It has been said that ‘every day is Earth Day’……or at least should be. I have a vague memory of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.  As a country we were involved in a energy crisis. Fuel costs were rising and more and more people began to see that we could not continue to consume in the ways we had been. We were engaged in a war that did not seem to be making much progress, whatever progress means in a war. There was great civil unrest, college campuses were rife with passion to change the ways things were going in our country. Teach-ins, love-ins, protests, marches…..the evening news were filled with them.

And along came Senator Gaylord Nelson who had long been an environmentalist, working for environmental awareness for nearly a decade.The senator from Wisconsin saw that the movement on campuses, the commitment of those who wanted change and were willing to work for it, provided just the kind of momentum needed to educate people about the threats to our Earth home. The first Earth Day saw more than 20 million people involved in teach-ins, marches, conversations, and lobbying for change. All that without the power of the Internet!

It has always been interesting to me that the church has most often been on the outside of the environmental conversation or even been a hindrance to it. The faithful have most often let the political realm lead the way.  How have we been so timid when the very words we claim to be sacred, those that guide our faith, begin with the story of the Creation of the Universe? Though the church has often come late to the table, we are now engaging in new ways, across theological, denominational and faith-traditional lines. It is good……very, very good.

Everyday is Earth Day. Every day it is our privilege to awaken and place our feet on the ground, this holy ground.  Everyday we walk out into the world, to be fed from the gift of the trees filling our lungs. If we open our eyes we are blessed by observing the miracles of the everyday….birds of the air, flowering plants, greening grass, water flowing from sky to river to lake to ocean. Our main reasons for being here are simple: be in awe, walk gently, take care, pass it on.

"Now we turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one." These words of the Iroquois Nation are a translation of a document that is more than 1000 years old.  We are gifted with many ancient,sacred teachings about our Earth home. We only need read and take them to heart.It is up to us to write the texts that will continue their wisdom into the future. May we have the same courage as Senator Nelson to keep at it until the momentum carries us away.

"God spoke: Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and yes, Earth itself." Genesis 1:28-29 The Message