Earth Day is celebrated today April 22nd. It is about doing things to help protect our planet earth, to keep it clean and healthy. The cynic might say why bother, the optimist says every little helps. It’s the simple things that we can all do, that make the biggest difference.
On This Day
On April 22nd 1970 The First Earth Day was celebrated. It was founded by American politician and conservationist Gaylord Anton Nelson and it quickly grew into an international event
On April 22nd 2016 More than 170 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, a landmark treaty that sought to control and reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
On April 22nd 2018 Liverpool’s Egyptian soccer forward Mohamed Salah is named Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year
Birthday’s Today🎂
Amber Heard (Actress) is 37
Jack Nicholson (Actor) is 86
James McClean (Irish Footballer) is 34
Significance Of Today
Today is Earth Day. Our planet Earth, due to human activity, is in trouble. Our ecosystems are being lost and our planet is heating up. Many people in developing countries are struggling with crop failures and food shortages. Endangered species are disappearing rapidly, our water and air is becoming increasingly polluted.
Thankfully we are making progress in coming up with solutions. Earth Day, one of the first global initiatives to protect and conserve the earth, has become an annual event that strives for positive change on a global scale. It aims to inspire individuals, communities, businesses and governments all over the world to take action and help preserve the planet.
Interesting Quote for Today
“As I walk with Beauty
As I walk, as I walk,
The universe is walking with me,
In beauty it walks before me,
In beauty it walks behind me,
In beauty it walks below me,
In beauty it walks above me,
Beauty is on every side.” ~Traditional Navajo Prayer
Saint For Today
Saint Joseph of Persia
Did You Know😇
About one billion people recognise Earth Day each year. It currently reaches people in more than 190 countries
Thought For The Week
‘More than anything in my experience, hope is what beats in the heart of all people, particularly in the heart of the Irish. Every action is about hope, it can make things better.” ~President Joe Biden speaking in Dundalk during the week
There is a story about a boy who sat on the steps of a building with a battered hat by his feet. A cardboard sign read: “I’m blind please help”. The hat held a few small coins. A man was walking by. He dropped a euro into the hat, picked up the sign, turned it around, wrote something on it and put it back where he had found it. Soon the hat began to fill up with coins and notes.
That afternoon the same man was passing by again and came over to check how the boy was doing. “What did you write on my sign this morning,” asked the boy. The man said he wrote much the same except that he used different words. This is what he had written: “You are enjoying a beautiful day, but I cannot see it.”
Both signs had told the people that the boy was blind. One shared the facts, the other shared a personal experience. The personal experience touched people and was the reason why the boy’s hat had been filled with lots of coins.
The message of Easter has to also be a personal experience. On its own it is factual that doesn’t touch us much. But when we personalise it, the Easter story becomes alive. It is a story filled with hope, it is about celebrating new beginnings, it is embracing opportunity, it is about believing in love, kindness and goodness. It is as President Joe Biden puts it about recognising the hope that beats in the heart of everyone. Take away this hope and we have nothing.
The Easter journey and celebration lasts for six weeks. This is not random but a reminder of giving enough time to feel this hope, to see this hope and to be this hope to each other.
The Thought For The Week is updated each Monday
