Southern Turtles

I’ve come full circle in so many ways since moving back to the South.  Take turtles, for instance.  I grew up in Arkansas where turtles always ambled across the streets and highways.  I had forgotten them until I took a trip home to visit my relatives and my in-laws.  I was following Steve’s folks home from dinner when I lagged behind because I stopped to pick up a turtle and move him across the street.  

 

We didn't see many turtles in northern Virginia.  They’re either very smart or very dead.  One look at a road there will tell them it isn’t safe.  The dangers are obvious and many.  The swamps and woods offer the best protection.  

 

In South Carolina turtles generally approach the edge of the road and see a clear way, though I’m fairly sure they don’t check both directions.  They step out, slowly…always…and begin the long journey to the other side.  

 

Dangers approach without warning on rural Carolina roads.  Cars that are coming are coming fast.  And yet the turtle has rarely calculated his odds before stepping out.  Either I help him across, the next driver swerves or the turtle is airborne.  (I prefer not to address the other scenario.)

 

We often sidestep sin rather easily by avoiding the road with the vehicles flying by.  The signs flash a warning.  To go that way is obviously dangerous; it’s easy to bypass.  It’s when the highway seems most clear, when we are drifting along without any concern or thought of wrong – considering ourselves flawless and smug about the fact – that we are most likely to get hit.

 

It’s when I’m feeling pious and holy that I’m most likely to lash out in impatience or say something snippy.  When my guard is down, my pride is usually up.  Doors to gossip, judging, and hypocrisy slide open.  And wham!  My mouth gets me in trouble.  Did I say that out loud?  I look at someone in the store and form a wayward opinion.   I treat someone in a shabby way.  Bottom line…I find that I’m not at all that person I thought I was.  My mom was right when she told me to look both ways.

 

Romans 7:15, 17-20, 24; 8:1-2

I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

I Know He Was Praying

Super-creepy, yet kind of sweet.  We became well-acquainted on the short trip.  I hopped in the car and started moving slowly down the narrow streets of our community.  I was headed into town to work in Vacation Bible School and I was running a little late.  As I slowed to make the last turn, I looked left and then right and then at my driver’s side mirror.  There he sat.

 

I’m not crazy about bugs; but I’m not totally freaked out by them either.  I prepared myself to encounter them when I made the decision to move to a warm southern climate.  So when I saw the dignified little praying mantis sitting on the top of my mirror, I just smiled at him and he smiled back.  I sat at the stop sign for a moment to give him time to hop down.  He declined.

 

So I made my turn and increased my speed to twenty-five.  His little praying hands unclasped and started clutching for something to hold onto.  I slowed down to give him one more chance to bail.  He declined.

 

I left the plantation and revved my speed up to thirty-five.  His feelers were flapping in the wind and I’m pretty sure that’s when the praying started.  I had a hard time driving and watching him at the same time.  If I had cared about him as much as I led him to believe, I would have stopped the car and helped him down.  But I was late for VBS.

 

So I turned out onto the highway and upped the pace to fifty-five.  Head down and battling the wind, he discovered that he could go under the lip of the mirror and hunker down a little.  His legs managed to stay put but every part of his body was shuddering against the wind.  Please understand,  I felt terrible guilt.  But I was late for VBS.

 

I pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car.  I said a little prayer and apology for my new friend.  I knew he was dead and I was not looking forward to removing his frail little form.  

 

To my complete delight, one long leg tentatively swung up onto the top of the mirror.  Slowly he pulled himself back up on top.  Then he began to groom himself!  Now I don’t know what he was smoothing down – whether feathers, or scales, or gills.  But he had something there to flatten out.  Then he took each long leg in turn and stretched it as far as it would go to be sure everything was still working.

 

Then he once again settled in to pray and I left to go fix beanie weenies with a clear conscience and my own short prayer of thanks.