Celebrating Earth Day in 2020

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

Today we celebrate Earth Day for the 50^th time. Earth Day asks us to stop and consider the earth, this beautiful place we live.

This year with the whole world slowing down and stopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Earth Day seems even more important. Many of us have taken extra pleasure in the earth going from winter to spring during this time of being socially distant. It’s been a beautiful spring here in Kentucky. I know some of you who live to the north are seeing more snow this spring than you might want to see, but here in my area the flowers have bloomed. The trees are unfurling green leaves that mostly survived last week’s freezes. A few did not but new leaves are already pushing out beside the ones turned brown by the freezing frost.

Nature doesn’t give up. Spring comes with sunshine to warm our winter weary bodies and give us hope as we see the emergence of new life. Baby calves run across the pasture fields. Birds sit on nests and then scurry to feed their babies. The world has gone from winter grays to spring green dotted with colorful blooms.

Each day we hear of more victims of the virus and we feel sorrow for those who die. Scientists and researchers are working hard to come up with medicines and vaccines to help defeat this enemy while all across the world, people stay home to slow the spread of the virus. And all the while nature goes along with its business  of spring as usual. Somehow that can give us hope that soon we can go ahead with business as usual too. May we pray for those on the frontlines of this war and look forward to victory against the disease soon.

Earth Day History

Earth Day was inspired by  environmental disaster. a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California in January 1969. The spill is considered the third largest oil spill in United States water and was one of the impetuses for Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson to organize Earth Day.

When did it start?

Nelson organized the first Earth Day in 1970, pulling together local and national leaders, and rallying over 20 million people nationwide on April 22, 1970.

Where did the name come from?

Julian Koenig, a Nelson staffer, told people he came up with it and liked it because it sounded like “birthday.”

The earth is what we all have in common. (Wendell Berry)\

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children. — John James Audubon

So here’s hoping that we will see the fields and the skies, the sun and the moon, the stars and clouds, the big and little animals, butterflies and birds, the rocks and the flowers, the rivers and the lakes, the oceans and so much more and celebrate Earth Day every day in order to leave a better place for our children and grandchildren. May the Lord preserve and keep us

“Then God Saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 (NKJ)

On this 50th Earth Day, did you see something God had made that lifted your spirits?