April 22, 2012, the Earth Day movement will be 42 years old. Earth Day 1970 capitalized on an emerging consciousness, channeled the energy of anti-war protests and got environmental issues noticed. From there, environmental thinking has emerged as a way of life for the "green generation" that has been raised from infancy to "reduce, reuse, and recycle." They carpool, compost, and carry their own coffee mugs to cut down on trash. Global warming has been part of their vocabulary since grade school.

For many of us older folk environmental education amounted to a strong caution not to throw litter out the car window. However, we learned our own "reduce, reuse and recycle" lessons from the Great Depression. Science lessons about mother earth never made it to the pragmatic level of turning the water off while we brush our teeth or buying green products to protect the earth, and we knew nothing of carbon footprints, but nonetheless we had some good environmental practices.

Creation Spirituality is a good meeting place for dissimilar generational experiences. At the foundation of environmentalism from a spiritual perspective is a powerful belief: God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. God then created humans, in the divine image and commanded us to care for the planet. Beneath every good environmental practice is the view that the world is good and that it is our mandate to care for it lovingly.