Environmental Learning Center

The Armstrong County Community Foundation had a board retreat at the Crooked Creek Environmental Learning Center yesterday. It's a wonderful Armstrong County resource--you can visit the animal exhibits inside, hike the trails, rent the facility for meetings or family reunions (even overnight ones!) The atmosphere is rustic (no 5-star accommodations here), but if you enjoy God's creation, visit sometime.
This litter graveyard is behind the herb garden, which is maintained by the Penn State Master Gardeners. (To find out how to become a Master Gardener, contact our Armstrong County Cooperative Extension office.)
We shouldn't litter, but we are not going to "Save the Earth." Why? Because followers of Christ are looking for a new heaven and a new earth:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells [2 Peter 3:10-13].

Mankind is given the earth to use and take care of: Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it [Genesis 2:15]. The Hebrew word keep means "to have charge of, guard, preserve, protect" according to Strong's Concordance. We are all stewards of what we have been given by God. (A steward is "a person who manages property or affairs for another entity.") We are stewards of the earth, the money entrusted to us, our spiritual gifts, and stewards of the mysteries of God--even our bodies belong to God, not us.

We should not ever be wasteful or negligent with anything we have been given, but we will not 'save' the earth by trying to have a smaller 'carbon footprint' or driving a Prius. These things are fine to do, commendable even, but keep an eternal perspective!