Archive for March, 2012

The Bacon Casket

1 year ago
by Caleb Wilde in

There’s bacon cola.

There’s bacon mints.

Bacon man spray.

Bacon Ice Cream.

And, yes …

Bacon has it’s own niche market that says, “if you stick bacon in it, it will sell.”

Yesterday, Addie Zierman notified me via Twitter that there was now a Bacon Casket that’s being made by J&D’s Foods.  Per the creators of the Bacon Casket:

“Yes, this is really real.  Bacon Coffins are finished with a painted Bacon and Pork shading and accented with gold stationary handles. The interior has an adjustable bed and mattress, a bacon memorial tube and is completed in ivory crepe coffin linens.”

Don’t you judge us, after baconlube (bacon flavored personal lubricant), we all knew it was just going to keep getting weirder.  And yeah, you are right we’re probably going to hell for this one.

Yes.  Some religions would send you to hell for supporting the consumption of bacon; but — in my religion — heaven is a place where bacon can be consumed in mass quantities without any fear of coronary clogging.

The Bacon Coffins are available for $2,999.95 plus shipping.

Baconphiles of the world … what say you?

Do you really love bacon to death?

Caption, comment or complain away ….

The Tragedy of Trayvon Martin’s Death

1 year ago
by Caleb Wilde in , ,

If you need to be brought up-to-date on 17 year old Trayvon Martin’s death, here’s a link.

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Back in 1969 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the world to her theory that there are five stages of grief:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Since 1969, her stage theory has been questioned, expanded, reapplied and farther qualified, but many psychologists still see these stages as a framework for identifying the outworking of bereavement of all kinds.  These stages are a framework of identification, not a timeline that produces expectation or even explanation.

Everyone deals with grief differently, at their own pace, on their own terms because grief is based on the individual connection to the deceased.  It’s a relative process that works within some loosely defined framework of stages.

And those stages are greatly impeded when death occurs through injustice.

Denial quickly moves to anger.  And anger becomes a way of life.  Or — more accurately — anger becomes the way of a tragic death.

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People can move out of the angry stage when death is “natural”.  Granted, I’m not sure if there’s ever any death that is inherently natural; but, when compared to suicide, homicide or an accidental manner of death, a “natural” death at least provides a less combative explanation.

As awful as cancer is, we have something impersonal to hate and blame.  We blame “cancer”, and as angry as we might feel it just doesn’t fully compare to the anger that we feel when the thing to blame for death is a person.  When we have a person and a name to blame for death, anger becomes a beast.

Homicides (and suicides) have this uncanny ability to produce an insatiable anger towards the killer.  And when that death is complicated by legal jargon, racial tension and the obvious injustice of having an older man shoot a 17 year old, the anger is amplified to the milieu we are witnessing today with Trayvon Martin’s death.

Trayvon’s death was a real tragedy.

It will produce a death of life within his family as they fight, fight, fight for a justice they’ll never fully see.  It will produce death of life for his friends who will draw racial lines the size of the Great Wall of China.  It will produce death in all the surrounding neighborhoods as all will distrust all.

The tragedy of Trayvon Martin is not only the death of a young man, but the death waves that will be produced as we all get stuck on anger.  The tragedy of Trayvon Martin’s death is that it will produce exponential death.  It’s the sad result of injustice.  And it’s why God loves righteousness.

The Day I Became Jesus

1 year ago
by Caleb Wilde in ,

A reading from The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 37 – 40:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

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Nearly two weekends ago we reveled in the uncomfortable in breaking narrative of the Kingdom of God.

And as the narrative unfolded, we played the part of Jesus.

We are used to playing the part of Jesus.  After all, we’re Christians.  We’re a “little Christ”, “followers of Jesus” who are supposed to think, feel and do like Jesus in this world.

I work at a funeral home where I regularly minister – what I hope – is the compassion, grace and perspective of Jesus.

Both my wife and I work and volunteer at a parachurch ministry for at-risk and vulnerable youth, being Jesus to youth who have little to no family.

And this past weekend we were the adoptive couple to a healthy newborn baby boy.

But, we didn’t play the part of Jesus that you might have assume we played.

You – and I – would assume that we would have played the part of the redemptive Jesus. The Jesus who swooped down in the life of this little boy and rescued him from a potential life of difficulty.  His biological father out of the picture.  His biological mother fighting to provide for herself.

And we – the 30 something, financially stable, mature Christian couple – swooped down to take him into our Christian family.  We were the redemptive Jesus here. Right?

Wrong.

Nicki and I were the poor and broken Jesus.  The Jesus in the jail.  We were the homeless Jesus.  The whore Jesus.  The Jesus on the street corner begging for money.

We were the least of these.

In this situation, we weren’t the Jesus who gave all, we were the Jesus who received all.  We were the ones who couldn’t provide for ourselves.  We were the ones who needed the redemptive Jesus to come in and make us whole.  We were the couple who couldn’t conceive.

We were the ones who needed to be lifted out of our misery by someone else’s act of unselfishness.

And by one act of unselfishness, we were redeemed this last week.  We were lifted up.  We were made whole by a young woman who made the utterly unselfish choice to give us her baby.

“For I was broken and infertile and you gave me your son.  Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did it me.”

