Turtle Justice
Last week my family and I went to the zoo. I don’t normally love zoos but I love Werribee Open Range Zoo because the animals have a bit more room to roam. My favourite animals are usually the African animals – meerkats, cheetahs, hippos, zebras, and giraffes. I love the safari that takes you through the park and gets you up close to some of the animals as they go about doing their own thing. Mostly the animals are just standing or lying around. For this reason, my husband is not a big fan of zoos. He finds it boring because the animals are not doing anything.
This trip to the zoo proved us both wrong.
The animals that held my attention the most were the turtles and they were far from doing nothing. The enclosure had two turtles. One was slightly bigger than the other. Normally with turtles you really have to look around the enclosure to find the turtles and you don’t see much. But this time the bigger turtle, Alfred, decided the littler turtle, Gilbert, needed to learn a lesson. For whatever reason Alfred had come up to Gilbert and pushed him over onto his side. He kept pushing and pushing until he had him pinned to the enclosure wall.
At first I was a bit stunned. Are they supposed to do that? Is this some kind of mating ritual?
But he didn’t stop there. He just kept pushing him and Gilbert couldn’t do anything. He was waving his poor little turtle flippers in the air and he was whipping his turtle neck back and forth wildly trying to move his body – to no avail!
Our little group of observers were becoming distressed.
‘Poor little turtle.’ ‘Oh dear, he can’t do anything!’
And also indignant.
‘What a bully!’ ‘Stop picking on him!’
My sensitive son found this very difficult to take.
‘Mummy, you need to tell the zoo keeper!’
So I went off in search of someone in uniform. We found a guy casually strolling about. When we told him that one turtle had the other pinned, he just laughed and said, ‘Oh I’ll get the keeper to take care of it.’ After a brief look and a little chuckle into his radio, he relayed the message over radio-waves. A couple of minutes later a very determined zoo keeper strode into the enclosure.
‘Yay the keeper is here!’
‘Finally someone will help that turtle.’
‘I should have known it would be you Alfred! Stop picking on Gilbert.’ She picked up the offending turtle and moved him aside before helping the other turtle get his little feet back onto terra firma.
A little cheer went up from the crowd that had gathered.
It seemed that Alfred was still annoyed at Gilbert and wanted to go another round. Gilbert was ready. Gilbert reached up and poked Alfred behind his head, under his shell and pushed Alfred over in clever ninja turtle move.
A bigger cheer went up. ‘Yeah, that’ll serve you right, Alfred, you big bully!’ ‘That’s right Gilbert!’ ‘Get him back!’
The keeper had to help Alfred this time. But the turtles were still annoyed with each other and the bickering continued even as the crowd dispersed.
It’s funny how we all saw the injustice of the situation. We all wanted little Gilbert to be saved. We all were happy when Alfred got his just deserts.
But retribution did not make for a happy turtle enclosure. So-called ‘justice’ did not put an end to anything. Life is like that too. In the end we need more than to ‘even the score’. We also need reconciliation. We need forgiveness, understanding, respect, friendship and love to have true peace.
He [God] is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. (Eph 2:14)
