{"id":1726,"date":"2020-12-15T21:45:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T21:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2020-12-15T21:45:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T21:45:13","slug":"disappearing-bodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/15\/disappearing-bodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Disappearing Bodies"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Disappearing Bodies<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In the face of death and the physical absence of God, Spencer Reece\u2019s poems forego anger and cynicism in favor of grief.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Inez Tan<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Many atheists and agnostics hold that they would believe in God if he would only show himself to them. After all, why couldn\u2019t he, if he is all-powerful? Why wouldn\u2019t he, if he is kind and loving, and if he really wants people to believe in him as much as he says he does? In response, Christians point to God\u2019s incarnation as Jesus Christ, a man who lived on the earth just as we do. The people who lived in Christ\u2019s time walked with him, ate with him, and touched his scarred hands. I\u2019ve often envied their experience. Now, two thousand years later, it may seem foolish to believe in him; in his presence as he performed miracles, it would have been foolish not to.<\/p>

But in fact, Jesus\u2019 bodily presence was brief\u2014fewer than thirty-five years. Even Jesus\u2019 closest companions were with him for only the three years of his ministry. No sooner had Christ risen from the tomb and returned to their midst than he ascended into heaven and, we are told quite deliberately, \u201ca cloud received Him out of their sight (Acts 1:9).\u201d<\/p>

Poet Spencer Reece cites what is perhaps the best and strangest example of Christ\u2019s fleeting physical presence in the title poem of his forthcoming collection, The Road to Emmaus<\/em>. In this story, on the third day after Christ\u2019s death, two of his disciples are walking to Emmaus when Christ himself approaches and asks, \u201cWhat kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?\u201d Bafflingly, they do not recognize him; in some translations we are told that \u201ctheir eyes were restrained.\u201d It is not until that evening, after they have walked and talked a long way, and sat down to eat, that they recognize Jesus as he breaks bread and hands it to them: \u201cThen their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight (Luke 24:31).\u201d Again, we are offered a tantalizing, taunting glimpse of Christ in the flesh, before he literally disappears.<\/p>

Why should he vanish so conveniently, when bodies\u2014visible, tangible, material\u2014are a standard form of proof? As fragile as they are, bodies cannot be ignored or easily explained away. The fossil record is key to debates on the origin of species; excavated bodies from wars and genocides testify that crimes committed against them really happened. When God removed himself bodily from the world, it became easy to claim that he never existed at all. I think many readers become frustrated, perplexed, even angry with the account of the Ascension and Christ\u2019s other disappearing acts\u2014I know I do. But Reece\u2019s response to the loss of the human body in his poetry is quite different: his primary reaction is grief. And mourners, in their imperfect, self-seeking way, do not demean or grow skeptical of what they have lost, but lovingly recall and long for what they once had.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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In some ways, the historicity of the events described makes the poems difficult to analyze, but in other ways it simplifies matters: his poetry and his theology are one.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mourning is at the center of the title poems of Reece’s two collections: The Road to Emmaus<\/em>, forthcoming this year, and The Clerk\u2019s Tale<\/em>, published in 2004. Both poems are extremely autobiographical, like all of Reece\u2019s poetry. In some ways, the historicity of the events described makes the poems difficult to analyze, but in other ways it simplifies matters: his poetry and his theology are one.<\/p>

\u201cThe Road to Emmaus\u201d tells the story of how Reece met Durell, his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor and confidante of over seventeen years, and of Reece\u2019s life in the aftermath of Durell\u2019s death. The poem opens with Reece undergoing grief counseling with Sister Ann, a Franciscan nun. He is struggling to hold on to the influence Durell had on his life, even as he acknowledges how his efforts fall short: \u201cI paused, then spoke urgently, not wanting to forget some fact,\/ but much I knew I would forget or remember in a way my own,\/ which would not exactly be correct, no, not exactly.\u201d Through his narration to Sister Ann, Durell comes vividly, physically, bodily alive:<\/p>

his thick hair fixed as the waves of an 1800s nautical painting<\/p>

(perhaps he kept it set with hair spray?),<\/p>

his Tiffany ring polished to a brilliance,<\/p>

he set himself apart in his metal folding chair.<\/p>

He had the clotted girth of Hermann G\u00f6ring.<\/p>

\u2026Imperious, behind prism-like trifocals,<\/p>

quietly he said to me, \u201cI\u2019ve grown as fat as Elizabeth Taylor.\u201d<\/p>

