Happy (belated) Earth Day to Me!! (and to all the boys and girls and fishes in the deep blue sea)

Earth Day was established on April 22, 1970 on my 18th birthday (how nice of someone!) to raise awareness of the need for environmental reform. If our environment goes south, so will all life forms, with the exception, perhaps, of cockroaches. 1970 was, by the way, an exciting and terrifying year; for one thing, space exploration had that past summer resulted in Neil Armstrong’s big/small step, education was taking some creative steps, and required bussing had begun. But we were also experiencing the devastation of the war in Viet Nam, were embroiled in civil rights battles and still in grief over the assignation of Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Women were marching for equal rights; Anita Bryant was leading the Save Our Children coalition and Richard Nixon was beginning a presidency that would end in shame. Establishing Earth Day may have been little more than a gesture of hope—a drop of medicine to heal an ocean of pain – for continued life in its vast and threatened diversity, but in my view it was an important beginning—a call to awareness and responsibility concerning our danger and our responsibility to change.

Today, Earth Day 2013, (you can do the math concerning how many years later) the times seem better in some respects and worse in others. We have passed laws concerning gender justice and disability access, have witnessed the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the end of Apartheid. But we also live in post Katrina and Sandy and are trying to wrap our hearts around the atrocity against Newtown, CT’s innocents and the insanity of the Boston Marathon Bombings and aftermath. Families are dealing with the great loss suffered as a result of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Congo (to name only a few), and we hear daily about the present rattling of nuclear swords in Korea.

Though I don’t recall giving much thought to the Earth Day movement in 1970, I’ve lately been thinking much about the earth and my responsibility to care for the life it sustains. Thanks to N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, an exposition concerning the new heaven and new earth, I’m realizing that by helping care for life on this planet, I may in some respect be working to build God’s kingdom, midwifing the New Creation begun in Christ. Thanks to my talks with Dave Foster, environmental biologist and professor at Messiah College, I've grown in my love and appreciation for the life the earth supports. I’m listening to and watching birds, stopping to smell all manner of flowers and learning to discern which animals share our particular space by the “treasures” they leave behind. My friends Terry and Janet Fisher are teaming me about turning to native plants as part of the effort to reverse the trend of species loss.

Genesis tells us that the earth is the culture from which we were created and that, until some loud blast signals the resurrection, the earth will be where we rest. Our human calling is to know and name (Genesis 2:20): like our efforts to know our children to best help them mature and realize their gifts and destinies, we are called to grow in knowledge of the earth to protect and keep.** 

My efforts to help, of course, are small in comparison to what is needed today: I’m caring for a few garden plots and looking forward to the vegetables that will nourish my family and some friends. I’m trying to be more educated about the food I buy—where it comes from, what politics the represents, and whose lives will be harmed or helped by my purchases

From Romans 8:21 we know that all creation, like a mother, experiences the anguish, pain and grief of labor, anticipating her full Redemption—when all creation is freed from the “slavery of decay to share the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God.” Thanks to the finished work of our Lord Jesus, this possibility—no, this reality— is on the way.

So I’ve been dreaming about that coming redemption, hoping in it when the sun is shining and I feel as if I’m breathing the thin air of Mt. Everest, but also hoping when it feels we’re drowning in the darkness of the Philippine Trench. And since Earth Day is also my birthday, I thought I'd share some of my dreams concerning God's beautiful earth and my future hope:

•  I dream of the day when all created reality in heaven and earth and below the earth bows at name of Jesus; when the earth welcomes his rule and politics and begins to write nice things about him on Facebook;
• I dream of the success of the many organizations working to provide clean water for the 1/6^th of the world’s population that has little or no access to it so that community members no longer risk disease or injury in their daily search;
• I dream of fulfilled relationships—when the church takes Jesus seriously about loving one another from the heart and we truly are known by our love;
• I dream of coming into a deeper understanding of the gifts that are given to us daily, including (but not limited to) each new sunrise, healthy meals with friends and family, the communion of conversations that opens the door to the Spirit of Christ (Rev. 3:19)as together we hear his knock at the door and actually eat with him. That’s not a future event, by the way; it’s a promise for those longing for daily, loving interaction with God and each other.
• I dream of the time when my Somali neighbors are welcome everywhere they go and have the opportunity to contribute their amazing gifts to the local community;
• I dream of a healed memory so I can teach my grandchildren the names and properties of trees and plants like Dave Foster does when he takes groups to Shenks Ferry in Lancaster County or teaches biology in the classroom and in the field alike;
• I dream of getting to a solution beyond politics and fear that will put a strong and final end to enraged and/or sick people picking up weapons and destroying families. I dream of becoming a member of a culture of life that respects the very youngest and also the most elderly (despite the condition of the body).

And I realize as I write that my dreams are not nearly as enfleshed as they might be. Hopefully I’m in the middle of a good dream that continues.

I love the month of April and not just because it’s the month in which my birthday and Earth Day occurs. As we enjoy the fragrance and color of spring, as we experience creation breathing and blooming again, we can offer our Hallelujahs, weak and broken as they may be, that we're tasting a time to come when everything is finally visibly reconciled to God—a time when it’s actually apparent every day and forever that the earth is filled with his glory; a time when the anguish of brutality, illness and confusion fades into forgetfulness.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it (Psalm 24:1). If that's true, friends, then you and I belong to God. Beyond “be kind to the planet”*** as Earth Day may be understood, let’s recognize our place in creation and go to God for good advice as we care for his stuff.

Happy Earth Day, friends--belated, of course!!

*See, for example, the Food.Inc. or Fresh films, and read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver for information on food, commodities, government and corporate “involvement.”

**No doubt there will be a question about mosquitos. Maybe we haven't learned their benefit yet.

***For sure Earth Day is viewed with suspicion and even distain. But the earth is the Lord’s; it’s my personal opinion that God doesn’t mind when we give attention that may help heal his planet.