Today is Earth Day.  Commemorated by environmentalists and like minded individuals the world over, Earth Day, established in 1970, marks a time of exhortation, admonition, and celebration in regard to one theme:  the care of the planet.  It's a day on which we think anew about the fragility of the tiny globe on which we spin through the vast, vast universe.  Earth Day is a call to devote more time and greater passion to attending to the ecological balance of the world.
    Of course, many deride Earth Day.  They alternately claim that the planet is ours to exploit, that the future is ours and no one else's, that the environmental degradation that allegedly plagues the planet is not nearly as severe as some assert, or that the world is far more adaptable than we suppose and that our "puny" machinations upon it do little long term damage.  Opposition to Earth Day is a curious mix of religion, economics, and politics.  It draws from all corners of the human spectrum.
     Underlying it all, however, is human arrogance.  People who dissent from the themes of Earth Day do so ultimately because whether they know it or not, they are assuming that they, and only they are the most important things on the planet.  They assume that nothing is more important than the human's "right" and capacity to fulfill his or her own needs above, in absolute fashion, all else.  The human being is unquestionably number one, they say, and nothing that we do or do not do ought to deny this:  our desires reign supreme.
     Perhaps Earth Day opponents should learn from the Greek mythological character Narcissus. So obsessed was Narcissus with his own image that when he noticed himself reflected in a stream, he bent down to look.  Enraptured, he continued to look, getting closer and closer until he put his head in the water and drowned.
     Regardless of where we stand religiously or politically, we really cannot dispute the essential truth of this story.  We are living in a world which we in no way made and in which we will in no way control fully.  Ecce homo:  we are only human.  If we think otherwise, the world will drown us, metaphorically for sure, in actuality perhaps, in the effects of our ecological follies.  We will lose everything God has given to us.
     As the psalmist writes, "The earth is the Lord's and all in it" (Psalm 24:1).  Let's use our gift responsibly.