Quakers: What's your take on SIX FEET UNDER's portrayal?

[derby378]

Friends have now figured prominently in two episodes. Discuss!

[AllegroRondo]

1. Is the portrayal accurate?

I dont konw much about Quakers, but the last two episodes have me intrigued.

[eShirl]

3. If you tell me how Quakers were portrayed

I can tell you whether it's accurate in my experience.

[AllegroRondo]

4. The Quaker service / funeral

involved everyone sitting in quiet meditation. Occasionally someone would stand up and say whatever struck them at that time. There was no leader or minister of any kind. At the end, they all sang a song together.
It was different for me, as I was raised Catholic and I'm used to seeing a lot of structure in a church service. This had almost no structure.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. The service you describe

seems to be like a regular Friends service that I have seen. But I've only visited a Friends center. Best wait for someone with longtime experience to tell you for sure.

Edited to add: If they want something a bit different, they might consider a Sufi funeral. The passing of a person is called the Wedding, and the funeral is a mixture of tears and great joy, singing and dancing and chanting.

[AllegroRondo]

7. They have covered a lot of different funerals

There was a Thai Buddhist funeral in the second season that was very neat. The deceased had a bowl on his chest, with his hands folded over it. As each person approached the casket, they poured a small cup of water over his hands. They described it as 'washing away any unresolved bad feelings' between the deceased and the pourer. At the end of the ceremony, the collected water was to be poured at the base of the oldest tree you could find.
And the chanting monks were very cool also.

[eShirl]

6. Sounds a lot like my grandmother's funeral., actually.

People kept getting up with things to say, it went on for hours.

[DemBones DemBones]

8. That sounds quite accurate for a Friends meeting but

a funeral might be different. Everybody singing a song together at the end is actually MORE structure than I've seen in meetings. An individual singing during meeting is more typical.

You're supposed to say, or sing, only what the Holy Spirit moves you to say during meeting but some people who attend don't understand that, unfortunately, and go off on political diatribes. You're supposed to be praying or meditating, not thinking up things to say at all, only speaking if you feel the Holy Spirit is urging you to. A funeral may well be a bit more planned, including a hymn at the end.

There is another branch of Quakers, and Richard Nixon was this sort, who have a more traditional Protestant service, with music and a minister. Major similarities are refusal to take oaths and pacifism, though Nixon left all that behind him.

[eShirl]

2. I was raised in a Quaker family

but I have never watched this show, so I couldn't say.

edit to add: I have to leave for a few hours, but if you would care to share details of the portrayal of Friends in the last 2 episodes, I can respond to that when I get back.