Guest Post: Caleb Wilde’s “Living at the Crossroads of Life and Death”

From CTJ: I found Caleb Wilde on Twitter a few months ago and was immediately fascinated. My dad had given me a copy of Thomas Lynch’s excellent The Undertaking a few years ago for Christmas – a funereal present at a festive time – and it left an indelible mark on my soul. “What do funeral directors think about death?” you ask. “What about funeral directors who subscribe to some form of faith? What do they believe? What do they doubt?” Caleb Wilde dares to answer these very questions. I am impressed with Caleb’s thoughtful blog, with his observations about his vocation, and with his dedication to serving humanity. Read Caleb’s post below, visit his blog, and follow him on Twitter. 

Most people think it’s the dead people – the embalming, the blood, the smells, etc. – that make a funeral director’s job slightly odd and difficult. And yes, that is part of it. But, from my perspective, what makes this job difficult – what changes you into someone “different,” alters you – is watching what Death does to those who are still alive.

We funeral directors work alongside four of the principal tyrants known to the souls of men – Death, Mystery, Fear and Religion. We have a twisted, mutualistic relationship with these Powers, as they provide us with a living and then they take us in the end.

This symbiosis affords us a lucid perspective of these Powers and their effects on humanity that few are willing and able to observe.  By definition, we are paid to stand in the visage of Death and not let our emotions flinch. We are paid to face death objectively so we can be stable as we stand amidst unstable souls.

As a paid observer of the effects of Death and a director of those it leaves behind, I’ve noticed that paradoxically, Death and its associate Suffering allow those their cold fingers touch to be human again.

We try so hard to escape our humanity – to feel self-reliant, independent, painless, almost indestructible and god-like – that we fail to remember just how fragile and childlike we are.

Death changes that. It makes us accept what we have been denying. It makes us like frightened children who look for the comfort and the “it’s-going-to-be-okay” embrace of our parents.

And yet, during death, when we look for the embrace from our heavenly Parent, we often receive only silence. We’ve been trained all our lives to speak about God, and then the great silencer takes our words away.

I live at the crossroads of silence between this world and the next.

In some sense, I live the life of Holy Saturday.[1]  I live in the silence and doubt between this world and the next, where faith is either extinguished or enlivened by mystery.

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

Follow Him on Twitter: @Saint_Upid

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