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9/11; and the Interview & Confessions of a Funeral Director…

 

View my 3 Part video interview with Caleb here.

 

The 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy a week from this Sunday. We will once again see images and recount the horrors of that day, and try in memorial to accept the reality of this world. Most of us don’t encounter death and our own mortality too often. Most of us don’t constantly see suffering, and witness grief and loss.

Please take some time today, or this weekend to remember that the events of 9/11 still bring pain to many. Loved ones are missed, and we can’t gloss over the national tragedy that left a collective hole in our hearts, even ten years later.

This seems a fitting time to discuss an author who is very acquainted with death. It’s his job to be, and his perspective can be very helpful to us. As promised a couple of weeks earlier, the following is my personal interview with blogger and upcoming author Caleb Wilde, a 6th generation Funeral Director, seminary student, husband, and expectant adoptive dad.

My Questions for Caleb:

 

1. Being a 6th generation funeral director, you have quite a unique vantage point on life, loss, and mortality. How do you think you live life differently than other Christians because of where God has placed you?

 

Caleb: In traditional religious calendars, the day in-between “Good Friday” and “Easter” is called “Holy Saturday”.  “Holy Saturday” is the day the disciples’ hopes and beliefs were engulfed in death and silence, as they viewed their Messiah’s death without the knowledge of the resurrection.

In some sense, I live the life of Holy Saturday.

As funeral directors, we’re paid by families to be a human shield to death, whereby we make death somewhat easier, less real and more proper.  As this human shield, I’m affected.  I’m affected by the brokenness, by the grief, by the hopelessness I see in faces, by the newly fatherless/motherless children, the tragic deaths and the accidents.

All this has made my personal faith more sensitive to questions of God’s goodness and justice.  It’s not easy for me to understand ideas of “eternal hell”, or ideas of “meticulous divine providence” or even “absolute foreknowledge” or “omnipotence”.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a Christian.

 

2. What do people misunderstand most about your work?

Caleb: We’re a lot like pastors.  Our jobs are really quite similar, except that one is recognized as “ministry” while the other is “business.”  That’s probably the largest misconception … there’s no way funeral directors can meet with grieving families through the most difficult time of their lives and come out on the other side as “business people.”

Everything else is true, though … we are dark and we are odd people.

In ancient times, death practitioners were ostracized from normal society by rule.  Today, we’re partly ostracized from the norm of society by practice.

 

3. The constant stream of customers (people dying, and their families burying them) can make one grow numb or cold toward the concept and process of death and burial. Do things still surprise you or impact you? What kind of things?

Caleb: There’s something so unnatural about death that (save the very old) it’s difficult to become numb.

 

4. You’ve probably thought about what you’d want your own funeral to look and sound like. Can you tell us about that?

 

Caleb: About two years ago, I started taking one minute video clips of myself, so that by the time I’m 70, I should have a montage of age progression videos that can be used for my funeral.

I’ve also talked about recording a message from myself to my family and friends that could be shown at my funeral as the eulogy.  But, by the time I’m ready to die, I figure they’ll have holographic projections, so I’ll wait for that tech until I record my final goodbye.

 

5. The saddest funeral I ever went to was for a 13 year old boy who took his own life. What have you learned about people during the time of more tragic circumstances that you’ve been a part of?

 

Caleb: Funerals/death are a perfect storm: you have death, the inheritance money, high emotions and family you might not like too much who are around you all the time.

Funerals intensify people’s real character.  You see the best in people and you see the worst.  The bad people will do horrendous things at funerals, like start fights, curse out their family members over money.  And you can see Jesus in the good ones.

 

6. Do you find your work mostly depressing, hopeful, profound, mundane, etc.? Would you recommend this vantage point to others?

 

Caleb: It’s a tough ministry that has little boundaries.  Many funeral homes are also generational, so many of us work with our dads, grandfathers, uncles and cousins, which can make this at-need work that much more difficult to set up healthy boundaries.

Similar to any ministry, I think there should be a passion for death work … a calling of sorts, whereby you know this is what you’re supposed to do.  And being a “calling”, few have witnessed this vantage point.

It’s unique.

