Another Inconvenient Truth

When I worked for a summer at Stanford University Hospital in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education - a required introduction to ministry in clinical environments in which people unwillingly find themselves), I encountered first-hand Americans' discomfort with death. I remember the day I learned that some of the empty gurneys being wheeled around the halls actually had false bottoms and were the means by which corpses (perceived as "failures" by some in the medical community) were removed from hospital rooms to the morgue. I remember sitting with an immigrant family from the Middle East as they loudly mourned their five-year old child who was struck by a car and killed at her birthday party. Some of the hospital staff wanted me to get them to be quiet, as they were disturbing other patients and their families with their acknowledgment of death.

Well, maybe things are changing just a bit. For a very funny look at a new "sign of the times" visit the link above and read about a discovery made by Mark Morford, a SF Gate columnist, in Palm Desert, CA. Here's a sample...

"Walk the massive air-conditioned aisles and ogle the giant slabs of meat and the enormous bins of imported Guatemalan fruit and the economy packs of adult diapers and the two-gallon bottles of vodka, much of it generally aimed at the happy retirement crowd that lives here six months out of the year.
And then notice, as you leave, your cart crammed with drums of olive oil and 10-foot plasma TVs and 80-packs of frozen cream puffs, that strange display you apparently didn't notice when you came in, the one right by the front door next to the tires and the lawn furniture and the hot-dog stand, the one you seem to have blocked out because it was just too weird and your mind couldn't really get around it.

Yes, they are coffins. They are enormous, shiny caskets for sale, at Costco."

Just what you weren't looking for at Costco - a memento mori (reminder of your death).

hat tip: my sweety-pie in Eugene, Patricia (a.k.a. "Patrician") Armstrong