The devices we love make a disciplined prayer life all but impossible
Fasting is an art ordered to the cultivation of attention to God. Such a spiritual practice cannot be done just anywhere but in a place free of distractions – a place like a desert. The Gospels often depict Jesus going into the desert or up the mountain to be alone with the Father and pray.
In recent years, a number of U.S. states have legalized a new way to process human corpses that some have called “dissolving the dead.” Its technical name is “alkaline hydrolysis,” but it is also known as biocremation, aquamation, green cremation and resomation.
The basic process involves placing a body in a heated, pressurized metal chamber and hastening its decomposition by adding lye (water mixed with a small quantity of potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide) to break down proteins, fats, DNA, etc. This rapidly digests the tissues of the body and reduces it to skeletal fragments. The procedure, which some claim is merely an accelerated version of what happens if you’re buried, requires three to four hours.