Reece becomes the last man Durell sponsors, and they talk daily for over fifteen years until Durell\u2019s death. Although it\u2019s no small thing that Durell\u2019s support helps Reece to recover from addiction, in some places, Reece\u2019s attempts to present Durell as a Christ-figure feel a little heavy-handed: \u201cWe were bound, bound by a vow, a vow of attention\/ (there are many causes for attention, among them redemption).\u201d However, by the end of the poem, when more of Durell\u2019s past has come to light, Reece\u2019s description of him\u2014\u201cHe was an unlikely candidate for so many things\u201d\u2014proves to be double-edged. While the poem is primarily eulogistic, Reece does his friend justice by not putting him up on a pedestal: \u201cEveryone found him impossible,\/ including, at times, me.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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It is hard to tell if Jesus\u2019 followers are merely apathetic after the crucifixion\u2014but they had, after all, lost one of their closest friends, whom they also believed would be their Savior. Perhaps, more than anything, they were crushed by sorrow.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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More interesting is the way Durell is likened to Christ by his juxtaposition with the Emmaus scene, which enters the poem as a tawdry postcard in Sister Ann\u2019s office:<\/p>

Above her gray head,<\/p>

a garish postcard of the Emmaus scene,<\/p>

the colors off, as if painted by numbers, with no concern for shading\u2014<\/p>

the style of it had an unoriginal Catholic institutional uniformity. There is hung, askew in\u00a0<\/p>

its golden drugstore frame.<\/p>

Within the scene, the disciples are \u201cgossiping about the impress of Christ\u2019s vanishing\u201d from the tomb on the third day after his death. \u201cGossiping\u201d is a brilliant word, since these disciples did not even go to see the tomb for themselves. It is hard to tell if Jesus\u2019 followers are merely apathetic after the crucifixion\u2014but they had, after all, lost one of their closest friends, whom they also believed would be their Savior. Perhaps, more than anything, they were crushed by sorrow. In any case, no one but Peter and the women discovered the empty tomb saw for themselves that his body was gone.<\/p>

Reece did not get to see Durell\u2019s body either, although he tried. His verse turns spare, precise in its accounting:<\/p>

When I arrived at the hospital his body was gone.<\/p>

The formalities were few,<\/p>

for he had become a ward of the state.<\/p>

The staff gave me a brown grocery bag of his things:<\/p>

a roll of dimes, a pair of shoes, a belt buckle, an Einstein quote,<\/p>

something about mediocre minds.<\/p>

Bereft even of his friend\u2019s body, the loss is devastating, closure impossible. Reece struggles to make sense of Durell\u2019s death, as incoherent as the roster of items he receives.<\/p>

The poem is full of other losses, replacements. The AA meeting earlier receives one of Reece\u2019s best and funniest lines\u2014\u201cDarkened figures in the poor light, we looked like the burghers of Calais.\u201d By comparing them to monuments, he implies their permanence. So it is a shock, all the more so for how unsentimentally it is put, that \u201c[After Durell\u2019s death] I went through Cambridge and found the meeting gone.\u201d Reece continues walking through Cambridge, observing \u201cA new set of homeless people pleaded\u2026 The Charles advanced, determined as a hearse,\/ its dark waters gathering up every unattached thing.\u201d What others might accept with a shrug\u2014that change is the natural order of things, as constant and emotionless as the tides\u2014Reece sees as tragedy.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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He mourns his own aging body, his own transience.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Loss, matched by grief, also pervades the title poem of Reece\u2019s first collection, \u201cThe Clerk\u2019s Tale.\u201d The poem is about Reece\u2019s time working as a salesman in a Brooks Brothers store, where he was in a prime position to observe how quickly things pass away. The tone is resigned, self-deprecating, yet a little performative as well:<\/p>

