Since the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, Earth Day has been an annual event for people around the world to celebrate the earth and renew our commitment to building a safer, healthier and cleaner world for all of us. It is a wonderful opportunity to embrace all of God’s creation, raise awareness and pray for “this fragile earth, our island home” (Eucharistic Prayer C, Book of Common Prayer).
There are many resources and websites to assist in the planning of your education offerings and worship celebrations on this day – click on resource for link:
Take the Ecological Footprint Quiz!
Green Stories from Episcopalians
Update on Greening Efforts around the Episcopal Church
Worship and Formation Resources
Congregational Greening Resources and Ideas
Millennium Development Goal #7 resources
Lord of Creation: Celtic Spirituality
Lessons Plans from the NCCC Eco-Justice Network! The Poverty of Global Climate Change . .
Green Resolutions passed at General Convention over the past 30 years
Episcopal Environmental Conference in Seattle April 2008.
Letter from Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori to the U.S. Senate regarding climate change.
HT to Living In-Formation – a newsletter from Church Publishing. and the Episcopal Ecological Network.
A message from the leadership team of Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN) follows:
Earth Day Message: What the Earth Wants
“Earth! you seem to look for something by my hands,
Say, old top-knot, what do you want?”
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
This great globe of grace, this undeserved blessing that we call the Earth does so much for us…does the Earth want anything from us?
According to Isaiah, God gave the Earth a job to do:
He who created the heavens, he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited.
Isaiah 45:18
The Earth has a big job: provide a good home, a shalom home, for the vast millions of species God saw fit to put here.
If you had a job that big, wouldn’t you need some help with it?
Help me do my job…help me provide for the billions of members of your species…and the other millions of species that God has created.
To celebrate Earth Day (April 22), we encourage you to help the Earth do her job in these ways:
Enjoy yourself–go outside and walk, hike, garden, or relax and enjoy being at home on Earth.
Express yourself–make up your own prayer to give thanks to God for what you appreciate most about living on the Earth.
Affirm yourself–make a list of all the things you now do to honor the Earth, especially in reducing water, energy, gas, food or plastic consumption.
Challenge yourself–do something new to help the Earth and our poorest neighbors…find a new way to consume less water, energy, gas, food or plastic.
Engage yourself–witness to and encourage your family, friends, congregation, workplace, and elected officials to make Earth-honoring choices.
By helping the Earth do her job better, we might just get better at doing our job as Christians:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31
Happy Earth Day from the Episcopal Ecological Network Leadership Team
The Episcopal Ecological Network is a grassroots network of lay and clergy Episcopalians around the US.
Our mission is to encourage hope and faithful action through the Episcopal Church regarding ecological concerns.
Visit us online here.