Embrace natural world.

Let us celebrate Earth Day by honoring the amazing ways Mother Earth has of finding balance when humans are removed from their polluting ways for a few weeks. The skies are bluer, the water clearer, and animals are being seen in unexpected places. Give thanks and vow to treat the earth and everything on it with more respect.

When you see evidence of your environment being destroyed and, in the process, creating suffering, it is not appropriate to ignore, but rather it is important to consider in what ways the evolution of the natural environment can grow in consonance with the evolution of humankind. It is for humans to work with the environment, not to ignore it. It is appropriate to change as one must change, but it is not appropriate to refuse to change within the presence of that evolution of nature.

It is for you to give honor to what provides you with life, what sustains you, what provides nourishment, what fosters health. All that you do to harmoniously embrace the natural world and your place within it is a manifestation of peace, peace being that ability to see God’s presence, to know God’s presence, and be strengthened by that presence.

The peace for which you pray is given its strength when the heart is open, when the mind is willing to share a commitment to honor all life. Peace is not achieved through dominance. Peace is achieved by the embrace of life.