On January 18, community member John Michael Wall died while in hospice at CTR, and was buried the same day in the community cemetery on the CTR land. Here’s a picture of John Michael smiling on his birthday, just a week before he died.
If you were there, you experienced the beauty of a death and burial that defied the bankrupt image provided by our society.
It would be expected that a Parkinson’s patient like John Michael would be placed in a nursing home tended to by “health care experts”; instead, he spent his last days and weeks in community, surrounded by family and friends who loved him and cared for him (which included nurses and skilled health care workers - but they weren’t the focus, he was).
And it would be expected that when he breathed his last, the “death experts” at a funeral home would sweep in, spirit away the body, and prepare it away from the family for a professional and costly burial.
Now, while not intending to cast aspersions at the funeral home industry (which has its place, to be sure), we are deeply grateful at CTR to have learned of another way from our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters. Their book A Christian Ending deeply informed what happened at CTR on January 18:
Death was viewed as a natural, even culminating event in John Michael’s walk with Jesus
John Michael’s body was honored and treated with care and dignity by those who loved him most
He was buried quickly, in a place that had meaning for him, where for years to come friends and family will pass by his gravesite, remember him, and worship Jesus who has conquered death
The cost of everything was minimal (less than $2000) and there was no subtle pressure put on the family to “honor him” by spending more money than was necessary
If you are interested in learning more, please purchase and read A Christian Ending (which is not cheap, because it is no longer in print - but it’s well worth the investment). Or check out our copy from the CTR library.
And, if you prefer listening to reading, this book has now been turned into a podcast!
And a beautiful footnote was that John Michael’s casket was created by Orthodox believers! We learned of a nearby Russian Orthodox church, St. Andrew’s in Lockhart, that makes caskets as both a ministry and a means of support for their community. Fr. Ignatius (“Fr. Iggy”) and his friend and parishioner Buck delivered the casket in December …
… that was then put into use in January.
Thank you, Fr. Iggy and our friends at St. Andrew’s!
And thank you to the Eastern Orthodox stream of the body of Christ, for leading the way in a wholly Christian and counter-culturally healthy theology of dying, death, and burial.