Death And Everyday Life (with Joseph Pearce)

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[00:00:29] There's a wonderful paradox that the sleep of death is a wake-up call. And we can live more fully when we have that awareness. And without that awareness, we're sleepwalking. Death and Everyday Life.

[00:00:57] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Death and Podcast. I am your host and friend, I hope, Victor M. Sweeney. Our guest today, Mr. Joseph Pierce, has lived a wide swath of life. He's a writer. Actually, he's a man I've admired from a distance for many years. He's a Catholic author. Honestly, a lot of our discussion is a little Catholic-centric.

[00:01:26] But I think underneath it all, there is this lovely shared bit of humanity that I think anybody can enjoy to listen to. You'll have to give it a listen. Let me know if I'm off base. When we were debating titles, you know, the thing that kept coming back is that there is this wonderful commonality. In death, yes. But also in the things of everyday living.

[00:01:53] Of looking out your window and finding it beautiful. Of speaking to your neighbor. Of having a glass of ale with someone. Going to your local coffee shop. Okay? And these commonalities that all add up to living are all wildly important. Not just for the sake of living.

[00:02:15] But because when we also acknowledge that death is an inevitability, is an option, right? Is a non-zero chance of happening to you, dear listener, today. We can do that everyday living all the better. And it doesn't matter from whence we come. Our friend Joseph was born in England. And he's here today to share with us.

[00:02:44] I have many listeners, I think, from around the world. I get people DMing me, emailing me all the time from different parts of this beautiful shared globe of ours. And it's great. People share with me their stories because these things are important. Our beliefs are important. And to tease them out, to even find the paradoxes in them, are very important.

[00:03:08] Now, before we do speak to those of you that are going to share parts of your story with me to get an answer, I am going to read a little something from a letter someone sent me. It's rare. People send me letters. But it's fun when they do. This is from a friend, Dennis Little. He's an undertaker in Washington State. Here's his letter.

[00:03:31] He enclosed a brochure to me about the David Henderson Brown house near Boswell, British Columbia. And this house, he was an undertaker, Mr. Boswell. And, sorry, not Mr. Boswell, Mr. Brown. He was an undertaker. And he built a home out of 600,000 discarded old glass embalming fluid bottles.

[00:03:59] And he said he did this to indulge in a whim of a peculiar nature, which honestly is a goal of mine if I ever had one. To feel free enough to engage in a whim of a peculiar nature. Maybe that's what this podcast is. Maybe it's not peculiar enough yet. But to build a sort of folly devoted to embalming fluid bottles. And what a treat that Mr. Little sent me a letter telling me about it. He sent me a postcard.

[00:04:29] And he also sent me a brochure that he got when he visited there. How cool is that? Sharing a little piece of his life and the peculiar whim of another. So with that, let's see what peculiar whims you dear listeners have today. Question from Alex. It seems like you have a strong preference for open casket funerals.

[00:04:59] How can I best prepare myself and have the right mindset so that I can appropriately honor the individual and support their family at an event that I personally find deeply unsettling and creepy? Okay. Alex, good question. So you're the opposite of me. Yeah, I do encourage seeing the body. I really do. Because at the end of the day, the body is important.

[00:05:26] And yes, you might find it unsettling. Okay? It might hit you in the head like a hammer. But that's kind of the idea. Our whole life, we are mortal. Right? Right? And yet we hardly ever think about it. And so for it to hit us, for our mortality to hit us when faced with the stark reality of a dead body, I think it's good. I think it helps us properly order things in our lives.

[00:05:56] Going, oh yeah, I should do this. I should maybe talk to this person I haven't seen in a long time. I should go on this trip that I've been putting off for ages because I am mortal. My time is limited. And I think it helps. I think it helps. You know, at the end of the day, I do have this other belief that we are kind of cavemen at heart.

[00:06:19] That to look at a picture of someone, you can trick yourself into thinking maybe they're just a little ways away. Maybe they're just around the next corner. And yes, sure, we're intelligent individuals, right? We're evolved. Sometimes I wonder. But you could say we're evolved and we don't need that. We don't need to see this garish display of our mortality in front of us.

[00:06:49] But how many people I know that have walked away from a funeral saying, yes, I know they are gone. And that seeing them in their dead vulnerability has made me want to change my life for the better. So yes, you're right. It is creepy sometimes. It is unsettling most of the time. But these are the hard, beautiful things that we do.

[00:07:18] One, to show our love and affection. But two, to show love and affection for ourselves in the time that we have walking around on this earth. Thank you for the question. Ooh, here's kind of a fun one. Okay, this is from Kyle. Is there a way to simulate fake hair? Yes. Okay. So you obviously can use any sort of fake hair, wig, that sort of thing.

[00:07:43] Some companies sell like a swatch of different colored nylon hairs that you can use if you're doing a hair restoration. When I've had to do hair restoration, that is patches of hair over maybe a spot on the scalp that has been shaved away for surgery or an injury or something like that, I usually use hair from the back of the head or try to cleverly cut it in places where it exists so you can put it in places where it is not.

[00:08:12] So yes, there are ways you can simulate hair. That said, if someone is completely bald, you might have to resort to a full-on wig. Or some gentleman, a gentleman some years ago, right before his death, was shaved clean in the hospital. And there's not a whole lot you can do about that.

[00:08:38] So yeah, there are little things, small things, this and that, but mileage. mileage may vary. Thank you all for the wonderful questions. It is a treat. It really is. I never know what my friend Adam is going to pull out of the grab bag. But it's fun. It's fun to answer it off the cuff and see what comes out.

