Meetings and care homes
Mary Brown writes about Meeting for Worship and dementia
One of the advantages of a Meeting for Worship with no Meeting house is, I think, that we are happy to hold our Meetings anywhere. Meeting for Worship does not necessarily imply a particular building.
In Stroud we have had Meetings in the local cottage hospital, when Friends were patients; once a Friend had a single room, on another occasion we were freely given the day room, a sister providing a notice saying: ‘Meeting in Progress’. At the moment we meet each Sunday in the public library, but hold midweek Meetings in Friends’ homes. For some Friends this may mean in a care home.
We have held Meetings in at least four care homes. I have been impressed by the depth and feeling of ‘gatheredness’ in care home Meetings. We have always been made to feel most welcome; one even facilitated a shared lunch.
Recently, I was sitting next to a ninety-eight-year-old Friend with dementia. Towards the end of the half hour, I felt her looking at me. I found her smiling, one of her loveliest smiles, a smile I felt I had not seen recently. This was the old Friend we had known for so long.
In Stroud we close our Meetings for Worship by holding hands in a circle. This Friend then put out her hand to me, so I took it and we closed the Meeting. In the short time that we were holding hands I felt we were all holding the hand of the Friend we used to know; she was so present at that Meeting.
A Friend from another Meeting happens to live in the same care home as one of our members. She does not often come to our Meetings, usually choosing to stay with the knitting group. One day she decided to join us, but by the time we had got her to the Meeting in the next room she had forgotten why she had come. She looked round at the gathered Friends and asked: ‘What’s going on?’ Someone replied: ‘Meeting for Worship.’ She was silent immediately, and I felt that she was very present at that Meeting.
In yet another care home, a Catholic one, we held Meetings monthly in their library over many months. Confused residents sometimes walked in, saw us sitting in silence, and might join us. When the Meeting ended some got up and left while others stayed to share our tea and chat.
These incidents lead me to suggest that possibly the ability to participate in a Meeting for Worship could be one of the last things to leave someone suffering from dementia. This would not be surprising, for surely what is left at the end, what survives until death, is ‘that of God’ in us all.
Dementia is cruel: it takes memory; it may take personality; and it can destroy lives. But, I suggest, it cannot kill that of God, the Inner Light. In our silent Meetings for Worship we can know our Friends with dementia in that which is eternal, and answer that of God in them. Do we need more Meetings for Worship in care homes?
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