APRIL 22, 2006
Thirty-five
years ago on this day the nation celebrated the first Earth Day. I was working at St. Andrew's Congregation in Kansas City Missouri at the time. That day was quite remarkable for what it accomplished, especially at a time when many adults were saying that kids did not really care about doing anything but playing rock music, taking psychedelic drugs and partying. I know, because I was a youth minister at the time, and focusing on the environment was seen as out of the ordinary.
However, something quite remarkable happened on April 22, 1970. Lo and behold, concerts and speeches led to a re-awakening of the importance of our environment and its fragile nature. College students across the nation forced the media and the people in positions of power to notice, in part because of the sheer numbers who participated in celebrating the Earth on that day. Dennis Hayes and Ed Furia are two key players in that awakening, and I tip off my hat to them both.
As a result of their efforts and the outpouring of support on many college campuses, Earth Day became institutionalized and is celebrated around the world every year in over 100 countries. There is today an organization called Earth Day International to take the message abroad. The US Earth Day Network continues to help us to focus on what we can do to make a difference in our personal lives. In other words, create an Earth Day resolution.
Earth Day is every day is the slogan; a slogan too often displayed and yet ignored by too many. Earth Day is analogous to someone's birthday. Every day of the year I give thanks I am alive, but on that one day in July I and others gather to say thanks for just being. In similar fashion we set aside April 20 to focus on the state of the environment, but every day should be a day when we help make our world a better place.
On this Earth Day let us all make an Earth Day resolution. I began this journal on New Year's Day with a resolution. Two resolutions a year should be easily handled by most of us, but the key is intentionality.
I resolve every Earth Day, in an intentional and comprehensive way, to take a good long look at my personal behavior and how it impacts the health or collapse of the environment.
--Peter