Death
Quakers have no generally shared notion of whether we survive, in some way, after the deaths of our bodies. There is no Quaker conception of heaven, or hell, reward or punishment. This is not something Friends spend a lot of time talking about. Probably many figure that what happens after death is something we will all eventually find out --or we won't -- but what happens next to the living is more important, and we might be able to do something about it.
For Friends, a Memorial Meeting for Worship on the occasion of death is a time to celebrate in the Light the life of an individual whose spirit has been released to God. It is a time to draw the living into the upholding comfort and loving care of the Divine Presence.
William Penn
And this is the Comfort of the Good,
that the Grave cannot hold them,
and that they live as soon as they die.
For Death is no more than a Turning of us over
from Time to Eternity.
Nor can there be a Revolution without it;
for it supposes the Dissolution of one form,
in order to the Succession of another.
Death then, being the Way and Condition of Life,
we cannot love to live,
if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the World,
cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill, what never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided
that love and live in the same Divine Principle;
the Root and Record of their Friendship.
If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but Crossing the World,
as Friends do the Seas;
They live in one another still.
For they must needs be present,
that love and live in that which is Omnipresent.
In this Divine Glass,
they see Face to Face;
and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure.
This is the Comfort of Friends,
that though they may be said to Die,
yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense,
ever present, because Immortal.