What a fantastic day we had for our county's annual Earth Round-up. Our American Heritage Girls (and my one little Cub Scout) were assigned a 2.5 mile stretch of the bike trail in Townsend, from the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park to the Townsend Visitors' Center. We divided up, and some older girls started from the other end while we started at the other end. We only had about 10 people come out to help, but that was plenty to clean up this section of the trail.
The worst section of the trail was by a church. The trail and grassy area on both sides of the trail were littered with refuse from the church's little cemetery: plastic flowers and greenery galore and a couple of entire plastic floral arrangements. How embarrassing that the church can't clean up after itself.
As I pondered this, I thought about all the snarky comments this week on Facebook and on blogs concerning Earth Day. Apparently, Earth Day is looked down upon by many Christians. Sneered at, even. That puzzles me. Why would we not want to keep our world beautiful? Why would we not participate in a nation-wide event that promotes a cleaner world? I can't help but blush, begging the unbelievers to realize that not all Christians are so sanctimonious. Praying that a soul close to the Truth isn't turned away because he met a Christian who is more concerned with defending a 6-day creation than keeping God's creation beautiful.
So anyway, after we picked up a few bags of litter along our trail, we had a picnic on the Little River. We were all hot and sweaty, and the river was blissfully freezing.
Duncan, of course, had to get in anyway. He really wanted to take the plunge, but he could only get the courage up to go up to his waist.
A perfect way to spend a warm Saturday: blue skies, big smiles, surrounded by mountains, and a cold river to refresh.
I look at Earth Day as a day to celebrate God's creation. Last year my sons & I walked our road & picked up trash. Our day was far too busy this year, but it's still in our plan at some point. We live on a back dirt road so teens like to cruise it & toss trash (and others I'm sure). Love the photos...
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you [again] said what I was thinking out loud! I honestly thought only MY Facebook friends were making the snarky comments. I was so upset (and more than a little embarrassed) by this that I briefly considered deleting people en masse from my friends list on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences."
ReplyDeleteInstead, since I was so utterly clueless, I questioned one of these friends and while he didn't respond, one of his commentors - who was unknown to me - explained that it was because "Earth Day is a tool of those who wish to indoctrinate our kids to the religion of tree hugging."
Huh?
What about our OWN religion and the clear marching orders we have about such things straight from the book?
Gen 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
I think we should worry less about the slender chance of pushing the wrong agenda and a whole lot more about not to screwing the job up. One day out of the year to survey our progress is not too much to ask.
And I think I'll go post that on my facebook! ;-)
LLL
Wow, as Sarah's brother and a strong environmentalist I have to say I don't quite understand her comments that seem to pose God's creation vs. 6 day creation advocates.
ReplyDelete"Praying that a soul close to the Truth isn't turned away because he met a Christian who is more concerned with defending a 6-day creation than keeping God's creation beautiful."
I'll have to ask her what she means, makes no sense to me...
As Christians and believers we clearly have NO other choice than to believe the scripture on 6 day creation as is clearly written and basically attested to by anyone with even half a brain tied behind their back.
I don't get the connection between being a 6 day creationist and one who protects the creation. If we believe in the creation AS a creation we must believe the creator created it the way he said, LOL.
Anyway, many, many people remember the suspicious roots of those that would basically "worship" the earth, it sprang out of this eco warrior stuff, rather than God and have an aversion to "celebrating" on the same day with many that falsely suggested that we need to immediately decrease the worlds' population (leading in many ways to the international Abortion movement and "legalization" in the US in 1973) and many other wild predictions of emminent doom ALL of which were clearly wrong. This was the time period of the wrong predictions and yet wildly popular books by Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner. The later Green Cross which was started by Gorbachev (the Soviet Dictator) stemmed off of these wildly wrong predictions. This is the primary way the communist movement has morphed itself into the Watermelon Gang such as Albert Gore and Barak Obama "green on the outside, red in the middle".
Anyway, we can take care of the earth each day as Christians but there is no need to go nuts on one day started by a Senator that was possibly being manipulated by radicals, that...ultimately were radically WRONG, and continue to be, to this day.
Predictions from Earth Day 1970
The following predictions were made during the first Earth Day:
Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for the first Earth Day, wrote, "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation." [13]
Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, stated, "Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." [13]
Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, stated, "... by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions.... By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine." [13]
Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, predicted that between 1980 and 1989, 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve to death. [13]
Life Magazine wrote, "... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." [13]
Ecologist Kenneth Watt stated, "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." [13]
Watt also stated, "By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil." [13]
ALL OF THE ABOVE PREDICTIONS WERE WRONG!!!
