As believers whether we want to admit it
or not most of us fear death even with
the comfort of knowing the promises of
heaven and the afterlife in the Holy
Scriptures. Death remains a great mystery
something which every religion and
philosophy has wrestled with since the
beginning of time. Death is a natural
part of our existence yet our culture
tends to view death as a taboo subject.
On today's program rather than viewing
death is something feared that must be
conquered by modern medicine I want to
introduce you to a new way to embrace
those final few hours with your lost
loved one using essentials in preparing
their bodies for burial. For myself and
many others we are now rediscovering not
a new way but an old way to cross over
that draws upon our faith and commitment
to who we are and to the creation called
the green burial. You're not going to
want to miss this. Stay tuned for more on
Rebecca at the Well. In this program we'll
be exploring the healing oils of ancient
Scripture. Along with their powerful
healing constituents.
My name is Cheri wolf and I'm the
founder of Natural Grace Funerals and we
are a funeral home here covering the Los
Angeles area offering exclusively
environmentally-friendly death care
options for families.
Green burial or natural burial which is
often an interchangeable term, is in its
practical sense a way for us to care for
our dead and allowing the body to go
back to the earth in a simple natural
fashion with minimal environmental
impact. The biggest difference between
what we do at Natural Grace and
conventional funeral services is that we
do not embalm the bodies. So the bodies
are kept preserved through refrigeration
and the family still has the option for
a private or a public viewing and this
can be incorporated into any kind of
funeral service that a family would like
to have. So we work with families that
have very traditional religious services
to very just simple get-togethers
celebrations of life etc. The three
components of a green burial would be an
unabomb body wrapped either in a shroud
or a biodegradable container and then
put directly into the earth. There are
basically three different types of
burial grounds coined by the green
burial Council as being a hybrid natural
and a conservation and hybrids are when
you have a conventional cemetery for
example that will set aside an area
where they were allow for vault-less
burial, they will allow for the decedent
to be buried either in a shroud or a
very simple biodegradable container and
then of course the body is not embalmed.
With a natural burial ground you have a
complete natural setting
For example as you would look across
a natural burial ground you would not
see the large headstones. If there's a
marker on top of the graves and it would
be a natural stone from that area. And
then the next level of Barrow ground is
conservation and with those burial
grounds the funds that are put into the
burial of that family member go on to
actually purchase and preserve more land.
Many of the natural burial grounds also
allow for family participation and that
may be even as simple as helping to fill
back in the grave and Families asked to
be part of a natural burial very often. Some of them will even mention that it
has been a life-changing event. So to be
a part of a natural burial whether it's
a home funeral aspect and to be close to
someone that has not been a embalmed or to
be out at a natural setting and be
participating in a burial leaves them
with a different experience. As we
all know we're all uncomfortable with
death, but somehow with both of those
aspects people are able to embrace what
they are experiencing and actually feel
part of it and feel that they come away
with some healing and with some solace.
Several years ago I was approached by a
fellow believer, a messianic believer,
whose husband suddenly died from a heart attack and they wanted to bury him in a
natural way similar to the ancient
customs of the time of Yeshua. So I
had to do a lot of research and study to
find the practices I had and myself
recently experienced my mother's death
and burial and which I began to prepare
spices for her burial. So as they
asked me to prepare the spices and the
linens that he would be buried in. I
found a linen that would be unbleached
natural. So what we have here is
actually a shroud this is something that
I have a friend who made this locally.
So the body would be placed in this
shroud. Similar to what Yeshua would have been buried in they may have used strips
of linen cloth to bind him up and then
they would have poured these spices and
the oils over him to encase his body. It's almost like a mummy or you know
they would make almost like a cocoon. But there were some other things that when
we read in the scriptures all the women
prepared spices and they went to the
tomb to try to do his body and get him
prepared and they discovered that he was
missing. That was the act of Tahara in
which the women would have prepared his body.
By now we know the story
it says Joseph wanted to take his body
down from the cross because of the
Sabbath and they were going to take it
away and prepare him. Now and today we
still have many people who still
practices by taking the body they would
wash the body with over twenty four
twenty four quarts of water. By going
back and forth over the body to cleanse
the body. So the first thing they will do is
purification of washing the body. This is
the the last Mikvah or baptism if you
will. Where their washing or cleansing the
body, removing any nail polish, removing
the jewelry, and removing anything. In
fact for gentlemen who are buried they
would be buried in the Kittel. This is a
garment of white this is something that
a Jewish man would wear at Yom Kippur
this is symbolic of what would have been
worn by the high priests. They wear
this for their wedding and they also
wear it in their burial and so this is a
white one sheet of white that they would
be buried in. It has no pockets because
you come into the world with nothing
you go out of the world with nothing. But
in this case in washing and preparing
the body you would have three women who
would wash the body cleanse them put the
body in the the linen and wrap the body. Then they would turn this over to
put over the head and cover the head. 
They say prayers and they bless
the person in their final time. It's very
very spiritual very very special to the
people that do it. For my friends, who I
was referring to earlier, they said it
was such a spiritual time to be there
for those final hours with the body and
to be a part of that process instead of
shuffling the body off to a funeral home
where they're going to embalm it and
encase and you know do all that. This
is something that I have found to be
very very helpful in healing as part of
that release and letting that person go
on to their afterlife. Now what I have
here we prepared this and I have a
friend who does sewing for me and she
made this little pocket in which we will
add our spices.
Just like Mary did and we used the aloes
sandalwood just like they did for Yeshua.
I'm making  a little bit of a mess
here. I will add some myrrh.
Now it also mentions they used a hundred
pounds of aloes. Now Agarwood is very
thick it's a resin and very difficult to work with.
But we'll just use what I have here. I also have some
mint and rosebuds that I like to add
because it smells good and I'm just
adding these in. Now what else you might
want to add to this pocket and your
burial would be maybe some special
jewelry that belonged to the person and
you might want to add some other pieces
of special things for them. Maybe even
write a thank you note or a love note to
your loved one as you let them go and
you can add that in there. Now the women
who brought the spices it tells us in
mark 16:1 the Greek word for the spices
is aroma so we want to use aromatic
wonderful aromatic spices when washing
the body. I use a lavender because the
Spikenard are described in the New
Testament says to wash and so we are
washing their body as releasing them.
