“Listen to the carrion—put your ear
Close, and hear the faint chattering
Of the songs to come.”
—Wendell Berry
The old man used to have a dog that was always barking. Now, his yard is suddenly silent. The old man plants flowers, right up by the chain-link fence, even though he knows the school children could easily pluck them, ruining the years of careful pruning. I walk this path so many times I see the gradual growth. I begin to be excited, awed, by the ways the peonies shoot up to the sky, how the head gets heavy, how it bursts into color. It feels like he planted them for me, and in a way he did. He could be very lonely and very angry and very scared about what it might mean to actually love his neighbor. I don’t know, but in this small way, he loves me. When children pick the petals and throw them on the ground, I wonder if that might not be the best kind of death for a flower, after all.
*
One time at the beach, I went to talk and commune with God. But the beach, as it sometimes can be, was littered with decay. Birds, so many birds, dead on the sand. I was alone, the sky was gray, the waves continued to come and go, and pleasing sound in my ears, while I gingerly picked my way through debris, through rocks and seaweed and tangles of unidentifiable trash. And birds, every few feet. White and gray birds with blue feet, some of them sticking straight up to the sky. I imagined a storm half the world away. I was on the shore, I saw the wreckage of a world that was constantly ending for some. I didn’t pray that day, or maybe I did. I just kept asking God, with tears in my eyes by the end: why?
*
A mile and a half from my house there is a small lake. Named after an indigenous tribe long since displaced, the lake is hidden by an industrial road, it is next to where the school district parks its busses. The walk there is ugly, full of concrete and no sidewalks, convenience stores built in the 1970s, large fences, cars driving too fast. But once you get to this man-made lake, you can disappear for a minute. You can be surrounded by green trees, you can walk a path, you can watch birds ripple the water. Sometimes I walk there, to pretend I have escaped. Once I walked on the gravel on the side of the busy street, almost to my destination. To my right I suddenly saw a dead coyote, half hidden in the bushes. In the movies you hear the buzzing of flies around decay, but in my life, death is always so very quiet. I saw that dead coyote and my heart filled with horror. I could not pray the rest of that walk. I did not walk to that small lake for many months afterward. The wild, the suburban, the death, the hiddenness. I just wanted a break. I just wanted peace. I was tired of seeing death everywhere I looked.
*
I was walking with headphones in, listening to a guided Catholic meditation. I am not Catholic, but sometimes I want to be one, until I remember all the bad stuff. But they make a great app, those Jesuits, to help people meditate and pray. I walked past the familiar houses, then I turned right onto one of the main streets. On the other side, past four crowded lanes, was a gray-and-white dog, a husky, sniffing around a mailbox. I hesitated. I am terrified of dogs, especially big dogs wandering around without a leash or an owner in sight. But the dog was far away; I thought it would be fine. I walked, listening to the calm voice reading a passage out of the book of Philippians, asking me to be present, imagining myself in the Scripture. I walked down the street, and I watched as the dog took notice of me. I watched as the dog perked up its ears and started to cross the street. I yelled, panicking, and waved my hands to the side. Stop, go back, I told the dog, but the dog didn’t understand me. I watched as a dark gray minivan hit the dog, its face bright and focused on me, crumpling in slow motion to the asphalt.
The dog got up and limped to my side of the street, disappearing into a front yard. I slowly walked forward, scared about what I would see. A car turned around and stopped, a large man got out and went towards the dog. His wife, who had a bad leg, stood with me. A young man, covered in tattoos, came running. He recognized the dog, he said, as the dog of his client. She wasn’t answering her phone. She wasn’t answering her door. The dog collapsed against a house that wasn’t his. He was so big, his leg so hurt, a trickle of blood on his chin. An old woman, a neighbor, came out in her magenta robe and slippers. She stroked the dog’s face, over and over again. I held her arm as she walked back to her house, unsteady on the uneven concrete. I stayed as long as I could. The people who hit the dog never came back, but other people did. People who were overwhelmed and unsure of what to do in the face of suffering, but who tried to do what they could anyway.
My husband and children were waiting for me to come back home, so I said goodbye to the dog and to the unlikely people crowded around. I didn’t turn on my prayer app again but continued my walk home in silence. The last thing I remember hearing, before I saw that gorgeous dog fall in a rippling movement of muscles and motion, was this: Jesus made himself nothing, taking on the very likeness of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross.
Theologians throughout the centuries have debated what it means that Jesus made himself nothing—literally, emptied himself. Poured out the divine nature, let go of what it meant to be God. He became obedient to death. He opened himself up to suffering. He embraced it. He received it. He did not complain. He did not shut his eyes.
*
If our front door had a screen, I would have banged it on my way out. But instead, I closed it quietly, although I could still hear my children whining to my husband inside. I tell my family I need exercise, I tell myself I need to pray, but in reality I just walk, one foot in front of the other. Skylar is across the street, and I beg the good Lord not to let her notice me. But she does, and yells hello at me. She is in second grade, her hair a thick blonde bob. She is wearing a Batgirl dress, pushing a stroller filled with four dolls. She wants to join me on my walk. She wanders the neighborhood, always looking for someone to play with. She lives with her grandparents around the corner. My daughter tells me Skylar has been forbidden from ever speaking about what happened to her parents. I am wildly curious and wildly sad. Skylar walks with me, and deep inside I wish she wouldn’t, so I could get my moment of peace and quiet.
She chatters to me, never letting a slip of silence linger. Eventually, I tell her to have a good day. My voice cheery, I wave and veer off in a different direction. She stands and watches me go, her stroller tiny and pink and self-contained. I continue on my walk. I try to pray. But God is silent. I ask God to speak to me, to challenge me, to make me better and less angry and sad and anxious. But I’m not sure I really mean it. Prayer is noticing, and I am not sure I am strong enough to keep doing it. I am not sure I am ready to obey, to keep my eyes wide open, and to not be afraid. I’m not sure I am ready to receive Christ, bruised and battered and already dead, here on earth.
I walk on, paying careful attention to the riot of pinks and whites of blooms in our neighborhood. I concentrate on the people who planted these long ago. I tell them thank you and I slowly make my way towards home.
