Fill the Earth and Subdue It

Stewardship.  That word usually makes us think about finances, giving and using what we have been blessed with to help those in need.  But what about stewardship of God's creation?  In all honesty, this is something I haven't given much thought to in my life.  Sure, I went through a hippie phase in high school where it was cool to be all about the environment.  But other than a killer pair of Birkenstocks, not much else came from that stint into the purple haze of hippie-dom.  I didn't connect the dots of being a good steward of our rich blessings and taking care of God's creation.  That's all changing the more I read about what is going on in the Gulf.

This one in particular struck a nerve:

"It's been five weeks since an oil rig exploded and sank, rupturing a pipeline 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.  Some clues about what so much oil - perhaps 22 million gallons of it - will do to the environment (let me insert "God's creation" here) have become obvious:

Dolphins have washed up dead.  Endangered sea turtles have been found with oil stuck on their corneas.  Lifeless brown pelicans, classified as endangered until recently, have been carried away in plastic bags.  Beaches in Grand Isle, Louisiana, are spattered with gobs of sticky crude.  And when the moon rises over the coast there, the oil-soaked ocean sparkles like cellophane under a spotlight."
     -Excerpt from an article on CNN's webpage