Celebrating Earth Day with a New Job
Blessed Earth Day dear friends!
This is a day I don’t normally celebrate, at least not since being a child and doing a special craft in its honor. Then I knew it had something to do with planet earth and appreciating it. As an adult, I did a little research as to the history and humble beginnings of this oft forgotten holiday. For this post, I went straight to earthday.org to get some basic information. Every year on April 22, Earth Day is a celebration that recognizes the environmental movement that began in 1970. The idea began with a junior senator in response to a major oil spill that had captured the attention of the American public through national media. A few different names gave title to the initial efforts: Environment Day, E Day, Ecology Day. But it was the simple phrase that rhymed with “birthday” that became the official moniker. Earth Day has since grown through decades of campaigns and dedicated citizens, politicians and environmentalists to its recognized position on our calendar. You can find community celebrations across the states. Resources abound too.
Regardless of your experiences with nature or your opinions about environmentalism, Earth Day give us all the opportunity to recognize a most amazing and abundant resource that we call home: Earth. Whether a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi or Atheist, Earth is the place we must reside and from it, live and make our physical being. We all benefit from her resources and are compelled to share her space. And research has shown that the impact of one impacts the whole.
For me, my Christian faith tells me that God created all Earth’s vastness and mystery to the very detailed symbiosis and complex systems of animals and plant life. And then created man and woman from the very dirt of this glorious planet and gave these humans a very specific purpose: to care for and to tend the earth. Earth Day, for me, is a day that gives me specific focus on how I am being responsible to the first job given to humans. After careful reflection, I have work to do. But overall, I am keeping pace and doing my small bit.
Today, I started a new full-time job working for the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) as a seasonal gardener. Though most of my day was spent onboarding through training videos, tours and paperwork, I spent the last hour clipping and removing old leaves and vegetation from hostas and other perennials. Below the dead leaves and broken branches, purple hosta heads were popping through the damp earth. It reminded me that from death comes life, from ash comes new birth.
We just celebrated Easter Sunday and for a week or two we continue the season of Easter in the church cycle. Earth Day falls at the perfect time this year, giving me a second reminder that God has defeated death and overcome the grave through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as I am baptized into Christ’s death, I too conquer death and find new life!
As I continue to dig out perennials and trim lilac hedges this spring, I will be surrounded by powerful reminders of God’s genius creativity and the abundance by which He provides for all of us. And my Earth Day will become many mini earth days as I caretake in such a beautiful city with award winning parks and green spaces. I am indeed blessed.
