“And the turtles, of course …all the turtles are free as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”
Dear friends,
Both interviews went very well. I will hear if they are going to offer me the job by the end of the week. I would be teaching 6-10th Bible. There also might be a JV Basketball coach position and they are needing someone to teach photography for the yearbook. If only this position was in Streamwood it would be almost ideal. Keep us in prayer.
Thanks,
Rodger
I find it necessary to remind myself why I created this site, and the past couple of months have reminded me that I need to revisit my mission for this site. I realize I have used this site mainly to communicate to my students at NCA, and the bulk of time was devoted to assignments and communicating messages to parents and students, but in reality that was my secondary purpose.
Things are not what they seem, and if you had a chance to hear the charge given at our last graduation this past week (our school is closing down) you may understand that my…our mission is greater! We are in a battle. So I’m going to revisit one of my first blog entries to refresh my reason for creating this blog.
Turtles United
Most of my friends know that I draw turtles. I’ve been doing that since my years at University of Maryland. UofMD’s mascott is a terrapin, or turtle. I worked in the graduate library, and outside my third story window I looked down upon this statute of a turtle all day long. So naturally I created a cartoon character of this terrapin. Occasionally I would work on archival photographs for the library, which was my job. I was pursuing a degree in photojournalism at the time.
How I got to Maryland is a story in itself, but we can look into that at another time. “Testudo” was the name of the terrapin statue that guarded the entrance to the library, and that name became my character’s name. Testudo is Latin for tortoise, tortoise shell, hence protective covering. New World Dictionary defines testudo as, “a movable shelter or screen with a strong arched roof, used by ancient Roman soldiers.” But what caught my eye was the number two definition which states, “a protective covering over a group of ancient Roman soldiers, formed by overlapping their shields above their heads.”
Now many of you have already realized the significance of this discovery, but just in case it escapes you. Paul in Ephesians 6 uses Roman military language to describe a spiritual armour, and the shield is referred to as, “the shield of faith.” This shield of faith is mentioned in the passage in the following manner, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one.
I recently became curious about the word, “ALL” in this passage. How could my lone little shield of faith extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one. Actually I was painfully aware of how ineffective my shield was. And that was when I had my revelation. Paul never intended me to be holding up my pitful, lone, little shield above my head all by myself. Only an arrogant western mind would think that out on the battle field the one lone soldier; Braveheart, The Marine, Dirty Hairy and a thousand other western iconic lone heroes are battling single-handedly a bazillion bad guys all at once. Paul is intending us to see this “shield of faith” in the context of Roman soldiers who form a protective covering by overlapping their sheilds above their heads in order to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one.
I wonder how many christians have been lambasted by the evil one because they are out there on the battle field with their little lone shield of faith, and then they crucify themselves for not having enough faith to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows!
Well, I for one, have had enough. I say, “Turtles Unite!”
Oh, did I forget to mention that the “over arching” theme (pun intended) of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is that of unity.
That was my original entry. I believe that my thoughts are even more important now. The battle, I believe is heating up, and we need each other more than ever. Our mission trip to Baja illustrated that we will be called trees of righteousness called to restore the ruined cities, but one thing I forgot to mention in the charge at graduation (see Trees of Righteousness entry) is that the title “trees of righteousness” given to our graduates and to us is plural! Alone we are a tree, but together we are trees…trees of righteousness on the move. We are a forest charging down on the Telmarines!
“And then imagine that the wood, instead of being fixed to one place, was rushing at you; and was no longer trees but huge people; yet still like tress because their long arms waved like branches and their heads tossed and leveaves fell round them in showers. It was like that for the Telmarines. It was a little alarming even for the Narnians.” (From Prince Caspian)
We need to hear Aslan’s roar, and wake up! We are Trees - not a single tree - we are trees - an entire wood, a big honkin’ forest, and no dark, evil army can stand against such an enchanted forest. I know many of us are sad about the school closing, but what we need to see is that our beloved school planted a whole lot of Trees of righteousness…a forest of trees that can still use our help and guidance and prayer. We our moving into different realms, but we are still a wood, a forest. Picture a forest sprawling over a thousand hills for hundreds of miles. I might be on hill “A” at the most northern part of the forest, and you may be growing on hill “XYZ,” but what we both need to realize is that we are still one wood! I imagine, and hopefully there is a botanist out their who can confirm this for me, but I imagine that a forest holds together and stands strong due to its intricate root systems that wind and bind the entire forest together, making it nearly impossible for one tree to be blown over. See, we are forest and not a tree. We need to be like the people who can’t see the tree for the forest rather than the folk who can’t see the forest for the tree! See the wood Trees of righteousness! Unite! Don’t give up the fight!
