Abe and Zana have seen a lot. A lot you would rather shelter
your children from when they are young. Things we hide in America.
Realities we banish to neighborhoods, institutions and whispers.
One very concrete example is puppies.
Cute rolely, polely puppies still in their pre-worm round warmness. If a puppy dies in America and you have small children there is probably tears and a burial in the backyard. Or perhaps a secret and a quick purchase of a similar puppy in color and size. Dead animals, road kill, might be seen over the ridge of the window from the car seat at 50 mile speeds in the crystal clean US of A. Here, Abe has seen at least a half dozen tiny little puppies dead on garbage heaps at the side of the road. Walking slowly and tugging hard on my hand he stares, I wait for the inevitable question...
"Momma, why?"
"Why what little one?"
"Why tat?" asks Abe pointing at the dead puppy. "He det?"
"Yes bubba, the puppy is dead."
"Momma, why?"
"Because Adam sinned and now everyone dies."
Long pause in the conversation
"How do you feel?"
"Ummmm. Tat bad."
"Yes. It is bad and sad." (particularly as some of the dead puppies have rope around their necks and look as though perhaps they were killed on purpose)
We move on. Beauty is all around us in so many ways but there is also a whole lot of ugly. Garbage is not collected by a truck once a week from a large can that stands outside your house. Instead everyone throws it either out their window or in the big heap at the corner. It stays. You see it. It exists. It makes you more careful. More clear on the reasons of why recycling rocks. More passionate about not being wasteful.
Poverty isn't something that you see in a commercial to help those that are starving, or blind, or homeless. Poverty isn't a person standing with a sign. It is in the lives of our neighbors. Our friends. Poverty's gnawing fingers pry open our lives with unerring frequency.
Ugliness seems to slam us in the face and so beauty becomes more precious. Christ is beautiful. He is not some emaciated feminine looking man gracefully hanging. He was strong, and yet weak, without anything to attract us to him and yet our Creator. He is beautiful. The hope we have in him is beautiful and it is to Christ that I want to introduce my children. Christ crucified, dead, raised and now glorified.
One very concrete example is puppies.
Cute rolely, polely puppies still in their pre-worm round warmness. If a puppy dies in America and you have small children there is probably tears and a burial in the backyard. Or perhaps a secret and a quick purchase of a similar puppy in color and size. Dead animals, road kill, might be seen over the ridge of the window from the car seat at 50 mile speeds in the crystal clean US of A. Here, Abe has seen at least a half dozen tiny little puppies dead on garbage heaps at the side of the road. Walking slowly and tugging hard on my hand he stares, I wait for the inevitable question...
"Momma, why?"
"Why what little one?"
"Why tat?" asks Abe pointing at the dead puppy. "He det?"
"Yes bubba, the puppy is dead."
"Momma, why?"
"Because Adam sinned and now everyone dies."
Long pause in the conversation
"How do you feel?"
"Ummmm. Tat bad."
"Yes. It is bad and sad." (particularly as some of the dead puppies have rope around their necks and look as though perhaps they were killed on purpose)
We move on. Beauty is all around us in so many ways but there is also a whole lot of ugly. Garbage is not collected by a truck once a week from a large can that stands outside your house. Instead everyone throws it either out their window or in the big heap at the corner. It stays. You see it. It exists. It makes you more careful. More clear on the reasons of why recycling rocks. More passionate about not being wasteful.
Poverty isn't something that you see in a commercial to help those that are starving, or blind, or homeless. Poverty isn't a person standing with a sign. It is in the lives of our neighbors. Our friends. Poverty's gnawing fingers pry open our lives with unerring frequency.
Ugliness seems to slam us in the face and so beauty becomes more precious. Christ is beautiful. He is not some emaciated feminine looking man gracefully hanging. He was strong, and yet weak, without anything to attract us to him and yet our Creator. He is beautiful. The hope we have in him is beautiful and it is to Christ that I want to introduce my children. Christ crucified, dead, raised and now glorified.
I hear you. Poor Abe.
ReplyDeleteI love the way you write. leaf
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for the beauty of Christ. A beauty we can never fathom the depth of, and beauty that transforms lives.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, Charity.
TJ