Earth Day and Easter

Thinking about Earth Day reminds me that there are other ways to view the world than with the U.S. smack in the center. Years ago, Aussi Girl Scout Mom gave me an upside down map of the world. It hangs on the kitchen wall. In this map, Mexico sits on top of the U.S., while Canada lays below. The map makes it much easier to see that Australia is shaped remarkably similarly to the U.S., if we declared our country to be an island, and dumped Canada and Mexico. Aussi GS Mom and her family returned to Australia seven years ago. We keep in touch, but I miss her day-to-day upside down perspective on things, like Easter. As she explained Australian holidays to a bunch of squirmy, 10-year-old Girl Scouts, she talked about celebrating Easter in the fall. Gonna-get-it-right Girl raised her hand and, very politely, informed Aussi GS Mom that in Our Country, we believe Jesus died and rose from the dead just once. And that was in the spring. I'm not sure Gonna-get-it-right Girl understood why her perspective on Easter sent Aussi GS Mom and I into a laughing fit. Believe in it or not, Easter happens only once each year. So does Earth Day. Both remind me that God created us and our planet. Let's take care of that gift, and each other, like every day was Earth Day and every Sunday was Easter.