N is for Noah NailingNoah Nailing is a page in my alphabet book Turtles Unmentioned in the Bible. My goal is to write a short devotional with each of the letters. Each Letter will correspond to a pithy little proverb such as, “Haste makes waste” or the like. I am thinking that Noah Nailing might deal with the proverb, “A job worth doing; is a job worth doing well.
Note that Flickr is now a link on my web site, and you can go to it and see several pics I’ve taken over the last year.
Also, I have put my Turtles Unmentioned in the Bible alphabet book on my flickr too.
Note that I’ve added some of our Timber-Lee retreat too.
Some of you have read this blog from my old Xanga site, but I thought it would be worth my students discovering the origins of my turtle Testudo. Note the drawing of the turtle on my site. That is from my Alphabet Book, Turtles Not Mentioned in the Bible. This is an out-take from the letter “V” which is for “Vashti Vanishing” from the first chapter of Esther.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Turtles United
Most of my friends know that I draw turtles. I’ve been doing that since my years at University of Maryland. UofMD’s mascott is a terrapin, or turtle. I worked in the graduate library, and outside my third story window I looked down upon this statute of a turtle all day long. So naturally I created a cartoon character of this terrapin. Occasionally I would work on archival photographs for the library, which was my job. I was pursuing a degree in photojournalism at the time.
How I got to Maryland is a story in itself, but we can look into that at another time. “Testudo” was the name of the terrapin statue that guarded the entrance to the library, and that name became my character’s name. Testudo is Latin for tortoise, tortoise shell, hence protective covering. New World Dictionary defines testudo as, “a movable shelter or screen with a strong arched roof, used by ancient Roman soldiers.” But what caught my eye was the number two definition which states, “a protective covering over a group of ancient Roman soldiers, formed by overlapping their shields above their heads.”
Now many of you have already realized the significance of this discovery, but just in case it escapes you. Paul in Ephesians 6 uses Roman military language to describe a spiritual armour, and the shield is referred to as, “the shield of faith.” This shield of faith is mentioned in the passage in the following manner, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one.
I recently became curious about the word, “ALL” in this passage. How could my lone little shield of faith extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one. Actually I was painfully aware of how ineffective my shield was. And that was when I had my revelation. Paul never intended me to be holding up my pitful, lone, little shield above my head all by myself. Only an arrogant western mind would think that out on the battle field the one lone soldier; Braveheart, The Marine, Dirty Hairy and a thousand other western iconic lone heroes are battling single-handedly a bazillion bad guys all at once. Paul is intending us to see this “shield of faith” in the context of Roman soldiers who form a protective covering by overlapping their sheilds above their heads in order to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one.
I wonder how many christians have been lambasted by the evil one because they are out there on the battle field with their little lone shield of faith, and then they crucify themselves for not having enough faith to extinguish ALL the flaming arrows!
Well, I for one, have had enough. I say, “Turtles Unite!”
Oh, did I forget to mention that the “over arching” theme (pun intended) of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is that of unity.
I call this turtles into the wild. I call this one of the coolest events of my life. I call this story the fulfillment of one of my life time goals!
My wife’s parents live near Holden Beach, North Carolina, and we make the trip about every other summer. My folks live in Lewistown, Montana, and so we alternate each summer. When we visit her folks we usually rent a beach house with some of her sisters and brothers. She has 6, and so usually someone is down at the beach. Holden Beach was a steam room this August 5, and I am not one for heat or humidity, and I had decided to hang out in the air conditioned beach house the entire week, but when I heard that there were 20 or so loggerhead nests along the strip of beach - pregnant with possibilities - I decided to take a swim in my own sweat in order to realize one of my lifetime goals.
