The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. Psalm 24:1

I remember the first Earth Day in 1970. I was seventeen years old with a new driver’s license and a free afternoon. A high school buddy and I made our way to the local university campus to be a part of the experience.

It was a time of Vietnam War protests, draft cards, bell bottoms jeans, flowers in long hair, and frisbees. We thought that anything was possible, and that my generation would fix all that was wrong with the world. We didn’t, of course. I realize now two things that I didn’t know then. Things aren’t as simple as they seem, and, if anything, we made things worse.

I think that it was Henry James who said that the early industrial and technological age was analogous to a child threatened of drowning because he learned to turn on bathtub faucet but not how to turn it off. There is no guarantee that technology and imagination can save us from ourselves.

The Story of Genesis says that we’ve been created in the Divine image and made stewards of God’s creation. Only time will tell if we’ve been good stewards. The earth, though, will still be here, with or without us.