 

7. Do you want to stay in the family business? Why or why not?

Caleb: Next question : )

 

8. Tell us a bit about how you view suffering, pain, and death from your unique perspective…which probably has a lot to do with the message in your book.

 

Caleb: I’ve built my understanding of God around suffering, pain and death.  It’s a local theology.  And my understanding of God, suffering, pain and death in light of my faith is the content of my upcoming book, “Confessions of a Funeral Director.”  Hopefully, it will be out in less than a year.  You can get an idea of how death has affected my view of God at my blog, www.calebwilde.com.  My book, though, will contain much more narrative than my blog.

 

9. What’s your best idea for a Smart Phone app.?

 

Caleb: I live near Lancaster County (PA), home of the Amish and Mennonites, so there’s a lot of intermarrying in these parts.  Not to mention, most of the towns in the rural areas of Pennsylvania have families that have lived there for centuries, so many of them are related.

I have an idea to partner with Ancestry.com and create an app the lets you bump smart phones with another person and it will tell you how you’re related to them.  My theory is that this will greatly help the evolution of humans by creating a purer gene pool.   The apps name is “Bump it before you Hump it”.

 THANK YOU, Caleb, and best wishes on your book. I’m really excited to get a copy. 

The working title for Caleb’s book is Confessions of  Funeral Director. A bit more on that here.

So, my reader friends, what are you curious about? Ask Caleb your deep, dark, or even silly questions!

Transcending gendered language. Capacitarianism… is, & is not…

Freddy, worshiping.

As I move toward a more formed definition of how gender issues can be transcended in the Kingdom of God, I’m hitting some roadblocks obstacles. Very expectedly, too.

This “Capacitarian” proposal, if you will indulge this term, is not all cut and dry…like so many abstract things, that must come to fruition by enactment. I continue to solicit your thoughts, and input. No, I won’t give the pretense of having a fully-formed argument. “In-process” is the operative word for this excursion. Yet, I bother to bring it up, in the first place, because I see some glaring shortcomings in our current models.

If you see some, too. I hope you’ll mention them.

(And yes, I made up the word for this proposal:  “Capacitarian” Pronounced: <CAP-pass-it-Tarry-ann>)

Why does the term “egalitarian” fail us?
A few have (rightly, I might add)  asked, something like, “If you want men and women to be treated and appreciated with equal worth, why don’t you just say, or use the term “egalitarian”?”

Here are a few reasons:

• Egalitarianism (proper) is too closely associated with politics and economic interests. It always has been. This has a consequential, and incongruent for our purposes, legal component, too. It is an interference, not a boon, to Kingdom life and the enactment of the gospel.

• Egalitarianism, as in “Christian Egalitarianism”, is most often understood as “the idea that men and women can and should function as equals in the church,” even if (or though) the true meaning is broader. The word means something beyond gender, like, rich and poor should function as equals…able-bodied and disabled…you get the idea. The prevailing connotation has undermined the term, making it less helpful. Simply put: “Egalitarianism,” the term, is not accurate enough. It shortchanges the bigger idea of what God is up to.

• God’s economy never really jives with our own. The actual working out of egalitarianism proves this, as well. It’s not enough to say, “We’re equal, let’s act that way.” Remember something called the Jim Crow laws from 9th grade history class? (Or, even better, maybe you recall them from experience. Separate but equal is ruse, whether intentionally or not.)

The difference is that a worldview change is in order, not just a mode or method of equalizing the parties involved.

• So, I propose we let go of using human economic terms which will move the conversation forward.

Likewise, if we use words for this issue that connote or speak in terms of power, (be it: social, political, gender, economic, racial, etc) we commence at the same starting point as we’ve had before. A secular starting point.

• This faulty starting point inherently undercuts the ironically nonpolitical (apolitical) quality of Kingdom life. My idea is to get away from human-centric thinking, not co-opt with it. There is a reversal of power in God’s economy, but not an antithetical reversal. So, we’re speaking of a whole new model where one cannot simply speak of things in reverse to properly apprehend it, or put it to rights.

