QuakerSpeak, October 2022

During his seminary training, the only field work Carl Magruder could find was as a hospital chaplain, where “all of my cleverness and rhetoric and argumentation was completely worthless at the bedside of a person who was suffering,” and he realized “it’s just an honor to be able to be present to people.”

As a chaplain and as a Friend, Carl encourages us to think deliberately about our death and how we might choose to face it. “I don’t have all the answers, and what’s right for the individual is very individual,” he says, “but . . . we don’t think about it, we don’t talk about it, then we catch a diagnosis and it’s very hard and scary to think about and talk about.”


Transcript and Discussion Questions Available Here

Produced by Rebecca Hamilton-Levi

In partnership with Friends Committee on National Legislation.

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