Another Father’s Day has just passed, the day when all of us who have the name DAD receive gifts and cards from our children. On this day the focus is on us and the accolades are heaped upon us, often in the guise of baseball hats and tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “World’s Greatest DAD”.

On this, our one special day, we bask in all the attention and love, thinking that we have been “pretty good dads”. Few of us would dare to think we are the greatest or the best. I myself often feel I have fallen short. There never seems to be enough time for each child, and work, and church, and chores, and projects… You get the picture.

I myself have tried to put my children first, embracing their hobbies and sports and whenever possible, doing things together as a family. With three children, two grown and gone, the last in high school. I can look back on good times and bad. I have my regrets as do we all. Harsh words spoken, moments we missed due to scheduling conflicts and travel.

Every Father’s Day, I think of those DADS that have been so selfless, so strong, and so brave. They do deserve the title World’s Greatest Dad. This past year I have traveled extensively. Whenever I meet our brave service men and women I thank them for their service. Many of them have children; Mom or Dad, halfway around the world, battling for freedom, heroes all.

This year three days before Father’s Day the following occurred in Wadena, a small town in rural Minnesota; a father there was concerned about the bad weather and the safety of his daughter. He owned a small business and it was his day off. His daughter was running the store that day. He stopped in several times to check on her as the weather worsened, just as a good worrisome father is expected to do. His last visit, sirens blaring he rushed into the store, moments ahead of a terrible tornado. He guided his daughter and the one patron present into the cooler and covered them with his own body. They both survived. He did not. The greatest gift a father could give to his child, his life, willingly given for theirs. We would all hope that if faced with similar circumstances we would act in kind. I pray that day never comes, but that I will be ready if it does. In the midst of their loss and grief, his daughter and his entire family, so sad for his passing, must be so proud of his gift of life, his ultimate sacrifice.  A true hero, a true World’s Greatest DAD.

Earth Day was recently in the news as we passed yet another anniversary. The first Earth Day is spoken of with reverence; as though it was the first time that mankind grasped the nature of our planet and our tenuous existence upon it. The notion that there was no awareness before this first great day seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I remember with extreme clarity, a day in third grade in 1963. This was years before the first Earth Day. The teacher was talking about natural resources, you know, one of those topics that are listed when you look up the basic stats of any country along with population, terrain, climates etc. This particular day we were talking about natural resources around the world and how the United States had an abundance of many things that were scarce in other parts of the world, Gold, Silver, Copper and Iron Ore to name a few. As she spoke, I remember this bad feeling coming over me, a feeling of foreboding and ill. Much as if your mom had announced her impending arrival to your room to check that you had tidied up and made your bed, when indeed you had not.

We had terrariums in most of our classrooms back then and the teachers had explained to us that it was a closed system. One of them actually had a lizard inside to balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide so that it could be truly sealed. Our earth is no different, just a matter of scale. My eight year old brain grasped this instantly. As she talked about our use of natural resources I was overwhelmed with one distinct thought: The Earth is a closed system and we will eventually run out of all of it.

The word that should be in front of all natural resources is limited. None are limitless save the air we breathe and the water we drink, going through their endless natural cycles, oxygen to C02 and back again. Water on the ground or in our oceans and lakes, into us, animals and plants, then out again and back to the sky, over and over.

At this tender age and every day since, I think how we must be good stewards of this planet. We have all seen the slogan “Save the Planet”. This is really a misnomer, the planet will survive. If we blew ourselves up today, the Earth would be here until consumed by our Sun when it goes nova millions of years from now. What the slogan should be is “Save Life”. That is the real focus here, how we use those resources, how we care for the fragile ecosystems that make up this giant blue marble, this largest of terrariums, hurtling through space.

I have to admit that the feelings on that first day, that epiphany of understanding of our world and its limits, have diminished greatly since that day. That was my first Earth day. No marching, no angry talk. Just a profound sadness over the fact that we aren’t doing a very good job as stewards of our planet.

The current disaster in the gulf is the first time that my feelings have returned to what they were that day in third grade. How is it that the most powerful nation on earth can’t plug a hole in a pipe less than two feet across? That this has continued to spew, unabated this long is unconscionable. Where is the Army Corp of Engineers, where is the outcry and the effort to fix this and fix it now? All I see is talking heads on both sides pointing fingers. We need to put all possible effort into this and find a quick and complete solution and we need to do it now.