Today (7th December 2022) is exactly 50 years since this photo – the Blue Marble – was taken from Apollo 17. At the time environmentalist had asked NASA to take a Hi-res image of the whole earth as they believed that when humans saw their planet in one frame it would change their attitude towards it. Previous lower resolution images had been taken from satellites and the famous Earth Rise photos from the moon. But this was the first time earth had been seen in such detail, as a whole, and its fragility, vulnerability, and isolation within the darkness of space.
I wonder how you feel seeing our planet like this today? Sci-fi movies and other images have, perhaps, dulled its power to move us.
Psalm 104
24 How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
Psalm 104 is the psalmist environmental song. It both sets God as the creator, and celebrates our earth. As the environmentalists say – there is no planet B – this is the one we have and whatever our theology of what happens next we need to look after it.
Spend some time today looking at the Blue Marble. If you have a marble then hold it in your hands. Then go to a place where you can sit, kneel or even lay down on the earth (that could be the beach or under the stars) and consider how part of this symbiotic relationship you are.
Photo Challenge: Take a picture of something inspired by the word earth. Use the hashtag #woryem
Earth
Earth our only home
Earth our place of hope
Earth
You are part of God’s created earth in this season of advent
Stop for a moment
How are you connect to this world today?
We are a community of faith.
Strandlopers on a journey.
We are here on earth, our home, in this season of advent
By God’s grace we go.
Amen
I’ve been a member of BCFX for about 2 years. I love it. It’s home and hearth, welcome and challenge, ebb and flow.