Our hours are long. Our backs bent.<\/p>

We are more gracious than English royalty.<\/p>

We dart amongst the aisles tall as hedgerows.<\/p>

Watch us face into the merchandise.<\/p>

In particular, the poem details one of Reece\u2019s colleagues, known to us only by the nickname he gives himself: \u201cthe old homosexual.\u201d There, Reece\u2019s clipped humor contrasts nicely again with his biting wit:<\/p>

I sometimes feel we are in a musical\u2014<\/p>

gossiping backstage between our numbers.<\/p>

He drags deeply on his cigarette.<\/p>

Most of his life is over.<\/p>

The poem describes the timeless routine of the salesmen, down to Reece\u2019s ritualistic interactions with \u201cthe old homosexual\u201d: \u201cHe inserts one last breath mint\/ and offers one to me. The gesture is fraternal\/ and occurs between us many times.\u201d But their parting, at the end of the day, Reece renders surprisingly poignant, lyrical, \u201cAt last, we bid each other good night.\/ I watch [the old homosexual] fade into the many-tiered parking lot,\/ where the thousands of cars have come\/ and are now gone.\u201d As the salesmen shed their formal dress and depart from the mall, they dissolve into the indistinguishable mass of others: \u201cSee us loosening our ties among you.\u201d Beyond the store after hours, they become nobody. They are like the mannequins they dress and redress endlessly\u2014as the speaker declares wryly, \u201cA naked body, without pretense, is of no use.\u201d And Reece, himself an aging gay man, no doubt sees himself reflected in Durell and the old homosexual. He mourns his own aging body, his own transience.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Both poems, so poignantly about loss, gesture surprisingly toward restoration by the stories to which their titles allude.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In her laudatory introduction to The Clerk\u2019s Tale<\/em>, former poet laureate Louise Gl\u00fcck writes, \u201cReece\u2019s longing for permanence is rooted in a profound sense of the provisional nature of all human arrangements and a corresponding perception of an ideal.\u201d For Reece, who is an Episcopalian priest (and many other things besides), that ideal is eternal life with the ever-present God of unconditional love, and with all who believe in him. Gl\u00fcck senses the Christian faith acutely in Reece\u2019s work, even if she can\u2019t bring herself to acknowledge it explicitly. Her reluctance is understandable\u2014hope is an audacious thing. Yet Reece will not let it go. Both poems, so poignantly about loss, gesture surprisingly toward restoration by the stories to which their titles allude. In \u201cThe Clerk\u2019s Tale\u201d by Chaucer, faithful Griselda regains her children and her husband; in the gospels, Christians look forward to the second coming of Christ. These breezy summaries belie the terrible hollow feeling of bereavement, the arduousness of their trials. Only from God\u2019s standpoint are they small, in comparison with the astonishing truth that what seems utterly lost may yet be regained.<\/p>

We return, then, to the question of why God should be so physically absent in our world. Paul addresses the issue in his letter to the church in Rome, writing, \u201cWe ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance (Romans 8:23-25).\u201d<\/p>

In other words, to believe in God, we have to do far more than see him. To follow Christ is to hope in what we have not yet seen come to pass, and that hope sustains us through our lifelong experience of loss. Reece does well to plumb and capture his sorrow so frankly. True, hope bears a resemblance to starry-eyed idealism: we hope in life when all around us, our bodies bear witness to deaths and disappearances. But that is the hope we yearn for, and in which we are saved. The very absence of Christ\u2019s body indicates the presence of his spirit; unrecognized, he journeys beside us on the road. Someday, we will see him face to face.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Inez Tan<\/strong> majored in English at Williams College and will be starting an MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan this fall. She works with the Augustine Collective (<\/em>www.augustinecollective.org), a student-led movement of Christian journals on college campuses.
<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the face of death and the physical absence of God, Spencer Reece\u2019s poems forego anger and cynicism in favor of 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