The benefits of Earth Hour

On Saturday night, our family participated in Earth Hour. My eight-year-old daughter was very keen to do so. These are some of the thoughts I had during Earth Hour:

• I am addicted to information and entertainment: I don’t spend a lot of time watching screens, but I was surprised by how bored I got so quickly. Earth Hour felt like Earth Year, with no TV, no internet and no bright lights to make things like reading easy. In the end (i.e. 20 minutes in), I asked Bella if she’d like to go for a run. She said, “Yes”. Yippee! Off we went.
• I am so judgemental: On the run, I piously noted all the houses failing to “care for the planet”, while trying vigorously to push to the back of my mind the knowledge that we didn’t do Earth Hour in ’08.
• Isn’t light great! I was refreshed in my appreciation of Genesis 1:16: “And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day …”.
• Thank you, Lord, for the gift of eyesight! I hadn’t thanked God for eyesight for ages. I can see! Woohoo! Imagine how hard life would be if you were Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46; imagine being blind!
• How did those Christians in history do so much Bible translation by candlelight? Think of, for example, the LXX translators (who were around during the third and first centuries BC), and Luther and Tyndale.

Earth Hour encouraged me to leave a smaller ecological footprint, but it had heaps of other benefits too.