Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Derelict

The Derelict

Last updated on: July 23, 2017 at 2:03 am by Mary Pezzulo

The Derelict 2017-07-23T02:03:01-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

angel-664560_640

I was going for my walk after dark, after the heat of the day had broken.

I walk past the latest burned-out wreck.

I didn’t mean to walk past it, but I mistook the street numbers in the dark, and there I was. The police haven’t released the official cause of this fire, yet. They haven’t even finished their investigation; the pile of rubber-scented charcoal is still there, with an old Comcast satellite dish sitting on top of the ash and the stone foundation of the kitchen still half standing up, all surrounded with a funerary garland of caution tape. The house was officially a derelict, but the neighbors say it was a meth lab. It exploded on the fifth of July, at three in the morning; before anybody even got out of bed to look, it was shooting flames over the tops of houses. You could see it from over on Oregon Avenue; you could smell it all around LaBelle. I woke up when I smelled it– I thought my own house was burning down.

I walked from East to West down the block. It was like looking at a timeline in a museum. My father used to take us to the science museum, in Columbus, where we’d walk through the “time tunnel:” a series of windows in a dark hallway with “Also Sprach Zarathustra” playing in loudspeakers overhead. We saw a diorama of lumpy rubber dinosaurs next to a diorama of skulking cave men, next to the Roman Senate with a mannequin Julius Caesar; then a grisly diorama of the Black Death, hooded monks dragging tormented bodies out of the street. Then there were pioneers pointing purposefully across the frontier, then the Gettysburg Address, then the Moon Landing; finally, a sphere of flashing television screens against a night sky, which was meant to represent earth in the future. Walking down this particular street reminds me uncomfortably of that– it’s like the passage of time illustrated in life-sized dioramas, but the future it shows isn’t hopeful.

Here’s an inhabited house, with lawn short and the lights on. I can see plants in the living room and a big fish tank. Someone is watching television inside. Next to that house is a lot that’s been mowed this summer but not this week. One side of the house still has whitewash, but it’s chipped and peeling. Broken windows reveal nothing but black indoors. The other side is charred and smells like melted plastic. Police tape covers the porch, but not the yard. Next to that house is the one that exploded, the whole yard cordoned off by yellow tape that says CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION. Next to that, a vacant lot. There was a fatal fire here several years ago; I think one of the victims was a child. The neighbors planted two flowering pear trees as a memorial, and placed an ugly lawn statue of a baby angel in between them.

The grass is growing out of control on that lot. Someone comes and mows it, once in awhile, but it’s usually left fallow. Some days it’s hard to spot the angel.

I wonder if LaBelle has a guardian angel.

I’ve been told that cities, cultures and communities have angels. Does LaBelle have a guardian angel?

I was also once told that guardian angels look like their charges, but I don’t like that. I don’t want the guardian of LaBelle to look like one of the envious rich on the very edge of the neighborhood, in the mansions that overlook the cliffs. I don’t want him to look like the neighbors we had when we lived on the very worst street; the ones who stole from us and hot-wired another neighbor’s car when she went to the hospital. I don’t want her to look like the people who were arrested for putting their children in crates for hours as punishment. I don’t want him to look like our senile old neighbor next door, who threatened my husband with a knife she didn’t really intend to use. I certainly don’t want the guardian angel of LaBelle to be a meth-maker or a crack dealer, one of the neglected children who scream obscenities at me, the man who threatened to “take me for a ride” as I waited for the bus.

Most of all, I don’t want him to look like me. If he looked like me he would be as small, as fearful and as hard of heart as I am, and God help us then. I can’t save LaBelle.

I think she looks like all of us. I think she’s having such a hard time helping us, because when we see her, we see our neighbors, and we have forgotten how we ought to see our neighbors. God have mercy on us, we don’t see one another as persons, but threats.

I wonder what would happen if this whole neighborhood suddenly looked like the end of the timeline– not the hopeful one at the museum, but the fatal one here. What if we all burned to death in one night? What if there was nothing left from Brady Estates all the way to cliff’s edge but an overgrown lot, two cheap saplings and a grave without a body inside?

Would anyone mourn for us?

Would anyone place a plaster angel over the site of the fire?

Would anyone look at the ashes and say, “This was once LaBelle?”

Would there be anyone to give a eulogy and pray for our souls? What would they say? “This was once a neighborhood, with hundreds of people. They weren’t good people, of course. They weren’t memorable people, not anyone you’d want to admit that you knew. They were ministers, store clerks and waitresses. They were meth dealers and crack dealers, junkies, alcoholics. Some of them were the rich folks– richer than everybody else around here, that is– right up on the cliff’s edge, who complained loudly about how trashy and greedy their neighbors were to collect food stamps, and who tried to make the poor disappear by the passing of ordinances. Some of them were college students just passing through, who left couches on the porch and wrecked cars on the curb when they left. Some were people who had never been prosperous no matter how hard they worked and were used to it. Some were equally poor, but blamed the government and the ones who had always been poor. Some were neglected children whose existence was considered “a shame” by their neighbors. They were Mary, Michael, Rose, Sean, Laura, Kim, Brian, Barbara, Josiah, Cheyenne. They were children of God, I suppose, and may He have mercy and grant them eternal memory.”

I wonder if anyone but the guardian of LaBelle would plead for us.

It would serve us right, I suppose, but mercy is always better than we deserve.

(image via pixabay)

Previous Post

July 22, 2017

Deacon Jim's Blunder: The Actual Definition of "Orthophobia"

Next Post

July 25, 2017 Something to Say on the ACA

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the first king of Israel?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Josiah Solomon Saul