Wonderful pictures! :-)
ReplyDeleteJohn--I didn't mean to pit 6-day creationists vs. people who protect God's creation. Of course they can be one and the same. I could have picked a different issue. My point was that there are people who will argue until the point of shouting that the earth was created in 6 days, while tossing their Burger King wrappers out the window and ranting about "Tree Huggers." That person is blatantly wiping out any credibility, as far as I am concerned, if he/she can't respect what the Creator created and condemns those who do.
ReplyDeleteVagabond, Does it really matter who dreamed up earth day, so long as it serves a Godly purpose?
ReplyDeleteWe have collectively Christianized many things. Why not earth day?
Sarah - sorry to hijack your blog, but I must respond to John:
ReplyDeleteAll of the "wrong" predictions made by the early environmentalists were made with a caveat: "if we don't do anything, THEN..."
Regulations and policies regarding how we treat the environment, how much pollution we're allowed to create, etc. ALL changed BECAUSE of the outspoken environmentalists and as a result (thankfully) their predictions have not come true. IF we had all just stood by and done nothing then things would be considerably worse environmentally today than they are now.
Long live the tree-huggers!
Thats great that the kids can get out and help clean up! I'm glad that somebody is willing to invest the time.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote a post on being good stewards of our land that God has given to us. I guess I should have linked it to Earth day to be more politcially correct. Of course as you say then others would have had a problem with it! Yeah, some people just dont get it. We'll have to just keep preaching it sister!
ReplyDeleteWell, I do like the idea of "Christianizing" certainly a good one. As to Randy's comment on all of the 70's predictions, I think that if you look back and read their comments it was much more dire than all of that. As far as regs and policies changing things, there is plenty that can/should/has been done with policy, however, we must tread extremely carefully in this area. The most complicated Biblical principals as to how to treat water and air and common ownership/stewardship of these is found in a book Randy's son owns called Tools for Dominion by Dr. Gary North. I suggest that everyone reading the blog get a copy of the book for free from freebooks.com and go to around page 722. Anyway, I say to tread carefully because regs and laws are very difficult to get rid of when once in place. I am NOT convinced that the dire predictions of the 70's were greatly lessened by regs etc. and certainly in many cases the economy has suffered. However, that is not to say that the govt. has no place in that area. If you read the statements you will notice that they talked about mass extinctions, ice ages, enormous food losses, starvation of most of the world. Now, there is NO WAY that environmentalists heckling and cajoling, regs, policy, etc. had the type of effect mentioned below in that small of a time frame, especially when most of the world never did implement any of the regs, etc.
ReplyDeleteI would certainly not say it was, "BECAUSE of the outspoken environmentalists and as a result (thankfully) their predictions have not come true. IF we had all just stood by and done nothing then things would be considerably worse environmentally today than they are now."
Remember, the main thing that nearly everyone of these environmentalists called for ultimately was LESS people, much less and the primary method would be via abortion! Now, this happened but the connection between less people and less pollution and/or more food has never been clearly made (see the older book The Myth of Overpopulation as a reference) http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Over-population-Rousas-John-Rushdoony/dp/B001N6BFY0. The densest country in the World is Holland, far more than India or China, and yet they have a far higher standard of living. More often the reason for pollution, dirty water, lack of food has to do with a) the form of government and b) the religion of the people, than with any dire population factor. Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson were as hysterical as today's young, naive Robert Kennedy, Jr., Algore, Jr., and any number of recent, "the sky is falling", misfits. The common thread with these people is the dire need to eliminate people from the planet Earth. They have the misconception that the Earth is in Balance, whilst scripture clearly states and nature attests otherwise. Since the Sin of Adam the Planet has been bent (The Silent Planet), and OUT of balance. All of creation awaits the maturing of the Bride of Christ.
Yet, as the Church goes forward through history, and matures, she will properly apply scriptures in every area of life including the environment. If it takes Christianizing Earth Day, so be it. But it must be done Biblically and it is quite important to realize the roots of the day and the ultimate intentions of politicians who may have a very different agenda for PEOPLE and FREEDOM!
Anyway, lots of rambling, but I would point to the book Tools of Dominion for much, much more on the difficult subject of govt. regs.
As to Earth Day, Christianizing it sounds fine but jumping on a band wagon of calling for willy-nilly regs apart from Biblical understanding can be extremely dangerous.
Great post, and I totally agree with you. Do you think some people are just making excuses for their laziness? Looks like the kids had fun; wish we could've joined in.
ReplyDelete