also reached a point where he can, he laughingly notes, “say anything I want,” knowing full well that this sense of liberation has allowed him the freedom to explore and take delight in what he doesn’t know as much as the wisdom that comes with living over eight decades.
In his Spy interview, George talks about his writing style, spirituality and politics, and the pure enjoyment he has in taking pen to paper.