[00:09:07] If you would like to send a question, you may send it to deathandpodcast at gmail.com. You may also leave a voice memo at deathandpodcast.com. I do like those. But then I can get around to it whenever I get a chance. It's really, really a joy. As we jump into our interview, I just want to tell you first how much I enjoyed it. I was a little bit starstruck, honestly, to talk with Joseph.

[00:09:38] But I hope as you listen to it, you know, the conversation bounces around, honestly, kind of a lot. But that is sometimes what makes a really good conversation. I hope it gives you some things to chew on. And with that, let's get it queued up. Okay.

[00:10:30] Egal, ob ihr gern flauschige Feste feiert, danach im Sonnenaufgang in Berlin Baywatch Hi, everyone. Our guest today is Mr. Joseph Pearce. He is an author and a speaker, and at least in my humble opinion, an authority on the works of many writers I admire, including G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and J.R.R. Tolkien, among many others.

[00:10:50] He's published books on literature, Catholicism, Third Way Distributism, and the canon of the great books. He's a husband, a father, and an academic. And after years of listening to you and reading your works, I am so thrilled to have you here as our guest today. It's a joy to be with you. Thanks for having me.

[00:11:10] Part of the real treat of the show is I'll get a guest on here who I think probably has nothing to do with death, and we often find actually that there is a beautiful commonality because it's something we all share. But so, Joseph, I wanted to start because I am a nerd, at least just talking about Lord of the Rings.

[00:11:33] So many, many years ago, you released a speech on a CD that I have had in my car for probably a decade about the Catholicism of Lord of the Rings. And one part I loved, and probably because it's related to death, as you said, the opening of that book probably has the sentence that has the most references to death of any piece of literature.

[00:12:01] And I'm going to butcher it, but it's about the ring, and it's given to nine mortal men doomed to die. And could you just unpack that for my fellow nerds that are listening? Yeah, so that's obviously this is part of the famous poem that sort of begins the Lord of the Rings and is elsewhere in the Lord of the Rings. And there are various lines about the elves and the dwarves. But the line about men is basically the repetition of the word death.

[00:12:31] So I don't know anywhere in English literature where the word death in various guises appears in one line as many times as this. So it's nine for mortal men doomed to die. So nine for mortal death, men, death, doomed, death, die, death.

[00:12:55] And Tolkien said about the deepest elements of the Lord of the Rings, the allegorical elements of it, it's about death and immortality. So really at the core of the Lord of the Rings is this tension between those who die, the mortals, the men, and those who don't die, the immortals, the elves.

[00:13:15] And ironically, the fact that the elves don't die makes them very sad because what it means is they're trapped in this fallen cosmos forever. And it's what Galadriel calls the long defeat of history. And she and her husband have fought the long defeat for ages of this world. But every time evil is defeated, it grows back like a fungus. It cannot be defeated this side of death.

[00:13:41] If there is any victory over evil, it is after death, not this side of the grave, because this is a fallen, broken cosmos with evil as part of the fabric of it. So the elves, a bit like the prayer, the Salve Regina, experience endless life this side of the grave as a valley, a veil of tears, a valley of tears in a land of exile.

[00:14:08] So the valley of tears then is that long defeat. I have listened to the 23rd Psalm recited at funerals, gosh, on a weekly basis since I was 18. And I've actually never, I've never actually quite put those two thoughts together that the valley of tears is nothing more or less than the long defeat. Yes, because Tolkien says, I mean, so Galadriel talks about the long defeat of history.

[00:14:36] But Tolkien in one of his letters says, as a Christian, I see history as the long defeat with only occasional glimpses of final victory. And of course, the glimpses of final victory are always glimpses beyond the grave. Right. The glimpses of final victory are with God. They're not here in this fallen cosmos. And by the way, the valley of tears, when I say the Salve Regina, I normally say veil of tears, not only because I think it's more poetic, but there's a double entendre there.

[00:15:06] Because veil can be V-A-L-E as in valley, but also V-E-I-L as in veil. And this whole life, this side of the grave is seen through a veil of tears. That again, if the veil is ever going to be lifted, it's going to be after death and not before it. Yes. And we have that veil of the shadow of death.

[00:15:29] And that is, I was thinking about it the other day, because I was, you know, we talk about it, you know, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And it can become very rote, you know, in certain Protestant churches especially, right, this is one of those psalms that you memorize, is the 23rd Psalm. And you can think about that as something maybe you only read at funerals.

[00:15:55] But it is really compelling, actually, to think like, oh no, I woke up today and I'm in the valley of the shadow of death. Not, you know, not only when I'm actively grieving, but just like driving to work is in the valley of the shadow of death. It is. But, you know, there's a paradox here. Because I think it's being aware, because a Catholic is meant to keep death in mind.

[00:16:23] So the memento mori, the reminder of death, is something that we're meant to have in mind. And the memento mori, the reminder of death, always reminds us of the four last things. Death itself, which is inevitable for all of us. Judgment, which is inevitable for all of us. And then one of only two things. There's no other options. Heaven or hell. So we should keep that in mind.

[00:16:46] But, you know, I find ironically, for me anyway, and I think for certainly the great writers that I love and many, many people I know, you're more alive to the beauty of life itself if you're aware of the presence of death. I think that either trying to block it out from your life altogether, which is a lie and also not very possible for very long. Or you're scared stiff of death.

[00:17:16] You don't think about it. You don't talk about it. And then that shadow really does descend, because that's covering you. It's surrounding you. Whereas if you embrace your mortality and you know it's not the end, then you can actually enjoy life in all this glory and beauty. I mean, the great Catholic poet, Jeremy Manny Hopkins, the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will shine out. It's right.

