"Hixon’s search, comparable to Thomas Merton’s in its painful inclusion of sophisticated doubt and its cosmopolitan longing for universality, was cut short by his death from colon cancer, which spread to his liver, on November 1, 1995, at the age of fifty-three. . . . Hixon’s extreme ecumenism, which he credited to an early reading of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, the great work of the Divine Mother tradition of Bengal, was definitely reflected in his memorial service in December 1995 at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The service opened with a welcome by its dean, James Morton. Dervishes of Hixon’s masjid danced, of course, led by Shaykha Fariha. But other traditions were equally represented. Roshi Glassman, a Zen teacher in the lineage of the White Plum Sangha, posthumously performed a Dharma Transmission, which Hixon had been scheduled to receive on December 8 to proclaim him a Zen teacher empowered to give the Bodhissatva precepts to all creation. Juliana Schmemann, the wife of the deceased dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, also spoke. Hixon and his wife had spent three years studying theology at the seminary after having been Chrismated into the Orthodox Church of America in 1983. A close friend, Rabbi Don Singer, recited the last verse of the Kaddish. Robert Thurman’s eulogy was titled, "Praises of Lex." Philip Glass performed his own composition, 'Satyagraha.'
" 'The memorial service was like no other,' recalled Wheelock Whitney, Hixon’s first cousin. 'My most enduring memory is of the somewhat bemused, if always very dignified, expressions on the handsome faces of Lex’s parents, Alec and Adelaide, as they sat in the front row and received the effusive homage of hundreds of Lex’s friends and followers, which ranged from bear hugs to complete prostration at their feet. I was also very moved that the service ended with a gospel song, since his spiritual journey presumably began in Christianity.' Indeed during the year of his illness Hixon had found inspiration in listening to tapes of Gospel music, and so a medley of these African-American hymns was sung by two associate ministers from Mt. Nebo Baptist Church. Hixon was buried in the cemetery of a little town of Sayner in northern Wisconsin nears the woods of Plum Lake, where he and his wife had kept a log cabin with no running water."
