Sometimes people say, "Not all our nation's Founders were orthodox Christians." But that could more easily be said about our current denominational leaders. The percentage of Founders who believed in Creation is far higher than the church leaders who have not surrendered to Evolution.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Thomas Jefferson, considered a heretic, wrote those words, with the Thirteen Colonies signing unanimously. As Luther wrote in his Genesis Commentary, there were many conceptions of Creation in ancient times and even among Christians. But one thought was common - Creation was a fact demonstrated by the order and balance of Nature.
Creation is an exceptional view today, and gardening methods show how far that has taken people, spending enormous amounts of money and labor on man-made solutions, not unlike the cheap mockeries displayed as entertainment evangelism.
When LI and drove up to the house on Saturday, I asked "How do you like the Lyle Lovett bush now?" The crepe myrtle, which holds its blooms a long time, was packed with blooms aimed in each direction.
LI said, "That has come a long way."
All we did for that bush was prune it back to a respectable shape, mulch it, and energize the soil with earthworms. I have also added clumps of grass clippings and scraps of pruned branches. Creation did all the work, with soil creatures below and insects above laboring without thought or complaint.
I just read how much the crepe myrtle harbors pollinating insects, with its long blooming season. Neighbors admire the blooms while many kinds of insects find shelter and food.
Soil is alive with microbes that form the foundation of all plant and animal life. When leaves fall and plants die, as they must, those microbes capture the nutrition and hold it for recycling among the roots.
Water left in the sun quickly forms algae. That remains one of the problems in leaving water out for pets and birds. Algae is present in all water and cannot be filtered out. Given some sunlight and a little nutrition, algae grows.
Every form of food has an eater, and algae eaters are easy to find. Once they eat algae and grow, they become tasty meals for other forms of life, whether in death or life.
And yet, all this is swept off the table, like the angry chess player who does not want to look at the impending checkmate.
I let some logs get hauled away, and I repented, once I realized how purpose-driven they were. Trees are marvels of Creation, which is why we take them for granted, whether alive or tumbled by rot and storms into the ground.
A toad reminded me of my folly when I moved a log and the patriarch sat there blinking placidly at me. Logs on the ground are toad shelters, and eat one devours 10,000 insects per summer.
One log has an enormous amount of chemical power stored up within, Cellulose is quite complex, and bark is even tougher to break down. As the log feeds the soil creatures, the energy released is no less remarkable than the splitting of an atom. Instead of an explosion of radiation and heat, the log releases the original elements of wood and bark collected from the sun and soil.
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| Free bird feeders are left on the curb. My favorite has various short arms which the birds will happily use for perching and preening. |
I planted three of these stumps - insect and bird feeders in the Jackson Bird Spa and stretched out the logs from the dead tree (aka Toad Harbors) along the ground. This rustic fence is a shopping mall for birds and another way to promote beneficial creatures.