Living Prophecies

"'…and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,' says the LORD your God." — Amos 9:14-15

The Torah portion for this week is a double reading, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim,from Leviticus 16:1–20:27 and the Haftorah from Amos 9:7–15.

In 1867, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land. This is what he saw: “A desolate country … given over wholly to weeds … a silent mournful expanse … a desolation … we never saw a human being on the whole route … hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” The land that Mark Twain saw was the way that the land looked for more than two thousand years. As foretold in the Bible, once the children of Israel were exiled, the land ceased to blossom.

When the Weeds in Your Life Keep Growing

Most of us hate weeds. They take over our yards and our gardens and make life generally miserable. But what about the weeds in our lives? Can they serve a greater purpose?

Don’t touch those weeds! Here’s a story I wrote several years ago that illustrates what I’m talking about:

Saved by the Weeds

Photo by Rebecca Barlow Jordan

Farming, like other high-risk occupations, requires a great deal of faith, dependence, and trust in God’s timing and goodness.

The God of Your Buried Dreams

Photo by Rebecca Barlow Jordan

God is not only the God of your buried dreams. He’s also the God of surprises.

Whether you’re writer, a reader, a parent, a grandparent, a single, a spouse, or a senior–I hope you’ll find a piece of encouragement in this short post that will lift you up. At the end of the blog, I’ll explain the picture from my garden that inspired it.

The God of Your Buried Dreams

by

Rebecca Barlow Jordan

What Can We Learn from the Prayer in the Garden?

Charles Spurgeon

Let us notice Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a lonely prayer. He withdrew even from His three best friends about a stone’s throw. 

Believer, especially in temptation, be much in solitary prayer. As private prayer is the key to open Heaven, so is it the key to shut the gates of Hell. As it is a shield to prevent, so is it the sword with which to fight against temptation.

Further, it was Son's prayer. Matthew describes Him as saying, “O My Father.” Mark puts it, “Abba, Father.” You will find this always a stronghold in the day of trial to plead your adoption. Hence that prayer, in which it is written, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” begins with, “Our Father which are in Heaven.” 

Plead as a child. You have no rights as a subject. You have forfeited them by your treason, but nothing can forfeit a child’s right to a father’s protection. Be not, then, ashamed to say, “My Father, hear my cry.” 

Garden of God

"And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land." —Isaiah 6:13

Rebecca Rupp, author of children’s and young adults’ books, recently wrote, “When our kids first started gardening, they wanted to grow doughnuts and bluebirds. If only we could, I thought.”

For young children – and maybe even for grizzled adults – gardening represents the potential for good in our world; it represents the hopes and dreams of people from all walks of life. This wonderful observation may shed light on Isaiah’s comparison, in this passage, between the Jewish people and a tree in the garden of God.

In his day, Isaiah spoke to a Jewish people threatened by an Assyrian empire at the height of its power. The Assyrian forces had conquered far and wide and had successfully exerted its power over much of the Middle East. It seemed then that Assyrian control over their world would never end.

Nurture Your Garden

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. — Galatians 5:22-23

Apples are a natural result of an appleseed uniting with the elements necessary for growth. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the natural result of the union of God's Spirit with your spirit. You have potential for fruitful living, because Jesus is your source! You have the ability to manifest every one of the gifts of the Spirit, because He is the vine and you are a branch! Because He is love, you can love. Because He is peace, you can have peace.

If you are lacking fruit, it is because God's Spirit cannot freely flow through you. Determine to cut away every lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life that hinders fruit from coming forth. Nurture the fruit of a Spirit-filled life with the Word of God and prayer and watch your fruit grow!

Does anything hinder the flow of His Spirit in Your life today? Tear down the walls and barriers that hinder His Spirit. Let His Spirit flow freely through your life.

