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.