Tag Archives | Death and Dying

New Year’s top five: The most popular articles of 2017

By Staff on December 26, 2017

We’ve been sharing our most-read articles of 2017 on Facebook and Twitter. Here is the full list. #5 Mystical Experience, the Bedrock of Quaker Faith. Robert Atchley’s look at the mystical side of Quaker faith from our February issue. #4 Weeping to Joy. From our August issue on the “Art of Dying and the Afterlife,” Betsy […]

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The Art of Dying and the Afterlife: August Full Issue Access

By Staff on August 1, 2017

Friends Journal member subscribers can download full PDF or read any article online. 🔒 Friends Journal Member? Sign in here! Not an FJ member? To read this piece, please join us today! For $28, you’ll get: A year of Friends Journal delivered to your mailbox (11 issues) and email Full, instant access to the world’s largest online […]

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A Simple State of Being That Never Truly Dies

By Robert Stephen Dicken on August 1, 2017

Moving toward death is its own kind of expectant worship. 🔒 Friends Journal Member? Sign in here! Not an FJ member? To read this piece, please join us today! For $28, you’ll get: A year of Friends Journal delivered to your mailbox (11 issues) and email Full, instant access to the world’s largest online library of Quaker information: […]

Robert Stephen Dicken is a member of First Friends Meeting in New Castle, Ind. He retired from teaching high school English in 2002. His retirement days consist of reading, writing, drawing, almost completing honey-do lists, and entertaining grandchildren.

Posted in: Features, The Art of Dying

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Grief Manifesto: Linda Heacock’s Death As Told by Her Daughter

By Hannah Jeffrey on March 1, 2011

As I did some yard work for a friend, I found a dead bird in one of her beds. I didn’t recognize the type, but it was small and could have been any variety of songbird. A fallen bird is often a romantic symbol. Poets have written in abundance about birds in the wilderness or […]

Hannah Jeffrey, a member of Richmond (Va.) Meeting, lives in Sacramento, Calif., where she is the director of a canvassing office, informing and involving the public on progressive issues and organizing at a grassroots level.

Posted in: Features

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Empathy

By Lee Neff on March 1, 2011

I sit quietly in meeting for worship, envisioning the Light Within and knowing that I am being held very gently in God’s hands. I think of all the people in the world who need to feel held, and I particularly think of the ill members of my own family. Sitting silently and breathing slowly, I […]

Lee C. Neff, a member of South Seattle (Wash.) Meeting., is a gardener, writer, and former educator.

Posted in: Features

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A Brief Dance with Death

By HollyJeffries on May 1, 2010

In October 2008 I had my first mammogram. The next day, I received a call. “There is an asymmetry on your pictures. We need to call you back for another mammogram. This is very common and does not mean that there is necessarily anything wrong …” I was 46. My dear mother was 47 when […]

Holly Jeffries, a member of Plainfield (Vt.) Meeting, farms in the mountains of Vermont. She gives special thanks to her husband, Walter, for encouraging her to write this at the time.

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Parting Time

By StephenRedding on March 1, 2010

The end came early and unexpectedly for my friend Sue, and in a few days I will join her family and fellow church members to memorialize her. Although she did not get all the years she might have fairly expected, she did her time well. Life set many challenges before her, and as most of […]

Stephen Redding is a member of Richland Meeting in Quakertown, Pa. He owns and, with the help of his family, operates the Happy Tree Ltd., a tree and landscaping company and nursery in Green Lane, Pa. a mystic, he is the author of two books, Something More and More or Less. See http://www.stephenredding.com.

Posted in: Features

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Haunting Presentations

By Susan Corson-Finnerty on November 1, 2009

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Living Near the End of Life: Queries for the Elderly

By Brigitte Alexander on October 1, 2009

Crosslands is one of a number of Quaker retirement communities in the Philadelphia area. In existence for over 30 years, Crosslands has a Friends worship group attended every Sunday by approximately 40 people, ages 70 to 100. Like most meetings, we have the custom of reading a query once a month. The queries available in […]

Brigitte Alexander was first exposed to Quakerism in Berlin (Germany) Meeting in the 1930s. She has been a member of Pittsburgh (Pa.) Meeting since 1968, and she worships with a small group at Parkersville (Pa.) Meeting and at Crosslands Worship Group. Trained as a city planner, she worked in Boston. After a hiatus while raising children, she managed a small foundation in children’s mental health in Pittsburgh.

Posted in: Features

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