It is all we have. One planet. One island home in the midst of a vast universe. The poster on my wall shows a photograph of Earth from outer space and notes, “You are here.”
As a child in West Texas, I spent most of my time indoors. I enjoyed swimming at the community pool, sitting in my tree or bouncing on a neighbor’s pogo stick. But the rest of the time, I wanted to be inside. When my girlfriend’s mother forced us to go out into the summer heat, we’d spread a blanket on a patch of shaded grass and read our books.
As an adult, I still spend hours or days caught up in my head. Thoughts dancing around. Planning, keeping good order. Getting things checked off the lists.
In working with Big Topics at Midnight, I found my way back to my earthly home.
Indoors, I discovered, wasn’t enough. I needed to regularly stand on the earth. Watch the birds flit from tree to tree. Watch bare branches against the late winter sky. Savor camellia blooms peaking out through the leaves. Laugh at the flick of a squirrel tail.
In this You Tube, planted on my website’s “The Planet Earth” page (one of the “Big Topics”), I speak about my growing connections with “this fragile planet, our island home.” *
* Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer, page 370