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 Swallowtail

The Swallowtail

Last updated on: May 20, 2021 at 1:59 pm by Mary Pezzulo

The Swallowtail 2021-05-20T13:59:48-04:00 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.

I had to buy coffee, so I went out early. And then I decided that I was too lazy to go home and make coffee, so I bought a cup of iced coffee and drank it in my car.

It was too bright and sunny to drink coffee in the car in the parking lot, so I drove down the block to Union Cemetery.

I have gone for walks in Union Cemetery time and again, every year since I came to Steubenville. But I haven’t ever gone for a drive there before. This was my very first time. I meandered up and down the narrow lanes between graves.

I had always been too tired to walk the whole length of the cemetery, so I’d never been to the top of the hill. That was where I started driving. I wanted to explore everywhere I’d never seen before.

At the bottom of the hill near the Old Stone Bridge are venerable old trees and rough, hand-carved graves from a hundred years ago. Up the hill is where the new graves are, neat rectangles of granite that sparkle when the light catches them, and fewer trees to shade the ground. There were big empty patches between the graves, carpeted with the itchiest light green grass, the kind of grass that gets paid for by the yard and delivered in rolls of sod on the back of a truck and unrolled like a living shag rug to cover good honest mud. I hate that kind of grass. It demands water, pesticide and fertilizer but gives nothing in return– no crops, no shelter for the animals, no carbon sink. It ought to be prairie grass, or wildflowers, or at least white clover.

If the worst comes to the worst and I never get out of Steubenville, if I die and am buried here, I suppose they’ll peel back the sod and stick me underground here, near the crest of the hill. I’ll lie there under sterile prickly grass until Christ returns on the Day of Wrath, and that will be justice for my constant grumbling. But I hope I die somewhere else.

At the summit of the hill there were more trees, and a wrought iron fence with a sign warning people not to climb it. I could barely hear the cars a world away. Birds sang in the shady oaks. Moths were dancing over the fresh cut grass, chasing one another– no, they weren’t moths, they were butterflies. They were black swallowtails with just a little flash of color at the bottoms of each wing. I had never seen so many swallowtail butterflies in the same place before, at least not this far into the broken industrial chimney of Appalachia. Sometimes I’d see butterflies like that when my family vacationed deep in Appalachia, in the state parks, where everything is alive. They would bob up and down among the wildflowers, silent and majestic. Now and then we’d find a dead one by the road– or worse, one that was not quite dead, flapping one intact wing while the other one lay limp and ragged like torn paper.

My family lived in Columbus and I was a city child, but the mountains were what felt like “home” as much as anywhere felt home. I haven’t been there in more than ten years.

I parked the car and went over to the fence to investigate.

On the other side of the fence, the whole world dropped away before me, revealing the Ohio Valley. Just ahead was the hospice where people go to die. Beyond that was Sunset Boulevard and the house I lived in when I first moved out of the dormitory more than twelve years ago. Downhill were more trees, the rest of the cemetery, the roof of the shopping center, the grandstands of Big Red stadium where rapists are honored with standing ovations. Beyond that, through more trees, I could see a glimpse of that hateful campus, Father Mike Scanlan’s private kingdom, his shrine and monument to Father Mike Scanlan and nobody else, where so many people have been abused and destroyed, fed alive to the insatiable maw of the Charismatic Renewal. In another direction, jutting up among the trees, was the LaBelle water tower and that neighborhood with all its squalid poverty. Beyond the water tower I could see a derelict steel plant and a working plant with a smoking chimney, poisoning the whole earth. In another direction was a triangular slice of the cliffs on the other side of the Ohio. Beyond that were the real Appalachian mountains. Touching the top of the mountains was the firmament, blue on top and much lighter at the horizon. Beyond the firmament was God.

It would be justice if God rained down fire to destroy this cruel place.

It’s another kind of justice that we are all still here, living, able to make choices, with the ghost of a chance to get it right this time, even though we have done so much wrong.

A swallow– not a swallowtail but the actual bird called a swallow– dove in front of me, back and forth, so close I could have plucked her out of the air.

I stood in the Union Cemetery, mourning for someone who was dead. I grieved the loss of a ridiculous, idealistic, naïve young girl, delicate as a butterfly’s wing, who came to Steubenville a decade and a half ago to spend two years on a Master’s degree. I mourned her failed academic career, her estrangement from her family, her poverty, her fear, her wish that she could be a nun, her admiration for Father Mike Scanlan and the Franciscan orders that broke her again and again, her simplistic trust in the Church here on earth to do right by her children, her relationship with Sister Angeline’s false religious order, her birth rape, her secondary infertility, and everything else that had happened to that poor child. I mourned that she had disappeared somewhere along the journey, to be replaced by me. I had come here as one person, and now I was somebody else.

A bluejay darted across my path, a flash of azure and gray, as I drove back through the cemetery.

Everything that dies goes under the prickly sod. When God returns out of that bright blue firmament, it will rise again for judgement, and what comes after is a mystery.

It could be that on the Day of Wrath, when the trumpet sounds and the stars fall, I will find the girl I used to be rising from under the sod, and embrace her, and tell her I’m sorry I let her be swallowed by all the forces of evil. I will teach her everything that I’ve learned and make her understand. It could be that she will forgive me for becoming what I am instead of somebody more heroic. And she will teach me what I’ve forgotten about innocence and trust. And the two of us will leave this place, never to return. I would like that.

I drove home to start my day, and things went back to the way that they were.

Image via Pixabay

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.
Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Public face of Catholicism

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Previous Post

May 19, 2021

Four Notes on the Works of Mercy, and an Update on my Book

Next Post

May 23, 2021 The Spirit Doesn't Hurt

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

What does "Bethel" (where Jacob dreamed) mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

House of God Mountain of Light God's Blessing Field of Vision