• Equal opportunity of the members in the Body isn’t determined primarily by sentiments that “We are all of equal worth in the eyes of God.” True as this is, it is better sourced in the nature of God as person (a.k.a. “personhood”) *See note below. God’s Story is the starting point.

Capacitarianism
• It is in the very nature of God to forgo favoritism based on things humans would see as advantageous. We may give equal opportunity because we think that it is right or just. But this worldview is not about righting wrongs, or getting it right as (humanly speaking) its fundamental application point. Rather, it’s a new way of seeing and living in this world…Kingdom Come. [Theo-centric worldview]

So, moving forward we adopt that characteristic of God for our ways of relating too. Well, more than adopt. We absorb, and live and breath it. (It is the basis of our relating.)

• It is in the overarching plans of God (as seen in the whole of Scripture) that each one of us is “set free”. We reach our full potential as this occurs. We transcend, not just overcome our cultural bondage, et.al.. (See this Lukian passage, and the prophet Isaiah)

• Thus, restrictions based on finite qualities (nationality, gender, physical ability, financial prosperity, etc.) have nothing to do with God’s nature, and his vantage point. All those restrictions are eschewed. Being “set free” is the telos of creation.

• Harmonious/loving relationship, not (primarily) equality, is main aim of children of God…Kingdom citizens, in this proposal.

Paul advises this, speaking often of and encouraging unity in the Body.
Tri-unity (Trinity) is the essence of God. God: Communion and Love reciprocated ad infinitum.

• Hierarchy, then,  for our purposes, is a non issue (off the table), in any typical way we would be able to apprehend it, from a human understanding or from our experience. So, I contend that we cannot do well to draw on our flawed applications of so-called hierarchy if we are to move forward on this issue.

One more consideration on the particulars:
I propose that the idea of “the last will be first” is not a speaking of reversal of fortune, or class/status, but a full dismantling of human interaction, economy, epistemology, and eschatology as we have known it. That is to say: we don’t have a good way to gauge who is last or first, as we normally perceive life. I should also say that this means we will be very surprised who may or may not be “first”…whatever that means to God. It will likely mean something different to God, in itself, than to our understanding. God is speaking in terms, and will actualize terms in God’s way. It won’t look like what we imagine it will. I’m not sure his ways ever really have. The whole manner of the Messiah thing/Incarnation came as quite a shock, for instance.

What Capacitarian cannot be:
With regard to studying the marginalized, and in particular the disabled, it is critical to note that “capacity” in human intellectual, ability, or physical terms is not the pivot point for Capacitarian thinking. The capacity denoted has to do with the Holy Spirit giving us capacity for his good work. And, “work” he what God determines it is…which may just be lying there, vegetative, and soaking in Divine love.

A case in point: A severely mentally disabled child is given great grace and capacity by God. A simple, pure, and powerful faith and enjoyment of God which may not be attained by her “normal” peers or her church family in the same capacity. She may revel in worship music, with her whole soul (being); given capacity to be aware of and experience God’s holy love in that very moment.

Likewise, others historically on the margins of society may be afforded capacity in gifting, and understanding, and the Body of Christ utilizes each one in their unique way. (This may not appear to be equal in application, or role, but it is not gender-based either.)

• Suffering, or experiencing trials, it seems increases the opportunities for said capacity. (See James 1)

Each member of the body is given full honor. Each has a gift to give to the Body.

To be continued, next week!

Your thoughts are welcome during this process. Leave your comments.

* Note that person and personality is not exclusive to humanity (human persons), but rather refers to a being, individuality, or creatureliness, plus relational capacity. A being is a person, even a divine being is, in the case that this being is accessible (imminent). Basic Theology asserts God is both transcendent and imminent. God is a Person, Three-in-one.

Next post! The promised interview with Caleb Wilde, Funeral Director and author of the upcoming book, Confessions of a Funeral Director: Working Between This World and the Next.

Gender Roles and the Early Church (Envisioning “Capacitarianism”, Part II)

As we enter dialogue on gender, or rather, as I’ve proposed, moving past using gender to decide privilege in the church, it’s important to first realize the troubling influence from the (male) leadership in the early church. Their ideas continue to heavily impact the attitudes and practices of the contemporary church, and cause confusion.