Make your landscaping butterfly-friendly

Attract beautiful and beneficial butterflies to your yard and garden!

by Networx.com

 

There is something magical about butterflies as they flit from flower to flower in the garden. These winged beauties are not only stunning to watch but they also serve an important role as pollinators, spreading pollen from flower to flower,  leading  to fertilization and ultimately seed production. The activities of butterflies and other pollinators, like hummingbirds and bees, help to ensure that various plant species multiply and persist. 

 

By growing certain combinations of plants and providing the right setting, you can attract butterflies and other welcome pollinators to your garden. Here are some tips for attracting butterflies.

 

1.   Certain butterflies will only lay their eggs on specific plants. Find out what types of butterflies are in your area. This can be done through observation or by utilizing field guides.

 

2.   You will need to plant both host and nectar plants. Host plants provide larval food for caterpillars and a place for them to lay their eggs. Once the caterpillars become butterflies, nectar plants are an important food source. If you grow herbs for cooking, plant a few extra for the butterflies. 

 

3.   Situate your butterfly garden in a location that receives 4-6 hours of direct sun. 

 

4.   Provide a source of shallow water (puddles are great), warm flat rocks for butterflies to sun on and some protection from strong winds. Shrubs are a good way to provide the necessary shelter. 

 

5.   Avoid using chemical pesticides which  kill both bad and good bugs, including caterpillars. 

 

6.   Select a range of plants so that you will have blooms from spring until fall. This will maximize the opportunity to attract butterflies. 

 

Below is a partial list of both host and nectar plants to attract and feed butterflies. Be sure to check with your local native plant society to find out the best natives for attracting butterflies.

 

Herbs

Fennel – Both the green and bronze are hosts for Black Swallowtails.

Parsley – A host for Black Swallowtails.

Basil – Provides nectar.

Dill – Is both a host plant and a source of nectar.

 

Annuals

Cosmos – A nectar source for the Painted Lady.

Hollyhock – A nectar source for the American Painted Lady.

Pansies – A nectar source for the Yellow Sulfur.

Salvia species – A host plant for many different butterflies.

Sunflowers – A larval source for the Painted Lady.

Verbena species – A nectar source for the Checkered Skipper.

Zinnia species – A nectar source for the Western Tiger Swallowtail.

 

Perennials

Asclepias species – Butterfly weed is both a host plant and a source of nectar for Monarchs.

Aster species – A nectar source for Black Swallowtails.

Echinacea species and cultivars – Coneflower is a nectar source for the Common Wood Nymph.

Eupatorium purpureum – Joepye weed is a nectar source for Giant Swallowtails.

 

Shrubs and Trees

Asimina triloba – Pawpaw is a host for the Zebra Swallowtail.

Buddleia davidii – The butterfly bush is a nectar source for the Black Swallowtail and Monarchs.

Fraxinus pennsylvanica – The green ash is a larval source for two types of Swallowtails.

Lindera benzoin – The spicebush is a host for Spicebush Swallowtails.

Populus tremuloides – Quaking aspen is a host for Mourning Cloaks.

Prunus serotina – Black cherry is a host for the Tiger Swallowtail.

Salix species – Willow is a host for the Red Spotted Purple.

Prunus virginiana – Chokecherry is a host for the Western Tiger Swallowtail. 

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening 

Beneficial insects: How to attract good bugs to your garden

Suggestions include choosing a diverse variety of plants and letting some vegetables go to seed.

by Tom Oder

 

Small yarrow flowers can attract tiny parasitoid wasps, which feed on harmful aphids, caterpillars and beetle larvae.  (Photo: nayukim/Flickr) 

Not all bugs are bad, and knowing which is friend and which is foe may be more important than ever to gardeners this year.

 

That’s because entomologists are anticipating an increased number of insects this spring and summer due to what the National Weather Service says is the fourth mildest winter on record.

 

“A proportion of overwintering larvae, pupae, eggs, etc., get knocked back in winter, and the more severe the winter the greater the proportion that does not make it through,” said Jim Costa, director of the Highlands (North Carolina) Biological Station and professor of biology at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. “I figure that we'll have a good spring emergence of insects as a result — the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

 

Which are good, which are bad?

