Deafening Tensions

Her walk took her to the edge of the urban part of town. Just along the edge, the headquarters of New Approaches to Parenting were there. They stood over a lone abortion clinic. The figure of a woman looming over her child in their logo echoed the stance.

The summer afternoon did not do the building any favors. The sunlight cut into the mirrored glass and almost made an office visible. The light attached to the metal sides and brought out the grime that haunted them. The smudge on some windows picked up a cloud’s white reflection and looked like a gap tooth.

Beneath its shadow, the clinic sat alone. It was a low building, so inconspicuous and simplistic. Still, the sight of it made her queasy.?

The neon heart perched pitifully atop it buzzed and radiated an eerie glow. She stopped and glared at it. A single piece of trash blew up past her and stuck to the chain link fence. Suddenly, a gust of wind sucked it right through, and it shot across the street.

It was finally too much.

“Who do you think you are?” she yelled at the edifice.

An empty silence ensued.

“What do you know!?!” she yelled again.

“What do you know - about?parenthood?” she tried. “About… motherhood?”

The word calmed her somewhat.

As if in response, the heart flickered off - then on again. A metal gate by the tracks swung open and loudly clanged against the fence.

She looked around but saw no one. Her stomach tightened and she felt sick, but a moment of grace swept over her. Silently, she said a prayer for the women affected by the place, and all that happened there.?

A rosary emerged from her dress pocket, and she began to say it as she continued on her quest. She looked up for the first time that day and noticed the pale blue sky. The faint outline of the moon was just visible.

A few decades later, she found herself on the campus of Catholic University. The path led her up to the quad, and she stood in the shadow of the Marian Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The evening sun was plastered to its east wall and seemed to set the basilica ablaze.

She made her way to a bench across from the enormous church. Buildings of stone and marble surrounded it. A circular drive sat in front of the complex, and a couple of cars were driving through. A large fir tree was sitting across the sidewalk from it and seemed to suggest an ever-present Christmas.

Unlike the court’s fa?ade, the sides of the basilica were cast in tan. All embellishment seemed set into its sides most anonymously. The color blended well with the red tile roof. It went with the greenery growing around it.

The window below the dome was a large, simple circle. Set inside it, the glass made several shapes that fit gently into larger patterns. It was magnificent and pacific simultaneously.

?She still had the rosary in her hand. She held the crucifix but did not pass the beads through her fingers.?

Instead, she basked in the sunset imbuing the basilica. The building seemed to bake in the summer sun. The arches were embedded in the sides as if pressed in by a giant iron cookie cutter. The rounded chapels around its outside seemed like ovens full of freshly baked loaves of bread.?

But the dome took the cake. With nothing specific to draw the eye, it still dazzled in the sunset. The bright blues and yellows sent the gaze back and forth like a hummingbird at first flight. The simple gold cross atop it beamed and glowed a single ray.

The bells went, and she realized the hour. She sat up on the bench a bit. Her phone beeped once or twice, but she didn’t check it. Her ears were ringing – from the day, from a piercing sense of injustice.?