[00:17:41] So I look out the window there and I see a bank of green trees just the other side of the creek in the meadow between the house and the trees. It's beautiful. It's glorious. I thank God that my desk is set up by the window so I can look out there all day long. Well, I don't look at it all day long because I'm doing some work. Yeah, I wouldn't get anything done. I looked out all day long and get no work done. But it's there. And I thank God for it. Well, and this is the interesting thing.

[00:18:10] So this show is, I mean, at least technically a secular show. I mean, it can't be helped that it's at least a little bit Catholic because I'm the host, I guess. So you get what you get. But even from a totally secular perspective, you could take the metaphor and you could say, okay, valley of death. Well, why do you call it a valley? Well, you call it a valley because it's beneath the table land that's above it. And there's something distinct about it. You might spend a lot of time in it.

[00:18:40] But the fact is, like, any valley is actually meant to climb out of, like back onto stable land. And it's been – it's one of the privileges of my career, actually, just to work with many different people of many different beliefs, some with none or so-called none. I think everybody has beliefs. Even the staunchest atheist has important beliefs that they hold dear.

[00:19:05] But the fact is that even those people, if you understand death as best you can and you embrace death as best you can, you will live better. Like, you could say, oh, there's no heaven, there's no hell, whatever. But then, like, why do people travel? Well, people travel for the amusement, yes. But it's because your traveling days are very numbered.

[00:19:32] So it's remarkable that even people that would say they espouse, you know, nothing or they say it doesn't matter or it's all just random. When you come down to it, your mortality really matters. And so does the mortality of your loved ones, as it turns out.

[00:19:52] Like, everybody wants to look back on the lives of the people they love and the people they've met and, like, somehow get across that those lives had value to them, even though they also are going to die. Yeah, there's a wonderful paradox is that the sleep of death is a wake up call. Oh, I like that. Yeah, because, you know, the fact that we are all going to fall asleep in death wakes us up to the glory of life.

[00:20:22] And we can live more fully when we have that awareness. And without that awareness, we're sleepwalking. Gosh, that's Joseph. You're good at this. You already know that. So tell me this. As someone who's deep into the great literature, does great literature, does that help draw our minds to mortality and to greatness and to things above? Yeah.

[00:20:49] So basically, I've made a sort of life study of the greatest books of Western literature from Homer through to, well, the Lord of the Rings, 20th century. And the memento mori, the reminder of death, mortality is a central part of this great literature because it's a central part of life. It's one of the key things.

[00:21:12] So if you look at the Odyssey, for instance, right, then the image of trying to get home, right? It's the image of man, humanity is homo viator, man on a journey or on a deeper level, man on a quest or man on a pilgrimage.

[00:21:40] In other words, that life is a journey. And if life is a journey, it's also a story, right? And when we see our lives as a journey, as a story, as a quest, ultimately, in a Christian understanding, the quest for heaven, right? And then the only alternative to homo viator is homo superbus and proud man. And proud man doesn't want to go on the journey. He wants to just hang out.

[00:22:07] He just doesn't go anywhere in particular, go somewhere else. But that person ends up feeling meaningless, feeling purposeless, saying what's the point and ending up ultimately sitting down in the corner and feeling very dejected and lonely. So we need and that struggle, by the way, between homo viator and homo superbus takes place in each of our individual human hearts. It's not that we can be one or the other. We are all both.

[00:22:35] But the point is, insofar as we allow homo viator to be our guide, not homo superbus, we will live happier, healthier lives. Well, and this is interesting. I was having this argument with a family member some years ago. And it was basically along the lines of something like, well, Victor, you have all this potential. And you've obviously fallen short because you're an undertaker in a small town. That was the subtext.

[00:23:01] But the language being used was always like, well, you're just being complacent. You're just being complacent. And for a long time, I was trying to parse out what is the difference between being complacent and being contentment. And I don't know if I have the answer exactly, but I think it actually almost mirrors what you say. Because to be content has a certain amount of activity.

[00:23:29] Whereas to be complacent is just to passively let everything happen to you. But you have to actively choose contentment. Like, you actually, your surroundings could be no different. You could spend your life in a basement. But one of them you're going to passively let happen to you. And one you're going to actively choose. Yeah. I mean, you think about different types of basements.

[00:23:51] You know that you could be in a prison cell or a monastic cell and actually be living a very, very healthy life. Very engaged with your surroundings. Engaged perhaps with books that you're reading or prayers or contemplation. Or you could be sitting as that's a basement of sorts, right? But it's a proactive life within that confined space.

[00:24:18] As opposed to someone who lives in their basement or confines themselves to a self-imposed cell because they don't want to go out and embrace the beauty of life. And the beauty of life, of course, includes loving our neighbor. And if we get, by the grace of God, good at it, loving our enemy too. That's right. That's the harder part. As Chesterton says, they're usually the same people, our enemies and our neighbors.

[00:24:48] No, because it's very interesting. You know, I think in today's world, you know, like we have this wild global opportunity. You know, I can – this interview can be broadcast to a thousand people anywhere on the globe. And yet we struggle to like love the people that are in our backyard. You know, we have a relationship with people we've never met speaking to us in our ears.

[00:25:16] And yet the person down your street who actually might really benefit from whatever weird skill set you have – like I'm an undertaker. I have whatever the undertaker skill set is. Someone can benefit from that. And yeah, like does it matter? Like I'm not doing this on the global scale, but I can take care of the people that live, you know, in the 10 square blocks that is my town.

[00:25:41] Well, yeah, really ultimately, Victor, that localism, making our own local areas, our own localities, our own neighborhoods better is what we're called to do. We're called to have incarnate relationships with people, you know, where we actually see them and shake their hands or give them a hug or talk to them or have a joke with them or have a drink with them or have a meal with them. Right?

