![\"dar](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/764\/2017\/06\/dar-tellum-cover.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
I smiled with recognition, remembering the first time I saw this book.<\/h2>\n
It was the early 1980s, and our 4th grade class stood in line outside the library door waiting to file in and find our very own book on the R.I.F. tables.\u00a0 R.I.F. stands for \u201cReading is Fundamental\u201d \u2013 a nonprofit children\u2019s literacy organization that brought books to schools twice a year for children to choose and take home.\u00a0 R.I.F. days were one of the highlights of elementary school for me.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe that they were actually giving <\/em>books away for free!\u00a0 I picked up the thin paperback and opened to the first page:<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve called me a dreamer ever since I can remember.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because I daydream a lot that I met Dar Tellum.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell grown-ups about him.\u00a0 I tried, but all I got was funny looks.\u00a0 Once my mother felt my forehead.\u00a0 So I know they wouldn\u2019t believe the whole story.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I\u2019m writing this down for other kids to read.\u00a0 If I tell everything just the way it happened, you\u2019ll believe me, even if it does sound pretty strange.\u00a0 And if the same thing ever happens to you, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s true even if no one else \u2013 especially grown-ups \u2013 believes you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes!\u00a0 I\u2019ll believe you!\u201d my 10-year-old mind shouted.\u00a0 It felt like I was being let in on an important secret, one only a kid like me could or would understand.\u00a0 Because I was a dreamer, too.\u00a0 I spent hours in the woods spinning out adventures, seeking hidden messages in the rings of fallen trees, gasping when I found the shimmering rock glinting with magic that would open the secret passageway.\u00a0 So I knew this boy and I were kindred spirits.\u00a0 And I knew I had found my book!<\/p>\n Though the pages were yellowed, it was in surprisingly good condition.\u00a0 I sat down and read the story again, feeling a wave of nostalgia.<\/p>\n The boy\u2019s name in the story was Ralph, and he describes the experience of being contacted by a mysterious being from a distant planet. Ralph and Dar Tellum communicate in their minds through telepathy and form a friendship.\u00a0 I remembered how the book fascinated me as I watched the two learning about each other\u2019s worlds, and Dar Tellum teaching Ralph how to move objects with his mind through telekinesis.<\/p>\n Ralph happens upon his parents talking in the kitchen with hushed and worried voices:<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, I found out what my Dad really does.\u00a0 I always knew he was some sort of an engineer.\u00a0 But he never spoke much about his work at home.\u00a0 It turned out that he was working on a secret government project. . . It seems that the planet Earth was right in the middle of a big crisis.\u00a0 Dozens of cities were in danger of becoming flooded.\u00a0 Already one city in some eastern country was almost covered with water.\u00a0 And the reason for this flooding was that the oceans were getting higher.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n From what I understood the smoke from cars and factories called carbon dioxide gets into the atmosphere of Earth.\u00a0 It lets the sun\u2019s heat in, but it won\u2019t let much heat out.\u00a0 This carbon dioxide makes a kind of one-way lid on Earth.\u00a0 Heat in, but not much out.\u00a0 And this extra heat was warming up the north and south poles.\u00a0 So the ice was melting and the oceans were getting higher.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I flipped back to the copyright page.\u00a0 The book was written in 1973!\u00a0 Just three years earlier, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had been established to fund research about climate change.\u00a0 Scientists were just beginning to understand<\/a> the effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.\u00a0 Apparently this children\u2019s sci-fi author from 40 years ago knew enough about the issue of climate change to create a story out of it.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only been an environmental and climate activist for about ten years.\u00a0 But I had forgotten about this book, which I had cherished so long ago.\u00a0 Had seeds of my activism been planted without my recognizing it?<\/p>\n To my young mind at the time, the scenario of cities underwater seemed so fantastical, so out of the realm of possibility, that it never occurred to me it could ever happen in real life.\u00a0 But now here I am \u2013 a 46-year-old mom with a daughter entering high school, and a son who is now Ralph\u2019s age.\u00a0 The polar ice caps<\/a> are indeed melting.\u00a0 Coastland cities<\/a> and island nations are indeed drowning.\u00a0 And the president of my country has just pulled out the Paris Climate Accord that gives guidelines for nations to curb greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change.\u00a0 What should I even do with this?<\/p>\n He sat down with his banana and cereal and finished the book in about 90 minutes.\u00a0 Then I asked him some questions.<\/p>\n Me:\u00a0 What do you think the book is about?<\/em><\/p>\n Ben:\u00a0 I loved the book.\u00a0 Because it reminds me that there is always good in the future.\u00a0 It\u2019s about saving the world.<\/em><\/p>\n Me:\u00a0 Saving the world from what?<\/em><\/p>\n Ben:\u00a0 Global warming.\u00a0 That\u2019s what this book is talking about \u2013 climate change. The book is warning us about what\u2019s happening right now.