Doctrine based on secular thought and culture:
When reading the thoughts of the early church fathers, we notice the heavy influence of secular Greek thought that disparaged women, and valued the spiritual far and above the physical/material, as well as and male over female. (see a bit on Dualism)

The Incarnation trumps cultural assumptions:
The Incarnation, however, fully appreciated the spiritual and the material, both. God reaffirms the dignity of the physicality and spirituality of the human being, and all of his physical Creation. A materialistic/dualistic approach (which still can be found subtly in Christianity, even today), undercuts what God has done in the life, ministry, and sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ.

Worldview Askew:
The ministry of Jesus, the Son of God, and the first generation of the Christian church was most scandalous in its progressive exercise of women in positions of influence and leadership (i.e. apostles, prophetesses, deacons, teachers, etc.). This thoroughly counter-cultural new sect and off-shoot of Judaism, who affirmed that Jesus of Nazareth, was and is divine, soon succumbed to typical male-dominated power and authority, and instead, mirrored the secular cultural worldview.

Most influential church fathers who articulated the earliest of Christine doctrine and practice, were much like their academic or secular peers in their misogyny. Typical (and secular) morays resumed.

Swiss Cheese Foundation Walls (Holey not Holy):
It seems that conversations and debates about men and women, and their roles in the church have only ever built on the thoughts of these errant church fathers, or, contrastingly, openly revolted against them (i.e. feminist theology). But, these are both tired and worn out arguments and vantage points that now have limited usefulness. We continue to merely speak past each other.

Eve Hating:
The man known in Christianity as, “The founder of Western Theology” is Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus,  best known in English as Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220 AD).

He covered apologetics, heresy, morals, church discipline, baptism, soteriology, and made a huge impact on one of Christianity’s most influential leaders, Augustine of Hippo.

Though Tertullian was well know for elucidating important issues of church life, as well as the gracious treatment of widows, his thoughts and comments about females are truly shocking to our contemporary ears. Read some for yourself: De Cultu Feminarum Book I. Chapter I.—-Introduction. Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women, in Memory of the Introduction of Sin into the World Through a Woman.

 Here are some Tertullian highlights:

• Man, not woman, is created in the image of God.

• Woman was and is the source of temptation.

• Like Eve, each woman is also:

  •  the devil’s gateway
  • the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree.
  • the first deserter of the divine law.
  • the one who persuaded him (Adam) whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack.
  • the one who destroyed so easily God’s image, man.
  • the reason the Son of God had to die.

Admittedly,  this glimpse is just that–a glimpse. A careful study of his ideas would be wise.

BUT-Is it really any wonder that women were relegated to inferior status ontologically, and within the community of believers? It’s not a surprise that women still are, only a disappointment.

Yes, Christianity has a sordid past. Humans are flawed. Yet, God’s plan is to use us (all) to bring about his ongoing redemption. I venture that we likely got off on the wrong track long ago. Many of the church fathers’ thoughts were wrong, in the first place. The time is ripe to begin afresh. Big improvements don’t really happen through recycling old methods, but rather by re-creating them from different commencement points.

Moving forward:
Defining “Capacitarian” (now pushed to a future post) will have everything to do with seeing things anew, from the vantage point of a gracious Creator, as much as possible. Our dignity and worth is truly sourced in God, not on the cultural bias of early church leaders.

We must jettison malformed doctrine.

Now, I ask you, if we are to re-envision and redefine the role of citizens in God’s Kingdom (versus deciding “men and women’s roles in the church” based predominantly on body parts) than what should be our foundation as we go forward?

What do you propose to re-shape our thinking? Submit your thoughts and ideas here, please. Please, help and enlist the contribution of others as well. A tweet or link is a great place to start.

UPDATE: Here is a link from Dan, I had to pass along. It’s by Ben Witherington.

 

 

 

A Fresh Model starts by Abandoning Worn Out Terms (i.e. egalitarian, complementarian) Part 1

"Battle of the Sexes" dilemmas seem dated now. Even for Christians.

Ah, the minefield of gender issues! Christians love to debate it, or love to hate the debate. Either way, we gawk.

