All the ways our dead still speak A funeral director on life, death, and the hereafter

Caleb Wilde

eAudio - 2022

What if our dead remain with us? What if closure is not the goal? No matter what you believe about the afterlife, what if the hereafter intersects with the here and now? Caleb Wilde, author of the acclaimed memoir Confessions of a Funeral Director, was a skeptic. The baffling stories people told him-deathbed visions of long-dead parents, visits from the other side-must be hallucinations or wishful thinking, he thought. But the more stories he heard, and the more he learned about non-Western unde...rstandings of body and spirit, the less sure he was. All the Ways Our Dead Still Speak takes listeners on a lyrical and tender quest to encounter the hereafter. As Wilde picks up bodies, organizes funerals, and meets with grieving families in a small town in Pennsylvania, those who remain share with him-and us-what they experience in the thin places between life and death. Entwining these stories with his own as a sixth-generation funeral director, and with the findings of neuroscience and the solace of faith, Wilde creates a searching, reverent inquiry into all the ways our dead remain with us. In the process, he takes on prevailing dogmas about death: from a narrow Christian view of heaven and hell, to secular assumptions that death is the end, to pop-psychology maxims that say we all need "closure" after our loved ones die.

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Online Access
Instantly available on hoopla.
Cover image
Published
[United States] : christianaudio.com 2022.
Edition
Unabridged
Language
English
Physical Description
1 online resource (1 audio file (6hr., 18 min.)) : digital
Format
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
ISBN
9781545920671
Access
AVAILABLE FOR USE ONLY BY IOWA CITY AND RESIDENTS OF THE CONTRACTING GOVERNMENTS OF JOHNSON COUNTY, UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, HILLS, AND LONE TREE (IA).
Main Author
Caleb Wilde (author)
Corporate Author
hoopla digital (-)
Other Authors
Kyle Tait (-)
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this profound treatise, sixth-generation funeral director Wilde (Confessions of a Funeral Director) reflects on death and the hereafter in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Wilde outlines a "progressive view of the afterlife" that sees death as a "liminal" space in which the deceased live on through the impact their words and actions had on the living: "We are living cemeteries... carried here--to this moment--by the love, hard work, and heritage of our ancestors." He notes that this understanding of the self challenges white Americans' belief in individualism by asserting that humans are fundamentally shaped by their ancestors and community rather than by one's own whims. Christianity's trinitarian "claims that God is a plural self" offer a religious variation on this theme, the author suggests, positing that, since humans were made in God's image, they are also an amalgamation of "those we love in the past and future." Wilde complements these ideas with autobiographical stories recounting his struggle to keep his business running during the uncertain early days of the pandemic when he had to wrestle with such questions as what to do with anti-mask funeral attendees. In a wonderfully conversational tone, Wilde tackles themes of mortality, history, and justice with masterful felicity, delivering bracing big picture ideas about death and community. The result is an exceptionally soulful and insightful take on identity and the ways the dead linger among the living. (May)

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