\u00a0 It\u2019s trying to warn us about what\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 And here we are, and there is global warming going on.<\/em><\/p>\n I told him to look at the copyright page and find the year when the book was written.<\/p>\n Ben:\u00a0 1973!\u00a0 Mom, you were only two years old when they knew about this stuff!<\/em><\/p>\n I look ruefully at this book once held by my 10-year-old hands, and now held by my 10-year-old son.\u00a0 I realized he\u2019s holding a message in a bottle.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a message that has gone unheeded by the ones who had the power to make changes when there was still time to act.<\/p>\n Ralph then shares the suggestion with his father (explaining the idea came to him in a dream):<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Dar Tellum said was to put some tiny plants called algae into the atmosphere.\u00a0 Algae are plants so small you need a microscope to see each one.\u00a0 He explained that some kinds of algae can live high up where it\u2019s cold.\u00a0 He said these plants would take carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen.\u00a0 And, with carbon dioxide turned into oxygen, the Earth\u2019s heat could get out of the atmosphere and the ice caps would stop melting.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n Of course my adult self knows algae living in the atmosphere is based on a scientific and biological impossibility.\u00a0 So I was disappointed that the plot-line of the story was based on such an illogical idea.\u00a0 But at least the author made an attempt to work science into the story, however flawed. \u00a0Ralph\u2019s father works with scientists to test the theory, and eventually the algae is shot into the atmosphere in a rocket.\u00a0 Earth is saved! [Note that even if it can\u2019t live in thin air,\u00a0the health of algae IS important for the climate:\u00a0http:\/\/www.trinfinity8.com\/studies-link-monsantos-glyphosate-to-ocean-death\/<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n Ben:\u00a0 Scientists need to look for new stuff in the world, like putting algae into the sky.\u00a0 Scientists need to keep learning things about how to solve our problems because that can make a difference.\u00a0 The book shows us a better future, and that it can happen.<\/em><\/p>\n But I have to admit my worry that my son might be lulled into the same kind of wishful thinking I am tempted to cling to when problems are so overwhelming. I think both of us feel a little like Ralph in the story \u2013 dreamers wishing for help from somewhere or someone that could make the kind of rapid changes needed to reverse the effects of global warming. But the climate feedback loop is accelerating so rapidly, there is currently no technology available to suck up all that CO2 the way it happens in the book.<\/p>\n My son knows this, too.\u00a0 As he\u2019s entering 5th<\/sup> grade, his naivety is falling away. He knows how dire things are, because we talk about it.<\/p>\n Ben:\u00a0 The author knew things were going to get worse.\u00a0 We should have listened to this book and did what it said.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Me:\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t we listen?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Ben:\u00a0 Some people these days are not very good people.\u00a0 The politicians don\u2019t listen.\u00a0 They\u2019re on a whole different story, when they should be reading this one about global warming.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>I nodded and thought of Psalm 8:<\/p>\n Out of the mouths of babes and infants<\/em> Ben:\u00a0 The dreamers \u2013 the people who want to make a difference.\u00a0 Because no one else believes us.\u00a0 We can only trust each other.\u00a0 And that\u2019s how we can make a better future.<\/em><\/p>\n It was then I realized something. Dar Tellum is, in some ways, our future selves \u2013 our best selves \u2013 trying to communicate with those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.<\/p>\n My hope and prayer is that there are many more 10-year-olds \u2013 and dreamers of all ages \u2013 ready to see and listen.<\/p>\n Leah D. Schade is the Assistant Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary<\/a> (Kentucky) and author of the book <\/em>Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit<\/a> (Chalice Press, 2015).<\/em><\/p>\n Leah will be presenting at the Wild Goose Festival<\/a>\u00a0in Hot Spring, NC, July 14 and 15! \u00a0Her session info is available here: \u00a0http:\/\/wildgoosefestival.org\/sessions17-24\/<\/a>. \u00a0Enter the special code BEMYGUEST for a 25% discount on tickets<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n Y<\/em>ou can follow Leah on Twitter at @LeahSchade<\/a>, and on Facebook at\u00a0 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LeahDSchade\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nNearly four decades later, and here was the book once again in my hands.<\/h2>\n
But then I got to the second chapter, \u201cCrisis on Earth,\u201d and chills of eerie recognition shot up my spine.<\/h2>\n
Climate change!\u00a0 Ralph was talking about global warming!<\/h2>\n
I decided to share Dar Tellum <\/em>with my son to see what he might think of this book I had loved at his age.<\/h2>\n
![\"My](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/764\/2017\/06\/Reading-Dar-Tellum.jpg\")
In the book, Dar Tellum suggests an idea to Ralph for saving Earth.<\/h2>\n
![\"Dar](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/764\/2017\/06\/dar-tellum-ending.jpg\")
The importance of working with scientists was not lost on my son.<\/h2>\n
\nyou have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
\nto silence the enemy and the avenger.\u00a0 (Psalm 8:2)<\/em><\/p>\nI asked him one final question:\u00a0 Who do you think should read this book?<\/h2>\n
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