Rachel Held Evans, Donald Miller, and Mark Driscoll have been creating internet whirlpools, social media buzz, and blog traffic as they poke at these issues lately.

Rachel and Mark will launching books on the topic  this fall, under the same publisher. Don claims he uses his blog to float book ideas and topics, so he’ll likely take a crack at it too. He’s been asking girls “why they give up sex” (sic.), and guys “why they hook up”, in separate posts, this week.  He’s deleted 2 controversial gender-themed posts that he cranked out (his words), also.

Most often this issue is termed (generally) “gender issues” or “gender roles in the church”. We find words like “leadership”, authority”, “power”, “ordination”, “justice”, and “equality” used. A lot.

Here’s the trouble. These decades-old (or worse) labels  (i.e. egalitarian, complementarian) don’t work well anymore. The popular writers discussing it right now haven’t tried to leave the worn out and confusing labels behind. We need a new model. We need more accurate descriptions, which is what labels try to do.

But, WHY Label? ugh.
I’m not a big fan of labels in the first place. I find them quite constricting. Yet, even if we don’t like labels, we have to agree that this sort of position makes us an “anti-label person”…this is, obviously, you guessed it, a label. Run everyone, a circular argument!

Categories are limiting and inadequate, and yet they are also necessary. We can’t hope to communicate without them. Keeping that in mind, I don’t want to be under the choke hold of worn out labels, as I enter this “hot topic”.

So, for the sake of discussion and mutual understanding, I’ll start very differently than all the others I’ve seen covering, or dancing around, the topic. I’ll propose some new terms and categories. Innovation moves us forward. Yes, we are living in very exciting times, my friends.

This is what brought me to this point:
In the red corner, we have Rachel Evans. She claims to be an Egalitarian. In the black and blue corner, Mark Driscoll flexes his Octogon man muscles, and puts the smack down on the issue with his version of the Complementarian view of gender roles. Is Donald Miller in the yellow corner? He might assist Rachel in a tag team sort of thing. We shall see.

Where does that leave us? I. don’t. know. But, I’m seeing very little positive progress.

CH- ch-Ch-Chan–ges!
When it comes to these issues, most recognize that change is afoot. Authors are taking it on. People are making statements, and firming up their positions. Still, nobody can really define where we are going, or where we should be.

For instance:
Conservative churches who have women leading ministries rarely dare call these females “ministers” or “pastors”*. Oh, no. They are “directors“. Is this satisfying? What’s going on, here?

I think I can hear some of the inner monologue now…
“Darn those working women of the last 30 years. Things have gotten confusing once we operated on the assumption that women were capable. Why can’t they just stay in line? Hurry, hurry, define what male and female is! The sky is falling.”

DeLayian Thought:
Simply put: I’d like to propose a new term and viewpoint. Let’s try the word and idea of “Capacitarian”. Yes, my friends, a new word for a new time.

If you noticed that the root of this word, I just made up for the purpose of coining it and creating a new term of engagement, is capacity, give yourself 28 points. (It’s like Shrute bucks.)

You want Biblical backing? No problem. It’s based on Paul’s admonitions, no less. That’s right, the big leagues.  1 Corinthians 12-13. More on this later.

(You probably thought I’d go with Jesus being the first Rabbi to have female students, right? Or God allowing the scandalous idea of Jesus’ Resurrection to be validated by females. Nope. Why drag Jesus into this? It’s uncomfortable territory many complementarians aren’t ready for quite yet, anyway.)

The Capacitarian Axis:
Rather than look to gender, the garden of eden, body parts, or middle-eastern morays of 2 millennia ago, to pick up on the conversation (as usual), how about a Kingdom of God vantage point, which, by definition, transcends gender and culture both? See Galatians 3:26-29. It’s so crazy, it just might work. It’s a fresh starting point.

In the next post:
Defining “Capacitarianism”
pronounced: <CAP-pass-it-Tarry-ann-is- uhm>

It’s long overdue to create new and fresh smelling dialogue and definitions for how we operate and cooperate in community and within the church. In the next few posts I (and I hope we) will deal with moving toward a recoup of the way we follow Jesus.

