By Ralphine Major

ralphine3@yahoo.com

“They’re not making any more land,” our father would often say. When we were in school, my brother and I hiked up to the ridge near our dairy farm one day to take pictures for a class project. Nowhere was Mother Earth more majestic than in the beautiful meadow on the ridge. Even for our rural road neighborhood, the special spot seemed isolated and distanced from the car horns and traffic on our country roads. I thought back to that time recently when a local situation made the news calling for a rural piece of acreage to be turned into development. Rural areas are vital to America’s farmers.

On April 22, we celebrate Earth Day, a day set aside for us to consider the ways we can best take care of the resources we have been given so that future generations can enjoy the land, water, and air during their days on the earth. Projects such as recycling, planting trees, and clearing the land and lakes of trash are strongly encouraged. There is much to think about not only on Earth Day but every day. It is most important that everybody does their part in taking care of our earth—because “they’re not making any more land.”

 

Words of Faith: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:9-10 (KJV).