David Cayley funeral service, June 26, 2026, 1 p.m. at the chapel of St.James the Less Cemetery

Opening Words – Laura Gallagher-Doucette

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Words from I Timothy and Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Words of Welcome – Laura Gallagher-Doucette

Good afternoon and welcome to this funeral service and time of remembrance for David Cartwright Cayley, someone who was beloved by so many people in so many ways.

My name is Laura Gallagher-Doucette. I am a minister in the United Church of Canada, and it is a privilege to be with you all together to as we create this space to honour David’s life and to grieve his death. I had the pleasure of meeting David once, though I encountered him first through his writing. This week through conversation with Jutta and Kate, I came to know more about who David was, and I thank them both for sharing that time with me.

There are people who cannot be physically present today because of geography, illness, or for other reasons. We hold those people in our hearts and trust that they are here in spirit.

Those of us gathered here come from varied spiritual traditions, which is a beautiful thing. I encourage everyone, throughout our time together, to engage with prayer and the other aspects of this service in whatever way feels right for you, knowing that you are fully welcome here, whatever your tradition.

Opening Hymn: Amazing Grace

Opening Prayer - Laura Gallagher-Doucette

O Holy One, whose ways are not our ways,
and whose thoughts are not our thoughts,
we thank you for your life-giving Spirit
who animates all of Creation,
and is here among us now.
We are amazed by your love
and the way it meets us in the world,
including through the life of David,
whose passing we gather to mourn.
We entrust David to you in death
as in life you entrusted him to us.
Even in our grief, we are grateful
to have known and be known by him,
and so, we give you thanks. Amen.

Words of Remembrance – Kate Cayley

There are a lot of things to say about my father David, more than I can try to say now. So everyone here will need to say these things to each other, for the rest of our own lives. I will try to say a few things.

On the day of David’s burial, a beautiful early summer day, my sister Rachael said to me very quietly, “Our father was a lucky man.”
I think he knew it.
One of the ways he was lucky was in how many things he loved.
He loved thinking through, not in abstraction but in embodiment. In his zest, he lived in his thinking. He taught me that thought is not arid, that language is connected to breath and to the body, that we live in language as we live in breath. He loved music. He loved all birds. Now whenever I see a bird I think “hi David.” He loved all flowers. And he loved people. He loved so many people.
He was blessed in my mother, in his children and who they married, in his grandchildren, in his work, and in his friends.

As some of you know, he first had his heart trouble in 2020, and it seemed like we might lose him then.
When that started, he called me. He told me very calmly and seriously that when we are born we step into time, and when we die we step out of it.
That’s all. He said “if you lose me, you will not lose me.” We continue through memory, part of a chain of memory that includes all the people you have ever known and all the people who came before you, and will continue beyond your own life. He said “If you lose me, the chain is still unbroken.” That’s why we will keep telling each other stories about him. That’s the chain.

But then we had another six years. A few days ago, I wrote to a friend of his who lived in Manitoba, and I told him some of this, and found myself listing all the things that happened for my father in those six years, which my mother has asked that I say here. It’s a good list.

- He published his book on his friend and teacher Ivan Illich.
- He wrote and saw published his book on the CBC.
- He met his youngest grandchild.
- He went to our cottage with his sisters, who were raised elsewhere and are rarely able to see each other.
- He travelled to Germany in 2024, and then Italy in 2025, for two Illich gatherings, which were joyful.
- He attended his launch for the CBC book, which brought together old friends from different parts of his life, beloved colleagues, and his family, and it was deeply satisfying to him, a moment of knowing he had made something substantial, not only through the book but through the work of his life.
- We had an 80th birthday party for him, just for his large family, and while he disliked or perhaps slightly dreaded the idea of it, when it happened it felt like another moment of knowing you have made something.
- Those six years mean that all his grandchildren are old enough to remember him.
- And over the six years, he had a lot of conversation and a lot of singing.

Right now it’s hard not to feel rebellious. He died in the midst, thinking about the next thing, working on a new book. But that was always going to be true. He was always in the midst. He was always thinking toward the next thing.
Immediately after he died, Aden Seaton, the daughter of Jackie Seaton, one of David’s oldest friends, also gone now, wrote to me. Jackie was a potter. Aden wrote that we are blessed in our fathers because they left behind something that is so much of themselves. Jackie’s pottery and David’s books and radio programs are tangible real things that continue in the world, and that contain the essence of their makers. That’s a huge gift.

Ivan Illich, who was so important to David, wrote, “if there is something like a political life to be, to remain for us, in this world of technology, then it begins with friendship.”
David gave us all his friendship. We’re lucky too.

Reading: – Daniel Cayley, from Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, (p.321, marked with a post-it note by David):

I am, maybe, the ultimate Protestant, the man at the end of the Protestant road, for as I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.

Reflection: The Meaning of the Heart – Laura Gallagher-Doucette

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be good and acceptable to you, O God, my rock and my redeemer, amen.

