Not from The Onion Satire Website - But from The CORE - Conflict Resolution

Who has caused more conflict than The CORE?

Who pushed their over-funded and under-supervised carbuncle on Green Bay, one block from a real urban ministry?

Who excommunicated a St. Peter's member for telling the truth about plagiarism when Glende lied about it?

Who sued the husband of their former staffer for telling the truth about abuse, porn, and drinking on the job?

Who received massive funding while Glende was urging his Savoy debacle to quietly close the doors?

Creation - The Watch Found on the Trail

The Henry Graves Super-Complication Watch may sell for $17 million.

The Anglican clergyman William Paley argued for intelligent design by comparing a stone found on a path outside to a watch found in the same place. The stone could have arrived by chance, but the watch is quite different. See M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, p. 211.

The watch above is going on the auction block at the ultimate watch, with 24 complications, designed to be far more complex than the one ordered by Packard (luxury car maker) with only 16 complications.

If I understand it correctly, a complication in a watch is an added luxury, such as a timer, stopwatch, and moon phases. If one of those fails, the rest still work, I imagine.

William Paley argued from the watch found on the trail.

However, the complications in a plant cell are fatal for the cell when one function fails - and there are many functions of great complexity.

Imagine if you will, a rose seed. Roses start out as seeds unless one is rooting the canes in a glass of water.

The rose seed is complex on its own, but the plant it forms has many different cells carrying out different functions. As the rose grows, assuming no grafting, the cells must form roots, leaves, stems, flowers, prickles, and hips. Rosehips are the fruit of roses and contain the seeds, not unlike apples, which come from the same large family.

Each individual complexity shows design beyond our capacity to explain it. The root tip cells know how to attract fungi to give it food, by offering carbon credits to the fungus. The rose flower attracts pollinating critters to fertilize the seed.

The larger functions astound us, but the microscopic ones should stun us. Here is one plant cell, revealing many different mechanical and chemical functions operating all at once.

This pole bean has many different cells -
stem, skin, seeds, and flowers - for starters.

Some of my bean pods were old and over the hill this fall, so I dropped them into the mulch to be absorbed by soil creatures and turned into new plants later. A pile of old bean pods can become a tomato plant in time - through decomposition, but humans cannot take a pot of beans and make tomato soup from them.

Psalm 104 King James Version (KJV)

104 Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

4 Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:

5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.

7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.

8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.

9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

10 He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.

11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.

12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.

13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.

14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;

15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.

16 The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;

17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.

18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.

19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.

20 Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.

21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

22 The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.

23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.

24 O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.

26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.

27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.

29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.

30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

31 The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works.

32 He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.

33 I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

34 My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.

35 Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.

Gardens for Children Keep Them Away from the Rough Crowd

The rough crowd will make the wrong impression
if baby watches too much TV. The solution? - gardening.

We are going to have an overflow garden this spring. Our helper asked about using rose canes to start his own roses. I visited a home in Midland where a retired couple rooted rose canes in water and planted them, so they could have more of the roses they liked the best. They had 100 - 200 roses in their yard.

Another way is to order seed by the pound instead of the packet. That provides enough seed for every purpose and plenty to spare. When ordering in bulk, the cost difference between 1/2 pound and a pound is slight. That is why they bring in colored packets of 10 seeds at a time to Lowe's, Home Depot, and other home and garden spots. They are minting money.

Sure, he makes a lot of money,
but is this a good way to spend his life?

I buy seed packets willingly - only when they go on sale - at a dime a packet. That is a good way to experiment with new varieties late in the season. Ordering packets by mail is a double-theft, since the distributors add so much for shipping. They will send them fast for even more money, which is pretty strange, since a lot of seed can be mailed Priority for $5 a box.

Those like me--who buy 25 pound bags of black oil sunflower seeds for the birds squirrels--know that seed can be very cheap. In fact, the seed that volunteers from feeding will produce quite a few new sunflowers in the spring, germinating at the right time. No doubt squirrels plant them - just to be sure - while eating more than their share.

A large bag of giant, striped sunflower seeds will produce a nine-foot tall wall of sunflowers. That can be used to box in a play area for kids, so they can hide. Children like to go inside and call out to their parents. "Can you see me?" Parents - "No, where are you?" Laughter.

The giant disks can be harvested for roasting the seeds. Parents - make a circle with your arms. That is how big a sunflower head can be, if giant, striped sunflowers are planted. The seeds are much bigger. The stems are almost wooden. The leaves are enormous, and the seedheads gigantic.

Pole beans and edible pod peas can be grown up in tepee fashion, with a straw floor. Children go inside the door and pick beans or peas hanging from the structure. All it takes is a tall pole in the ground, a wire border fence for the perimeter, and string up to the top of the pole. If I could build that, anyone can.

A bird trapeze is a lot of fun, year around. Birds love to perch near food, but often farther away from human observation. Once again, I built my own, even though I am allergic to such projects. I screwed in s-hooks in the eaves, hung two chains, and stretched a small metal rod between the chains. Birds landed and swung there all the time (New Ulm) after feeding from the outside ledge. I scattered sunflower seeds on the ledge all winter. The more brutal the winter, the more popular my offerings.
The birds soon became used to us watching from the picture window, a short distance away.

Children like to grow food they enjoy eating, and having their own garden will make many vegetables more appealing to them. They may not like tomatoes that much, but cherry tomatoes are sweeter, easy to grow, and easy to eat outside. A green pepper growing outside is far more appealing that one wrinkling up in the fridge.

"Would you like some green pepper, Billie?" Answer - "No!"

"Stay out of the green peppers in the garden, Billie." Response - "Can I have just one?"

Mrs. I and Little Ichabod always liked raw beans, so we never cooked them. They ate them all the time. We all edible pod peas in the spring until they became loathsome to us. We gave them away to friends, which meant we had even more peas growing. The  pet rabbits ate extra growth, and that meant even more peas.

Weeds were sown among the good crops -
no doubt about it.

Berries are great fun for everyone. All creatures large and small love them all. Initially the creatures seem to get the best ones, but soon there are plenty for everyone. Some raspberry canes bear twice a summer, and they love to spread through root systems.

Wild berries like gooseberries will grow well on their own. I have bright, red wild strawberries still producing in our backyard now, on November 8th - thanks to water and mulch.

I will try domestic strawberries on straw bales in the spring. I did not like the experience of growing them on soil. They fed the ants more than anyone else.

Gardening is a great way to find out how all of God's creatures work together. Creation gardening means learning how the overlooked and despised (weeds, insects, spiders, fungi, earthworms) make our lives better and healthier.

Don't let baby join the KISS Army.