Daily News reports:
\n After a graveside eulogy and a few prayers, the scene morphed quickly from silence to Stephen King with the appearance of the foot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all looked down and we were looking at what apparently was a human foot and leg wrapped in plastic, with cloth wrapped around it, sticking out on top of my father\u2019s casket,\u201d said Alonzo Butler, 53. [*]<\/p>\n
One of the mourners snapped a cellphone photo of what looks like an outtake from \u201cThe Walking Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Relatives later griped the cemetery workers ignored the dangling foot and quickly filled in the grave.<\/p>\n
… Mount Holiness owner James Shmergel felt that the attention to the ghoulish grave mishap was overblown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it newsworthy? In a cemetery?\u201d asked Shmergel. \u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Butlers may hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit seeking compensation for pain and suffering.<\/p>\n
But cemetery caretaker Bill Plog, who started at Mount Holiness in 1983, said he was surprised such incidents were so rare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a casket,\u201d he said. \u201cIt deteriorated. You can purchase a concrete vault, but people don\u2019t. That grave there is from 1969 … It\u2019s unfortunate that this happened, but this is a graveyard.\u201d [1]
\nDeath is disturbing, so we do our best to literally bury it. We don\u2019t want to see it, not even at a graveside! But is denial really the best way to deal with this reality?<\/p>\n
King David, in the 23rd Psalm, suggested that we, \u201cwalk through the valley of the shadow of death\u201d (v. 4). This may seem like a pretty negative outlook on life, but although David was a realist, he was not a fatalist. Even though he recognized the presence of death, he did not live in \u201cfear\u201d (v. 4). Rather, he found comfort knowing that God was always with him (v.4), and he possessed the assurance that one day he would, \u201cdwell in the house of the Lord forever\u201d (v. 6).<\/p>\n
Death is meant to be disturbing; it is designed to get our attention. But most importantly it\u2019s intended to draw us closer to God, the only place where comfort and assurance can be found.<\/p>\n
Remember, this is a graveyard! But according to King David, God\u2019s comfort and assurance are the ultimate reality, even in the graveyard!
\n \u201cWhere, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:55).<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
* The foot was from a decayed coffin adjacent to the fresh grave and fell loose after the grandfather’s casket had been lowered.<\/p>\n
1. “Decaying foot horrifies grieving family as they bury grandfather,” by Christina Carrega, Elizabeth Keough and Larry Mcshane, New York Daily News , August 11, 2017, < http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/new-york\/decaying-foot-horrifies-grieving-family-bury-grandfather-article-1.3401379 >.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Daily News reports: After a graveside eulogy and a few prayers, the scene morphed quickly from silence to Stephen King with the appearance of the foot. \u201cWe all looked down and we were looking at what apparently was a human foot and leg wrapped in plastic, with cloth wrapped around it, sticking out on top […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1606,5553,312,1102,5554,5340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}