Category: Uncategorized
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Poems about Irony in Nature
An awareness of and ability to spot irony is an important element of good writing and thoughtful reading. Yet irony can also be hard for youngsters to truly understand because capturing it artfully is more than merely noting the juxtaposition of obvious opposites. When used at its best, it is a broad brush capable of…
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The Opposite of Humility? (It’s not what you think)
The sine qua non of Christianity is love. The first and greatest commandment is to love your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength! The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. The problem is that when many a questionable army of Christian soldiers seeks to march into battle carrying love’s banner,…
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Dominion: Joseph’s Dreams and Cain’s Nightmares
I have heard the Genesis story of Joseph and his “technicolor” dream coat for years. I have listened to it during sermons, at church camps, and in the quiet of my mind as I looked over scripture in my bedroom. I have visited and revisited the story for over sixty years. Yet, not until I…
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The Two Dominions in a Nutshell
From Genesis onward, the biblical narrative revolves around two overarching motivations for seeking power. The first is in order to judge one’s self positively and others less so. The second is so we can judge ourselves from the perspective of God’s sovereign gaze and, convinced of our deep need for forgiveness, so we then become…
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Grids, Areas, Perimeters, and Garden Layouts
Getting the most out of a group garden plot boils down to planning. One of the best tools to teach planning is based on the idea that if a garden is covered by a grid of 1’x1′ squares, then it is easy to determine how many items to plant and where to plant them. This…
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Good Skillsets to Look for in Your Garden Partners
One of the most consequential decisions you will make when starting a garden is who you chose to share gardening responsibilities with. Notions of sustainability can seem terribly abstract, but the moment you begin to think about starting a garden making the endeavor sustainable has some very practical implications for who you want to the…
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STEAM, Stems, and Education
(Science, Math, Art, and Gardening) For Students Plants, are, amazing! You might not think that at first, but they are. Would you believe that they are intelligent, that they talk to each other, that on any given day they are communicating with you, too, in some surprising ways? Most people would certainly never suspect that…
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The Theology of Dominion
This past growing season reacquainted me with aspects of the world I had long forgotten, As it did, I become increasingly convinced that the theology of the garden, particularly of Genesis and the Garden of Eden, is the taproot by which the theology of the entire Bible is fed and understood. Near the end of…
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The Potato Sermon
When I first decided to plant potatoes, I had no idea what I was doing. No idea how deep to plant them, no sense of how far apart they had to be spaced, no notion of what it would take to grow them or how long they would take to spring up. I certainly had…
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A Natural Calendar of Times to Gather
January 15th: Martin Luther King Jr. Day – A Time for thinking about how Umoja and Dr. King’s six principles of non-violence are related concepts. Also a time to ask each person what their individual dream is. February: Valentines Day and a time to ask the question at the heart of race, gender, culture and…