Friday, April 17, 2015

Earth Day: Celebrate God's Provision for Us

by Donna L. Watkins

Photo: ©Donna L. Watkins
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Stream in the Rainforest - Amazing Biodiversity
La Selva Biological Station
Do you celebrate Earth Day in some way?  Even if only to take time to acknowledge and ponder God's creation of the earth and how you can do more to preserve it for future generations and make it better for those of us who live here right now.  Here's a website with 40 tips to help sustain God's Creation.

Check out the Earth Day website for things happening locally around the world.  You can search by zip code.  Not all events will be on this website so be sure to check your local news or Google a search:  Earth Day Events _______________ (enter your city and state).  Make it a family holiday that children and adults look forward to.

On Earth Day, April 22, there will be awareness-raising events across the world attempting to connect people to the planet we live on and to seek solutions or "the little things" you can do to preserve God's provision for us within our connected eco-systems. At some point there must be a pause button pushed.

There are species that God has provided for us for a reason that are going extinct. There are herbal remedies and solutions all around us. We need to use native plants in our gardens rather than invasive ones that cause natives to go extinct. Ornamental plants don't often feed birds and other living "beings" like the natives do so that causes species to die out also.  Our small gardens can truly make a difference.

New solutions are found daily for the benefit of man. Did you know that the rosy periwinkle flower from Madagascar is used in drugs for cancer treatment and has helped increase survival rates for childhood leukemia from 10% to 95%? The down side is that these medicines have proved very profitable for global drug companies, but virtually none of this money finds its way back to Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world.

We need to protect the places that are wild and beautiful, not only to walk within them, but to sustainably harvest things that God gave us for good. A lot of good things are going on around the globe to renew things that humans have destroyed. I've always felt that God had a provision for every generation in His Creation. We may not yet see it but God is God ... He created all this amazing stuff to be here and then to replicate itself.

Photo: ©Donna L. Watkins
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 Chestnut-sided Warbler Taking Bath In Rainforest Puddle
Our Song Birds Need a Place to Migrate in Winter

La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica
But as I've said many times when people begin to tell me the "gloom and doom" state of the planet .... "God has provision." Simply sharing all the gloom and doom with others and doing nothing about it yourself is not a healthy practice for you or others you influence.

There's a plan behind it all to last as long as it needs to until the return of Jesus. That doesn't mean it's in the condition He originally desired it to be in by any means ... but that the doom and gloom that we see, hear and feel may not be as deep or hopeless as we think.

A short film (9:40 min.), "Restoration," is the 4th episode in the Green World Rising series narrated by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and created by Tree Media.

Here's a short part of the article promoting the video:

"And in this moment, a ray of very powerful insight has emerged. Our next film, “Restoration,” addresses the idea that if we stop superimposing our 19th-century industrial logic on the landscape, the earth’s systems can reverse the damage of thoughtless industrial growth . 

Even though systems thinking has been with us for decades, as well as deep ecology and thoughts that we are all “connected,” for some reason, we have not fully seized on the full implications of what this all means. 

We must stop for a moment and go deep into the understanding of the way soil works, the way trees work, the way mushroom mycelium work, the way the oceans work -- among countless others systems. 

When we do, we come to realize that all these things can literally reverse what many now know is the -- at minimum pathological, at most suicidal -- path we are on."

View the film now.


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Copyright and Reprint Information - All photos remain the property of Donna L. Watkins, but may be used with proper credit and link back to the website, TheNatureInUs.com. Articles written by Donna L. Watkins may also be reprinted with proper credit and link back to the website, TheNatureInUs.com.

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