This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Over 20 million people participated in the first event organized by Gaylord Nelson, a Wisconsin Senator and environmental activist, on April 22, 1970. According to Wikipedia, Earth Day is now observed each year by more than 500 million people in 175 countries.
The Earth has a big job: provide a good home, a shalom home, for the vast millions of species God saw fit to put here. If you had a job that big, wouldn't you need some help with it?
To celebrate Earth Day (April 22), we encourage you to help the Earth do her job in these ways:
Enjoy yourself—go outside and walk, hike, garden, or relax and enjoy being at home on Earth.
Express yourself—make up your own prayer to give thanks to God for what you appreciate most about living on the Earth.
Affirm yourself—make a list of all the things you now do to honor the Earth, especially in reducing water, energy, gas, food or plastic consumption.
Challenge yourself—do something new to help the Earth and our poorest neighbors... find a new way to consume less water, energy, gas, food, or plastic.
Engage yourself—witness to and encourage your family, friends, congregation, workplace, and elected officials to make Earth-honoring choices.
By helping the Earth do her job better, we might just get better at doing our job as Christians:
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12: 30-31
