1. Earth's Birthday

This will be the first year that I am aware of earth’s birthday and I’m so happy that it’s coming soon, on September 1^st. Now to think about how to celebrate...

When I was a child I knew that my Jewish friends celebrated New Year’s Day in September, and a little later I learned that the Mother Church celebrated New Year’s Day in September too but I didn’t connect New Year’s Day with the actual creation of the earth until I read it in Bartholomew’s book last March. Well, I nearly jumped for joy. Of course! It makes sense that birthdays are personal New Year’s Days. And that the earth’s New Year’s Day is its birthday, the first day of creation.

Now, when I mention the beginning of the earth and humankind I hear a huge clamor like a global argument full of sound and fury in the distance. Test tubes are being shot from rifles like bullets, barreled chests fill themselves with hot air to spew forth powerful rhetoric; big bangs, loud bangs herald thousands of arrows raining down on the simple phrase that in the beginning when God created the heavens and earth…

One day an atheist friend entered Isaac Newton’s studio and marveled at a model of the universe sitting on his desk. “My, what a wonderful piece, who made it?” exclaimed his friend. Without even looking up from his work Isaac quickly responded, “No one.” “That’s impossible” said his friend. “Look how beautiful and intricate it is!” “My dear Sam, how is it that you can’t believe that no one made this simple model when you refuse to believe that a God of all creation formed this glorious earth beneath your feet?”

In my book, The Immortal Life, I go into detail about the significance of the creation and how the story reveals to us God’s plan for human immortality. In short, I don’t believe that Adam and Eve were punished for eating an apple but that they used their freedom to distrust God by which they alienated themselves from the Giver of life. Death is really nothing more than separation from life that is the source of life, God. Adam and Eve’s decision to divorce God (by distrust) came as no surprise to Him. God knew that it was just the beginning of a very long process during which the human species that He made in his creative, intelligent, and loving image-and-likeness could choose eternal life for themselves and become full fledged children of God who like Him can never experience death because they are life-filled.

Yes, this old planet earth is having a birthday once again. In spite of all of the wear and tear from thousands of years of weather, human, and animal use it is continuously renewed for another generation to admire, to inhabit, and to care for. Everything on the planet perishes, but the planet lives on.

While most mortals celebrate earth day in April, the fourth month of the four directions (north, south, east, and west) and the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and because spring brings rebirth at its natural best, immortals see the time where the fullness of nature wanes and the dark deep winter lies on the horizon as reminding them of the darkness and void out of which first light emerged. The day begins in darkness. On September 1st listen real hard for the echo from eons past of God saying, “Let there be light!”

Wouldn’t you know that earth is a Virgo! I think I’ll go and plant a dogwood tree. Come back soon!