In ancient Rome, soldiers were trained to employ the testudo
– or “tortoise” – position during battle.
The formation involved a group of warriors who joined their large,
individual shields together with the men inside to create a fairly effective
defense against enemy attacks. Just a
few days ago, Maya and I studied the testudo formation in our history
lessons. I didn’t know how firmly that
picture would plant itself in my mind this week.
I formed some shields around my kids yesterday. A vague threat written on a bathroom wall targeted
school children in our county and gave Monday’s date as a warning. My daughter being homeschooled, we were mostly
unaffected, although my son did go to his morning preschool. The extra police presence around town and
schools was obvious, nonetheless, and I had to deflect some questions and hide
newspapers. Ultra-sensitive, my kids did
not need to know about the anxiety many parents in our county were feeling as
watched clocks ticked too slowly toward the sight of returning yellow
buses.
Afternoon came with the blessed relief of no local incidents,
but then my news feed was overtaken with the horrific news out of Boston. Again, I guarded my children from the
reports. Turned the laptop screen away,
ducked into another room to compose myself after hearing that one victim was
the same age – eight – as my oldest.
Unfathomable.
It’s hard to know how best to protect our kids, and what sort
of shelter should be our goal. I told
Mark last night that it’s tempting to construct a bubble. To form a testudo, and never leave home. Over coffee with friends yesterday morning we
mused that the area kids were likely safer at school that day than the three of
us were sitting in a Starbucks. The
realization was equal-parts comforting and chilling.
This world is just so horribly broken.
Many local parents yesterday chose to shelter their children
from potential danger by keeping them home from school. In some districts, the average attendance was
just 40% of normal numbers. Others chose
to send them, choosing to shelter them by not
keeping them home. I think they were all
probably as right as could be. We’re all
just doing our best to do the best thing, aren’t we?
We want to protect without stifling, nurture toward independence. Encourage wise caution without alarmism,
because He has not given us a Spirit of fear – and does not want us to live
under it. We want to water the seeds we’ve
planted of a faith that calls us to lay ourselves down, and that neither
guarantees or obsesses over physical safety.
A confidence that will step into adulthood ready to walk and speak a
bold love and strong hope to this messed-up, hurting world. And yet, sometimes we wish we could keep them
in cribs, drive them in armored cars, and never let them leave our sights. Because they are our babies, and we
desperately want to hang onto the illusion of complete control for as long as
we possibly can.
How, then, to parent in these times? Even as I type that, I recognize the almost
laughable implication in those words that assumes we somehow face more
difficult circumstances in present-day America than have parents under violent,
tyrannical governments throughout history; parents raising children in the
midst of civil and world wars during the past few centuries; countless parents around
the world right now holding their
beloved babies as they perish from hunger and preventable disease. We long for a redemption awaited by humanity
since the Garden. As people holding up
the hope of Christ, we know with certainty that it is coming. These days of waiting, though - of shed blood
and lost innocence, of securities chipped away with every new discovery of another
place we are not safe - they keep our hearts so heavy. They tempt us to hoist those shields and
huddle inside. My arms strain under the
weight of trying.
The thing is – the testudo wasn’t invincible. Strong though the armor was, and dedicated as
were those who carried it, the battle was real, and arrows got through. What’s more, the heavy load carried in that
position was awkward and cumbersome. It
was difficult to move, and kept those inside merely on the defensive. They couldn’t do much but peek out from
behind their shields and shuffle clumsily through the field.
I had a late afternoon eye exam yesterday, and the waiting
room was near-silent. Patients
distracted from their check-in clipboards, doctors pausing as they walked
by. We all sat transfixed by the lobby
television, with a cable news station broadcasting images of the bombing over
and over again. The door opened and an
Amish mother, having arrived by horse and buggy, entered with her two young
children. She sat to fill out the
requisite paperwork, and her daughter busied herself with a toy. The little boy, though, was obviously drawn
to the screen overhead. He first glanced
up intermittently, but soon stared frozen, eyes so very wide at the slow-motion
video of blast and smoke, debris and blood.
My heart broke as I watched him take in this scene – a rare glimpse for
this boy of life outside his community. Why this?
What must he be thinking?
And I felt it again.
That feeling of having no idea how air-tight to construct our
shelters. The tension of wanting to
invest in heavy-duty bubble wrap and some ancient Roman armor and strive desperately to offer my
children an experience of the world that forever tastes like lollipops and looks like Sesame
Street, and at the same time wanting them to be brave and bold, fully in
the world while – by His grace – not of it.
The testudo will not evade every arrow. It will, in fact, make it difficult for them
to move.
I want my children to live with love and joy and
abandon. Travel and explore. Run the Boston Marathon and stare down fear. Preparing them for that life is going to take such a careful
balance of positioning shields and setting free. It will require wisdom and trust levels that
will stretch my own faith to levels previously unknown. My only tactic that will always prove
effective will be a steady formation of prayer.
Lifting up these battle-weary hands and letting Him relieve the
weight.
Today, though, I’ll be honest. I read the local and national headlines and
dream of building that bubble, of living under a permanent testudo and placing
my trust there. Join me in an armored tortoise, anyone?
It’s not what I really want. It just sounds pretty good today.
Image credit: Wikipedia
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