Earth Weekend

On Friday evening, the weather became even more bizarre. It snowed, blizzard-like and lay on the ground. This picture is the blossom tree outside my front door.
We thought it would all have disappeared by morning, but not so.

And then the beginning - in Richmond at any rate - of the celebrations for Earth Day. I had to represent the Nature Park at King George Park, and I had planned to take the 'travelling pond'. Of course I was slightly put off Saturday morning, having to get water out of an icy pond to take with me. I scaled down my operation and took a smaller container.

Dear God it was cold. It felt Arctic. And the park was waterlogged. It was also very blowy and my canopy-tent thingie blew away. Add to that there were very few people there, either exhibitors or public. Further, there was a man dressed in...well, earthy clothes...strumming a guitar and making up the words to some lame song as he went along. It was like something out of a comedy series.
Mother Nature made her feelings VERY clear.

I was amazed to learn in church this morning however, that Earth Day has been celebrated on 22nd of April since 1970. I was horrified too. Why has it taken us until 2008 to go mainstream? If we had taken this guy, Gaylord Nelson, seriously back then - oh well, ok, I give you that it's almost impossible to take someone called Gaylord seriously - maybe we wouldn't be facing annihilation.

We had a version of the Creed that had been specifically written for Earth Day by Church leaders in Ottawa. It was a good feeling to know that the church is taking this seriously, seeing it as a problem for Christians and giving leadership.

In her sermon, Margaret pointed us at Revelations and suggested that maybe we should start to look at the Bible there, with St. John's vision of the possible future if we break faith with God. Then we should work backwards towards Genesis, to see the world as it once was, new and full of hope.

One oft used quote from the New Testament is that we are to be 'wise stewards of our own inheritance.'
Well right now, we're not.