Yesterday I went to a memorial service at my Meeting for
someone who died of Alzheimer’s. He is
not the first or the last person with dementia my Meeting has said goodbye to
or that other Meeting’s I have belonged to have bid farewell to. It is not uncommon that people with dementia
can repeat themselves quite a bit as their disease progresses – both forgetting
that they have already said it and also sometimes being hyper focused on
certain things.
This friend had three messages that he repeated many times –
but in my reflection if one viewed this as a message given in Tongues and we
learn to listen in Tongues (or through Spirits eyes) then the messages were of
relevance and remained so. One message
he gave a number of times was about his experience volunteering on the local Church
Council, and how he delighted in the fact that people came from all different
faith’s but cared about the same things.
To me it was an enduring message about ecumenicalism and also taking joy
in the volunteer work you do. He also
gave a message explaining why he was called by his middle name not his first
name which included some humor about his family of origin. To me this was a message about knowing who
you are and valuing the connection to family.
His final repeat message to us was to count the number of men and women
in the room. He would often point out
that he was one of only a few men in the room.
This to me is a very real problem with our aging Society of Friends and
was a call to action. It was
interesting to me that even as his cognitive vigor lapsed his sense of
belonging to a community and wanting to share with that community did not.
It is important how we hear messages. Someone could have heard these as an annoying
and repetitive message or even as a irrelevant and “demented” message. But if you listen to it as a message from
Spirit than God can use even a demented vessel to deliver a true message.
In a previous Meeting I belonged to a woman rose once a
Meeting (and towards the very end sometimes 2x a meeting) and sang Amazing
Grace. It’s a good song, and she was a
good singer. I was never sorry to hear
it. I was glad that she wanted to share
with us.
Another man with dementia several times in response to the children entering the room for the last 15 minutes, often loudly and joyfully
but disruptively – made the same beautiful comment. He quoted the Bible where it says we shall
enter the Kingdom of God like small children.
It was a powerful and consistent ministry to those in the room who were
impatient or annoyed by the children’s noise.
It was reminder that they were God’s children and that God had asked us
to be more like them. Some see the
progression into dementia as being one into a “childlike state”….so I took some
comfort that as he entered that state that he knew it to be one that enters the
Kingdom.
And what about us.
Can we learn to treasure that child like state? Can we learn to listen for the spirit behind
even garbled messages? Can we learn to
see the soul that shines even through a mind that fails?
