Open Space and Memorial Services (this is a long post)

Chris Corrigan corcom at interchange.ubc.ca
Wed Apr 18 23:12:12 PDT 2001


I have not attended a memorial service in Open Space Technology, but I
have attended on in open space.  It was a Quaker memorial and the
context was this.

Many years ago (13 now) I became involved in a relationship for a short
time with a woman named Naomi who had just left her Salvadoran boyfriend
of three years, Jose.  She was a wonderful woman, an activist who was
well known in Toronto and Peterborough, Ontario for her work on
anti-apartheid and Central American issues.  We were together for a few
months and then she got back together with Jose.  Jose was a wonderful
guy too.  He grew up in El Slavador and came to Canada as a refugee when
he was 16 with a couple of his brothers.  He was sponsored by a well
known Quaker organization.

He certainly had had his share of struggles in his life and whatever
happened between Naomi and him culminated very sadly in a murder/suicide
just before Christmas in 1988.  Of course we were all shocked and in
deep grief over this loss of two people in the prime of their lives.
Both were 21.  People were at a tremendous loss to make sense of Jose's
motive and vast numbers of people who had worked with both of them in
development issues and the social justice world were especially hurt by
the fact that they were both such committed witnesses to peace.  The way
Naomi was killed was in direct opposition to how she lived her life.

We had Naomi's memorial service first and the next day attended Jose's,
which was held in a Quaker meeting place.  A few of us who were close
friends accompanied Naomi's sister to that service, which was also
attended by Jose's brothers.  In a Quaker setting, we were gathered in a
circle and no one spoke until they were moved to speak.  Then comments
and stories began to flow.  Mostly they were rememberances of Jose, his
bright spirit and expressions of people's deep pain that his life had
turned so dark so suddenly.

And then Naomi's sister spoke.  And she took the courageous step of
forgiving Jose and forgiving his brothers who were visably wracked with
guilt.  She not only did that but she spoke of the deep love she had
developed for him over the three years she had known him, and paid
tributes to him and his brothers for the tremendous committment to life
they had exhibited.  When she finished speaking, people were quiet for a
very long time, and when folks finally started speaking again the
comments were deep and personal and clearly showed people beginning to
try to make sense of the tradgedy.  I believe that Naomi's sister opened
space that day for a vast healing to begin, and although it took her and
her family many many years to deal with the loss of Naomi (and of course
on one level they may never fully recover), the Spirit that was with
them from that moment forward helped the healing to begin.  It was an
affirmation of the beauty of Spirit in Spirit's darkest hour.

I have not attended Friends meetings other than this one, but have been
told that the Quaker process mimics Open Space Technology in it's deep
essence of people engaging with Spirit.  Having experienced that
memorial service and seeing the difference between that one and the
Methodist one we gave Naomi, I can safely say that the process would be
an interesting one to use.  Perhaps that is an understatement.

While I am in a personal mood, perhaps another story, with a happier
ending would be in order.  My partner Caitlin and I got married in Open
Space...although we had not yet found OST.

When we got married we decided to honour our various cultural
inhereitances, including Irish, Ojibway and African.  Our ceremony went
this way.  We invited only our families, people who were passionate
about us and had all taken a great deal of responsibility for who we
are.  We gathered in a circle and opened with a sweetgrass smudge. We
then followed and old Irish ritual and opened a bottle of wine, poured
it into a goblet and passed it around the circle.  Those who held the
goblet spoke out of passion for us and indicated their responsibilities
for helping our relationship to grow and thrive.  We captured these
stories, poems, songs and drawings in a hand made book of proceedings
which our friends later added to.  To conclude the ceremony we honored
our families with gifts for all of them, representing how we felt about
each.

Following the ceremony, there was a convergence, but I won't go into
that...

Chris

--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com

108-1035 Pacific Street
Vancouver BC
V6E 4G7

Phone: 604.683.3080
Fax: 604.683.3036
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

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