The Mission Church of the Nazarene

      "Look at its little tail!" A student shouted. "It's moving!" Said another. They crowded closer to the glass aquarium of the box turtle.
       In that moment I realized how different my life as high school student was to these high school students here in Hammond.
      Box turtles were a common sight at my wooded Michigan home. My sisters and I would often find them in our yard. I remember one time in particular when a box turtle made the unfortunate mistake of wandering too closely to our black lab's home. Our lab had a great time barking, and trying to play with this small creature, who cowered in its shell.
     The tail of a box turtle is no extraordinary thing to me. I don't look at them with wonder or curiosity, because to me, they are common.
     However, to these high school students box turtles are something to marvel over, and to examine. Where my child hood was filled with barefeet, box turtles, and forest walks, their child hood has been filled with sidewalks, sirens, and hip hop.
      We are different.
      I watched them as they examined this classroom pet, that I'm sure they had marveled at before. They were smiling, and laughing. Daring each other to touch his rocky shell. At one point a student took his headphones off his ears, and lowered them down to the turtle saying "Hey turtle, these are Beats by Dre." He played the turtle a popular rap song, as the turtle just looked back with its blank, uninterested stare.
     At first I was startled by their curiosity, then I began to smile too. I began to smile at their wonder, as I saw the turtle through their eyes Then, I began to smile at how very similar we are.
    Upon my entry into the classroom that morning, seeing the classroom pets, I immediately went over and began talking to them. I love animals, and at one point I cared for various reptiles at a children's museum I worked at in graduate school. It felt a little bit like coming home.
    Lowering headphones into an aquarium to share a song with a turtle, doesn't seem that strange to me, in fact, I would probably do something not so dissimilar.
    If you lined us up next to each other, these urban students and me, it would be so easy to point out our differences. The ways we experience the world differently. The differences in our upbringing and culture... it would be much harder to see our similarities. Our joy over a small box turtle highlighted that for me. Our common humanity finding wonder in a small creature in a classroom.
     I love our differences. I never would have marveled at the tail of a box turtle, but these students gave me that gift today, to take time to notice small details in things I take for granted. I love that while I talk to animals, they play rap music for them. There's a beauty in our differences.
    Yet, there is something so similar in us. We are human, above all, despite all of our differences.
    It's probably only a pastor who can see the theology in this moment with a box turtle,the beauty of the kingdom of God, but nonetheless I saw it. This profound moment of smiles and laughter that contagiously spread through the classroom and to me. The wonder they shared in that moment. The ways that I learned from them a little bit about life. We don't have to be the same to share beautiful moments. We don't have to look at the world the same way, or notice the same things.
     In noticing, and in celebrating different things, we are made better. I am made better, because for the first time, I really noticed the small wiggling tail of a box turtle.