The Earth Is the Lord’s

There are many hymns that praise the beauty of creation, and God’s role as Creator. Yet when we look at our world, we often see instead the environmental degradation that is humanity’s legacy to our planet. Hymns to deal with that issue are far less common. My church had recently installed rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, and Earth Day was approaching. I was looking for words to express what our faith has to say about our obligations to Creation. I also hoped to highlight that many small things, taken together, could make a big difference in the kind of world we pass on to the next generation. Five years previously I had written a melody but it had no words or theme. Here, I thought, was a workable theme. But it took months to figure out the lyrics and a way of matching them to the meter (the "beat"). In much the same way, figuring out how to deal with the mess we’ve made of the earth will require both time and exploring many options (although time may be running out on adopting the easier ones). What matters is that our choices affirm that the earth we share with billions of other humans (and species!) is on loan to us. This means that we need to find ways to make a lighter footprint on the earth, and to do so now. Hopefully, it won’t involve making a false choice between our environment and the economy, although it may involve redefining what we mean by wealth.