Thought for the Week: Kairos
Peggy Heeks reflects on the rhythms of life
Each one of us is unique, precious, a child of God
Advices & queries 22
Do you sometimes indulge in the game of ‘people watching’? We may play it as we drink coffee on the terrace, or on the train, as a change from gazing out of the window. ‘What an interesting face!’ ‘How I wish I had so much energy!’ Of course, these unspoken comments are superficial and based on appearance only. We don’t know anything of the hopes, anxieties or the life of these people we see in passing.
How different my attitude is in Quaker Meeting, where I note who is present, recall what I know of their circumstances and reach out to them in love. Advice number 22 is core here: ‘Remember that each one of us is unique, precious, a child of God’.
That advice is especially relevant to a new working party on End of Life Issues, set up by Quaker Life. We meet in the context of increased longevity – helped by advances in medicine – and with the growth of organisations, such as the Dying Matters coalition, designed to help us make decisions in the face of dying, death and bereavement. Within Quakerism we already have the Quaker Concern Around Dying and Death, which organises a range of activities, including a Death Café at Britain Yearly Meeting 2015. It is a measure of interest that one hundred Friends took part in that event. More recently, other aspects, such as assisted dying and suicide, are engaging attention, particularly in view of the Assisted Dying Bill, which will have its second reading in the House of Commons on 11 September.
This background means that more pastoral and spiritual help is being required in our Meetings, something that will call for the development of Local and Area strategies. For some years Woodbrooke has been taking a leadership role in providing a focus for discussion through a range of sessions relating to later life. It is significant that the 2016 programme reflects the widespread interest through two relevant courses: ‘Creating support for end of life and bereavement’, in April, and ‘Living well: dying well’, in September.
The present generation is the first to live so long and we can be role models for those who follow. This is not the time to express ‘concern bordering on dismay’ because at 2015 Yearly Meeting ‘almost every head was either grey or white’ (‘A fresh perspective’, 26 June). Instead, we are challenged to encourage resilience, to nurture the spirit as the body becomes more frail and to negotiate our diminishments. Mary C Morrison suggests a way in her Pendle Hill pamphlet Without Nightfall Upon The Spirit. For her, the later years are to be guided by ‘kairos’, right time, rather than ‘chronos’, clock time. ‘Kairos’ helps us follow the rhythms of life, knowing that while there is a time to build and keep, there is also a time to cast away and to let go. May we be supported to accept, as Morrison has done, that ‘We had our day: and look, a new one starts’.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.