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Image Source: static.pexels.com A few years ago we took a winter's train ride on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. The train delivered us to a city split at the Georgia/Tennessee state line - McCaysville, Georgia and Copperhill, Tennessee. We stepped of the train to sight see and grab some lunch. We were not prepared for what we encountered - a man standing on the street corner screaming hellfire and damnation to everyone that walked by. I was perplexed how he was so certain that everyone stepping off the train, men, women, children, and elderly were such lowlife sinner scum that we needed to repent or burn in the eternal fires of hell. As we got almost in front of him, he turned towards me and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Do you know Jesus?" I smiled and replied, "As a matter of fact, I do." It did not phase him as he continued screaming from his memorized script. My inner being wanted to grab him and scream back, "Do you realize how much damage yo

www.calebwilde.com / Sixth generation funeral director Caleb Wilde engages the negative narrative that we all seem to engage when we encounter death. Nursing home and hospitals hide the dead. Families pay professionals to whisk the dead from our sight. We use trite phrases like, "time can heal", "they're in a better place", "You need to move on", "its all gonna be OK", "You will move on", and "It will get better". But Wilde suggests that these worn out platitudes do little to comfort the grieving and by trying to rush them through the grieving period, we do them a disservice. When the funeral industry tends to quickly swoop into a families home and load up the deceased and shuttle them out of sight to a funeral home for embalming and preparations for the funeral, Wilde discovers that the family is better served by being allowed to have time with the deceased. Time to kiss them on the cheek, time to tell them they lo

image source: http://www.talkofthehouse.com In Tahlequah, Oklahoma outside of Tulsa, a few weeks after Thanksgiving I met Tony. His ancestors originally lived in the Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina area along with about 125,000 others in the early 1800s. But many of their new neighbors that had moved into the area became jealous of the land they occupied and wanted it for their own. Their neighbors managed to convince their state governments and even then President Andrew Jackson to transfer thousands of acres of their land to white cotton farmers. In 1831, President Jackson ordered the U.S. Army to evict the Choctaw Native Americans from their land and forced them to walk - some bound in chains and shackles - to the land west of the Mississippi River during winter without food or any assistance from the U.S. Government. In 1836, the President ordered the Army to force the Creeks from their land as well. Of the 15,000 that began the walk to Oklahoma, some 3,500 died