Last November, I got the chance to snorkel between the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia. You can find this unique opportunity in only one place: Silfra (Þingvellir National Park in Iceland). Volcanic rock filters this water into the cleanest, clearest dive spot in the world. No living thing can survive here—not because of the Arctic cold but because not even microorganisms survive the filtering. No fish. No plankton. No moss. No microbes.
This fissure is growing 2cm wider per year. For those of us in the States, that’s a foot every 15 years. A hundred years ago, a brave swimmer here could’ve touched both continents at the same time. And a hundred years before that, you could’ve wedged your finger into a crack and touched both sides of the divide.
On this fiftieth Earth Day, I’m reminded how an early church father wrote that the earth groans with us. Our planet absorbs and carries our pain somehow. Hurricanes and tornadoes. Wildfires and flooding. Melting glaciers and fuming volcanoes. Accidental road kill and nefarious poaching. Tires in rivers and dumpsters’ worth of trash floating up on beaches.
When we share pictures of a wild perch or desolate place on Instagram, the first question is always, “Where is this?” Others need that information for their to-do list. Eventually, influencers showcase it. Buses arrive. Then the Snickers wrappers and beer cans in the grass. We are complicit. I am at fault. I pimp out nature for likes. I exploit it for my personal brand. My real and authentic wonder needs to be validated, packaged, and then traded. I struggle to be like Sean O’Connell in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, who didn’t take the epic picture and then confessed, “If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.”
Even in trying to celebrate Earth Day, I am taking advantage of the earth for readership, admiration, and affirmation. I’m not burning down rainforests, but I am taking.
In contrast, our planet only gives. It’s The Giving Tree times a gazillion. While it groans, it also offers us immutable demonstrations of hope, resilience, and symbiotic relationships. It pushes life literally through cracks of resistance—whether its own rocks or our concrete. Flora covers its scars. Fauna return by instinct. New life constantly arrives as does new adaptation. Somewhere on the planet is already tomorrow, already pulling us forward.
I’m grateful for our planet’s example, its reminders. I’m thankful there are still wild and well-kept corners to responsibly explore.