[00:26:09] That is real life, not virtual reality where everybody we're in connection with, even if it's not a robot in this day and age, we can spend most of our time speaking to AI if that's what we want to do. You know, they're the other side of the world, as you say, and are they just hearing a disembodied voice or we might see a talking head as what we're experiencing now. And thanks be to God it gives us the opportunity to talk, which will not otherwise happen.

[00:26:32] But if all that we're doing is spending time building relationships with remote people who we never meet in the flesh, then we're not living fully. We're living virtually. You know, virtual reality is not as deep as real reality. Real reality has to be lived in our neighborhoods. We need to be working to make our own local areas better. I'll give you some practical examples, right? Go out to your local coffee shop, not Starbucks, not a big chain, not a big global.

[00:27:00] Go to your local coffee shop and support local businesses. Go out, if you like ale, don't. And you buy the ale from your local brewery, not from one of the big domestic breweries, right? Go to eat, go to dine out in proper restaurants that are locally owned or at least, shall we say, small local chains, not the national or global chains. And that way you're turning your own neighborhood into a local community again, which is something we've lost.

[00:27:30] And that's bringing life to a place. If we keep the motif of dead, death, the culture of death, that globalism is really killing the life of the locality, the life of the neighborhood.

[00:27:43] And we need to revitalize, bring our neighborhoods back to life by frequenting local businesses, local restaurants, local coffee shops, local breweries, local distilleries, and basically make our own local areas alive and not this sort of dead, one size fits all, lowest common denominator. But Chesterton said the coming peril is standardization by a low standard.

[00:28:10] And that's exactly what globalism has brought us, standardization by a low standard. No, we want more than that. We want better than that for our local communities, or at least we should. Well, and it's interesting because even if you were to go to a big city, I was in New York a couple of years ago. And I went out with a brother of one of my friends and he took me to some spots, right? Some cool New York City places.

[00:28:34] And the reality is, like, he knows a handful of city blocks really well, right? So even if you're in the metropolitan center of the country, your world is still circumscribed to whatever, six city blocks that you know the ins and outs of. And I'm like, well, I don't know. My little town, I know every nook and cranny.

[00:28:59] I've been into, like, a quarter of the houses of this town where people have died or, you know, I've just gone in as, like, a guest. But it is – it is – it's quite a realization because then even – I think it's hard for the city people to get too uppity about it because, you know, yeah, my town is the same size as your six blocks. And yet I know it just as intimately as your six blocks. So it's of equal value. Yeah, I had a very interesting time. I don't like big cities. I was born in London.

[00:29:29] And in my 20s as part of regaining my sanity after Mad Youth, I left the big city and moved to a small town in England. And I swore to only live in small towns or villages or the countryside. And I basically managed to do that. But I had a play that was performed off-Broadway a few years ago called Death Comes to the War Poets. So I spent, I think, a long weekend, about four days in New York to see the play when it was being premiered.

[00:29:58] But, you know, it was in Greenwich Village. And I just got to know the local coffee shops in Greenwich Village. I had the best meal in a Spanish restaurant outside of Spain I've ever had in Greenwich Village. It was just, it was all authentic, owned by Spaniards. And, you know, it was not mass-produced food. Yeah. And I still Greenwich Village, the actual fact, as you say, the six blocks around the Sheen Center where the play was being performed was like a village in the middle of the city.

[00:30:27] And I got to actually feel quite at home at the various places I discovered while I was there. You know, the small stores, the small bakeries. Yes, it was a village in the middle of the city. Yeah, it's really beautiful. So that's kind of, I guess, what I've, circling all of this, I guess, I've kind of come to the realization that I'm really working hard to be content. You know, not that I'm, I mean, I'm discontent every day. Let's face it.

[00:30:56] I'm discontent just by waking up. But, you know, incarnate, right? Made of meat. We're made of meat and we need other things made of meat and other people made of meat. But I, I was going to, I wanted to ask you this.

[00:31:23] So you were born in London and you said you had a kind of wild youth. And from what I've read of yours, it is almost in a direct contrast to what you're, what you're doing now. Can you just tell us a little bit about that if you don't mind? No, not at all. So I, I, I'll give you the two minute version. If people want more than I wrote a book called Race with the Devil, My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love. So the title itself encapsulates it.

[00:31:52] But basically at the age of 15 in England, I joined a white supremacist organization. I rose to leadership level in, in that organization very young. I was the youngest member of its governing body. I started editing. It's two magazines, but I edited the magazine called Bulldog from the age of 16. And for editing that magazine, I went to prison twice for hate crimes and spent my 21st and 25th birthdays in prison. I was full of hatred, full of bigotry and bitterness.

[00:32:21] I hated Christianity. I hated Catholic Christianity in particular. I was actually involved with the anti-Catholic terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland for several years. So I was a long, long way from, from, from where I am now by the grace of God. So I, I basically came to, to faith over a period of time, but it came to a climax during the second prison sentence.

[00:32:48] So when I got out of prison the second time, I had to make a clean break from all my comrades and, and, and set off alone into the wilderness of the wilds of rural England and start life afresh. Um, and that was back in 1989. I, I started writing my, my first book, a bug with Chesterton was published in 1996, became a full-time writer for five years. And then was offered a job over here, teaching in a university in the States.

[00:33:15] So that's what brought me to the States four days before 9-11 and that, you know, so as we record this, um, you know, I, I, I've been here almost exactly 25 years. You know, short, short of the, I mean, just obviously the, the grace of God, how, how does a person work themselves out of, you know, these, these cycles of thoughts, you know, whether they're of hatred, you know, whether they're of, of hatred of self.

