The real Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day we decided to investigate what school children are learning about the event, and we came across this quote in a high school science lesson from the Earth Day Network: "It's not easy to connect the simple switching on of a light bulb to a devastating massive hurricane enhanced by global climate change, but it is a link we must now build in our minds."

One wonders if the science lesson was written by the title character in Mark Twain's short story, "Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning." She awoke her husband Mortimer during a fierce lightning storm to complain that he ought to be ashamed to be sleeping when his family was in danger. When he objects that he can't be ashamed when he's asleep, she says, "You never try, Mortimer-you know very well you never try."

A bit later Mortimer admits that he forgot to say his prayers that night:

"Oh, we are lost, beyond all help! How could you neglect such a thing at such a time as this?"

"But it wasn't 'such a time as this.' There wasn't a cloud in the sky. How could I know there was going to be all this rumpus and pow-wow about a little slip like that? And I don`t think it's just fair for you to make so much out of it, anyway, seeing it happens so seldom; I haven't missed before since I brought on that earthquake, four years ago."

"MORTIMER! How you talk! Have you forgotten the yellow fever?"

"My dear, you are always throwing up the yellow fever to me, and I think it is perfectly unreasonable. You can't even send a telegraphic message as far as Memphis without relays, so how is a little devotional slip of mine going to carry so far? I'll stand the earthquake, because it was in the neighborhood; but I'll be hanged if I'm going to be responsible for every blamed-"

[Fzt!-BOOM beroom-boom! boom!-BANG!]

Students who were told they needed to "connect the simple switching on of a light bulb to a devastating massive hurricane enhanced by global climate change" might be feeling a bit like Mortimer.

The irony, of course, is that on this Earth Day we all bear responsibility for the condition of the planet, but not in the sense that the Earth Day Network presumes. In Romans 8:19-24 the Apostle Paul writes:

"For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved."

Today is Good Friday-the real Earth Day. All creation is in bondage to decay because of Man's sin. Let us remember then, with tears and gratitude, how Christ sacrificed himself not only for our sins, but for the liberation of creation as well, as Paul tells us. Let us be good stewards of the world God has entrusted to us while looking forward to our, and its, ultimate redemption.

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