Wednesday April 22, is Earth Day: a day to celebrate the bountiful gifts that creation offers, to reflect upon our relationship with the earth, and to take action towards practicing greater care and stewardship towards it. Earth Day was first celebrated internationally in 1990, and this year 1 billion people in over 170 countries will be participating in events and projects to address local environmental issues. Find out what activities are in your community, to join fellow citizens in working towards creating a healthier planet.
For Earth Day, here are two prayers that celebrate creation and reflect upon our relationship with it:
Prayer for Awareness
Creator of heaven and earth
From the nearest flower in the garden
To the farthest galaxy in the universe,
Broaden our minds
To grasp the connectedness of all created things.
As our knowledge expands
To probe more and more into the secrets of life
As our communications improve
To see at firsthand what is happening far away
Help us to better understand the links
Between past and present
And between events and trends the world over
Remind us that just as ocean currents in the Pacific
Affect the weather over England
And chemicals we put in the air
Affect the Ozone layer over the Antarctic
So our lives are conditioned by events
In other countries and other cultures
And everything we do has reverberations for the rest of humankind.
Prayer for the Earth
We join with the Earth
And with each other
To bring new life to the land
To recreate the human community
To provide justice and peace
To remember our children
To remember who we are…
We join together
As many and diverse expressions
Of one loving mystery
For the healing of the Earth
And the renewal of all Life.
First prayer by Alan Litherland, printed in Harvest for the World: a worship anthology on sharing in the world of creation, compiled by Geoffrey Duncan. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003, pp. 22.
Second prayer by Pat Cane. As found in Life Prayers: 365 Prayers, Blessings and Affirmations to Celebrate the Human Journey, ed. by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon. New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 1996, pp. 12.