While all insects might be ugly to many homeowners, knowing which are good and which are bad and attracting the good guys to eat the bad guys can be critical first steps to gardeners trying to grow that prize-winning rose or unblemished tomato.

 

Allison Mia Starcher, a garden illustrator and author, taught herself the difference when she was drawing illustrations of beneficial insects for the Southern California Gardener newsletter. She shared what she learned in an easy-to-understand book she wrote and illustrated, “Good Bugs for Your Garden” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1995).

 

Speaking recently during a drizzling rain in the garden at the Santa Monica, Calif., house that used to belong to her maternal grandparents and where she now lives, Starcher said there are two ways for backyard gardeners to tell good bugs from bad ones: observation and Internet searches.

 

Pausing for a moment to marvel at parasitic wasps drawn to the pollen on flowers of mustard greens, Starcher said gardeners should “watch the bugs on their plants and see what they are doing.” This is a process she calls micro-level gardening and one from which she says she gets a satisfaction that cannot be overstated.

 

Eating or defending

To help distinguish between harmful and beneficial insects, Starcher said, gardeners should ask themselves which bugs are eating their garden and which ones are defending it.”  Think, too, she urged, about what kind of damage is being done. Are holes being chewed in leaves?  And when is the damage happening – for example, are the insects active at night?

 

If you see the bug, Starcher says to take a photo of it and write a short description. As an example, she suggested something as simple as “shield-shaped with red markings.

 

Armed with a photo, a description of the bug and its activity, Starcher said Web searches will often lead to bug ID sites. “I’m a real believer in asking questions and doing an Internet search,” she added.

 

“You can even do this on Facebook,” she pointed out. Perhaps your gardening friends can ID a bug or forward the information to someone who can.

 

More ways to ID

Other ways to ID bugs are to email a photo and description of characteristics to your local cooperative extension service. Better yet, Starcher advises, capture the critter and take it in a sealed baggie to a garden center. Once there, ask the staff for help in determining whether it’s beneficial or harmful.

 

The goal, she said, is to figure out which ones are the good ones … and don’t kill them.

 

To attract good bugs to the garden, Starcher and Costa offered several suggestions:

 

• Make your garden as diverse as possible. The different nectars and pollen will attract a variety of insects. A byproduct of a richness of diverse plants and insects is that they in turn will create a healthy backyard ecosystem that will benefit birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
• Use specific plants to attract specific insects. To attract zebra swallowtail butterflies, for example, plant paw paw trees, the only host plant for this species of butterfly.
• Leave an occasional, dreaded weed undisturbed. Weeds add to the diversity of plants and thus increase the variety of insects in the garden.
• Let vegetables, greens and herbs go to seed when possible. This is easy to do by peeling leaves from stems of plants such as arugula, basil and chard and leaving the stem to continue to grow and flower, attracting insects when it does.
• Include plants whose flowers have an umbrella shape. Umbrella-shaped flowers have clusters of very small flowers and are accessible to tiny parasitoid wasps, which feed on harmful aphids, caterpillars and beetle larvae. The yarrow flower is an example.
• Go native in the ornamental garden. Native plants are especially proficient at attracting pollinators and blooming when the pollinators are active.
• Plant in vertical layers. Place plants such as alyssum and catmint under roses to attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs and lacewings. These beneficial insects consume pollen in their adult incarnations while their larvae eat pest insects. They are also efficient pollinators.
• Don’t fret about ants (except fire ants). They add to the mutualism of ecosystems, harvesting and dispersing seed and extending the life of plant populations.
• Rejoice in earthworms. While not an insect, they aerate and enhance soil.

 

If you can’t put enough good guys into your garden to combat the bad guys, there are organic pesticides as well as a variety of insecticidal soaps on the market that are safe for people and pets.

 

You can also engage in what Starcher calls hand-to-hand combat, squishing bugs with your fingers. “While we were talking,” she said during our call, “I squished a caterpillar Beet Armyworm” on a beet seedling.