[00:33:43] I mean, right now, September suicide awareness, uh, awareness month, um, you know, may have actually just called a, a well check on someone who nearly committed suicide last week. Um, how does one start to break that cycle of, of those, you know, I mean, we could call them intrusive thoughts. I mean, no, no matter what they are, whether they're suicidal or otherwise. Yeah.

[00:34:09] Well, first of all, I mean that it is, it's no coincidence that in the death culture in which we find ourselves, uh, that suicide levels are, are going through the roof. Um, because basically we're, we're living in a, in a world which has become completely narcissistic where the, uh, unholy trinity of me, myself and I is the only God. Um, and, and, and that's a very small shriveled shrunken world.

[00:34:33] The character that most realistically portrays lonely people like that, who is shriveling and shrinking in their own narcissism is Gollum in, in, in, in the Lord of the Rings. That's a very realistic depiction of what happens when we become possessed by, by our possessions or by whatever addictive habits we, we might have, uh, acquired. So the most important thing for health is to engage with that, which is beyond ourselves.

[00:34:59] We have to escape from ourselves to the other place. In other words, ultimate objective reality. I would say, obviously as a Christian, ultimately the objective reality is God, but, but as a stepping stone in that direction, just get outside. And that's, first of all, start talking to other people, right? Realize and recognize other souls out there that have personality.

[00:35:24] They are persons and they are different from you and you can talk to them and learn from them and agree with them and disagree with them. And, you know, as, as Chesterton said, you know, that of his relation with his brother, we were always arguing, but we never quarreled. Right. A quarrel is an argument in the absence of charity, right? Uh, clarity and charity go hand in hand. If we won't have love for our neighbor, we will not understand our neighbor and they will not understand us. And that's where hatred and bigotry comes in.

[00:35:54] We have to have love, we have to have charity in order to have clarity in order to understand each other. If you want, if you want to know how to escape from the solitude that leads to suicide, you know, love your neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, I was, I was just actually in my local coffee shop, uh, talking to the man behind the counter. And, uh, I wrote an article about him for our local paper. Um, he's running for school board and not that I wrote to endorse him, but also, uh, just so people would know who he is.

[00:36:24] So this gentleman, Johnny, uh, was born in Brazil, grew up on the East coast, went to school in New York, ended up on the West coast, like did a bunch of work with the homeless, was a diamond merchant, like has lived a really interesting life. And now he's in my little town of 1600 people, you know, a village, if you will. And, um, I was talking to him and I was like, what, you know, you've, you've lived a strange life relative to the rest of us here.

[00:36:54] You know, most people in my town, I would say we're born there. They're going to die there. I'm going to bury them there. Okay. Um, and Johnny, like myself as an outsider and he's like, well, Victor, the reality is we're all made in the image of God. He's like, but what that means is we're, even if we're wildly different, even if there are, you know, I'm from a culture that you are not familiar with. He's like, yet at the same time, we all want the same things. Like we want security. We want love.

[00:37:24] We want friendship. And, um, I wrote about that for my little local newspaper. Cause I, I think that's something too, that we, we often forget, you know, that the outsider or even the outcast actually has the exact same human needs as you or me. And I'm, I'm in a lucky position where I get to meet a lot of different people and I look around and I go, oh, okay.

[00:37:47] So even if 90% of my clientele are, you know, white, uh, adult Protestants, it turns out we're all actually really, really different when we start to get to know each other. And yet we all have the exact same desires. And, uh, and it's, it's a beautiful thing.

[00:38:08] I mean, and then, and then I get to bury them and we all, you know, then we're all really doing the same thing because we're, we end up as dead bodies in the cemetery, but that's okay. Like it's, it's kind of beautiful that we all share that at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. I think the common mortality is we've said already. I mean, I would always say that's not where we end up. That's right. That's right. Yeah. It's a threshold we have to cross and none of us have any option, but to cross that threshold.

[00:38:37] But, uh, I certainly don't believe that's where we end up. Um, that's right. We're not with, cause we are incarnate. We are enfleshed, but we're incarnate souls. We're enfleshed souls. Uh, and, and, and the soul is not, is not confined by, constrained by, or contained completely by the flesh. Um, and, um, not for long anyway, not for long. Exactly.

[00:39:04] I, um, well, don't ask my four-year-old Peter this because he, the other day, uh, he has a really hard time distinguishing like which animals are mythical and which are, are fake. Right. So you show him like a zebra and like a unicorn. And he's like, uh, I don't know. Both are probably fake. Right. I mean, to be fair, you see a zebra walking around and I, I just saw one in real life at the zoo. And I was like, that actually does look like a fake animal. But, uh, he, the other day there was like an angel on something.

[00:39:31] And he told my wife, he's like, mom, is an angel real? And she's like, yeah, an angel's real. Like it doesn't have a body. It's, it's a soul without a body, but it's, it's real. And, um, you know, if, if you get to heaven someday, you can see an angel. And he's like, oh yeah, that's not what happens though. And she's like, what? She's like, yeah, when you die, you go to dad's work. So I've got, I've got some work to do with my four year old, but, but I'm glad. He's only four.

[00:39:59] He's at the beginning of the journey we were talking about. It's not a problem. That's right. He's, he's not quite homo viator yet. He is, but he's just, he's just toddling. He's just toddling on the way. Um, but, uh, he'll learn to walk and then stride. Well, Joseph, how, how old are your children? Well, I, we have, um, uh, a 24 year old son who has down syndrome and autism.

