It is long past time that we take cognizance of what it is we have done to our Earth planet.   She is still here for us to love and care for.   She is still here for us to give us breath, polluted it may be in some areas, but where we are, hopefully it is clean air.   She gives us water abundantly.   She allows us to live as human beings amidst the best that our livelihood has to offer.   She loves us with a passion.  

But what we have done to her is abominable.  We take advantage of our resources and give nothing back.   A few steps to the recycle bin oftentimes is too far to walk.  But she keeps on loving with no discretion.

Yet we are asked once a year to honor her.   Hopefully this once a year will be enough to embarrass us, make us feel guilty that we change our ways and give honor to her who has been our grounding, our bed of rest and the best classroom in the universe.  

How else to honor this lady, this mother, this teacher?   We must find new ways if we are to preserve our way of life; to continue in this classroom where to have an idea is to make it manifest only as long as it takes us to collect the material.  

There is no other place as conducive to easy learning as this classroom is.   No other place that accommodates us to the degree that our Earth Mother does.   We will chance it every time we decide that the next time we will do better.   The next time there may not be this green Earth.

We are in a crucial junction.   We are where we are because we have neglected our stewardship to care for this place we inherited.   What to do?   How much do we treasure the early morning with the dawn rising clearly and with punctuality?   How much do we treasure our love of our evenings when the sky darkens and the moon sources our light?  As we reach for our Other and hope that what we wish for ourselves is also wished for Others.  

How much do we treasure our rainfalls?  When foods that have risen in price so that the quart of milk a day for the young is too steep a price for good health?   We treasure our way of life.   We treasure what is ours and we hope that our grandchildren’s children will be able to be inspired by the same sun and moon and richness of this green planet.  

We must begin, each again and again.   Our environmentalists have told us time and again what we must do.   We cannot wrap ourselves around the idea that this Earth cannot sustain life as we know it.   If we feel the upsets simply when the weather does not suit us,  let us be aware that Nature too reviles our habits when we do not honor her.  

It is long past the time to change our habits.    The bill is overdue.

*****

(Being a clipper of Detroit Free Press when living in Michigan, two things discovered and cherished. . .from Bob Talbert’s years past speaking of Monsignor Francis X, former professor and rector of Sacred Heart Seminary.

’Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character.  Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.’

And reading conflicting texts of a now questionable elected Republican on the January 6^th insurrection, asking his henchmen ‘tell me what to say now’  I ask do you not ever think for yourself?

And a clip from  Neil Chethik’s column when asking his 2 year old for a blessing on their newly planted garden . . . instinctively he put his palm on mine and uttered the only prayer he knows. . . ‘for life and love and all things good, we offer up our thanks.’

We can remember that prayer for we are inclined to thank SOMEONE for the good fortune that we still breathe.  For starters, God or Gods or Yahweh or Father or Christ or parent-gods of all.  Or simply LIFE with capitals and benign Ethics. 

As my favorite poet writes, ‘the heart translates and makes it all human.’  Amen and Amen. 

 

photo  by
Lori Hallissey