Deadheading
Lent 2014
In the early morning rush of waking sleepy heads, making breakfast, washing dishes, packing
lunches the radio announces that the violence in Central African Republic has
risen to such extremes that children are being decapitated. I quickly turn off the kitchen radio. I can’t bear to listen to the report that
will follow those words. I can’t bear
for my children to hear or to try and calculate answers to the questions that
would follow this knowledge.
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I close my eyes and picture her sweet flower of a face, the
dimpled grins of her three older brothers, the sweet new baby smell of her
newborn brother, the scarred and broken body of her father, and the gentle
long suffering smile of her mother. They
never told me of the hell they left behind, only of their thankfulness.
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I deadhead the daffodils.
The brittle blooms crumble in my palms.
It is easy to destroy something that is already dead. My children try to help and bring me fistfuls
of bright yellow blooms too short to fit in a vase. The flowers are wasted. I get angry over flowers picked too soon.
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Children are being decapitated in Central African Republic. The reports say that many of the killers are
Christians avenging family members who were killed by Muslims. It is easy to destroy something that is
already dead. What does it take to kill
one’s love for neighbor, one’s love for children? How can life return to a nation where death
has spread like cancer to the brain?
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During Lent we have been singing this song each Sunday:
Lamb of God you take
away, take away the sins of the world.
Grant us your peace.
Lamb of God you take
away, take away the sins of the world.
Have mercy on us.
My husband reminds me that “the sins of the world” are not
only my short temper but these unthinkable, unspeakable acts of violence that
Jesus has forgiven.
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My six year old daughter asks me, “Mommy, how old do you
have to be to be in a war?”
“People don’t get to choose.
If war comes to them, it affects the whole community.”
“But how old do you have to be to fight in a war, like a
soldier?”
I picture the child soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army
in Uganda and other kidnapped children around the world forced to murder and
maim. What is the word for raped,
drugged and drunk ten year-olds with machetes and AK-47s? Not soldiers. Zombies? I don’t give a full answer to her questions,
because I know that at some point she will ask again and she will know and not
be able to erase that knowledge of stolen childhood.
“In our country you have to be eighteen.”
After a long, thoughtful pause, “So people could die when
they are eighteen? That is so young!”
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We visit our friends who got out of Central African Republic
alive and now reside in an apartment complex near Atlanta. We come to greet their fifth child, a son. When their family stayed at our community
they announced that mother was pregnant by singing a song of joy. They named him, Bienvenue, Welcome. When I walk up the stairs and into their
quiet bedroom I am shocked to find not mother and baby but father alone in bed. The same week that baby was born, father’s
left eye and most of a malignant tumor had been removed his head. The part of the tumor that touched a nerve on
his brain could not be removed. Doctors
had taken skin from his leg and stitched it onto his face as a flesh eye
patch. He had needed a tracheotomy
during surgery so his throat was bandaged.
With a grim prognosis-unable to walk, half blind, barely able to speak
or eat- his body, like some ancient prophet, was a map of his wounded homeland. My children want to come up and see the baby
but I tell them no. I go to the children
so my husband can come with empty hands to give our friend the only gift he has to offer. He lays his hands upon him and prays.
Our sons kick a
soccer ball in the parking lot and balance on a brick wall. Our daughters find a garland of fake
sunflowers. They snap the blossoms off
the plastic stem and crown the new big sister’s head with blooms.
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At the end of a sunset walk my six year old is in tears. Her fists are clenched and her face red
hot. She is enraged and indignant
because her friend had just told her she is not strong. We walk through the dance of talking it out;
“When you said this, I felt that. Please
don’t do it again” “I’m sorry” “I forgive you.” Terse apologies are spoken. They turn away from one another and go home into the
descending dark. I wonder if this
practice will make them into blessed peacemakers when the stakes are
higher? My daughter wails with
disappointment over their tenuous truce, “My birthday wish did not come
true! All I wanted was peace in the
world.”
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My nine year old picks the only pink hyacinth in the yard. I flush with anger. I am enraged - over a picked flower.
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It is Sunday morning.
The news does not rest. In Central African Republic a mother
grieves. She told a reporter that two of
her children were killed on their way to church.
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It is another glorious sunset. The sky a garment of pink and lavender. My daughter holds a fluffy white dandelion
head in her hand. “Mama, let’s wish on
it together so that it will come true.”
I wonder what our wish will be. Her hand on the nape of my neck , her
voice soft and patient in my ear. Had I
already forgotten? “Peace in the world.”
We blow with all our might until the last black fleck is gone. She grabs my hand in triumph, “Our wish will
come true!”
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At dawn I open the door to dark shadows on our welcome
mat. The cat has left an offering - a
disemboweled and decapitated mouse. Its
parts evenly spaced on the mat.
Head. Body. Entrails.
The cat rubs against me with pride.
I lift the mat in disgust and carry his offering to the compost
heap. Cotton candy clouds of dawn speak
only of beauty above the carnage.
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My mother calls for advice about talking with children about
the crucifixion. Do they need to hear
about the nails? Of all punishments in
that time and place this was the worst.
Worse than being fed to the lions.
Worse than decapitation. Do they
need to know how much pain he took upon himself? The time will come when they
will know and will not be able to un-know.
For now, let them know they are loved.
Let them know of the empty tomb and of Jesus calling Mary by her name
and asking, “Why are you weeping?”
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Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy
on us.
Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world. Grant us your peace.