Bodies of Death

I have to confess that I've always found the body, though fascinating in how it works, to also be repulsive. I don't like the reminder that we are just really food processing machines, not so different from earthworms: food in one end and excrement out the other. I don't like that initial slice during surgery, where you cut through the wholeness of the skin and see the stuffing of a person, the messy, squishy, bloody, pulsating mess inside. If only humans could look more like plants, with their neat compartmentalized structures and pretty colors.

So I guess it's pretty ironic that I'm going to medical school, huh? I'm already steeling myself for anatomy. Dissection tresspasses completely on the sanctity and dignity of a person. Curiosity, I think, will be the only motor pulling me forward to cut and examine, while the rest of me grimaces and digs in my heels hard. It's hard not to think that when you cut off chunks of a Bob's pickled body and throw it in a trash bag, you aren't also carving up Bob himself. After all, this was the physical form that Bob's family and friends hugged, shook hands with, and knew to be Bob.

But, we reassure ourselves, this is not Bob we're dealing with. This is simply his physical shell, left behind in this mortal world. It's okay if we take it apart. The real Bob is in a better place. Or, if you're an atheist, Bob, well, Bob is no more.

I was horrified the first time I passed by a body parts shop as a kid. I imagined spare arms piled on the shelves, and extra heads lined up against the wall. But you know, beyond the freaky image (and increasing possibility!) of human body shops, being a doctor is really not so different from being an auto mechanic. You get in there, adjust some valves and pipes, give it a good kick, and send it on its way. And eventually it's not worth it to replace the parts because it's just too expensive, and you might as well junk this car and get a shiny new one. A doctor, however, is a poor man's auto mechanic, who ends up patching up decrepit old jalopies just so they can chug painfully along. The poor man's never going to be able to afford trading in his car until he dies. And unfortunately, people are taking a whole lot longer to die now. All and all, a pretty depressing situation. Bodies that start dying from the day they are driven off the lot.

The resurrection of the body lends a new dignity to the human body, for it means that there is something essential about the body to being human. The body is necessary for us to serve in the role God designed us for, because if we could better glorify and serve him by being simply spiritual beings, God would not have given us bodies in the New Heaven and New Earth. The resurrection of the body means that there is something to caring for the body and providing for the needs of the body here and now, in this world. It gives significance to all of creation. The redemption of all of creation means that our work on this earth isn't just done on old jalopies that will be traded in. If it will pass through fire and not go up in flames, it will last and become part of the New Heaven and New Earth. We can store up eternal treasure.

Yet if we exchange our Platonic view of the body as a shell for the sanctity and importance of our bodies, indivisible from who we are as humans, what does that mean for dissection? Can we in reverence reduce a whole human body down to parts, small scraps of muscle and bone? It's hard not to imagine that you're not fragmenting the soul itself.

If you trace the history of anatomical dissections, unsurprisingly, it reflects the history of thought on the resurrection of the body and soul. Dissection was suppressed by the Catholic church, and it reemerged with the Reformation. How does our reconsideration of the resurrection of the body affect what we think about the practice of dissection?

When you consider that cremation is not so different from dissection, just faster and with less careful observation, perhaps we need to think more carefully what cremation might imply about the current thought on the resurrection of the body and soul. Cremation is growing in popularity: one in four deaths end in cremation today. While it is true that God's resurrection of our bodies is not dependent on our preserving our dead bodies, what does the popularity of cremation reflect about our culture's current attitude towards death and life after death? Cremation is mandated by Hinduism and Buddhism, and in the scattering of ashes, there is a sense that one's life will join in the life of the rivers, oceans, and trees. There is also a sense of final obliteration in cremation - there is nothing more left of the dead person, so why waste space and hurt the environment for the living? Personally, I find the idea of cremation attractive because I don't want to be remembered in cold, still death, and I rather don't like the idea of having my body decay in the ground. Better to hasten the process of nature and go to ashes directly, rather than linger in the ugly in between stages. And I remember one impression I had of cremation, is that the last time you loved ones will see your physical body is when it's shoved into a furnace and goes up in flames. Perhaps you think of a Viking king going out in glory. Curious how the hell-fire imagery doesn't seem to scare anyone anymore.