By Dottie Yunger
Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths (Psalm 148:7)
There is a moment in the life of a sea turtle that feels, at first, like absence.
She leaves the sea and comes ashore—awkwardly, heavily, out of the element that usually holds her. She searches, tests the ground, and finally begins to dig. It is not a graceful process. It is slow, deliberate, and exposed.
And then, when the nest is ready, she lays her eggs. As they drop, she catches them in her hind flippers. One after another, alternating between flippers, she gently releases them in the sand. To soften the blow she provides a safe landing. She then covers them, presses the sand back into place, and leaves. She does not return.
It is difficult not to read that as abandonment. We are used to care that looks like presence—guarding, feeding, protecting, staying. We measure love, often, by proximity and intervention. But turtles offer something different. What looks like absence may, in fact, be a different kind of trust.
The eggs she leaves behind will not survive because she watches over them. They will survive, if they do, because the conditions are right—because the sand holds warmth, because the timing aligns, because the world makes space for life to unfold. It is an ancient process that has served her and her kind since the dinosaurs. She participates in that process. She gives herself over to it. But she does not control it.
At the Maine State Aquarium, I spend much of my time doing the opposite. I monitor. I adjust. I intervene. This is my EarthKeeper appointment. The creatures are entrusted to my care. Water quality, oxygen levels, temperature, flow—all tank conditions are managed, measured, and corrected. Life depends on systems we maintain, and when something drifts out of balance, we step in quickly. It is a different kind of care. Necessary and constant.
And even here, beneath all that effort, there are still processes I cannot see. Bacteria doing their quiet work. Subtle interactions unfolding beyond measurement. Life sustained by more than my attention.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field.” Not improve them. Not secure them. Just consider them. Pay attention.
It is a strange instruction, especially for those of us who are used to responsibility. To tending. To making sure things turn out the way they should. But maybe the invitation is not to withdraw from care, but to recognize its limits.
During my sabbatical to the Galapagos, I watched a female leatherback emerge from the shadowy waters and reenact this ancient turtle ritual, as sacramental as any church rite. An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. I will never forget the sounds in that space and time: the steady rhythm of waves, the turtle’s deep, measured breaths, and the soft, unmistakable plop! of each egg landing in the nest.
A turtle leaves her eggs in the ground, and life unfolds without her. That does not mean she has failed. It means she has done what she can—and entrusted the rest to something beyond her. Thousands of years have created the optimal conditions—ocean currents guiding her to the exact beach, sand temperature necessary for incubation, sea levels that keep nests moist but don’t flood them, skies dark enough to provide cover for hatchlings, a moon brightly shining over the waters, a beacon for the hatchlings to follow to their new watery world.
I prefer systems I can manage. Outcomes I can influence. Environments where my attention makes a visible difference. I know the myriad of threats sea turtles face, the ways we alter the conditions necessary to preserve their ancient rituals. The female who labored while I watched in reverence—she is one of only 300 leatherbacks left in the Pacific Ocean.
Much of life—most of what matters—develops in ways I cannot oversee. In hidden places. Over long periods of time. Under conditions I do not fully understand.
Faith, then, may not always look like holding on. It may look like preparing a place, doing what is ours to do, and then letting go. Trusting that what we cannot sustain on our own may yet be sustained.
The turtles do not stay. And still, life emerges.
Reverend Dottie Yunger is the director of the Maine State Aquarium and an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church. She has her undergraduate degree in marine biology from the University of Maryland, and a Masters of Divinity and Masters of Theological Studies from Wesley Theological Seminary. Her thesis was on environmental justice themes in the Hebrew Bible, and the real-time issues she encountered as the Anacostia Riverkeeper. Dottie has also worked for the Smithsonian Institution and Discovery Channel as a marine biologist and educator. As an EarthKeeper in The United Methodist Church, Pastor Dottie combines her call to ministry and her call to creation care.