among the ashes.
At last, we came home and wrapped our community wall around us and huddled in our illusions of security.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2026
No one has found my father. Almost every adult in the neighborhood has spent some time looking.
Richard Moss didn’t, but his oldest son and daughter did. Wardell Parrish didn’t, but his sister and oldest nephew did. I don’t know what else people could have done. If I did know, I would be out doing it.
And yet nothing, nothing, nothing! The police never came up with any sign of him. He never turned up anywhere. He’s vanished, gone. Even the severed arm’s fingerprints weren’t his.
Every night since Wednesday, I’ve dreamed that horrible screaming. I’ve gone out twice more with teams hunting through the canyons. We’ve found nothing but more of the dead and the poorest of the living— people who are all staring eyes and visible bones. My own bones ached in empathy.
Sometimes if I sleep for a while without hearing the screaming, I see these— the living dead. I’ve always seen them. I’ve never seen them.
A team I wasn’t with found a living child being eaten by dogs. The team killed the dogs, then watched, helpless as the boy died.
I spoke at services this morning. Maybe it was my duty. I don’t know. People came for church, all uncertain and upset, not knowing what they should do. I think they wanted to draw together, and they had years of habit drawing them together at our house on Sunday morning. They were uncertain and hesitant, but they came.
Both Wyatt Talcott and Jay Garfield offered to speak. Both did say a few words, both informally eulogizing my father, though neither admitted that that was what they were doing. I was afraid everyone would do that and the service would become an impossible impromptu funeral. When I stood up, it wasn’t just to say a couple of words. I meant to give them something they could take home— something that might make them feel that enough had been said for today.
I thanked them all for the ongoing— emphasize ongoing— efforts to find my father. Then…well, then I talked about perseverance. I preached a sermon about perseverance if an unordained kid can be said to preach a sermon. No one was going to stop me.
Cory was the only one who might have tried, but Cory was in a kind of walking coma. She wasn’t doing anything she didn’t have to do.
So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It’s one I’ve always liked. A widow is so persistent, in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down.
Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn’t always safe, but it’s often necessary.
My father and the adults present had created and maintained our community in spite of the scarcity and the violence outside. Now, with my father or without him, that community had to go on, hold together, survive. I talked about my nightmares and the source of those nightmares. Some people might not have wanted their kids to hear things like that, but I didn’t care. If Keith had known more, maybe he would still be alive. But I didn’t mention Keith. People could say what happened to Keith was his own fault.
No one could say that about Dad. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say it about this community some day.
“Those nightmares of mine are our future if we fail one another,” I said, winding up. “Starvation, agony at the hands of people who aren’t human any more.
Dismemberment. Death.
“We have God and we have each other. We have our island community, fragile, and yet a fortress.
Sometimes it seems too small and too weak to survive. And like the widow in Christ’s parable, its enemies fear neither God nor man. But also like the widow, it persists. We persist. This is our place, no matter what.”
That was my message. I left it there, hanging before them with an unfinished feel to it. I could feel them expecting more, then realizing that I wasn’t going to say more, then biting down on what I had said.
At just the right moment, Kayla Talcott began an old song. Others took it up, singing slowly, but with feeling: “We shall not, we shall not be moved… .”
I think this might have sounded weak or even pitiful somehow if it had been begun by a lesser voice. I think I might have sang it weakly. I’m only a fair singer. Kayla, on the other hand, has a big voice, beautiful, clear, and able to do everything she asks of it. Also, Kayla has a reputation for not moving unless she wants to.
Later, as she was leaving, I thanked her.
She looked at me. I’d grown past her years ago, and she had to look up. “Good job,” she said, and nodded and walked away toward her house. I love her.
I got other compliments today, and I think they were sincere. Most said, in one way or another, “You’re right,” and “I didn’t know you could preach like that,”
and “Your father would be proud of you.”
Yeah. I hope so. I did it for him. He built this bunch of houses into a community. And now, he’s probably dead. I wouldn’t let them bury him, but I know. I’m no good at denial and self-deception. That was Dad’s funeral that I was preaching— his and the community’s. Because as much as I want all that I said to be true, it isn’t. We’ll be moved, all right. It’s just a matter of when, by whom, and in how many pieces.
13
There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19,
