Category: Family

Death, Family, Family, Forgiveness, Grief7 Comments

Standing Next to Death

Gary Furr

I have not posted here in a month.  I took the month of January off in a period of “lying fallow,” if someone with as many hats as I wear can ever really “lie fallow.”  Truth is, though, I have been learning to stop now and then, reassess and see how we’re all doing.

Mostly in this month I’ve been working hard.  The church where I am Pastor had six deaths in about three weeks.  All were  friends (and that is becoming the most common description of who I funeralize now, since my 20th anniversary is approaching) and two near my age were among that group.  One, Steve Blackwelder, was an ex-Marine.  I mean a REAL Marine, a tunnel rat in Viet Nam who saw death up close and personal.  Yet in ;the life after that, while he suffered and struggled in many ways, he lived out kindness and care for others in every way that he could.  He collected Beatles ties, and all the pallbearers and my associate Pastor wore one of Steve’s to the service.  The next Sunday, I told the church about Steve coming over when I moved in in 1993 to fix some plumbing issues and then setting my backyard on fire by accident when he flicked a finished—but not extinguished—cigarette through the fence.  We put it out, and now it was a laugh for us.

Then there was Bob Daily.  He was a former deacon, Sunday School teacher, you name it volunteer, the guy who went to welcome anyone to the church with a cold call.  He was my insurance agent and I ate breakfast with him weekly for 20 years, so pardon me for feeling a little vulnerable at the moment.  Continue reading “Standing Next to Death”

Art, Bluegrass, Country Music, Culture, Death, Family, Gospel music, Grief, Hope, Hymns, Music, music therapy, Spirituality6 Comments

Grief Work in the Basement Garden 2: Songs for the Journey

Gary Furr

I once heard someone say that Loretta Lynn described country music as consisting of three kinds of songs:  “Songs about love, cheatin’ songs, and songs about Jesus.”  That may be so, but I don’t know of anything that a good song can’t touch.  In my last post, I mentioned songs that had spoken to me in my own grief through the years.  Usually they are songs that simply “find us,” a synchronicity of expression and need.  You hear it and it unearths sorrow or whatever from the deepest part of you, puts it up where you can feel it and … Continue reading Grief Work in the Basement Garden 2: Songs for the Journey

Art, Death, Faith, Family, Family, Gospel music, Grief, Hope, Hymns, Memory, Music, music therapy12 Comments

Grief Work in the Basement Garden

Gary Furr

This blog is drawn in part from some chapters I’m writing for a forthcoming book on prayer from Insight Press.  I’ll announce it when it is available for purchase on this site. Moments of sensitivity to God’s presence happen in the oddest places—foxholes, pinned in a car wreck, hospital waiting rooms, lying in bed when you can’t sleep.  People report God’s presence when life is unraveling, but also sitting on the porch on a quiet afternoon.  Holding a baby.  Counting blessings.  Waking up and drinking coffee.  Chance encounters.  Prison cells, torture rooms, earthquakes and financial ruin.  A meal with friends, … Continue reading Grief Work in the Basement Garden

Aging, Brain, Christianity, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Faith, Family, Family, Gospel music, Memory, Modern Life, Music, Oliver Sacks, Physiology, Spirituality, Suffering, Theology, Theology and Life4 Comments

The Songs Remember When Part II by Gary Furr

Gary Furr

…there are aspects of humanity that are not reducible to particles, chemicals and rational analysis. In my last post, I reflected on the interesting work of Oliver Sacks on memory.  A few further thoughts about the whole notion of science, faith, and humanity. Sacks has been criticized roundly for his “anecdotes” that don’t meet all the rigor of some scientific requirement, especially by the radical reductionists.  Some believe that  “there is no self or soul.  We are merely the product of our acculturated experiences and brain physiology and when it’s gone, so are we.” But there is something instinctive that … Continue reading The Songs Remember When Part II by Gary Furr

Family, Family, Love, Mothere's Day, Parenting1 Comment

A Mother Is a Miracle

Gary Furr

A mother is a miracle, certainly why any of us were born, and the main reason most of us have survived to tell about it. A mother is a miracle, certainly why any of us were born, and the main reason most of us have survived to tell about it.  We are among the weakest of all creatures when you think how long it takes us to live on our own.  We have to have nurture and protection long after being  (spoiler alert) hatched/delivered.  Each mom devotes nine months to getting us safely here, nine months  of her life, bodily … Continue reading A Mother Is a Miracle