Have you or someone you know suffered a recent violent loss? If so, you are not alone. Here in Indianapolis, we have experienced a record-breaking number of deaths due to gun violence, the impacts of which are widespread in terms of police/community relations, residents’ overall feelings of well-being and the effect it has on the family of the deceased.
Rev. Oscar Crear, a preacher with nearly 50 years of experience, is on a mission to help those who are grieving. He will be visiting Indianapolis on Feb. 25 to do a book signing and group grief counseling session.
Crear currently serves as the pastor of New Tiberian Baptist Church in Chicago, a city that has been plagued with gun violence over the years. Since 2010, he has also served as chapel pastor for a funeral home on the city’s west side. “As chapel pastor my job is to preach the funerals and work with families that don’t have pastors,” he said, adding that most of the nearly 35 eulogies he preaches a year are for people who are victims of violent crime.
“The Lord has placed a passion in my heart for the recovery of these families. Everybody wants to stop the violence, but I am on the other end … I want to heal the pain that is caused by the violence.”
Through his experience in the industry, he deduced that the different professionals that interact with grieving families weren’t as helpful as they could be. At the urging of a friend, he wrote his first book in 2013, Lord Thou Hast been Our Dwelling Place: Pastoral Reflections on Life, Traumatic Death, Funerals and Chronic Grief.
“We need to rethink how we deal with these families,” said Crear. “All of these cities are going through the same thing — it’s not just Chicago — but nobody is reaching out to say, ‘How do we heal these people?’ When a family hurts, the block is hurting, and then the community hurts, then the city hurts … and hurting people hurt people.”
His second book, On This Journey, features eight meditations that are designed to walk loved ones through the weeklong funeral-planning period. The passages cover what to do when you get the call that a loved one has been killed and how to prepare for the day you take clothes to the mortician and pick the gravesite. “Everything that a family goes through that week, there is a meditation for that day based on real-life stories. I interviewed over 100 people,” he said. In On This Journey, Crear shares the story of a mom who lost a child and couldn’t sleep in her own bed for several months. “In order to get to her bedroom, she had to walk past her son’s room, who died, and she couldn’t do it. We have families that two, three, four and five years later are still dealing with these issues and (wonder), how do we get past the pain?”
Crear, who is working on another book titled 7 Spirits that Haunt Our Grief, will be signing copies of his second publication on Feb. 25 from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. at Kountry Kitchen, located at 1831 College Ave. At 4 p.m. that same day, he will lead Conversations for Healing, a grief counseling session with 20 families who have experienced violent loss, at Williams and Bluitt Funeral Home.
“People have to realize that everyone’s grief is individual. Black folks don’t go to grief counseling. We just don’t go. It is my job, my passion … since Muhammad won’t come to the mountain to take the mountain to Muhammad.”
Crear plans to travel the country hosting similar events throughout the year. For more information, call (773) 991-2615.
