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Happy Unhappy Earth Day


Picture of happy faces and one unhappy Earth face

It had to be said, Happy Unhappy Earth Day. Our Earth is not happy. In celebrating it this week we lauded climate change initiatives around the world, but close to my home we're already into fire season and are hearing forecasts of drought.


"To everything there is a season...". Pete Seeger wrote that in 1959, but did you know the lyrics, except for the first line and the chorus, are taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible? When you grow up as a preacher's kid (PK), you learn cool things like that.


It begs the question, just what kind of season are we in right now? We can be happy we're still here on our Earth. We humans live through our cycles of birth and death. We celebrate and grieve, give and take, laugh and weep, mourn and dance. I think we can all agree our human season seems to be about upheaval and tyrants on the move. It's a changing and chaotic world as humans wrestle with who we are and who we aren't.


Pete Seeger's song reminds us that for every condition we find ourselves in, there exits an opposite condition "...A time to break down and a time to build up." So Earth Day reminds me to see the ways we break our world down and also speak and work for the ways we build it up. Our history on Earth has seen incredible advancements in times of change and chaos such as the Middle Ages.


When Rome fell to the West in the fifth century AD, it left a power vacuum that led to centuries of war, famine, disease, and conflict in the places it had taken over. Yet despite the constant fear of death, there was enough calm during the Middle Ages for great leaps forward in European science and invention.

One of those advancements between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance Period was coffee and coffee houses. You know how much I love great coffee so this bit of history was fascinating to me. It was the monks fault the amazing brew spread from the Ethiopian Plateau to the Arabian Peninsula around the 15th century AD. From there it spread eventually to Europe in the 16th century AD. According to the National Coffee Association, the first coffee houses were popular social hubs and became known as penny universities where people paid a penny for coffee and engaged in philosophy, politics, games and music.


During the dark times of World War 1 and 2, there were many advancements then, too. One was the invention of the ballpoint pen by journalist Laszlo Biro in 1938. Such a small but mighty invention and what a contrast with the Atom bomb invented by Robert Oppenheimer during this time. "...a time of war, and a time of peace".


History is amazing, isn't it! It teaches and informs us about the consequences of what we create here on Earth. What are we doing for a Happy Earth today? In my opinion, I think anyone who is aware of what's happening in our world and acknowledges there's a link between humans, war, climate change and the destruction of Earth's habitat, would agree we're living in a period where our creations and choices are going to register as good for the Earth or not. The scale of whether our choices and creations are good or bad for the Earth depends on who's making those choices, what they create and how much influence they have to sway others toward either end. "...a time to keep, and a time to cast away. "


I think we can agree we don't know exactly how our creations and choices will affect our future, however, I propose the question we need to be asking before 'What can we do?' is 'Who can we be?'. Who are we when we make our choices for the future? That's a more complex question and one I'm not qualified to answer from a psychological viewpoint. I do know, however, that when faced with a critical choice, I'd better involve my heart, soul, mind and body and ask myself and those I trust which choice would impact our Earth for more life. Most of us won't be faced with making such a momentous choice, but we can all choose a small part, even if it means living with less. "A time to get, and a time to lose."


The elephant in the room today is facing what's actually happening in our world. The news is horrendous and I find it hard to even listen to the killing and dying, mourning and weeping, the hate and wars. I can choose to listen to less news. I can choose to be careful about my choices and think about the larger impact of even the small ones. I can choose to devote my time to planting and healing, to building up and loving. Happy Unhappy Earth Day to us.


To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
King James Version (1611) of the Bible, (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

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