It’s not very often that we really get to act like Jesus.  But last week, we were able to be Jesus – not in our giving – but in our receiving.

Monday’s Death News

1 year ago
by Caleb Wilde in

1.) I don’t know how to touch the following photo without sounding like I’m from the 1950s; but here it goes: the dress code for funerals is changing fast. Here’s the context of this photo: the picture is of Christina Aguilera at Etta James’ funeral back in January.  She’s wiping a line of sweat off of her leg that is smearing her spray-on-tan as she walked up to the stage to sing “At Last” during the funeral.

I’ve seen guys come to funerals wearing tank tops, shorts and flip-flops.  I’ve seen viewing attendees come in with their coffee and actually spill said coffee right in front of the casket.  And now, thanks to Christina, I’ve seen an ample amount of funeral fashion cleavage.

Am I a misogynistic prud, or are you disturbed by the funeral clev as well?  Have any other funeral practitioners ever seen this much clev at a funeral … maybe I’m sheltered … or maybe this is just how Hollywood rolls … and bounces.

2.) This news piece speaks for itself.

If I died at work, I know what would happen: I would become the work.

If you died at work, what do you think would happen?

3.) Speaking of dying at work … soccer club player Fabrice Muamba suffered cardiac arrest during a soccer match and needed 15 shocks to recover.  Apparently he was clinically dead for 78 minutes.  Clinical death is when the patient’s heart has stopped and doesn’t operate on it’s own.

Muamba is apparently fine now.  Not many people can claim they were dead for 78 minutes.  In fact, I knew you could be resuscitation from clinical death, but 78 minutes?  WOW!

4.) If Muamba did die, I bet he would’ve wanted this brand new hearse from Rolls-Royce for his funeral.  So freakin sweet.  And it only costs $663,950.  What makes that price so cheap is that it is multi-purpose.  You can use it as mini-van to haul the kids, as a normal driver and — when you need it — as a hearse.  Three cars in one.  At only $220,000 per function.  I want one.  And I would be willing to sell my kidney.

5. As you may well know Sacha Baron Cohen is a funny guy.  I’ve been following him since Ali-G and was in the theater opening night for “Borat.”  He has a new character (“The Dictator”) and a new movie by the same name that’s due out on May 11th.

If you watched the Oscars, you may have seen him spill Kim Jong Il’s cremains.  If you missed it, here is Ryan Seacrest getting baptized with some Il-mains by “The Dictator”.

If you have any death links for me, let me know!  I’m always looking for interesting death links to put in Monday’s Death News.

Nine Months of Emotional Labor

1 year ago
by Caleb Wilde in

I have been told that during the Iron Age parents would not name their child until it was a year old. The infant mortality rate was so high during ancient times that parents protected their hearts by simply not naming their son or daughter.  It was a defense mechanism, a practical survival ploy for the parents, whereby they could shield their heart from attaching to a nameless child that was likely to die.

Today – with the incredibly low infant mortality rate that science and medicine have provided us — we simply don’t have such a problem.

Except, for those of us who adopt, there is a great risk that we could lose our child in the first couple months of our child’s life.  And we could be tempted to distance ourselves from the child we’ve fought so hard to bring into our home.  We could be tempted to hold back our love so as to protect ourselves from the possibility that he or she could be given back to the birth father or birth mother.

Over the next nine months, Nicki and I will love, care for and attach ourselves to a child that wouldn’t legally be ours.  Although it’s unlikely that we will lose Jeremiah, it’s possible.  Not probable, but possible.

In our specific situation, the birth father isn’t a part of the picture, but he does seem willing to fight the birth mother’s decision.  And although the birthmother is honestly our hero, the birthfather could take away this little gift.  If the birth father decides that he wants Jeremiah, if he hires a lawyer, and if he is deemed competent, Jeremiah is his to parent.

Part of me wants to see the birth father as MY enemy.  An enemy of my dreams, of my hopes for a family, and enemy of Jeremiah.  But then I realize that he’s unintentionally gifted me this little guy that’s tucked into my chest even as I write.  No, I want God to bless the birth dad.  And I pray for him.  I pray for him because I can’t help but love the birth dad.  I pray for him, asking God to love on him something awesome.

If he doesn’t sign off his rights, according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they will terminate in roughly five months.  After those five months, Jeremiah will legally be in the custody of our adoption agency for four months.  And after those four months are over, we meet with a judge and Jeremiah legally becomes our son.

Its nine months of emotional labor, with these first four to five months being extra taxing on Nicki and I.

We’re jumping all in, though.  We’re NOT going to be the parents of the Iron Age and attempt to distance ourselves so as to avoid being hurt by loss.  We’re going to love as much as we can, the best we can, with as much of ourselves as we can give.  We are going to love Jeremiah Michael Wilde (that is his legal name … a gracious gesture given to us by the birth mother when she filled out the birth certificate). And if we lose Jeremiah, we might have intense pain, but we’ll have no regret.

In the meantime, we’ll love and live and … we’ll fundraise (more on that later).

We SO don’t want to lose him. It’s amazing how much your heart can love in just one week.  So, please pray for us.  Pray that we’d be “all in” and love without worry.  Pray for the birthfather.  Pray that God would bless him.  And pray that we’d be blessed to have the privilege to legally adopt Jeremiah.

And if you’re not the praying type, send us your love and hope.

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