Archive for year 2012
What I Do at Night
Aside from picking up the dead at night, I also attempt to raise broken youth at The Parkesburg Point Youth Center.
Right now I’m working with a young girl who was raped by her father when she was eleven. Raped by her father. At the age of eleven. And — with these young people — crimes of this severity committed against them aren’t abnormal. Some have been prostituted by their parents for drugs. Let me say that again: their parents allowed grown men to rape their children in exchange for a temporary high. Others live with their cousins, grandmothers, aunts because their parents simply didn’t want them.
Broken.
And on Tuesdays and Thursdays I am there for them. Whether it’s playing them in ping-pong or listening to their story, I’m there … practicing the ministry of presence.
This past week I talked to the young girl who had been raped. She’s under professional care. And I’m not a professional councilor. But, I like to listen.
“How far ahead can you imagine your future?”, I asked.
“Not far.”, she said.
“What do you see in your future?” I asked.
“I see suicide.”
“Do you see college, a career, a family … ?”
“No.”, she said. “All I see is death.”
And I just sat in the quiet of her answer, letting it fill the room with it’s darkness and my soul with it’s pain.
I finally responded, “I see more than death.”
At this point she looked up and made eye contact with me. I was about to speak life into her death and she knew it.
“I see freedom. I see you living and overcoming your darkness. I see you graduating high school. I see you going to college. I see you finding someone who will treat you like a princess … a man who will encourage you and love you for who you are.” And then (because this organization believes that God has something to say to these situations), I said, “I believe God is dreaming you a future.”
That conversation was the first of many that I’ll have with her over the next couple months.
As she left, I asked her to re imagine her future. To create a different future and be ready to tell me an alternate story in our next conversation.
This is what I do at night. In addition to being a funeral director, I’m also the part-time associate director at The Point, where I work with my best bud, Dwayne Walton (he’s the executive director).
Anyways, we just bought a building … a new building where our ability to provide educational and career opportunities for these youth will greatly expand.
If you’re interested in what we do, here’s a link to a video about our vision. Here’s a link to our blog, which I manage.
And here’s the video about our new building.
Evolution of Death Infograph UPDATE
A week ago, I posted an infograph on the Evolution of Death by mysendoff.com I prefaced the infograph with this:
Although this infograph is pretty cool, it’s not entirely accurate. Between the 1830 “Feng Shui” circle and the 1882 establishment of the NFDA circle, there should be a circle for 1840 that documents the establishment of the Wildest funeral home in America. They missed that one. Just saying.
Mysendoff.com was kind enough to rectify their oversight with this addition. Well done, www.mysendoff.com. Well done.
10 Ways Funeral Directors Cope
There’s been an overwhelmingly positive response to my article “10 Burdens Funeral Directors Carry“. We funeral directors carry a unique set of burdens. And there’s ways — both positive and negative — that we cope with our burdens.
Here’s 10 coping methods funeral directors use.
The first five are coping methods that are negative or maladaptive techniques.
The last five are positive coping methods. One or more of these methods MUST be used if a person is to stay in this profession AND maintain a healthy personal and family life.
NEGATIVE COPING METHODS
One. Displacement.
Funeral service is a business that is both uncontrollable and unpredictable. Since funeral directors can’t control death and death’s schedule, we attempt to control those things and/or people that we DO have power over. We too often take out our frustrations, fears and anger on those closest to us.
Two. Attack.
And we often displace those emotions on those closest to us with some kind of aggression. In an attempt to cope and find a sense of control in our uncontrolled and unpredictable world, we will often emotionally and verbally manipulate and control our family, co-workers, employees, associates and those closest to us, making us seem nearly bi-polar as we treat the grieving families that we serve with love and support and yet treat our staff and family with all the emotional turmoil that we’re feeling inside.
Three. Emotional Suppression.
We are paid to be the stable minds in the midst of unstable souls. We withhold and withhold and withhold and then … then the floodgates open, turning our normally stable personality into a blithering, sobbing mess, or creating a monster of seething anger and rage. During different occasions, I have become both the mess and the monster. The difficulty is only compounded by the fact that you just cannot make your spouse or best friend understand how raising the carotid artery of a nine-month old infant disturbs your mind.
