Respect Your Mother Today, on Earth Day, I am reminded of how remarkable Mother Earth is. She hands out oxygen, water, and awe so staggering it can stop a heartbeat mid-beat — exquisite sunrises, the hush of a forest after rain, the improbability of a monarch butterfly finding its way home across two thousand miles without a map. And still, in this breathtaking place we call home, we have paved over her meadows, poisoned her rivers, and filled her lungs with smoke. Still she hands us another morning. Another tide. Another season of fireflies, first snowfall, and the smell of rain before it arrives. She is not a warehouse. She is not a dumping ground. She is the original mother, patient beyond reason, generous to a fault, and wounded in ways that will take decades to heal. We have treated her like a well we assumed would never run dry. We did not inherit this earth from our ancestors. We are borrowing it from our grandchildren. She deserves our reverence. Our respect. Our restrain...