catapult magazine

Kept objects

by The *cino Community

I keep things that help me remember the darkness.

I keep a stack, sometimes under my big magnet on the fridge, or under a book.  Right now they are clipped with a binder clip on top of my Bible.  I am compelled to gather these articles and keep them.  I have file folders full of slender little one-paragraph reports about the reversal of the permissive Dutch prostitution policies and the failure of American abstinence-only sex-ed programs.  Op-eds on the various human inflicted disasters in Sudan, Democratic republic of Congo and other human rights challenged nations lay cheek by jowl with Doonsbury, Opus, Get Fuzzy and the odd political cartoon.  In the middle is a National Geographic article on plastic trash that is killing albatross chicks.  The gap between the rich and the poor, torture at Gitmo and the white Ohio cop who framed a bunch of people and sent them to prison on false charges…I am compelled, I see connections and scripture in each article. I hear the voices of Micah and Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Habbakuk and Joel, I hear the prophets weeping for the destruction of what is beautiful and their rage against the dark and unjust.  I am not on the street corner or in the marketplace in sackcloth and ashes, but I must know. I must remember and when people say, "How do you know about that? Where did you hear that?"  I can show them.

Nicole Carlin 

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