Here’s where you come in.
This is no place to go it alone (I don’t plan to). 

Share your thoughts on the issue. Do you feel comfortable with the typical labels that relate to doctrine on gender?

Please, chime in, interact, and contribute to finding a more abundant path–together. A pathway for communion and fellowship with each other, at a better spot, where we don’t use our labels as crutches or bullets. And, a spot where power and agenda isn’t part of the equation. A precious place where we enact and embody the gospel of grace in and through our interactions.

Begin with me, please. Thank you for your help.
–Lisa

Endnote:
*A quick look at the word and context of the word “pastor”, indicates a shepherd vocation. So, a helper, servant, and guide, not a kingpin. Just saying…

 

Thoughts on my 20 years of Internet Experiences

First internet browser: Mosaic

In a few months, I’ll be using the internet for 20 years. In college, I used something called GOPHER. I got email which consisted mainly of correspondence with other college students, and scientists sharing information. This was text based internet use. That’s right; this was pre-internet browser. (YIKES! I could have lost a whole bunch of you just now. You thought your browser was the internet, right?) 

A whole generation knows nothing of staring at a small monitor with green LED text for connecting with others on their computers.

I had the opportunity to frequent the campus of Carnegie-Mellon University, and enjoyed playing around in computer labs in the summers, and on my holiday breaks. This was especially, delightful when the first Apple computer came out in 1984. Hello, MacPaint! The school was (and likely is) 10-15 years ahead of the curve, technology-wise, compared to other institutions. It’s said that M.I.T. wishes it could be CMU when it grows up. Things like identity cards encoded with meal plan and student account information, campus ATM machines, direct deposit of paychecks, among other things were well in place in the early and mid 1980s.

WIKI tid bit: In the fall of 1990, there were just 313,000 computers on the Internet; by 1996, there were close to 10 million.

Then came a big breakthrough for the world Wide Web: Mosaic (Early 1990s). This was 15 years before more common browsers were created: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari (which I use) and later Google Chrome.

I took a field trip to NYC, and a design agency was helping the New York Times have a web presence, using Mosiac. Most companies scoffed at the internet at this time. It was merely a passing fancy, with no real practical purpose. Very few companies would put aside money to have a web presence. Netscape Navigator effectively broke the back of Mosiac in 1994, and like TV, the internet (which was not created by Al Gore, more here,) proved itself to be an invaluable innovation, not just a mere tech trend. The internet starting getting attention, and acceptance.

By 1995, I had my own email address on a home computer, and penned a local article predicting that in 10 years, everyone would be online, in the same way everyone had a home telephone at the time. Plenty of people thought that was absurd. I actually over shot that one. It was 7-10 years, probably.

Then, mobile phones were just gaining ground in the lives of ordinary people. Until that time, had been mostly a beeper market (pagers,), and those users were mostly doctors, firefighters, workaholics, and people who wanted to seem important or rich. They still make pagers, believe it or not. I’m not sure why. Security issues?

Now many of us have smart phones. Direct access to unfathomable amounts of information and connectivity from around the world. Governments, and long-standing dictatorships have been toppled as a result of shared news and information that the internet offers. And participation in internet social media is the rule, not the exception. (Case in point: Social Media just surpassed pornography as the most utilized form of internet use. Now, if that doesn’t say something, nothing does!)

We’ve emerged from the internet stone age (probably), and I cannot even imagine what is to come. You know what else? The predictions that we would be paperless, and book-less by now, were wrong. But, they were wrong about television and home movies/cable/etc. They said movie theaters would be obsolete, and shut down; and that couldn’t be further from the truth. We make room for useful technology, don’t we?

SO! What year did you get email, or start using the internet?

HEY! Remember the America Online (aol) sent out computer disks that would offer 15 free minutes if you signed up with them? I probably had 150 of them sent to me, and I never went for their offer. They would up the minutes in their promotion until it came to several hours worth.

Ahhh, the olden days. Apple won’t even be making computers with CD/DVD drives anymore. How about them apples? Even if you’re 16, you can feel old, when technology adapts so speedily.