Earlier, I shared that I came to know David through his writing. The book was his last book on Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey. It was the first book a group of new and old friends read together in what would become an ongoing reading group and community.
I believe that the ideas in An Intellectual Journey helped form that community. One of these ideas, one word, that stayed with the group and stays with me, is conviviality, and its importance for living. The time I met David it seemed to me that the conviviality of which he wrote in remembering his friend Ivan Illich was a principle he brought into his own life.
My friend Philippe, who had organized our group, had told us that a special guest would be joining us for our last session. For whatever reason, none of us guessed that it would be David himself, who was not only with us for the discussion about his writing, but stayed long into the evening, sharing a meal and conversation, and bringing liveliness and an instant camaraderie with him.

There is much that could be said about David’s life, only a small fraction of which I know. But we are here to do more than to eulogize him: we are here to honour something more essential than his characteristics or accomplishments, though these should be remembered.
We are here witness life drawn to its completion.
In conversation with Jutta and Kate, I learned about changes to David’s health and his experience navigating the healthcare system, much of which took place in the context of the pandemic. While I listened to these stories, it struck me that while David had a love of life, he did not live in denial or fear of death.
I sense that his love of life included a reverence for its natural end.

Words from the United Church’s most recent faith statement (a creed of sorts) came to mind as I considered this:
We can accept our mortality and finitude, not as a curse, but as a challenge to make our lives and choices matter.
David seems to have lived this way—with intentionality — accepting the challenge to make his life and choices matter. One of the gifts he leaves us is this example of how to live well.

Some of you may know that in the end, it was David’s heart that stopped working. You may also know that in the final years of his life, he was able to live in full and vibrant ways, despite serious concerns about his heart. Jutta shared with that during those years, David became interested in The Meaning of the Heart. When others might have become preoccupied by medical information or what could be done to prolong life, David, true to form, became curious about philosophical meaning and how to live well in light of that meaning.
There is the esoteric meaning David likely delved into — and yet we also know a less hidden meaning of the heart — which is, of course, Love.
There could be no better subject of contemplation near the end of life, because love is life’s essence… Love is life’s everlasting heart, which has been with us since before we were born and goes with us beyond death.

As Wendell Berry reminded us in the words read by Daniel, love and its message belong everywhere and with everyone…it cannot be confined to any time or any place, any particular tradition or particular people, or even, as Paul reminds us, to our earthly life, as he assures us that: …neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the completeness of David’s life the particularities of who he was make way for life’s very essence, the love in which he now dwells completely.
And so, while his earthly journey is done, we can meet him not only in our memories, but in the love that flows through all Creation and beats, miraculously, in our own hearts, too.

May it be so. Amen.

Prayers of the People & The Lord’s Prayer – Laura Gallagher-Doucette

Gracious God,
thank you for the gift of life, for the blessing of relationship, and all the ways in which we come to know your love. We thank you for those with whom we share our lives, our families and loved ones, our friends and neighbours, the living land and her many creatures…Today we thank you especially for David… We are grateful for all the ways he touched peoples’ lives and created community… We thank you that he feels no suffering or pain, and that he has entered into the joy of your presence.
We pray for David’s family and friends, and for all who grieve this loss…
We pray especially for: Jutta…For Kate and Lea, Luke and Melinda, Daniel and Francesca, Rachael and Mitch…For Jacob, Eli, Livia, Tom, Danny, Kane, and Alexandra…For Susan, Jane, and Frank…And others who we name in the silence of our hearts…May the love in David’s relationships go on.And may any pain or regrets be released. May David’s care for community and the world around him inspire us to live with courage and conviction…And may our time together today strengthen and renew our reverence for life…Let’s bind all our prayers – including those too deep for words – with the prayer that Jesus taught, the Lord’s Prayer…

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever. Amen.

Commendation

You only are immortal, O God, Creator of all.
We are mortal, formed of the earth,
and to the earth we shall return.
This you ordained when you created us, saying,
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
All of us return to the dust;
yet even at the grave we make our song:
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
Give rest, O Christ, to your servant David, with all your saints,
where there is neither pain nor sorrow nor sighing,
but life everlasting. Amen.

Please be seated.

Reading: from The Fire and the Tale by Giorgio Agamben – Rachael Cayley. This book was on David's desk when he died.

When the Baal Schem, the founder of Hasidism, had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer, and what he had set out to perform was done.
When a generation later, the Maggid of Meseritz was faced with the same task, he would go to the same place in the woods and say “We can no longer light a fire, but we can pray.” And everything happened according to his will.
When another generation had passed, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov was faced with the same task, and he would go to the same place in the woods, and say: “We can no longer light a fire, nor do we know the secret meditation belonging to the prayers, but we know the place in the woods, and that can be sufficient.” And sufficient it was.
But when another generation had passed and Rabbi Israel of Rishin was called upon to perform the task, he sat down in his golden chair, in his castle, and said: “We cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayer, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of all this.”
And, once again, this was sufficient.

Closing Hymn: I’ll Fly Away

Words of Blessing – Laura Gallagher-Doucette

May you go from this time and place with the meaning of love alive in your hearts…
Go with comfort and courage.
And as you go, know that God, the source of love, goes with you now and always. Amen.