On Thursday, Earth Day was celebrated throughout the country, and the Whittier Daily News included a supplemental section that featured "green" possibilities and initiatives.
Earth Day focuses on the need to care for the Earth, a kind of human practice that can be understood as emerging out of a spiritual attitude.
Our present tradition of Earth Day festivities, however, was generated by political actions. Conceived by former Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the first Earth Day celebration took place on April 22, 1970 when four million advocates throughout the nation participated in consciousness-raising events.
This year marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of the celebration, a number that resonates with biblical stories and symbols.
In biblical literature the number 40 signifies a time of trial or testing that is followed by a period of new possibilities. Noah and his kin boarded the ark for 40 days and 40 nights of flood, followed by fresh prospects for the survivors to start society again.
Moses and his motley crew of refugees wandered 40 years in the vacant vastness of Sinai before crossing the Jordan River into Canaan. They perceived the land full of promise - flowing with milk and honey - a place where their fidelity to God could flourish.
And Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days of soul-searching solitude. This period of pondering preceded his baptism by John, which initiated his mission of healing and
Unlike these biblical stories in which the period of 40 days or years signifies the end of a trial period, the celebrations of Earth Day hereafter will continue to raise awareness about new possibilities for caring for creation.
So the alignment of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with significant biblical periods is simply coincidental. The real spiritual character of Earth Day lies in its charge for humans to care for the earth.
In one of the biblical accounts of creation, humans are given the responsibility to exercise dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28). In biblical usage, dominion does not mean wanton domination. Instead, it calls for responsible care, to be God's emissary in working with plants and animals.
This idea is reaffirmed in Psalm 24, which my sixth-grade teacher had my classmates and me memorize and recite. Perhaps she was planting seeds for celebrating Earth Day a decade before its initial American celebration!
The psalm begins with these words: "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it" (RSV).
Because the earth belongs to God, people must tend it and its inhabitants with respect and love.
With such reverence for the wonder and beauty of the earth, Christians throughout the last century have often sung a joyful hymn whose text was written by Folliot Pierpoint.
"For the Beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies: Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise."
Although Earth Day was not one of the agricultural festivals during biblical times, the roots for its celebration reach back into the earliest stories and statements of biblical faith, and the love of the earth has been expressed in psalms and hymns throughout the years.
Indeed, the celebration of Earth Day goes hand in hand with spiritual practices.
Joseph L. Price is the Genevieve S. Connick Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College.