[00:40:26] So he'll be living with us, uh, for as, as long as we're all able to look after each other. Um, and, uh, we had a stillborn daughter who would, would have been 21 had she survived. We've had four miscarriages. Oh, so, but we also have a, uh, an 18 year old daughter who went off to college, uh, about three weeks ago. So we're sort of in the aftershock of, uh, of, uh, handling the sort of the, the sort of

[00:40:53] vacuum in which we're living with the empty, empty daughter's room, uh, across the hallway from here. So, uh, but it's that choice where it's meant to be. She's a cottage and, uh, uh, thanks be to God. There is really something I, I don't know. I I've had one of my good friends, his last child just went off to college and, um, and you can tell there's like a certain kind of grief that comes with that.

[00:41:23] Cause he, uh, we were just, we were at, at, at that coffee shop, uh, in our little town one morning and he's like, well, house got bigger. And, and, you know, there's a, there's a lot behind that little phrase. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, I know, you know, on the topic of death and everyday life, you know, when our daughter went off to college, uh, her name's Evangeline, uh, which went off to college, something died in our family, right? Because something had passed away.

[00:41:53] This having this daughter who's living at home with us as a child has come to an end. She's now gone off to college and she's a grownup, albeit a young grownup who still has a lot to learn, but she's now flown the nest. And so something has passed away. Something that was for 18 years is no more and will never be again. I've got a lot of time yet. My oldest is 12, the aforementioned Peter is four.

[00:42:21] Um, so I, I've got a lot of years of kids in the house yet. Um, but I even see that my, my oldest, I, I, he's in seventh grade. I just bought him size 11 football cleats. Okay. So he's, he's coming up on as big as I am and I'm sitting here going, oh, I, he is not, um, he's leaving childhood very quickly. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing you have to do.

[00:42:45] And again, about living, uh, uh, life, um, every moment, uh, you know, because children grow up and a two year old is not a two year old for long. And when she's not a two year old or he's not a two year old anymore, it's done. It's passed away. It's a three year old now. So yeah, yeah. You have to enjoy and embrace every moment of, of, of your children growing up. See what I loved and I wouldn't exchange for, for anything.

[00:43:12] We, we, every evening my daughter, cause our son has thousand autism. So he doesn't have the, um, what's the word? The retention, uh, of, of, uh, of, uh, of, of attending to me to, to hang around to be led to. But we, we, we used to read, I used to read every evening children's literature, classic children's literature. And my parents never read to me. So many of these children's books, I was actually reading myself for the first time.

[00:43:38] So both of us were enjoying fresh, if you like, virgin territory, you know, these great classics of children's literature and both being surprised and excited about what's going to happen next. And, and so that's quite a number of years, probably from when she was about three to when she was probably, I don't know, 10 or 11 or something. So, um, and my daughter, my, my wife at bedtime would read her. So the, the, the rule was I've, I read the British children's literature, uh, and my wife would read the American and Canadian British literature.

[00:44:07] Although my wife insisted that she was going to be the one that read our daughter, Jane Austin. So I, I defer. That's fair. Yeah. You better do. What's your, what's your, do you have a favorite children's novel that you've read over the years? No, I'm, I'm a great lover of C.S. Lewis. So I, I do, I do love the Chronicles of Narnia. Um, and one of the things I love about the Chronicles of Narnia, they're very charming for children, but they, they work on so many deeper levels of philosophy and theology and history.

[00:44:35] So grownups can read them, but I wrote a book called Further Up and Further In. Yeah. That's a good book. Yeah. Where I actually go into the deeper philosophical and theological and historical elements of these children's stories that, and the genius of C.S. Lewis, it doesn't get in the way. I mean, the child's not going to get all that and it doesn't spoil their enjoyment of the story. But insofar as we do get it, we're getting a deeper experience. And, uh, so I would say that, but I love the Wind of the Willows.

[00:45:01] I love the, the Arthur Ransom books of Swallows and Amazons, and they're not as well known over here. So I do recommend it to people, by the way, if you don't know Swallows and that it's a series of books, but begin with Swallows and Amazons. Uh, uh, it's by Arthur Ransom, uh, and they're delightful books about, about children playing about in boats, basically, and having adventures. And it's just, it's great fun. Okay. I, I'm going to add that to my list. Yeah, I, um, I read something you wrote recently that you said you're, you're, um, you're,

[00:45:29] you're not, you have a knowledge gap in American literature, American literature a little bit. Um, but, uh, I, I have to say, I, I don't know. Do you, have you read any Willa Cather? Uh, yes, actually, um, uh, O Pioneers and Death Comes from the Archbishop. I think that's the extent of it so far. Okay. I, I would recommend to you The Professor's House. Okay. It's very good.

[00:45:55] Kind of a slow burn, but then it, then it just gets so, gets so tasty. Um, but no, it is, it is one of the great gifts, I think, of parenthood to introduce kids to books you love and to literature you love, and then to watch them just like take that ball and run with it. Um, so my daughter, speaking of American literature, probably the finest American poet, uh, is Shel Silverstein.

[00:46:21] I don't know if you know him, but, um, children's poem, kind of a weird, weird beatnik outsider guy who illustrated and authored his own, uh, bunch of children's books, but three very good books of poetry. Um, and, um, my seven-year-old daughter, every night we, we read Uncle Shelby before we go to bed. So, you know, whatever we're doing, she's like, well, you've got to read Uncle Shelby. And we just cycle through these same three books. Um, and they're books that made me weird as a kid.

[00:46:49] So I'm like, I'm very happy to pass that along to my daughter, just, you know, indoctrinate her, but to the right thing. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, um, uh, I, if, if, if, if you don't mind my change this up, there's just extraordinarily as, as, as, as your podcast is about death and, uh, we talked about it. I talked about briefly in passing. I didn't put the, didn't make the connection, but my play death comes for the war poets. Yes.

