A Patchwork Quilt at the Funeral

My first Quaker funeral was the experience that led me to attend a regular Quaker Meeting.  The man being remembered that day, Steve, was not a close friend.  He was the top executive in the office where I worked, and I was attending as much out of curiosity for the Quaker service as out of respect for the man.  The service was held at Radnor Meeting, an old meeting house, like so many of them in this area, in continuous use since 1718.  There was no body, no coffin, no box of ashes.  We were there to remember a man's life and how it influenced those he came in contact with on his journey through it.  His family was there - wife, children, brothers and sisters. The rest of the Meeting House was filled to overflowing with friends and business associates.  A Quaker elder rose to briefly explain the Quaker service - beginning with silent worship, and then followed by an open invitation to anyone so moved to stand up and share a particular memory that they had of the man.  

The silence starts loudly in a sense - the meeting becomes silent enough to hear the ambient noise - the clearing of throats, the movement on the old wooden benches, the traffic noise outside, and the hustle and bustle of your own thoughts.  But if you let yourself settle in to the silence, then you begin to lose awareness of the background noise.  You bring into focus your thoughts:  your prayers for the family, your relationship with the departed, and a sorting through of your memories to see if something is suitable for sharing, and to see whether you believe that it is something that you are called to share.  

Finally someone broke the silence, his brother, recounting some recent events but then sharing stories from their childhood:  the admiration of a younger brother for the eldest son who was the first to do everything, and did it all so well.  College friends spoke of those days - stories that made us smile or laugh.  Business associates told of tales from the office - of early days sharing rides on the commute, of things that they discovered about him on the way - that he served in the military, was the author of several books, that he was a gourmet chef.  The man did not suffer fools easily, and you did not want to be unprepared at a meeting he was chairing.  His boss had flown up from Atlanta to attend the service, and spoke about how he hired Steve - the track record of previous success, the intelligence, blunt honesty, but also a devilish sense of humor.  And people from Radnor Meeting spoke about how Steve had initially attended their meeting, but found it to be too noisy (a Quaker joke greeted with a ripple of smiles), and so left them for the quieter confines of Newtown Square Meeting.  I lived in Newtown Square at the time, and had passed that old meeting house many times, but never realized that it was still in active use.  I filed that information away for later.  

Between each speaker, there was a period of silence, as we each turned over in our minds the words of the most recent speaker.  The meeting continued for a little over an hour.  A Quaker elder brought the memorial service to a close with a last period of focused silence, to examine what we had created that day.  We had come together from all parts of Steve's life, and we had each brought pieces of memory.  We had each contributed our best ones - the ones we had examined in the silence and found to be most representative of the man we knew.  Like an old fashioned quilting bee, we had each brought a favorite part of his life with us, and one by one in the shared silence we had added our piece to the colorful quilt of his life.  

Society does not let any death pass unremarked, and through church services and memorials, we seek in some way to honor that person, to draw lessons from the life we are remembering, and to try to give some comfort to his family.  Church funeral services tend to be strings of archaic prayers and death liturgy, heavy on formula, and giving a glimmer of life only if the family or friends share a eulogy.  When the only one who speaks at a funeral is a priest or minister who did not really know the person being remembered, the main subject - the life of the departed - seems to be missing.  

The Quaker way is in my mind a more suitable and more loving service.  I did not know Steve well when I walked in that day, but I walked out with a much fuller portrait of who he was, where he came from, his journey through life, the hurdles he faced, and the love and respect he had gained along the way. His death was still untimely and tragic, and no funeral, no memorial, can take away the immediate pain of such a loss.  But by the end of the service,   the family had been given something special to take with them, a folded up quilt containing the love and respect and cherished memories of those who shared in the life of their loved one and who with them mourned his loss.  

Undying life: Prayers and readings for use at Quaker funerals, cremations and memorial meetings and for private reading