Earth Day

I’ve never been the kind of girl to hug trees and raise hell over pollution, but I do have a great amount of respect for Mother Earth and believe that our environment shapes who we become. Both our emotional/mental environment and the physical one we exist within. I was brought up on a farm, learned early about the cycle of death and rebirth into another resource. I have weeded more tomatoes, picked more beans, shucked more corn, slopped more hogs, and moved more cattle than I even care to think about. Earth day always meant a day of appreciation for the world around me, a time of thanking God for how he allowed our farm to flourish to meet our needs.

In April 1995, I was in Washington DC for a journalism conference when I was 15, representing my state among college freshmen (even though I was a sophomore in high school) from across the entire country. It was my first time being away from my family (at something other than Girl Scout activities/camp). I had a ball. Then two days happened that forever changed my world.

April 19, 1995: We were touring the CNN building in DC, watching as reporters relayed information throughout the channels, phone lines, and via faxes. Everything was so busy and everyone knew everything going on at that exact moment! Suddenly, it was completely silent. A deafening quiet that echoed loud in my head as we struggled to realize what had just happened. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City had just been bombed. 168 people died, including 19 children under the age of 6! Under the age of six! More than 680 people were injured… I didn’t think there was that many people in my entire town, I surely didn’t know 867 people – yet that is the total number (counted for) whose life had been taken or injured. It would be years later before I realized that the spread of the damage went beyond the farming town I was brought up in. Watching the destruction on the prompters, hearing everyone take flight in a million ways to find out what had happened, the entire city of DC changed in those few minutes... Bomb sniffing dogs, metal detectors, helicopters, armed military guards, police offers – you name it, they were there. Earlier that week I had been able to breeze into the Smithsonian, but the next time I attempted to go it took almost two hours to get through security.

April 22, 1995: The morning was warm and bright with sunshine, there was a different air among the people filling the Mall. Yes there was the security measures but those gathering had a different purpose. Earth Day XXV was beginning! Live music, thousands of people picnicking, dozens of tents educating others about Earth Day and various ways to save Her. The morning of the celebrations truly reminded me of Home. Gathering at the Court House with vegetables and fruits, fellowship after Church, and coming together for local football games. I believe in those moments, we were truly one world.

Earth Day was the total opposite side of the coin from the bombing. The two extremes have never left me, and each Earth Day as I offer a prayer of gratitude for what I have in my life, I also pray for those whose world will never be the same. I cannot rejoice in the miracle of one, without feeling the loss of the other.