[00:47:17] Uh, I think that might be very apropos your, your, your podcast because basically what it is, it's only three characters in the, in, in the play, uh, the real life historical poets, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon who fought in world war one and the British army, both excellent poets wrote war poetry, much of very brutal and honest and candid about the horrors of trench warfare. Um, one of them dies, Wilfred Owen dies in the final days of the war as a young man, uh,

[00:47:44] Siegfried Sassoon survives and lives on to, to, to, to be, um, uh, in his eighties before he dies in the 1960s. Um, but the third character is a female character, uh, uh, death. Um, so, so, so basically what, what, what, what the, uh, at the beginning of the, uh, of the play death is dressed in black, be like a witch from bed.

[00:48:09] So then, and also a bit, uh, uh, uh, seductive, right. Attractive in a dark Gothic grotesque way. Yeah. That's, that's a real thing. Sure. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, but then as Sassoon, because of course Wilfred Owen dies and she's, you know, death drags, there's a wonderful scene choreography in the play where death and, and, and, uh,

[00:48:34] Wilfred Owen are dancing, wrestling, struggling, and she ultimately subdues him. He dies. And then she drags him off stage triumphantly. That's his death in the, in the war. But Sassoon grows to be an old man. And, um, in his sixties, um, actually, I think he's, he's, he's 70 years old when he, uh, converts to Christianity.

[00:48:59] And what we see is the conversion of death because then death is now clad in white. She's almost angelic or virginal, uh, because death is no longer this threatening, deadly, hag-like enemy. Uh, but this friend, right. That that's actually going to, uh, like, like the guardian angel in, in, in, in, uh,

[00:49:26] in John Henry Newman's, uh, uh, poem, um, uh, the dream of Garontius, you know, that that's going to basically just guide us over the threshold to the glorious sunrise that awaits, you know, this is, so really it's not so much, the play is not so much about the conversion of Siegfried Tassoun as about the conversion of death. That's, that's beautiful. Cause I, I've, I've seen that happen in my own life.

[00:49:52] I mean, I think there was a time, especially when I was starting in funeral service, like that the trappings of the mortuary are like, there's something attractive about them, right? The long black car, the black suit, you know, the fact that you, you walk into a room and you're, you're comforting, but you're kind of, there's something different about you when you're the undertaker.

[00:50:15] Um, and then as you get into your career, as I got into my career, um, I realized that like, oh no, I'm, I'm not doing this for the trappings. Like I have to be doing this for the living, right? You have to do it out of love, as you say, right? You, you, you are, you become more of a viator along the way, right? And so the, the more I realized that, oh, I'm doing this for bigger reasons than myself. I'm doing this for people who I need to learn to care about.

[00:50:43] Um, you, you also find that like the trappings become less attractive, but the idea of death is no longer this, this kind of like scary alternative kind of Gothic thing that you can be like, I'm the cool death guy, but you're, you actually become the person where you're like, oh no, death is a friend to me and it doesn't scare me. And I'm going to help you learn how to make it your friend as well.

[00:51:10] Even though right now it is your worst enemy. Like this is the worst day of your life, but I'm going to teach you how one, I'm going to love your dead loved one and I hope through that, I'm going to teach you how to learn to love death. Yeah. That's wonderful. And, and I know I've got it there for paradoxes reading too much Chesterton, if it's possible to read too much. Me too. I know. Um, but you know, but I love the fact that you're an undertaker for living. So yeah. Yeah.

[00:51:36] So you're, you're someone who deals with death for a living and, and, and the way you do it for a living is not merely just about making money to support your family and your children and your wife, which is a good thing in itself, of course, but you're doing it for the living. Right. Uh, that's right. If, if, if, if you're religious, it's the priest or the minister that takes care of, of, of, of, of, of the deceased. Right. What, what we need, uh, is, you know, is your, you part of your job as well as obviously part

[00:52:04] of the priest, but the priest, the priest can, can prove that over, over, over, over the body of the deceased, you are there for the living, right. To get the living to come to terms with, yeah, the grim reality, but the grim reality, which is ultimately not the ultimate reality. No. And it's, and the thing is, it's that, that grim part is the one that we all like, we all share it. So why, why the great fear about it?

[00:52:32] You know, like this is, if you do this well now with mom and dad, when they are old, the hope is that you can do this well when it's your turn to lay on the deathbed. Um, and I've, I've, I've, and I've watched this happen in real time. I mean, one, cause I've, you know, you don't have to be in the, in the business very long to find yourself serving generations. Like I, there's a family I just had a funeral for. I've done three generations in their family now. So it doesn't take long.

[00:52:58] Um, but there's also, there's also this aspect of, um, the more you bring children into this, like not just my weird mortuary kids. Cause that's, you know, that's what my, that's what my own children are like. But I, I had a, I had a funeral once that I, I think about it all the time where they were, I don't know, there must've been 15 great grandkids. Right. And grandma was like 102 and, um, we're getting ready to close the casket with the family. And I, I see them kind of all gathering.

[00:53:27] And usually at that time I get the kids, right. And the, the children or the deceased will close the casket. Um, but at this point, the children of the deceased are like in their eighties. So, but, and then the, the great, the great grandkids have been running around this whole time and peeking in the casket, right. And playing and, and like, they're, they're having a wonderful time. Like if you can be said to have a wonderful time at a funeral, these kids are having a wonderful time. And so I look over at the parents who are my age and I kind of like give them a nod and they go, yeah, all right.

[00:53:58] Great grandkids, would you want to help me close Nana's casket? And so you have these 15 great grandkids, the oldest of which is probably 10, you know? Um, and the big ones are holding up the little ones to say goodbye. And they're like putting in little, whatever drawings, you know, whatever they've been working on that morning. And I close the casket with the help of these children. And you, I've had the grandkids come back to me months later and been like, wow, that was really, that really helped me.

