 |
| Did I grow this? I look over last year's photos of roses, grown without toxins, and grab the pruning shears. John 15 - dead wood is pruned away, the fruitful branches are pruned to be even more fruitful. |
A Gem from Luther's Sermons
More Gems from Luther
Yesterday was full of work and fun, because the labor was so enjoyable. The base of the Crepe Myrtle needed attention, because all the mulch tossed on the ground looked like Dogpatch. When I found rotten wood fallen from trees, they were placed there all winter. When I cut off the branches where the bush had bloomed, set seed, and given its work away to the Cardinals, they were placed below, randomly. I pulled those away from the newly sprouted Lilies-of-the-Valley and took them to the wild garden in the far back - that nothing be wasted.
 |
| Grape Hyacinths bloom a long time, multiply, smell sweet - and they are easily planted. |
I had a bag of sprouting Grape Hyacinths. They are do not bear grapes and do not belong to the Hyacinth family, so they are properly named for gardening, where our chaos meats the order of Creation. These tiny bulbs were all sprouting green because they were to be planted last fall. All winter they waited in the cold garage, alive and eager to grow. When their hour came, each one burst its papery covering and sent out a green stem to start growing toward the sun
 |
| Bee Balm attracts beneficial insects, butterflies, and Hummingbirds. |
Bee Balm plants came in the mail and I bought two Shasta Daisy pots at Walmart, so they were placed in the NICU. During the rainy season, the NICU is the wheelbarrow with the latest rain. Plants soak up this divine fertilizer overnight, find a place in the garden, and get more rainwater added.
One reader wants a second Creation Gardening book, which I am considering. There is no lack of material in the garden and the parables of Jesus.
Creation, the efficacy of the Word, and gardening cannot be separated - even if the experts speak about the effect without mentioning the Prime Mover.
When I dug a big round hole to plant a stump in the bird feeding area, the soil was squirming with red wiggler earthworms, enjoying the damp mass of newspapers, leaves, and wood mulch on top of them. The multi-branched stump is a decoration to serve the birds and squirrels, who love to perch above the ground to spot food while remaining safe. Birds also perch to preen their feathers and plant their favorite foods.
 |
| The spider on Falling in Love illustrates the value of toxin-free Creation Gardening: free police. |
E. Nesbit is one of my favorite authors, one annually read by famous British writers. The Nesbit books were the last ones I gave away. She said - so many people create ugliness out of beauty. She preferred creating beauty out of ugliness - she had a very difficult life. If I find that quote graphic, I will post it, because nothing describes roses better. They are ugly plants with nasty thorns, but their blooms are favored above all others.
Part II, Yesterday - Luther's Sermons
Volume I of Luther's Sermons is being prepared for publication. Several are working on the volumes. Virginia Roberts kept mentioning gems she found in the first book, and I posted some yesterday.
I was already going to introduce each volume with quotations, but that gave the effort a name - Gems from Luther's Sermons. When we are done with all eight volumes, Gems will also be printed - separately.
Proof-reading is true labor, wearing out the eyes and bending the back, but it is a lot like gardening. In the midst of looking for errors (and even good Lenker nodded) - look at this!
These are really sermon background volumes. They serve as studies of each text - Gospel and Epistle - but also as sermons and doctrinal essays.
 |
| We are publishing the first four (or eight in the old edition) - for now. |
Luther saw a need and filled it. "We need hymns." He invented and created the Reformation hymn.
"We need help for poorly trained pastors." He wrote 3,000 printed pages of helps, still used today by a few. Our little church could let the mammoth Lutheran publishing houses handle this - they are so good at marketing the New NIV. But we think it is worthwhile to get more of these Luther books into the hands of laity - and even some pastors.
These sermons books are like the $5 roses I got on sale one year. Apparently, interest was low at Weeks Roses, so they sent them around via Gurney's. I did not know most of the names until they began blooming. Then I realized they were prized roses that were unloved - at least that year. And I planted them all around and under the maple tree, a forbidden zone for any rosarian (but my wife's idea). They thrived in a place where they should have shriveled up.
So Luther's Sermons will not be snapped up by the great and wise,or bought for the marble and steel libraries of higher education. Many clergy have their own sets of the endless American Edition of Luther, destined to fill the land mass of several counties in Missouri (Hitchhikers' Guide). Thus we have a repetition of the situation from five centuries ago. The ones in power cannot explain the Gospel and repudiate the efficacy of the Word in all they do. And yet these Enthusiasts who hate the Word of God fill the world with their own words.
Herman Otten and Jack Cascione are kind enough to separate the conservative UOJ fanatics from the liberal UOJ fanatics, overlooking the simple fact that these two gurus of Waltherian double-talk are also apostates.
 |
| Cascione posted this quote and essay to show that Robert Preus really did teach this malarkey - and Preus did. He also promoted Church Growth from Fuller Seminary. |
 |
| Why read Luther, Chemnitz, or Melanchthon when we can have Cascione, Valleskey, and Werning? |
