For The Beauty Of The Earth

“For the beauty of the earth,

For the beauty 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.”

( Folliot S. Pierpoint, 1835-1917 & Conrad Kocher, 1786-1872)

I am so proud and so blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth surrounded by the five Great Lakes of Canada and United States.

I thought I would share a few interesting facts about these lakes with you on this wonderful Earth Day!

Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario form the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world and contain 21% of the world’s surface fresh water.

Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely inside of one country!

These lakes began to form at the end of the last glacial period about 14,000 years ago as the melting ice formed basins in the land which filled with the meltwater.

All of my life I have felt so fortunate to live near these magnificent bodies of water.

When you travel over the ocean in a large Boeing 737 do you look out the window to view the land below or the ocean?

On many a flight overseas I love to look out that window to the clouds below and through the clouds there can sometimes be seen a mountain formation with rivers running through like a ribbon.  The ocean is so endless and mysterious to look down on from that window high in the sky.

I can only imagine how beautiful our giant earth must look to the astronauts who circle the earth in their spacecraft doing the work that most of us will only be able to dream of doing.

As an aging ‘Baby-Boomer’ I realize that my generation has to face the fact that we have not taken very good care of our Mother Earth during our stay here!  So many of my fellow Boomers remain in denial of the likely extent and impact of Climate Change!

So now, on this Earth Day, we look to the future; to the Generations coming after we Boomers!  Generations’ X, Y or today’s Zero have to ask the question; “will we be able to clean up our grandparents’ and parents’ decade long party?  Time will only tell!

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/earth/

Photos courtesy of (www.googlesearch/cartoonimages.com)