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SHOCK & BAWL: A Tale of Jeep Rage

Somedays you need to read uplifting or humorous posts to soothe yourself. I GET THAT. Friday seems two weeks away. You and I both know that sometimes we must find a way to laugh so we don’t freak out on someone, or weep uncontrollably into our Dunkin’ Donuts napkin.

This is probably not going to do that for you. But, you can read it, and shoot up a quick prayer thanking God that you aren’t my spouse. So, that’s a pick-me-up. You’re welcome.

True Story:

Once I made a horrible driving error. I’m pretty sure it was the one and only time, but I completely cut someone off on the Interstate.

So, I swing into the passing lane and make a guy in a jeep brake and swerve. Panicked, and intolerably stupid, I flee the scene…by intricately weaving through traffic, no less. Maybe if I’m out of sight I can be out of mind too, I think. No, it’s actually more of a pure flight-or-fight response. I was about 7 year old at the time, and my frontal lobe was under-developed.

Indeed, it’s all a crescendoing avalanche of foolishness. Incited, a second motorist blows his horn and starts to tail me in a move of solidarity against vehicular injustice. Things are getting totally nuts. No doubt he’s readying a tall finger for my witness. My NASCAR lane changing moves soon best him, or maybe he realizes a highway fatality is too high a price just to send a hackneyed message.

As I flee I see the victim in my mirror. He’s frothing and out of his mind with rage. He’s waving limbs around in wild fury, gassing it. He’s in hot pursuit. It’s a Jeep thing, maybe.

Now, I’m terrified. I taste the bile in my mouth.

My heart pounding, I realize this all could end very poorly. And soon.

That blaze of glory stuff is an awesome idea until you start thinking about the minutia of funeral arrangements, or wreckage in general. Yes. The poor man swerved to avoid a smash style killing of both of us. It could have been a horrid pileup too. We truly had eluded death by narrow margins. 14 guardian angels later file grievances. 3 others walk off the job immediately in complete frustration.

Jeep guy was quite good at swerving, actually, and keeps up the swerving through interstate congestion to reach me. Maybe for seconds. Maybe for kilometers. Things are getting weird. A few truckers start honking, to support me, I assume. (They probably notice my professional driving acumen. What 7 year old can draft and weave with such precision? I’m a prodigy. Surely they recognize that. It’s a rush to have their approval. They’re pros after all and they know motoring prowess when they see it.)

At this point I realize Mr Jeep guy is going to try to pull some kind of payback stunt. He’s all in.

Battle of the Stupid Driving Stunts is the theme of the afternoon, but who can blame him? At this point, he’s jacked up pretty good. I’m in a subcompact. How bad will this get? Does he have a gun? Or, will he keep it simple and just run me off the road with a triumphant fist pump? Will I be late for Girl Scouts?

How is this going to end?

I do some quick thinking. Finally. Thoughts not just reactions. I mentally pat myself on the back as my synapses fire two or maybe three times…in a row with no problems!

Actually, I stopped breathing for 8 minutes.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, right? Well, it is. I am inventing a solution with an unfettered brain buzz that comes just before you die or you nearly die. I’ve scene this in the movies: It’s always in slow motion.

I do the only thing I think will hit the reset button. (Yes. I know there’s no real reset button. Curse you, Staples! Or Vanilla Sky…)

**I decide on the element of SURPRISE!**

Of course, I had just surprised him quite a bit a moment earlier by nearly snuffing out his life. “Surprise, dude!”

Yet, this is precisely why he will never see a second surprise coming. Really, I had him right were I wanted him.

(If only the roaring terror in my brain had let me enjoy that precious moment. Alas, no. Not at all.)

I enact my own creative SEAL 6 black ops tactic I now call:

Operation Boo-hoo.

It’s go time!

I burst into tears.

I cry.

Sob, really.
Or, I pretend to.

Who has the time to form actual tears at such a high rate of speed and in heavy traffic–before they’re about to be murdered in an act of heedless revenge? Me neither.

Armed with a fistful of tissues I wipe my eyes and feign bawling. A lot. He approaches in haste (of course, because he’s ready to kill me).

From me: Zero eye contact. (Like he’s not even there. A genius move. Remember that for later in your own travels.)

Peripherally, I see him. He edges up to my blind spot. Hovering. Ready to pounce.

He’s poised. He peers. He notices me. He witnesses total hysteria. …and then…mercifully… eases off. (Perhaps I turned out to be a 3 gallon bucket of mess and he only has a 2 gallon bucket that day.)

Yes, I counted on his attitude changing once he thought something else was going on with me. Something mental. Something suicidal or wickedly moronic–barely thwarted by his quick reflexes.

Or, just something too crazy to understand.

Shock and bawl.

I was going for, “Wha….?”
Is it Grief? remorse? madness? sorrow? a lost puppy? What. is. the. deal?
Whatever…let me just say it worked. Perfectly.

Later, I rewarded myself with a new box of Kleenex…with aloe.
I’m not sure why I wasn’t armed with aloe tissues in the first place. But, never again.
Because that would be crazy.

If that was you in the Jeep, thanks.

I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t see you. We both avoided certain doom.

P.S. (I might have not been 7 years old at the time.)

6 Notes on Creativity: A Dispatch from Sparky Pronto

I’m writing as “Sparky Pronto” (my alter ego) who has the wisdom of the Muses to spark your creative muse and give you encouragement.

A few thoughts…

• Ignore insinuations that creating isn’t part of your reason for being here.

• When you make good art consistently, eventually you will be rewarded.

• Only a few people will “get you” and what you’re doing, if any do at all. That is no reason to stop creating.

• If you feel alive when you create, it’s crazy to stop or let it lag. Don’t.

• Creativity is like water. Jumping into a creative flow will be messy. Know that going in.

“Is Mark Driscoll a Cult Leader?” (Infographic)

In the last post I talked about the qualities of a cult, or a group that has social decay (some cult-like qualities). I got some questions, such as: “So, are you implying that Mark Driscoll is a cult leader?”

Gosh… that’s awkward. Instead of making a pronouncement, I’ll let you judge for yourself.

I made this handy info graphic to make the whole thing easier to understand. Enjoy.

Cool bonus. This image may be shared. Official Creative Commons license of this work.

Like this info?

Embed it in your site!

 
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contacting the creator: http://lisadelay.com.

The Story Behind the Song “Jesus Loves Me” (a poem by Anna Bartlett Warner)

Here’s the Story behind the song Jesus Loves Me.

The song most of us have sung, Jesus Loves Me was written by Anna Bartlett Warner who was born August 31, 1827 – died January 22, 1915. Warner was an American writer, the author of several books, and of poems set to music as hymns and religious songs for children. (Via Wikipedia)

Anna’s family home was quite close to the United States Military Academy at West Point, in New York, in the era just before the Civil War. Each Sunday Anna taught Bible classes to the cadets. Her remains are buried in the military cemetery, and her family home is now a museum on the grounds of the United States Military Academy.

Undoubtably, her most well-known work (and the point of this post) came from the poem from her and her sister’s 1860s quite sentimental and best-selling novel entitled Say and Seal. It was soon set to music by William Bradbury, who added the chorus we still sing today in one of the most well-known children’s Christian hymns of all time…you guessed it! Jesus Loves Me. Many soldiers on the battlegrounds during the War Between the States sang this hymn and found spiritual comfort.

In a scene that brought many people to tears in the novel, a child lays dying and is comforted from his pain, as the main character recites a poem:

Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong;

They are weak, but He is strong.

Children of God, let it be your simple prayer today.

Blessings.
-Lisa

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!