 

Of course, there’s also an ecological advantage to leaving caterpillars and other “bad bugs” that chew on plants to meet another fate. “Basically, from a migratory bird point of view, the spring emergence of caterpillars and sawflies alone is like manna from heaven – nestling birds desperately need all those caterpillars to feed their hungry young,” Costa pointed out.

 

Whether through careful attention to creating a micro-garden haven for beneficial insects or through the Darwinian approach of natural selection, gardeners can rest easy knowing there’s a way to help the good bugs win and send the bad ones packing.

 

What attracts good bugs

Starcher, the author of “Good Bugs for Your Garden” prefers to use flowering herbs and wildflowers to attract insects to gardens because she believes that hybrid bedding plants have lost some of the characteristics that attract bugs. Those characteristics are nectar and pollen. Here are some of the herbs, vegetables and flowers she suggests will attract a wide variety of insects:

 

• Baby’s breath
• Carrots
• Dill
• Feverfew
• Goldenrod
• Lavender
• Lemon balm
• Marigolds
• Mustard
• Nasturtiums
• Parsley
• Queen Anne’s lace
• Rose-scented geraniums
• Spearmint
• Sunflowers
• Sweet alyssum
• Thyme

 

Got other tips for attracting beneficial insects to the garden? Leave us a note in the comments below.

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/beneficial-insects-how-to-attract-good-bugs

The Tale of Two Gardens

Let's go for a walk in the garden. The serenity of a garden is a good place to get in touch with your thoughts - where you've been and where you are going. And if you are listening, the garden itself may have something to tell you. For if the truth is known, all of life can be told in a tale of two gardens...http://www.awordfromtheword.org/productpix/taleoftwogardens.gif

The Garden of Eden
A well-kept garden is full of spectacular wonders as the shades of green foliage encompass the splashes of color. Yet in the garden of God, there was an exalted splendor above anything we have ever known. The Bible called it Eden and described it as a paradise of sensory pleasure where divine perfection reached out and touched human awe.
"No evil thoughts can enter here," you would say. A perfect environment is the ultimate answer for our human woes. Yet, that is where our pain and trouble began. In glorious Eden, man chose himself over God and plunged the perfect creation into a chaotic pattern of sin and death. The Bible says that every evil and all sadness can be traced to the rebellion of the human heart against God in that garden.
As you think about where you have been, you would do well to listen to the tale of Eden. You, like the rest of us, are the product of that rebellion and subsequent eternal alienation from God. You are a son or daughter of Adam, part of a depraved race that lost its innocence in the first garden. The record of Eden is the story of paradise lost. Your paradise lost.

The Garden of Gethsemane
It was dark as twelve men crossed the brook in the early hours of the morning. Shimmers of light from the not too distant city cast ominous shadows through the garden of gnarled olive leaves. Gethsemane was what they called the olive press so prominently exposed in the heart of the grove. Eleven men lay down to rest. One lone figure knelt to pray. It was a night for evil and the drama of our hope was beginning to unfold in the colorless recesses of the garden - the Garden of Gethsemane.
There was nothing spectacular about this garden. Only the symbolism of olives crushed and oils flowing captures our attention. Yet it was there that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, resisted temptation to rebel against the will of God and submitted himself to be sacrificed for our sins. What Adam had refused to do in the first garden, Jesus agreed to do in this garden - He obeyed. Only hours later, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world.

There is a Choice
The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the "last Adam." What the first Adam lost in the Garden of Eden, the last Adam regained in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now there is a choice. For all who are lost in Adam, there is the hope of being saved in Christ. It is simply a matter of repenting of your sin and placing your faith in Jesus Christ as the One who paid the penalty for your guilt.
After thinking about where you have been, perhaps you would like to think where you are going. Listen to the Garden of Gethsemane. You can go to God's heaven with your sins forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Paradise lost can be paradise regained - for you. That is the tale of two gardens. ■

Dr. Dan Hayden
awordfromtheword.org