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.
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!
How are you formed?
Here are just two ways God can form us.
See this video of a potter. At the start, the clay is just a lump. Not much to look at, little beauty, non functional, and undeveloped. Yet, because of its quality of malleability, it can be fashioned, sometimes rather quickly, into a masterpiece. A lovely, useful, handmade, creation, worth much more than an untouched lump of clay.
When the raw material is harder, more force is needed to change its form. See this case in metal working. But, remember, hammering the metal into form is most often preceded by a time in fire to soften it.
We fall into both of these categories as we develop. We have metal areas, and clay areas that need work. Which do you have more of?
God employs his Holy Spirit in whatever methods and processes are needed for that particular area of our lives. Often we need to be more softened and flexible before we are ready. For our own good, and for the good of others, God fashions us. To a certain degree we can choose the kind of raw material we give to God to recreate. When we present our hearts and minds willingly, the process of forming us into something very beautiful is a less painful and vigorous process. Sometimes, we have already presented ourselves willingly, and the suffering comes, regardless.
However, the less we surrender to the skillful, creative, loving work of God, the more time we’ll need in “the fire” to purify, refine, and prepare ourselves. In the end, God makes us so beautiful that we may hardly be recognizable.
When you are in times of great struggle, keep the end in mind. No two people will be formed in the same way. And, no trail is wasted. Our change is in the process, and our hope is in God’s final product.
It the area of “Spiritual Formation” (also called, discipleship) we may intentionally undergo practices that nurture Christ-likeness. We encounter a series of little deaths in devotion to the process at hand. We relent.
Should we be weak like wet clay, and not strong like iron? Some of that is not up to us, and much depends on how we will be used by God. If we try to be rigid like metal, God will take our kinks out, and knock of the useless parts. It’s not possible to apply a bit of hand pressure to metal, like it is to a spinning mound of clay. God may employ a mallet to get the job done. The job still needs to be done, no matter the process. God will have his way, so that we can be recreated. The longer we are rigid, the longer the process takes, even for clay.
Here’s the part I missed in my spiritual formation, until recent times: God is Good, and trustworthy. There was such a string of woe in my life, that I took God for a menace, or very drowsy. In gaining experiential, devotional, and formal training about God (which is the study of God, i.e.theology), I changed.
In a greater way, I know that though my heart may be battered, it will not be reshaped by a malicious God. The Supreme Being does not cause or let us endure suffering out of sport, or sadistic kicks.
How we see our struggles, the pain in this world (and God’s part in it (or absence in it, if the case may be), has everything to do with who we REALLY think God is, and what we REALLY believe about his core nature. Many times we attach human characteristics to God. Flawed ones. Please don’t forget this part: Those foundational beliefs we have, tell us about ourselves; and are inaccurate about God.
As in the case of Jesus (God with skin on), we see a deeply compassionate image of the Divine. An accurate image. We see amaze grace and self-sacrafice. We see God caring for us, and caring for us well. A gaze at God’s abundant creation will tell us the same thing. So, this is the true picture/reflection of God. He may let us get a pounding, but we will not be hammered in vain. Here, my friends, is our Hope.
So, imagine the best and ideal parent. (Mind, this won’t be anyone you know. This parent is not possible, in human form.) As a loving parent looks at a helpless baby, the good parent feels a sense of great responsibility and deep compassion. The idea to hurt the baby is nowhere to be found. Non existent. It is in this type of love and compassion that we are forged or molded. (Often in the Bible this is word love and compassion is translated, in English, to “loving-kindness” or “tender mercies”.)
Reflect-
1. What has been an area of clay that God has shaped in your life?
2. What is an area of metal that God is working on in your life?
Receiving Your Thoughts-
What stood out to you in the videos?
What do you have to contribute to thoughts about the process of sanctification? (Or, tell us your thoughts about how God helps us to mature and grow?)
Today is my 5th day with Poison Ivy. I wish getting a rash from the stuff made me look like Uma Thurman in the Batman Series. But no. It’s on my right hand, my neck, and my face. (I’ll spare you a picture…but if you’re weird and very curious you can find one I posted on Facebook… cause I’m weird. It was really more of a cry for help.)
My husband was impervious to the wiles of the wicked weed throughout his whole life. He was a sort of “Leaves of three, won’t hurt me,” kind of person. He was quite immune, and had an immense confidence in his resistance.
Little did he realize that one can develop a sensitivity at any time in life; sometimes suddenly–out of nowhere. You probably know where this is going, right?
Yep. Two years ago he yanked out a very pesky vine in our yard, and developed bumps under his watchband. “Bug bites,” he said. Very nasty and itchy bite causing bugs, with the kind of kind of moxie to work around and under a tight plastic strap, and skip all the easy biting areas. Hands? Ankles? Neck? That’s for sissy bugs! These bugs were The Seal Team 6 of the insect world.
After a few days, and the “bug bites” spreading (strangely enough), he complained how powerfully allergic he turned out to be to these vicious insect creatures. I took one look, and said, “That looks just like poison ivy.”
He said, “It can’t be poison ivy. I don’t get poison ivy.” Still, he agreed to have the doctor take a look, and was treated with a steroid for guess what? Now, he lives a life of fear for that side of our yard. Recollecting the agony has made him a different man.
HERE is a link to properly identify these common rash inducers.
People can be like poison ivy. Sure everything is innocuous at first. Maybe, we think, “Great, they’re raspberries!” Raspberries have leaves-of-three. And raspberries are delicious! Mmm. We interact with them, and after some searching, we don’t seem to find the fruit we thought we would. Nevertheless, no ill comes of it. It’s more of a enigma than anything. Hardy plants too. Look at them take off!
Then one day, it strikes us, these leaves-of-three people actually cause irritation, and a distracting burning itch…that spreads. You may try to make it work. You may try to just “semi-interact” with them, but a rash is always the result. Usually, it’s the kind of rash that gets a bit worse with each encounter.
Finally, you realize, “Leaves-of-three, let them be.” They are, in fact, poisonous to you and many others…even though they may seem like wonderful raspberries at first. Where they are comes annoyance, pain, or vexation. They are clever look-alikes. Nothing can make them raspberries, and you have to stop acting as if there is a way that a wholesale change into “something else” is possible. You realize you can cancel their debt of inflicting you, but you don’t want to be touched by them, or get too close anymore. It’s just not worth it.
Have you ever had to avoid a “poison ivy person”?
What are some cures or remedies you’ve heard of for helping with poison ivy? (The plant kind, or the people kind.)
And I’m really curious, What kind of prayer do you think might help with regards to poison ivy people?
A crown fit for this King, our Sacrifice. Our selfless Savior.
The image and concept of the thorny crown is powerful to me. As heirs of the King, I think our “crowns” are, also, thorns–in this present world. We’re not here for glory in any human sense. Our “success” will look very different. It will be counter-cultural, or even unapparent.
The story of the thorny crown is a provocative one:
Imagine a mighty and good king coming from another place, and he is “welcomed” with the “honor” of huge, piercing barbs smashed down into his head.
This strange irony is such a perfect picture of our rejection of God and his ways. We pick our own way. Absorb the idea that God paid for your foolishness.
