Everybody's more or less familiar with the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, and the seven days of God creating the world: "And the Lord saw that it was good." The second chapter tells the same story in a less 'formal', more 'human' mode, with a clearer message for today's world.

Concern for ecology, environmental protection, use of earth's resources etc. have become popular modern campaigns and slogans. We Christians should have been in the front line of these rising concerns, for they're basically all about God's creation, our place in the universe, and our connections with our earth, our social environment and with the Maker of us all. For, long before Greenpeace and all the others calling for greater respect for our world, Genesis chapter 2 told us about our human dependence on water, our intimacy with the 'clay of the ground' into which God breathed human life. It told us about the Lord's garden of fruitful delights, given us to cultivate and care for. But recent centuries have seen us despoiling and abusing it so much that most people have finally realized that we cannot just go on as we've been doing.

But what can any single person do about these questions? We can't individually change policies or systems. But surely each of us can become more conscious of our stewardship even in small matters like not wasting water, reducing wastage of all kinds.