Topic: A Quaker Way of Living with Dying

Growing old, even when that means facing physical or other changes, can help us focus on what is essential.

Ground your work in scripture. Quaker faith and practice can be compared and combined with a wide variety of other traditions such as Buddhism or ethical humanism. But we will find our deepest and fullest reasonaces with the biblical Christian traditions that nurtured early Friends and with the Jewish traditions that nurtured Jesus.

What do Friends have to say about aging, dying, and death?

Explore your thinking on aging, death and dying with these queries and questions for reflection. Many exercises can be followed with a discussion or worship share with these queries.

Many Friends have made videos and podcasts to reach out to people around the world. From informational histories, to instructional guides, to deep ministry, we can use this medium to learn more and build community.

Preparing for death can be difficult to think about and talk about. But it can also be a deeply spiritual process, through which all involved grow closer, to the Spirit and to one another.

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Friends might also be surprised to learn that there are practices for caring for one’s body after death that may be more aligned with our belief in right Stewardship of the Environment than the more common burial practices of today.

My mom died of cancer when I was 12, which lit the spark for my 40‐year career as a children’s oncologist. The culture in 1950s’ Britain was to avoid discussing death, especially around children. I wasn’t told of her passing until three days later, on a brief excursion home from my boarding school. Twenty‐five years later, I immigrated to America and by chance was introduced to Quakers in Columbus, Ohio. It was a troubling time in my life.