The Creation Garden in Drought and Glorious Rain

 

Don't tell anyone! Best for the garden - rainwater first - and storing tapwater to let the chlorine evaporate out of it before watering. 

My rainwater consultant always asks me about the rainwater being stored. We had drought until July 4th, spoiling the fireworks in this area. Several large garbage barrels were filled to the brim with rainwater. 

 Enchanted Peace is the best and most prolific peace rose I have grown.

That gives me to the nitrogen rain being added for another few days. That and cutting roses are the best and most productive response for even more roses. I also buy extra earthworms and their compost, to add to soil fertility. The Enchanted Peace Rose is already six feet tall and the English roses are good for another round of flowers.

 Four new Veterans Honor Roses - one has a bud.

Now that I am a seasoned Creation Gardener for many years, I am more patient about the roses and other plants which seem rather weak the summer after planting. In the second and third years, I wonder, "How can I keep up?"

Bee Balm is tall and spreading. So is Mountain Mint. The favorite and spoiled Clethra (Cinnabon fragrance) is growing tall and also circumference. Joe Pye Weed and Poke Weed are even more vigorous, coddled and spoiled for good reason. They add to the magnetism of the scents, which include Butterfly Weed, Crape Myrtle, and many other delights. The bees are humming their victory song as they gather from the same flowers. I can stand a few inches away from them buzzing without injury. The Chaste Tree is another donor to the fragrances loved by insects.

David Austin - The Poet's Wife

Yes, the Japanese Beetles hit hard, but they seem to be short-lived. The key is cutting the rose off so the love shack can fall to the ground and experience instant birth control.

Falling in Love

The Butterfly Garden is fully packed on the south side of the parsonage. Honeysuckle is growing fast on the west side. Little Joe Pye is mixed with Honeysuckle there. 

My project this year in the back includes:

1. Removing Crape Myrtle along the fence.
2. Adding some Clethra.
3. Hanging hummingbird feeders along that fence.
4. Removing the tenacious weed vines.
5. Enjoying Coconut Daisies which popped out, tanned, rested, and ready to take over from  the weeds. So-called helpers dumped a truck of soil on top the two Coconut Daisy groups. 

Walter Lammerts, a Creation scientist, developed the Queen Elizabeth Rose.

Yes, I get a lot of gardening help and really appreciate it. 

Time Out for the Butterfly Metamorphosis

Some said on a show, "The butterfly dies and comes alive again." I knew that from reading about the Monarchs and watching their metamorphosis, but I did not think about the drama of the Creator. We say "Yay!" when a worm turns into an elegant butterfly, but what about the change from sleeping bag to flight?

The Monarch hangs from a branch and covers himself with silk enhanced by little golden buttons. He turns himself into liquid, so he is in essence dead but alive by God's own design. The butterfly begins to grow in this sleeping bag and and the wing pattern shows through the capsule he formed for himself. Soon the Monarch butterfly comes out and takes off for a giant family reunion. 

PCUSA Pastor Denies the Virgin Birth.That's Nothing - The Faithless Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) Deny the Efficacy of the Word!

 

From Protestia

Rev. Mark Sandlin is the senior impastor at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, a small PCUSA congregation in Greensboro, NC. The church describes itself as “an inclusive community, experiencing, exploring, appreciating, celebrating the spiritual foundation of existence” while also “affirm(ing) the presence of that which has been traditionally called God in human life.”

+++

GJ - Lutherans one and all should acknowledge they are One-With-ELCA. 

1. One part of the disaster is begging for Thrivent chump-change while providing easy access for sales to the mediocre insurance company. 
2. Another part is going along with the apostasy of the Christian Denominations in America.
3. Comically, “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next." William Ralph Inge

ELCA formed at the end of 1987 to eject any hint of Lutheran doctrine, and began establishing their quota system - long before DEI - to embrace and promote the most disgusting characters available.

