Death’s Acre–the end, or is it?

I’m one of the most squeamish people I know.  My friends find it quite entertaining that I erupt in continuous gagging at the sight of bugs being squashed or Survivor episodes where contestants are required to eat the local delicacies.  There have even been instances when I would hide in the back room, to avoid the disgusting feast of beetles, worms, or chicken fetuses, only to wretch at the thought of what was happening on my livingroom television.  I hate those movies that try to make something humerous out of the gross and disgusting.  My husband and I are at odds over whether “Christmas Vacation” has any entertainment value.  There are too many snotty dogs, burnt up cats, and improper waste disposal scenes for me to enjoy it.  I loved the newest Willie Wonka movie, but unfortunately I recently vomited at a outdoor showing when I saw (no, actually “heard”, since I had shut my eyes) the Oompa Loompa’s eating caterpillars.  I bring this up, because we have a local celebrity in town who makes a living out of grossing people out.  Now, this is not his occupation, neither is it his aim, but he does it all the same because he has both a passion for what he does as well as an insensitivity due to the nature of his field.  You might say he is in fact, desensitized to the bizarre, the gross, the macabre.  I have a good friend who, along with several hundreds of others, went to a university alumni luncheon.  The keynote speaker was Dr. Bill Bass, head of forensic anthropology at the University of Tennessee.  At one time, Dr. Bass was holed up in a kind of mausoleum under Neyland Stadium, where the offices of the College of Antrhopology were once located.  Under that massive stadium, where thousands of fans chant and scream out the praises of their precious Volunteers, were stored the remains of Native Americans, as well as bone fragments from the hundreds of cases Dr. Bass had been called on to identify.  This particular sunny afternoon, the UT alum’s were still in the middle of their lunch when the short stocky frame of Dr. Bass approached the lecturn.  Armed only with a simple slideshow clicker, he cleared more people from the room that day, than Clint Eastwood could with a 357 magnum.  Here were the real case files, not CSI, not Cold Case; but the nation’s foremost forensic scientist excitedly promoting his craft to a room full of faint-hearted lightweights.   I have been hearing about these sorts of things for years, but got my real introduction to Dr. Bass through his first book Death’s Acre which he co-wrote with John Jefferson, my former neighbor.  Death’s Acre gets it’s title from Dr. Bass’s acclaimed forensic laboratory, the Body Farm, where the “dead do tell tales”.  In this autobiographical work, Dr. Bass breaks down the particulars of many of his ground-breaking cases, that not only answered questions about the relevant cases, but provided the clues to many future puzzles that coroners and scientists have tried to unravel since.  The “dead” at the Body Farm really have provided the much needed answers to many of these questions facing crime detectives over the years.  Questions like, “how long does it take for a blowfly to detect a dead body half a mile away”.  Don’t even ask me how they did this one.  Just suffice it to say, it included blowflies and nail polish.  The Bass/Jefferson team has done a brilliant job balancing the facts with Bass’s personal memoires.  Though numb to the blood and gore, he is not completely devoid of feeling.  The book finds him not only weeping over a family that is brutally murdered, but saddened at the life of a prostitute that has been needlessly struck down.  The true unveiling of his mask occurs when he questions God.  He remarks to us that although he “used” to believe in God, he no longer does, because of what he has observed about death.  The loss of his first two wives to cancer as well as daily coming face to face with death and suffering has convinced him that human beings have the same end.  They die, decay, return to the earth to be eaten by worms and give live to the trees and grass.  This made me sad for Dr. Bass, sadder than I was for the many victims whom he tried to seek justice for.  Dr. Bass sees a world without justice.  A world which seeks for hope, but which is unanswered by the unseen God who governs it.  His conclusions are based on what he sees.  My conclusions are based on what I know, or rather Who I know.  I know a God who governs all things and is merciful despite the ravings and rebellion of the humans he has made.  I see a world deserving of His wrath and judgement, but recipients of His mercy in the giving of His one and only Son to bear that just wrath.  To look at Christ is to see both the mercy of God toward undeserving sinners and the wrath of God poured out on sinful human beings.  The truth is, we suffer sickness and death because of our father Adam’s sin, yet we have hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus.  How’s that for a Christmas blog.  People die, but there is eternal life.  That is what I am reminded of when I consider Death’s Acre.  Yes, my live is but a vapor, yes, I return to dust; but yes, my soul lives on to eternal life or eternal death, that is indeed my choice and yours. 

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