Four. Self-harm.
We cope with alcohol. I know a number who attempt to waste their troubles away with a bottle.
Substance abuse.
Sexual callousness. The sexual philandering that occurred in Six Feet Under was not just for higher TV ratings.
Five. Trivializing.
Compassion fatigue happens to all of us in funeral service. If we can’t bounce back from the fatigue, we begin a journey down the road to callousness. Once calloused, we tell ourselves that “death isn’t as bad as ‘these people’ are making it seem.” Once we trivialize the grief and death we see, we can easily justify charging the hell out of the families we serve.
POSITIVE COPING METHODS
Six. Benefit-finding.
The funeral business contains many burdens. Yet, the good we can do and the beauty we can find around death – if we look for it – may outweigh the darkness. Learning to see the light in the darkness of death is a positive way we can cope.
Seven. Altruism.
Learn to love serving others. Probably the best means to cope with the funeral business is found in the people we serve. Love them intentionally and don’t be afraid to find joy in meeting their needs. Don’t be afraid to hear their stories and become apart of their family.
Eight. Problem-solve.
Don’t be passive with the burdens you carry. Actively attempt to find positive ways to deal with your burden. Exercise. Eat better. Take a vacation. Go out with your friends. If you can’t shed your burdens on your own, seek counseling. Find a psychologist. Find a psychiatrist. Talk out your problems with someone wiser than you.
Nine. Spiritual Community and Personal Growth.
Using religion as an opiate to ignore reality is something I speak AGAINST on a regular basis. Instead, seek a community where there’s faith authenticity. Find people who can encourage you with their love and support as you worship together and ponder the mysteries and truths of a better world.
Ten. Avoidance.
If this business is wrecking your life and the lives of those around you, then salvage what you have left and quit this business. Quitting doesn’t make you a failure. Quitting doesn’t make you weak. You know more than anyone that you only have one life to life. Live it to its fullest by doing something that breathes life into your soul.
Funerals: Touching is Safe Here
In our culture, touch is too often motivated by
1.) Desire.
2.) Demand.
Many don’t know how to touch outside of those two categories.
There’s a rather new interdisciplinary area of study called haptonomy which explores how to touch outside of the desire and demand categories. Haptonomy is the study of psycho-tactile communication. Psychologist and hospice pioneer Marie de Hennezel writes concerning her training in haptonomy:
One develops and tries to ripen one’s human faculties of contact; one learns to ‘dare’ to encounter another human being by touch. It may seem foolish to undergo formal training in order to develop a basic human faculty. Unfortunately, the world in which we all grew up and continue to develop is one that doesn’t encourage spontaneous emotional contact. Certainly we touch other people, but that’s when the intention is erotic. Other times, the context is impersonalizing, as in the medical sphere, when one is most often manipulating ‘bodily objects.’ What is forgotten is what the whole person may feel. “
There’s touching with desire, touching with demand and — here’s a third option — there’s touching with devotion. Touching with devotion is an ardent recognition of the value of people … it’s not forceful or uncomfortable, rather it’s respectful and produces ease.
There’s one place where the humanizing, respectful and relaxing touch of devotion is seen on a regular basis.
That place is death.
We receive the phone call that so-and-so has died at their home. We put on our dress cloth, drive to the house and there awaiting us is so-and-so’s family. We walk in and instead of shaking their hands, we reach for a hug. And they reach back.
Complete strangers.
At the funeral of so-and-so, family and friends hug and kiss and embrace all day. It’s those hugs and embraces that somehow make a funeral bearable … they somehow relax the otherwise tumultuous experience of death.
The irony is that a human has to die for true humanity to be found.
*****
Mainstream medicine is catching on to the power of devotional touch.
The University of Miami conducted over 100 studies on the power of devotional touch and this is what they found: Devotional touch can: produce faster growth in premature babies
caused reduced pain in children and adults
decrease autoimmune disease symptoms
lowered glucose levels in children with diabetes
improved immune systems in people with cancer.
Other studies have show that devotional touch can
lower stress levels
boost immune systems
help migraines.
Why do we reserve the life giving power of touch only for death and funerals?
What would happen if we would daily interact with our friends and family like we were at a funeral?
