Happy birthday to Planet Earth.

Yes, according to our earthling calendar, April 22 is Earth Day, so allow me to dish up a heaping tectonic plate of metaphorical Earth Day cake.

The earthday girl doesn’t look a day over 4.54 billion years old — created by a supreme benevolent being, or perhaps formed from highly charged bits of matter and a nebulous cloud of gas. Personally, I am partial to a third theory I just invented: The Supreme Bang Theory.

Sure she’s wheezing a bit (from smog), battling a receding hairline (deforestation) and running a fever (global warming). And its risk of cancer is greater than ever (ozone deterioration).

My quadrennial State of the Planet address also reveals a rash of psycho weather patterns battering coastal communities worldwide, with some blaming the carnage on climate change. State of the planet? We have nothing to fear but the biosphere itself.

Science has enabled us to better understand our planet, to explore the universe and take small steps on the moon. But our species has been struggling to make that giant leap toward respecting our home turf enough to reverse a long, shortsighted cycle of self-destruction.

The Earth has taken good care of us humans. So now that it is getting on in years, we must take better care of the Earth.

For some reason, this concept seems easier for children to understand. Fortunately, many of today’s kids are fascinated with the idea of recycling and caring for their planet. They learn in school that it’s fun. Natural. Necessary.

Their carbon footprints are smaller, but their hearts and minds seem more open to regarding Earth as a living, breathing miracle.

As we inhale that sweet, free oxygen, Earth Day helps us look at the bigger picture — beyond our kitchen and living room, neighborhood and town, beyond state and national boundaries.

This bigger picture, captured by astronauts and orbiting satellites, is that of a beautiful life-giving planet. Peaceful and quiet. Home.

Yes — like Mothers and Fathers, Presidents and Veterans, Founders and Dreamers, Lovers and Jesus — Earth is recognized with its very own day.

A day to open our minds, and all of our senses, to what a truly precious and finite gift we all share — here on a special planet located just 93 million miles from the sun.

— John Breneman