The Faithless Walther Four - LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) do not have the guts or brains to understand the efficacy of the Word and teach it, even though they sometimes pay weak homage to "the Spirit never without the Word, the Word never without the Spirit."

The Faithless Five Sects are happy to take what they can while indulging themselves in the soft landing they imagine they will have.

Walther was a facilitator in stealing land, gold, property, and books - what a great way to start Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis! And he kidnapped his niece and nephew - from his father's parsonage - to take them to America.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Trinity 6 - "Now those who do not grasp this but lead an outwardly wicked life, there the worldly sword must be used. Thus you are now to understand that a secular prince or whoever he be that wields the worldly sword, must conform to what is here taught, namely, not to be angry and not to kill."

 

Sixth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 5:20-26. Explanation of the Fifth Commandment. The Righteousness of the Pharisees

17. It follows that God simply wants you to serve your neighbor, doing your duty to him, so that matters are righted first of all between yourself and him and you be first reconciled to him; or God will neither see nor hear you. Furthermore, if my adversary come to me, I am to forgive him willingly; if he does not come, I am still to be conciliatory and kind to him, while I am on the way with him, in this life, so that he does not deliver me to the judge.

18. How does that come about? He does not take me by the hand and conduct me to the judge; but when I face judgment my conscience realizes that it had been unwilling to forgive the neighbor, entertaining secret but inveterate hate even then. My conscience over against my neighbor delivers me to the judge; he delivers me to the officer; and he, in turn, casts me into prison, that is to say, into hellfire, until I pay the uttermost farthing, which means forever; for there the liquidation of the debt and deliverance are impossible. Here you see the exalted works that no one can attain, neither by work righteousness nor by the law. For works, if alone, will make hypocrites and dissemblers; the law, if alone, brings forth despair.

19. But what am I to do? Do I hear correctly: am I to be damned? Do as follows: Flee to Christ when thus conscious of iniquity, saying: Oh, my God, thy law is now a mirror to me, whence I see how perverted and lost a being I am! Oh God, now save me for thine only begotten Son’s sake.

Thus, by faith God gives you the Spirit, who changes your heart, so that you will be very kind to your neighbor and will argue thus: Behold, if God has acted thus toward me, forgiving me more than I can ever hope to forgive, why should I not be willing to forgive my neighbor a little?

PART 3. AN OBJECTION AND THE ANSWER.

20. Now the sword of the government seems to conflict with this, and the question arises: If I am to forgive, not to hate, not to kill, how then am I to correct and chastise? If I am to wield the sword and with it execute, how can I help being angry? This question is in order, for the Gospel here seemingly subverts the sword of the government. But we are to bear this in mind: Christ is here a spiritual teacher, solely guiding the consciences, showing them how much hatred, envy and wrath they contain, and how to get rid of it. That is his office in which he is engaged; with the worldly sword he has nothing to do, he lets those see to it whose duty it is.

21. Well, this doctrine does not enter all hearts; most of it remains on the surface. But those, into whose heart it falls, prostrate themselves before God and cry to him for help, are at once pious and have no need of the worldly sword, for they are being ruled by words. Now those who do not grasp this but lead an outwardly wicked life, there the worldly sword must be used. Thus you are now to understand that a secular prince or whoever he be that wields the worldly sword, must conform to what is here taught, namely, not to be angry and not to kill.

Another Church Holy Day Invented - Thanks to the PCUSA

 

WELS says, "Don't stop believing, hold on to that feeling."

Evangelical Dark Web

The Presbyterian Church USA is racing to become the gayest denomination in the United States. At its general assembly last month, they decided to advance the gay agenda by promoting one of its holy days on their liturgical calendar: Transgender Day of Visibility.

In other business under consideration, RSG-04, a joint recommendation from the Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice and the LGBTQIA+ Equity Advocacy Committee (ACQ+E) recommends that the assembly direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency (or any successor agency) to recognize March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility in all future printings and distributions of the Presbyterian Planning Calendar.

The recommendation passed by a vote of 38-7.