Genesis 1:28 "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
So it was written, so it has been, so it shall be. But, let not this most favored creature status go to our heads. And let us not wield our swords of dominion callously. For, after all, God could have made all of us opossums, slugs or turtles.
Typically, we humans resist compliance with Divine instruction. But, the mandate to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth preaches to the choir of our hedonistic souls. Copulation and earthly conquest somehow come easier to us than turning the other cheek and dying to our own selfish desires.
Man's dominion over pre-existing ecosystems sweeps steadily on as he "fills the earth". As he dictates the new order of the natural world, innocent life forms are often capsized in his wake. Each new subdivision, mine included, has displaced or killed hosts of native creatures.
In my travels on area roads I have taken to heart the aftermath of numerous automobile-animal encounters. On one such trip a certain resident recieved a stay of execution,
Belly-up, a foot or two from the center line of the road is probably not what the turtle had in mind as he set out to cross to the other side. I can only surmise that a passing vehicle clipped him with a tire and popped him air-born. Gravity and the hard asphalt bounced him around to his "resting" position.
Helpless, the best the reptile could "hope for" was another precise, glancing tire blow that would flip him upright. More realistically, however, one of the frequent, large construction or asphalt trucks - which have little wiggle room on the narrow two-lane road - would pancake him into an organic Frisbee.
Never really in to Frisbee, I turned around at the next intersection and headed back to the turtle; apprehensive of what I might find. To my relief, he was not physically damaged - still lying there powerless, undignified and exposed.
To the south, the direction from which he fled - bulldozers and earthmovers busily raped his former terra firma as a new housing edition was underway. To the north was what the turtle percieved to be an oasis of escape, but it was simply the outskirt of of an established housing edition; man-made berms sodded and speckled with transplanted sumac, shrubs and pine.
As far as ecosystems go, this one was surreal and hollow like a studio desert scene from an old western TV series. To add insult to the turtle's near injury the place was entitled one of those incongruous names like "Deer Run", "The Forest" or "The Wilderness."
Stopping my vehicle, I got out and plucked the "clammed up" shell-dweller from the gravity of the road. Exercising my God-given dominion, I subjugated the creature to the bed of my pickup. He would not be road-kill this day.
I drove him a few miles to a less congested area. Taking him in hand, I walked through the field of a man I did not know, to a patch of timber in which I'd never been. As the late September cicadas belted out their monotonous, unified, two-syllable swan song, I placed that community's newest resident on the forest floor and walked away.
As dusk fell in this fallen world, I departed, longing for the day when the Good Shepherd rules; a day when lions lay with lambs, and turtles always make it to the other side.
M.G. Sparks
