Dear Editor:

“Nature is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world.” (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 142 )

April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day “gave a voice to an emerging public consciousness about the state of our planet.” There are now chapters in over 190 countries. In 2019, the UN designated April 22 Mother Earth Day. “Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet – and its people.” (UN International Mother Earth Day webpage). 

This nature is subject to a sound organization, to inviolable laws, to a perfect order, and to a consummate design, from which it never departs. To such an extent is this true that were you to gaze with the eye of insight and discernment, you would observe all things… are most perfectly organized… and that all are subject to one universal law.” (‘Some Answered Questions, p.3) 

For progress and “the economy”, we have spent centuries ‘harvesting’ the planet, causing the extinction of numerous species and the extirpation of others. We have altered the planet’s ecosystems, polluting waterways and changing the pH of the oceans. Our ‘economy’ is corporate-driven and the present corporate model does not share wealth so “trade” has pooled the profits in the hands of a few, leaving the majority of those who do the work living in poverty. 

Earth will always find its balance but, if humanity is to survive, we need to re-think how we live, individually and collectively. Earth Day has encouraged each individual to mitigate the footprint we place on the planet. In celebrating Mother Earth Day, we must consider how humanity can revise its protocols to be kinder to the planet and, in the process, become more humane. 

In closing, may I leave you with the following: “O ye that are lying as dead on the couch of heedlessness! Ye walk on My earth complacent and self-satisfied, heedless that My earth is weary of you and everything within it shunneth you. Were ye but to open your eyes, ye would, in truth, prefer a myriad griefs unto this joy and would count death itself better than this life.” The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláhh, p.28-29 

“We need a change of heart, a reframing of all our conceptions and a new orientation of our activities. The inward life of man as well as his outward environment have to be reshaped if human salvation is to be secured.” From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi

Shizu E. M. Futa, Invermere