{"id":25706,"date":"2025-08-14T14:49:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T18:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=25706"},"modified":"2025-08-14T14:49:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T18:49:48","slug":"summer-ends-in-a-world-without-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2025\/08\/summer-ends-in-a-world-without-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Ends, In a World Without Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Summer ends, first with a bang, and then a whimper.<\/h3>\n

I had been moping at home for several weeks, worrying about the Artful Dodgers<\/a> and the end of the world<\/a>, entertaining Jimmy\u2019s Boy, going to the lake when it wasn\u2019t too hot. But then I helped out with the end-of-summer camp at the church outreach,\u00a0 reading storybooks out loud until I was hoarse. It felt relaxing to not have any time to think. I didn\u2019t worry about anything for five days straight.<\/p>\n

When the week was over, I realized that some of the hoarseness was actually a head cold, and then I had car trouble which the dealer\u2019s mechanic will fix as fast as he can. I\u2019ve been moping around the house for a week straight\u2013 too much time to think. Too much time to worry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When I saw signs taped to the Artful Dodgers\u2019 door, I went to investigate.<\/h3>\n

I was afraid the sign said that there was lead or asbestos or something worse in the house, which meant I\u2019d breathed it in. I\u2019d been inside twice: once, the children asked me in to help the Sylph<\/a> look for a lost kitten. I only saw the living room and was shocked at the dilapidated condition.\u00a0 And once, when a neighbor who had a key because he helped them clean up from time to time asked me to come with him to check on them, because the lights were on but no one had seen the family for days. I was so shocked at the flies and the smell that I ran from room to room, expecting to find a dead animal or worse. But there was nothing in there but spoiled food and abandoned toys. A week later, we found out they\u2019d packed a bag and fled one afternoon. The may have been camping for a bit, but they were in a new slum in a different neighborhood now.<\/p>\n

I made my way up to the porch, avoiding the poison ivy and cringing as the rotten steps groaned.<\/p>\n

The sign was an attempt to contact the former occupants. It said to call such-and-such a number if they were still occupying the building. Otherwise, an asset management company would take possession on such-and-such a date. That date was a week previous.<\/p>\n

This week, the dumpster came. Somebody mowed the grass which was nearly up to my shoulder, plowing down those cornstalks that I think grew out of spilled birdseed. Somebody else threw all the debris and the children\u2019s things in the great big metal coffin, and left it there\u2013 just as they did when the Lost Girl and her children<\/a> fled their house. Just as they\u2019ve done countless times to countless people who fled the houses and left.<\/p>\n

I wonder if they threw away that plaque that was on the wall, with the picture of the head of Christ and the inscription \u201cJesus grant victory to my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder if they\u2019ll demolish the building now. I don\u2019t see how you could possibly salvage it. I would have considered it uninhabitable before the Dodgers came to live there, and they finished the job.<\/p>\n

This is what it means to be a poor child with a sick mother in America.<\/h3>\n

Sometimes you\u2019re homeless. Sometimes you\u2019re in a home so unsafe that breathing the air inside makes you ill. Sometimes you disappear to another unsafe home, and they throw your belongings in a dumpster. In and out of shelters. In and out of foster care. One day you get pregnant, and then YOU are the sick mother, and the cycle starts again.<\/p>\n

The last time the child I\u2019ve called The Mandrake came to play at my house, she was digging in the sandbox by the giant sunflowers while I tended the garden. She cried \u201cLook, Miss Mary! Look!\u201d<\/p>\n

I went over, to see a swarm of bright red lanternfly nymphs<\/a> crawling all over a sunflower stalk. Lanternflies are a devastating invasive species. They\u2019ll kill your sapling trees in one season. I was about to squash them, when the girl grinned at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re my friends!\u201d she said. \u201cThat one named Jumpy, and that one is named Spotty.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled back at her, and gave the lanternflies a reprieve until she\u2019d gone. Half of them had already hopped off the sunflower to wreak havoc somewhere else, by the time I got around to crushing them.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know any rule but mercy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m living in a world that has absolutely no mercy, for anyone. I want to be different, but I am helpless in so many ways.<\/p>\n

The lanternflies that escaped are full grown pests now, fluttering around the garden to lay their eggs. The sunflower bloomed, lost her petals, and drooped over.<\/p>\n

Summer is ending, and before long it will be cold again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a>The Sorrows an<\/a>d Joys of Mary<\/a>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to \u201cThe Little Portion\u201d on\u00a0paypal<\/a>\u00a0or Mary Pezzulo on\u00a0venmo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Summer ends, first with a bang, and then a whimper. I had been moping at home for several weeks, worrying about the Artful Dodgers and the end of the world, entertaining Jimmy\u2019s Boy, going to the lake when it wasn\u2019t too hot. But then I helped out with the end-of-summer camp at the church outreach,\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":25709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,897,1],"tags":[24,852,12908,179],"class_list":["post-25706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appalachia","category-cry-of-the-poor","category-uncategorized","tag-appalachia","tag-eviction","tag-homelessness","tag-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nSummer Ends, In a World Without Mercy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Summer ends, first with a bang, and then a whimper. 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