Baby Loggerhead turtles are unpredictable when hatching, but usually they hatch in the evenings and follow the moon’s rays into the vast and deadly Atlantic ocean. So, with camera in hand, I walked The Green Mile (Actually it was about 100 yards) to the steamy, hazy, sand-infested beach to witness a miracle of nature. In the evening haze we could just make out the white foamy waves rolling in, and red bouncing lights near the small oat covered dunes. What are those lights? Could they be giant red fireflies? No, they were the intrepid and excruciatingly patient turtle watchers with special red coverings over their flashlights so as not to disorient the little loggerheads march to the sea.
There just happened to be a nest right in front of our beach house, but unfortunately there was no hatching going on. We asked the professional watchers what are chances were of seeing any, but they said to try the next nest about a 150 yards further down the beach. Reluctantly I exposed my bared feet and ankles to the forever sticky and infuriatingly uncomfortable sand particles for the entire 150 yards. It was pure torture. At the next nest, and each nest is carefully covered with a grate to keep out dogs, coons and sea gulls, the red lights were bouncing excitedly, but still no loggerheads. Once a nest is located the professionals were telling us, they put the grate on, put up a sign and cordon off the nest with red warning tape not unlike the yellow tape at a crime scene. After a certain amount of days, the approximate time for the hatching, they dig a trench about half way to the sea in order to give these walking fast-food snacks for every predator a ghost-of-a-chance for survival.
When we arrived we found the grate removed, the nest collapsed a bit (indicating that hatching was occurring), the trench cleared, and a large lamp placed at the end of the trench. The lamp, I was told, was to orient and speed the little reptiles down the trench toward the sea. Loggerheads need to flap, wobble, and scoot a certain amount of beach feet in order to imprint Holden Beach into their animal data bases so that years and years from now they will be able to come back to this very beach and lay more eggs (about 100-120 in each nest). It is really quite
phenomenal, even spiritual to me. After waiting an eternity (actually 20 minutes) I asked the Turtle Watchers what the devil was taking so long. They informed me that the process of breaking out of their shells is exhausting work for the little guys and often after breaking out they fall asleep - of all the nerve! Here, I’ve been waiting twenty minutes, and these extremely rare and endangered infant turtles can’t accommodate my schedule.
Another twenty minutes go by and impatience wins out. I leave the trench, the nest, the bobbing red lights and trudge through the hellish 150 yard sand trap they call a beach paradise back to our beach access, or as I would say, my air conditioned, no sand zone access. Salvation is just in sight when the professional Turtle Watchers at the nest in front of our beach house exclaim, “The nest has collapsed!”
My party decides to wait and see. I weakly protest, but curiosity wins out. Ten minutes later they break the surface. Struggling under a foot or more of packed sand they dig and dig and dig flapping their legs like Popeye rowing madly after his Olive Oil so as to lift off from the sea they propel themselves into the steamy humid sea air. I choke. A flipper, then a head breaks the surface. The grate comes off, and surgically gloved hands gently lift the loggerhead into a plastic bin. The only noise are its fins bopping the side of the bin trying desperately to reach the bright light at the end of the trench.
No more humidity, no more sticky heat, no more gritty sand between my toes and other unmentionable places, no more complaining! Pure bliss! Surrealism. Tears. Bundles of darkest green sand dollar sized dynamos, unstoppable in their purpose with flailing flappers fill the bin. One, two, three…fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…let them go. The gun goes off, and the race for survival begins. My hands are shaking as I try to steady myself for the procession of loggerhead babes headed haphazardly down the trench toward the light, their moon. I can barely hold my camera still, and there in my foggy lens I spot the first turtle flying helter skelter into the lantern’s light. I push the shutter to catch this race for life when another gloved hand shoots into my viewfinder and carries away my forest green subject and quickly places it into another plastic bin, and she shouts, “One!”
The march, well sort of a march, continues until one hundred and eleven baby loggerheads, of which, about twenty at a time are lifted into another bin and walked the last 40 feet into the surf where they are dropped out into the sea never to be seen again. Their fate is somewhat hard to talk about. Of the 111 loggerheads I saw so painstakingly watched over by the professionals, not one will survive to adulthood.
I stumble back into the air conditioned beach house. I can breath again, but barely. It is hard to fathom this miracle I’ve seen. I’m still trying to comprehend it.
Story. Turtles are all about story. Some of you might not know the story of Testudo, but I do. It has action, plot, setting and most important it has character - Testudo.
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