[00:54:27] And it's like, oh, goodness sakes. So now I've helped the grandkids. I've helped the kids, the great grandkids. I'm hoping something happens with them. Um, but really, you know, the whole work of an undertaker is this like strange generational thing. And, uh, yeah, it turns out it is actually all about those that are living. Yeah. And a great service. I mean, cause that's what you're doing. You're living with the living that are dealing with death.

[00:54:57] Oh yeah. If I, if I was dead, I'd be a really bad undertaker. That's what we're all doing every day. Anyway, right. We're living with the living and dealing with death because that's, that's part and parcel of the reality of the world in which we live, you know, living with the living and dealing with death. That, that could be like a, that's probably a really good rap lyric in there, but I've, I've dabbled in various literary genre, but I'm going to leave you to do the rap. All right. All right. Don't expect much.

[00:55:26] Um, but no, this is like, this is the beauty of it because I think, I think if you get someone who is, who's willing to talk about death, you know, I've, I've, I contacted you, I sent you a copy of my book and said, Hey, come and talk with me about death. Um, but the fact is two strangers can do that and you, you start talking about death and then the, the wonderful, beautiful, uh, mundane reality of just waking up every day, uh, comes out again.

[00:55:55] And I, I, I'm grateful for that. That's, that's kind of, that's kind of how all this is supposed, that's how all this is supposed to work. This is the human connection right here. Amen. Amen. Well, Joseph, I, I could actually, I have many more Lord of the Rings questions to ask you, but I, we're going to, I'll let you go, but I, I just wanted to thank you for coming on. And, um, it really, it surprises me.

[00:56:20] You know, um, I, I, I hold you in quite high regard and I have for a long time and it always surprises me when someone like you is willing to just, uh, uh, take a leap and talk to an undertaker on camera. So thank you, Joseph. Thank you. Truly. I, I, um, talk to undertakers on camera most days. That's a joke. No, I was actually thinking, you know, that I've done all sorts of interviews over the years, but this really is something which is, is, is its own thing. So God bless you.

[00:56:49] Cause I actually think that what, what you're doing, this death and podcast is a, it's a great idea. And I think very necessary because we do need to have that memento more, that reminder of death as part of our daily lives. So I think, I think you're doing a great ministry, a great apostolate, uh, with, with the podcast you're doing there. So you, you, you keep it up and it's been a joy for me to be on. And yeah, if you send me the link, so I'll share, I'll share it on my own platforms. Beautiful. And speaking of own platforms, dear listener, if you've made it this far, you need to check

[00:57:18] out J Pierce, P E A R C E.co and check out everything Joseph has to offer. There is a great deal there. I'm a fairly regular visitor. Check it out. Everyone, Joseph, a million. Thanks. We'll talk to you again. My pleasure. God bless you, Victor. Bye-bye. What'd you guys think? What'd you guys think? I, one, I was really captivated by those closing thoughts about how death transforms from a hag into an angel. I like that a lot.

[00:57:48] It resonated with me, obviously. Um, but you know, as we were talking about the paradoxes, right? Between, uh, the two types of, you know, the two types of men you can be homo viator and homo, I'm going to lose it. You heard it anyway. And contentment and complacency. I've also been wrestling with this other idea and I'm sure there's a name for it out there in Greek somewhere.

[00:58:17] Um, but I was thinking about goodness, about people who are good. And, you know, it's, it's fun sometimes to draw the world into black and white and compare and contrast, find the paradox, if you will, because we contain both. Um, but thinking about people that are, um, what I might call conventionally good, right? You're good based on convention. You're good because whatever, the culture at large tells you to behave in such and such way.

[00:58:46] And then you have, uh, in comparison to that, what I might call, uh, convictionally good, right? You have convictions. You hold that goodness has a different standard than what might be, uh, right in front of you. It might be something bigger than you. It might be something more. Um, and I was thinking about that in terms of the idea of complacency and contentment. And that with, to have a convictional goodness, you must choose it.

[00:59:16] And to be conventionally good, you passively let it happen to you. Um, and that to be good, to have convictions, um, you run a great risk, right? You, you run a risk first in that the culture at large might not like you very much for holding those convictions. Um, you also run the risk when you, when you have convictions that they, they could be wrong, right?

[00:59:41] You might've aimed at the wrong thing and had improper convictions in the grand scheme of things. Um, and there's less risk when you are good only for convention, right? Less risk. You'll go along to get along. But the fact is, I think diversity and I think humanity is best shown when we have convictions and we have things we believe come good or ill.

[01:00:09] And, uh, I hope that my own convictions come across to you from time to time. And I appreciate those of you, dear listeners, who just accept them for what they are. We might have different opinions. We might have different opinions about things that we like in funeral service. We might have differing religious convictions, but that's okay.

[01:00:34] That's what allows us to compare and to contrast, to become friends, to find our commonalities in the middle, apart from the, the mundanity. And, uh, and these convictions, I do think make up a big chunk of that everyday life that we talked about. Because there, there are so many facets to everyday living. Are there not? There's more to it than just waking up in the morning and going to sleep and waiting to

[01:01:03] see what happens in the meantime. It's all those beautiful things that, that happen between our ears, that we, we tell other people with our voices, that we show other people by our actions. That is everyday living. As incarnate beings. As souls trapped for a time in a body. I want to thank you all for being here. As so many of you are every week. If you're a new listener, I do encourage you to go back and listen to some past episodes, see what you think.

[01:01:34] See if I've gotten any better at this podcast hosting business. But until we see you again next week, as we will endeavor to do. This has been Death And, and I have been your very grateful host, Victor M. Sweeney.