Reflection
During this Season of Creation let us take time to reflect on the basic elements of our planet. The fire energy from the sun reaches across 93 million miles to touch our skin, warm the soil, bless the growth of plants and ripen their fruit. Water joins with sunlight and earth to foster the growth of vegetation, the greenness of trees and the beauty of flowers. It refreshes us and slakes our thirst; it sustains our physical needs. We feel the air in the powerful winds of storms which join with water to moisten and refresh the earth. It cools our skin with the caress of a gentle breeze. It enables our breath. Sometimes they awe us with their beauty, other times they frighten us with their violence and power. Always they are free. We are earthlings. Our lives depend on Earth and they move with its rhythms. Its health ensures our health. Let us care for this beautiful planet and always be grateful.
Prayer
Let us be grateful for the gifts of Earth.
Action
Take time to reflect on the gifts of Earth which we take for granted. Be serious about the threat of climate change. Become a member of an organization dedicated to climate issues and action to reverse climate change.
Suggested Reading
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him.
Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
Francis of Assisi
Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
Rachel Carson
There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.
Charlotte Eriksson
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Gary Snyder
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Galileo Galilei
Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The earth is what we all have in common.
Wendell Berry
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes
Nature is loved by what is best in us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson