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To the earliest hunters and gatherers, the struggle for survival was often a lonely experience. The mind was occupied with fetishes, charms, and magic in an effort to better the odds in the attempt to insure good luck over bad luck. The agrarian societies were among the first to enjoy true settlements. But they were still dependent, to some extent, on the luck of the draw. The dealer in the latter case was one of the many fertility and sun gods that evolved on each continent.

The farmer’s survival depended upon the success or failure of the harvest. They sought to curry favor with their temperamental pantheon through a variety of bribes we term sacrifices. When Melchizedek, the Sage of Salem, introduced bread and wine as a sacrament at what is now Jerusalem, the practice of sacrificing virgins to the volcano became less important to those competing for the favor of distant deities.

By the time Jesus walked the earth, the quest for understanding the Nature and Attributes of God had advanced to a point where Our Heavenly Father was seldom seen as mercurial or wrathful.

One of the ways we rise to a plateau, where we can truly enjoy what God has provided, is through the communities where neighbors gather for the modern day equivalent of a barn raising or bringing in the harvest. The harvest is a time for gathering, sorting, separating, sifting and sharing. It is traditionally a time when the community comes together to assist neighbors with their harvest. It is usually the most labor intensive activity of the growing season. Nothing of value is lost when the harvest is conducted properly.

For those able to appreciate the inspirational qualities of God’s handiwork, it’s easy to become enraptured by the beauty of the landscape. Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested we should “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.” Rogers and Hammerstein observed “All the sounds of the earth are like music.” As we gaze upon and listen to the beauty of the countryside, we become more appreciative of and more responsive to the splendor of the stars and the music of the spheres.

All of the de-compacting, rock breaking, row clearing, and soil amending pays off as the objects of our labor come into full fruition. Whether the objects are hearts of lettuce the hearts and minds of humanity, there are similarities in the way we must work to produce results.

Grace is not a matter of luck. It is rather unmerited favor. As the faintest flicker of our faith becomes more serviceable, as our fledgeling loyalties become more dependable, our faithfulness yields increasing certainty as with the trust a child has for a doting parent.

Divinity is the unifying and coordinating quality of Deity. Our loving father is understood through his truth, his beauty, and his goodness. He has arrayed these like pearls on a drawstring that pulls us ever nearer to his heart. We are not coerced into God’s camp. We are instead drawn into the fold through the power of his love for us. We are attracted to his incomparable values, to his quality of coherence, and to his willingness to share even his divine attributes.

He has given us a perfection hunger that venerates all that is proven to be good. We, as an evolving species, have the potential to grow, to become unerringly appreciative of, and responsive to, beauty. And, we are insatiable as truth seekers. As we see the stars moving about some unseen center, and as we pay attention to the higher thoughts that stream through our consciousness, we understand there is much more to this life, than just what meets the eye.

In all of human experience as it relates to the pursuit of happiness, the joy of finding God is, by far, the most real. In the physical world the seedling had to poke through the soil and unfold its leaves as it reached for the warming fire at the center of our solar system. Similarly, our ancestors had to make their way from the slime of the lagoon floor, through a long arduous evolutionary struggle, to stand tall on the mountain tops. Even for them, while the blazing sun was once a focal point, the sun gods were not enough.

For those of us that need help to see past the sometimes blinding rays of the star at the center of our planetary system, God sent his son, that we should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus joined is in our struggle, meeting us on the long journey between the lagoon floor and the Paradise at the center of all creation. Today, he works along side us, doing the heavy lifting while at the same time nurturing.

When the community comes together for the harvest, the most labor intensive activity of the growing season, Jesus is working with us through the Spirit of Truth.

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In the first week of this year, we saw just how fragile even a mature, constitutionally grounded democratic republic can be. As we reached out to family, friends, and colleagues, we got the sense that we, as individuals, are just as siloed as our media. We finally came to realize how about six hundred billionaires control the information flow for a country of three-hundred and thirty-one million citizens within the United States. And to our dismay, it was revealed, that the most privileged among us have become even more enriched, while the marginalized and powerless are dead, dying, or stewing in hormones of stress.

For years we’ve watched helplessly as a sociopathic few presume to speak for a world population that is fast approaching eight billion human beings. And now we are witnessing an abrupt shift as the most inauthentic, shell like corporations have found that, despite all the deceptive practices, the public’s perception of their corrupt political influence is now more acute than ever. The dark money is now front and center and so, supporting the most integrity challenged politicians is therefore, no longer convenient. 

We have long been told that the natural world’s response to overpopulation is through war, famine, and pestilence. And when we’ve witnessed behaviors of elected representatives willing to write off entire swaths of humanity in the name of “culling the herd” and “herd immunity, we are somehow expected to adopt the same kind of calloused world view, together with the depraved heart indifference they have shown towards the people we care about. 

The thin vernier of religiosity, that is now on full display in the realm of religion and politics, has failed to conceal the moral cowardice of those prostituting themselves for forces intent on undermining our constitutional republic. Their corrosive influence, on the democracy underpinnings of our nation, is a clear betrayal of the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Standing in stark contrast to those who have disgraced themselves are the heroes, the steadfast healthcare workers that have held the line while those sworn to provide for the common defense were AWOL. The coronavirus pandemic infected more than 80 million people and killed more than 1.8 million globally over the course of just it’s first year. While microscopic foes have proven to be just as deadly as political adversaries, our conventional definitions of what it means to “provide for the common defense” are clearly inadequate.

We’ve seen some supremely heroic and some truly pathetic responses to the global pandemic and, while we have also listened as some claimed the economy will come “roaring back,” others don’t want to rebuild the economy in the same old way. These opposing forces have very different ways of experiencing the economy. While one group holds that the stock market is the leading indicator of economic health, others have noticed that this particular market tends to rise in tandem with the human misery index.

The question before 331 million of us affecting the eight billion of us is this: If we are to “build back better,” just how will that be achieved? Some would undoubtedly like to see us rebuild on the same old rotting foundation of baser instincts and moral bankruptcy. People of true integrity would prefer to build upon a culture of benevolence.

The United States fought a revolutionary war to throw off the yoke of what the founders called “foreign potentates.” Then, in less than 250 years, the arch-typical democracy devolved into a feudalistic corporatocracy. One that is controlled by other, more brutal, foreign potentates.

There are those among us that are entirely ok within a world where the rich get richer and the poor die. That form of fascism that is often seen wrapped in the flag, while carrying a cross, is fooling a group that is getting smaller and smaller every day. The year 2020 was a defining moment for them. Those elected officials that were once engaged in a masquerade as constitutional conservatives, have been exposed as anything but.

Likewise, Justices on The Supreme Court of the United States that have long been masquerading as originalists and textualists while ignoring the entire Preamble to the Constitution, have demonstrated a lack of intellectual rigor. They have clearly dishonored themselves and the institution as they capped off a long series of cases advancing a counterfeit corporate personhood, with the case Citizens United.

They have failed to differentiate between those inauthentic corporations that are controlled by foreign potentates, shells with no affinity for company or the people they claim to represent; as opposed to those authentic corporations composed of people in good company, choosing, associating, and operating for a common purpose, real people who are acting corporately.

In contrast to counterfeit corporations that enrich only the few, Employee Owned Benefit Corporations are of, by, and for We the People.

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The romantic era poet George Byron wrote “The dust we tread upon was once alive.” Such contemplative reflection, over the interaction humans have with the environment, continues today in the evolving intellectual disciplines of science, philosophy, and religion.

Those that would have us believe that liquid is gas and that solar energy is “alternative” have long been packaging ideas for those they assume lack critical thinking skills. All of the physical energy that we can leverage while on earth traces its roots to that blazing orb at the center of our solar system. While the taming of fire is considered one of the cornerstones of civilization, any use of it today is seen, by some, as clear evidence we be bad!

While composting is considered an environmentally responsible thing to do, the methane rising from your open air compost heap has a “100-year global warming potential 25 times that of CO_2,” and, “measured over a 20-year period, methane is 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO₂” according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Methane that is released directly into the atmosphere is harmful to the environment, for it quickly rises to the top where it remains for about 8 years until it is reduced, through oxidation into carbon dioxide and water.

As the main component in natural gas, that methane produced from non-fossil sources such as green waste can, when burned under the right circumstances, reduce such harmful environmental impacts. The advantages of using methane to produce heat at ground level has environmental benefits as compared to letting it absorb infrared radiation from the sun at high altitude. Whether you are trapping methane from the compost to run an internal combustion engine, burning it to send supplemental heat to your home or greenhouse, or simply accenting your backyard with continuously burning tiki torches, you are helping to mitigate further damage to our shared air envelope.

Methane is lighter than air, so redirecting the gas can be as simple as laying a perforated pipe on top of the compost pile with a tarp above that. There is usually no need to worry about gas escaping from beneath the lower edges of the tarp as long as the gas is being pulled from the top of the mound fast enough. Pulling it too fast has little benefit as methane is not usually stored in tanks. This is because the symmetry of its molecule makes it hard to liquify. One could, theoretically, store methane in a tank in a gaseous state. In such a case it would then have such low density it’s unlikely you could, in all practicality, store a usable amount.

There is, however, an advanced science related to composting that fulfills the entire wish list as it relates to biogas production, storage and use. It also introduces greater efficiencies with respect to the traditional use of compost dating back to at least the times of ancient Rome, and as it was practiced by George Washington. While the soil amendment benefits are well understood, optimizing the process through what is now termed anaerobic digestion has become an exciting field of study for hobbyists and other problem solvers.

At the head end of a digester is some combination of kitchen disposals, leaf shredders, mulching mowers, and wood chippers,. These grinders effectively chew the food that is then dropped into the artificial stomach where digestion is aided by means of the probiotics that support the composting equivalent of gut flora. The microbes contained in what gardeners think of as compost activators will do the real work of generating a valuable gas while also producing the finest of soils.

The entire biological waste stream can be processed through anaerobic digesters, although human waste is usually dealt with separately to provide an extra layer of protection against the spread of human pathogens. The digesters themselves can, for the most part, operate passively depending largely upon the activities of a variety of microbes. The process can be enhanced with some combination of stirrers, turners, and blowers. Effective storage of biogas can be achieved through the use of balloons within, or a floating rooftop upon, the digestion chamber. Such expanding storage systems can also serve to pressurize the gas line as it feeds cooking, heating, and electrical generation systems.

As with any composting effort, having a variety of materials in the mix will insure success with the fermentation process while yielding the highest quality gas and soil. The process can be optimized through any combination of wet or dry, batch or continuous, thermophilic or mesophilic, and one stage or multi-stage systems. 

Whatever you decide about how you design your system, success ultimately depends upon keeping your cute little pet microbes happy. The good news is that, whether you decide to feed them from a long neglected pile of munchies from your lawnmower or by means of the advanced cooking methods we’ve described, we can assure you, they’re not picky eaters.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary over-control.

Ok, well, maybe John expressed it a little differently when he said: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” In the days that Christ walked the earth as Jesus of Nazareth, he certainly knew about all those “pre-biotic events,” but his audience only knew seed that is sown in good soil quickly germinates. They did practice crop rotation so they knew it somehow benefits from an environment below the surface where the soil has retained much of that which nourishes.

They clearly understood that, once planted, a seedling can develop deep roots for water and nourishment while, at the same time, reaching for the warmth and nourishing rays from the sun. With the help of intentional sowers, it can become fully established early to take the best advantage of a long growing season. They also knew something about the laws of fruitfulness because, in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, when the farmer told the vinedresser to ‘Cut it down.” Saying ‘Why should it use up the ground?’ The head gardener offered instead to dig around it and put on fertilizer.

Like the gardener, the sower of Gospel seed may remain in place to tend the fields. Whether the sower also plays a role in nurture and growth is largely a matter of circumstance and tradition. Where there are others to whom cultivation may be entrusted, the sower may move on down the road, for there are always other fields to be seeded. Sowing is a speciality similar to that of the Circuit Riders of the early church. Today, they not only carry good seed, the circuit riders also engage in a certain amount of cross pollination.

Just as seedlings depend upon a rich variety of relationships within and above the soil, other communities need such complementary associations if they too are to thrive. To the seedling it is interactions with the microbial biomass together with the life sustaining water and the beneficial rays of the sun. To us, it is the love, mutual support, and the encouragement we enjoy courtesy of our fellows. This is augmented by the inspiration we receive as we grow to appreciate the attitude of bestowal as evidenced by the sojourn of our beloved Sovereign while he showed his desire to come close to the life he created. 

His mercy, his patience, his wise understanding was on full display as Jesus worked to understand our viewpoint through the incarnation experience. As he labored, to help us focus upon the qualities of good soil, he was also teaching us to build up foundations in the interest of authentic community. The individuals that express real appreciation for one another, are the same ones that have taken the time to know what truly motivates those in our midst. These are the building blocks of authentic community and congregations that are truly vibrant.

Few, if any, of those bearing responsibility for pastoral care would be content with tending the mission field equivalent of an ornamental garden. We are, after all, not called to build clubs of self-righteous exclusivity. A spiritual rebirth is not brought about through a program of selective inbreeding. We are instead focused upon the seed bearing and fruit bearing qualities of those within our sphere of influence. Of course all fruit production requires pollination and this is especially important with the Fruits of the Spirit. If the essentials of our faith can not be wisely and effectively socialized or shared, its value to a greater humanity is diminished.

A true understanding of the laws of spiritual fruitfulness is informed by what happens in the physical world. Pollination is an essential part of insuring agricultural crops, as well as human communities, grow to full fruition. Every spring, nearly half (about one million hives) of the honey bees in the United States are trucked to California almond orchards. In New York, the apple crop requires about 30,000 hives and Maine’s blueberry crop uses about 50,000 portable hives each year.

We live in a time when people display plants in their home that derive all the moisture and nutrients they need from the surrounding air. We enjoy salads that are produced through a water culture known as hydroponics. We have soil that is so depleted there is little of what nourishes and the microbial biomass necessary to replenish it has been poisoned. We also have a new generation of growers that view the entire process of growth in a more holistic manner. For much of what is contained in the soil can be carried by other means.

The challenges inherent to building authentic community are similar. When we view those within our unique sphere of influence as Jesus did, we are blessed with a greatly enhanced view of what’s on the horizon. We are better equipped to fulfill his commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

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A deeply resonant CSN song began with the lyric “You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by.” While this is likely true, one would hope the rest of us don’t need an Ovaltine Decoder Ring to figure out what it is. Many singers, composers, authors, parents, pastors, and elected representatives each have some power to sway in a way that can help insure our ultimate survival or destruction as a species. And yet, trying to decipher the values proposition such people put forth is often a matter of guesswork.

Throughout the history of our planet, there have been people, at the commanding heights, who are unable to differentiate between true and false liberty. The bully pulpit is, as often as not, occupied by people that can’t seem to balance freedom with self-control. Many of us, as parents, have had to contend with one or more children that don’t think the rules apply to them. Our responses range from an off the shelf “cause I said so,” to a dissertation on the golden rule that can be procured from any major religious tradition on earth.

Today we find ourselves and our fellow human beings situated somewhere between a Luciferian license and a Jesusonian form of self mastery. Politicians can spend lots of their constituent’s money on media to rile us. When we are on an even keel, it doesn’t serve the interests of political operatives intent on leveraging FIBS, the Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear that are in every dirty trickster’s toolkit.

They want us to hate the Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Hebrews, Palestinians , and Arabs when the real, most objectionable conduct is usually traceable to the egomaniacal leaders of those nations. They have encouraged us to view anyone that doesn’t exhibit a complexion exactly like ours, as somehow less than human to perpetually justify man’s inhumanity to man through international or internecine, hot or cold warfare. And, as they do, they often characterize themselves as liberty loving freedom fighters.

Just what is this thing that we call liberty? Is it permissible, in the name of free speech, to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire? And what about truthfulness? Is it ok to mislead someone who may rely upon your word to their detriment?

Liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled is a cruel deception that invariably leads to abject bondage for someone. It may be you; if you should decide to go wilding with the hordes through the hallowed halls of representative government. You could lose your freedom, for life, in accordance with the felony murder rule. You could lose your cherished 2nd Amendment right to own a gun. You could find yourself on a list that forever bars you from boarding a commercial flight.

If your idea of liberty gives you license to rape, pillage, and plunder or engage in human trafficking, you are imposing bondage on someone else. There is a delicate balance between true freedom and self-control. And, while good parents teach it, bad-faith pastors do not. The counterfeit wisdom that flows from many in authority, who are often enjoying excessive prominence, is leading us into an orgy of darkness and death. They often fail to teach that diminishing external restraints are always contingent upon augmenting internal restraints.

If we are to survive as a species, we must turn our attention to those purpose driven leaders that are advancing us towards an era of light and life. They are easy to recognize because their values proposition is crystal clear. They focus us not upon themselves but on our own highest and best understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness as they give creative expression to those qualities. They encourage us to consider just how we can contribute, in an active and spiritually pragmatic way, toward the healing and elevation of life on our planet.

Democracy, throughout the world, is under attack. And, at its most basic level, it is problematic. It can be three wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner. It can lead to the domination of mediocrity. And, every time it stumbles, authoritarian wannabes will say: “You see, it’s messy. It doesn’t work. That’s why to need me.” But in the final analysis, government of, by, and for the people is the only design that is truly sustainable. It is the only one that is spiritually serviceable; as it alone has the power to elicit the enthusiastic consent of the governed.

The choice now before us is autocracy versus democracy. We must learn to recognize any sophistry that has the effect of corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. Long ago, Edmund Burke, in referring to the American colonists, described our ancestors as “able to snuff the approach of tyranny with every tainted breeze.” Today the tainted breezes are delivered by means of powerful airwaves that Burke probably never imagined. And, right now, the most deceptive practices, ones that push fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear are generating howling winds in contrast to the gentle breezes of true benevolence. The most refreshing breezes are the ones that are spiritually fragrant, the ones where truth, beauty, and goodness are clearly in evidence.

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Sometimes we are truly thankful for each day we manage to stay on top of the ground. If we lived a few thousand years ago, in or near the desert, we might prefer to get out of the hot sun by working underground. Digging tunnels that carried water from place to place would be like working in air conditioned comfort. Now the ancient me is thinking: “The longer I make the tunnel, the longer this cushy job will last!

Conserving water is one thing we’re forced to think about during a drought. And, sometimes it helps to consider the extremes when we’re searching for sustainable solutions. For example, there are golf courses on the Arabian Peninsula where the sprinkler system uses several times the usual amount of water, so that at least some of it will hit the ground before it evaporates. Yet, in ancient Ninevah and Babylon, there were pockets of innovation that produced aqueducts, various water elevators, and the earliest examples of that water culture we’ve come to know as hydroponics.

When I first moved to Western North Carolina, an auto mechanic told me about an area farmer that had two pastures for his cows. There was a small stream that divided the farm. The farmer had built a bridge for the cows to cross the stream between the two grazing areas. The bridge had a slight wobble. Not enough to spook the cows mind you, but just enough of a see-saw motion to drive a small pump so the cows would have fresh water in the appropriate trough.

With a global p[opulation of almost eight billion, getting water to where it’s needed, without wasting any along the way, is now more important than ever. That’s also how we save money. In the garden and across the farm, water and nutrients can be precisely directed just as they are in a greenhouse. We may not derive all the benefits of a controlled environment, such as having most of the water drain back into a reservoir with minimal loss due to evaporation. We can, however, use micro-irrigation techniques to save on most of the inputs.

By delivering plain water or nutrient solutions to the desirable vegetation with minimal overspray, we’re feeding our crops or ornamentals and not the weeds. The next time you think “Oh my aching back,” let this be a reminder that you will be saving far more than just money. Even so, the money is important and you will love the fact that micro-irrigation is dirt cheap. Little tiny drips and sprays delivered through little tiny tubes and driven by little tiny pumps make for a system that’s cheap to implement, cheap to maintain, and cheap to use. That is, when you compare it to the cost of the big stuff.

Usually, when you bury water pipes, you have to get them below the frost line. Micro irrigation systems can be configured to drain completely when the pressure is off. This means you can simply leave them on top of the ground or cover them with a layer of mulch. Of course there’s always the occasional oops factor to be considered. So when you do need to replace a line, you’ll be thankful that it’s not buried two feet deep.

Cutting in a new irrigation line can be achieved with little barbs that are simply pushed into the end of, or a hole in the side of, an existing line. A complete system can have any combination of sprayers, drippers, and soakers. These can simply be sized, so that the correct amount of solution is delivered without the need for expensive, high maintenance regulators.

While closed circuit irrigation systems are largely confined to the greenhouse, micro-irrigation can be adapted to field farming, the backyard garden, and the container systems in and around our homes and offices. And, if we design these systems correctly, we could recover much of the runoff.

In the decades to come, we will face an even greater variety of sustainability challenges. For example, unless something changes, in order to feed the people expected to occupy the planet by 2050, we would need to add an area the size of Brazil to that already used for food production. It simply begs the question: “After clear-cutting Africa, what would we then do for breathable oxygen?”

In all practicality, the changes we need to make can be painful, or we can view them as stimulating challenges. The more we understand the advantages of these new irrigation techniques, the more exciting the future of plant cultivation becomes. Not changing can be more costly than re-tooling, especially in light of the savings that can be realized on all fronts, in perpetuity. After all, who’s opposed to saving on labor, pesticides, fertilizer, and water in a way that yields healthier gardens and crops together with greater peace of mind.

If we borrow the best from the techniques commonly used within growing domes, greenhouses, and vertical farms, we can augment the knowledge gained through square foot gardening and apply it to square inch gardening. We will, for the first time in a long time, know what we’re eating. We will be positioned to better withstand drought conditions. We will mitigate soil depletion, excessive warming, and undesirable changes to our air envelope. And, for the control freaks among us, we will have even greater control.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

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In his Parable of the Sower Jesus said: “Other seed fell among the thorns, and as the thorns grew up it was choked so that it yielded no grain.” In another related teaching the Master said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while he slept, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and hastened away.”

In the first case it was the sower that created more work for himself and others by sowing seed among the less desirable plants. In the second case, the sower did everything right, but was the victim of an unfortunate circumstance. In each case, the question before the sower was one of how best to proceed once it was discovered the bramble and other weeds were harming the seedlings.

In one example the workers offered to pull up the weeds but the householder said: “No, lest as you are gathering them up, you uproot the wheat also.” He then described how the weeds and the wheat should be separated at harvest time when the wheat was mature, storing the wheat while burning the weeds.

Our Father in Heaven permits good and evil to go along together until the end of our growing season, just as the wheat and the tares grow side-by-side until the harvest. While it is, of course, easier and safer to separate the valuable crop from the undesirable weeds at harvest time, the challenges to the crop during the growing season may actually prove to be of some value.

The quality of our own endurance is often enhanced through challenges just as the hardiness, disease resistance, and steadfastness improve in the plant world. There is value in grappling with hardships.

We started this discourse with the statement “There is a ruggedized form of ministry.” Indeed, ours is a servant ministry. God is not raising us only to become hothouse orchids, for beauty is also found in the irrepressible reach for better things. We don’t embrace potential evil, although its existence can serve to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

Having us corralled into service of the Kingdom, through fear of reprisal or hell fire and brimstone, is of no more value to God than the sacrifice of virgins to a volcano. Recurrent uncertainties may indeed prompt us to choose the divine life over the self-life. But to manifest loyalty, in accordance with our highest and best understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness is of the most real, most enduring value.

We emerge from the thicket through a sincere love of the things our Heavenly Father holds dear. Our faithfulness, as evidenced by our adherence and fidelity to Divine values, is usually prerequisite to the assurances and the certainty of faith. The fact that we can draw an advance through the unmerited favor we term grace, is an indication of Our Father’s love for us. It does not mean that we should facilitate, engage in, or even flirt with disloyalty while making a presumption of Divine Mercy.

Those who placed a crown of thorns upon the head of our beloved Sovereign were not honoring him with an earthly monarchical crown. It was instead employed to cause physical and psychological pain, to mock him as they took to a knee and shouted “Hail King of the Jews.”

While such cruelty might have gratified his tormentors, Jesus was unwavering. He was steadfast in his loyalty to the Father’s will and his supreme values. Jesus stood majestically among the weeds and thorns. The stark contrast between the courage of Jesus and the moral cowardice of his accusers is not unlike that of the bramble that frustrates us; and the spiritual fruit that both defines and nourishes us.

When we have good seed, it is worth sowing intentionally, in fields receptive to it, and capable of supporting it. The Gospel seed is too precious to waste along the wayside, in the rocky places, or where it might be subject to thorny hazards that are best avoided. I once led a youth group where a highly impressive teen shared her wisdom during the discussion of a bible verse. She was spiritually illuminated as she stood before the group and said: “I’m the only bible some people will ever read.” I wanted to be like her as my thoughts immediately turned to a poster I once saw. It read: “Stand for what’s right even if you stand alone.”

We may, at times, be called to stand among the thorns just as Jesus did when his kingly bearing so impressed his captors. As we become more responsive to Divine Leading, we will learn to recognize the good soil and what has long been described as the teachable moment. The Promised Helper will guide us into all truth and remind us of the most appropriate lessons to share from among those truths.

Right now, our planet is so confused, so strife torn, and so rebellious that we are working in less than ideal conditions. Even so, we can help clear the way, work the soil, bring amendments; Create conditions where the Jesusonian Gospel of God within will emerge victorious.

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On January 6th in the year 2021, hoards of emotionally charged, intellectually stunted insurgents breached security and stormed into the United States Capitol building. Elected representatives were evacuated. The traitorous, treasonous, seditionist, insurrectionist authoritarian enablers among them tried to distance themselves from the violence they intentionally fomented. For such unrepresentative elected representatives, statesmanship is an arcane banished idea while its distant cousin, politics, is taken to illogical extremes.

Our country’s organizing principle is the spirit of the law. It is articulated in a carefully crafted Preamble that begins with the words “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . .”

From such a coherent value proposition, one that is often ignored by those occupying the commanding heights of government while masquerading as originalists and textualists, coherent strategies could and should evolve. But there are true enemies, advocating moral anarchy, exerting a corrosive influence on the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic, as well as others around the world.

Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, made it abundantly clear that “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” Indeed, to restore the rights of a people as they work, to become the arbiters of their own destiny, appeals to the Spirit within each of us. The only societal arrangement that will ultimately satisfy, perhaps even enthuse such a Spirit activated group is government of, by, and for the people.

John Wycliffe, in the preface to his 14th Century bible translation to Middle English, made it clear that the bible advances “government of, by, and for the people.” The offended priesthood of his day, dug up and burned his bones. It is not unlike the force behind today’s dark money, the gerrymandered maps, assault weapons on full display and all the other means of voter intimidation and suppression. These faux Christian conservatives push incessantly for things antithetical to the biblical principles they claim to represent.

By means of a variety of political sophistries, a few inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth have routinely thwarted the will of the many. Through a pseudo-religious hucksterism, some have even sacrificed a witness to the kingdom within, while engaged in a masquerade that stands in stark contrast to the cardinal precepts contained in the bible they like to thump.

Marketeers and politicians place great emphasis on what they term key differentiators, or what sets us apart. Today, the divide is dangerously wide. In our supercharged political environment, we tend to view the world through polarized lenses, seeking and seeing only what is pre-packaged to fit our circumscribed world view. It is a mediated world, replete with a tribal epistemology that reduces every value proposition to a binary choice where the question is: “Are they with us or against us?”

We must each ask ourselves: “To which ‘us’ are you referring?” At this juncture we should also pause to consider just how any understanding of the term “us” is ripe for a paradigm shift – a Pareto flip. In the United States, over the past decade, about 600 billionaires have controlled the information flow to 330 million people.

Conservative columnist George Will, in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft examined how the power of the state can create conditions that either foster the growth of blessed souls or the imprisonment of seriously stunted and tortured souls. He admits that his vision may appear to share some traits with totalitarianism. However, like Edmond Burke, Will places great emphasis on the voluntary associations and values that are seen as essential to a fully informed consent of the governed and a functioning free society.

In his own historically rich book; The Soul of America, biographer John Meacham wrote: “in the battle between the impulses of good and of evil in the American soul, what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” have prevailed just often enough to keep the national enterprise alive.”

Today, win-win is often not perceived to be of value to a taint by numbers politician or any other party trying to differentiate by leveraging fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear. It is a Joe McCarthy era tactic known by the acronym FIBS. When it is seen as politically expedient, they even divide us on consensus issues. And yet, once we blow through our own politically conditioned understanding, or expand our horizons beyond the Twitter-verse, we find we have far more in common than any self-serving political operative would have us believe.

Our focus must be more about finding our center, our soul, our statesmanship than it is about politics. Because, today’s politics is mostly about opposite poles on a line. We need to be mindful of the fact that: “No bird can soar except by outstretched wings.” And that, as experience has shown; the amount of lift produced at the wingtips is clearly not sufficient to overcome the gravity of our present situation.

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I recall reading a certain Superman comic-book story in my youth. Our hero was having more than a few bad days. On one of them, he had built and gifted a high-tech solar array to Metropolis. It was reflecting sunlight into, what would otherwise be, shadowy places. Unfortunately, the concentrated sunlight was also causing major fires. As you might imagine, Superman had a PR problem as the city was responding with hostility rather than kudos.

This story came to mind when I first read about a device for tracking the sun that was featured in a KickStarter campaign about eight years ago. The SunnyBot, as it was named then, was a sun-tracker that provided a way to reflect light on a fixed point of the user’s choosing. In other words, what amounted to a motorized mirror, could be used to focus the light on a crystal chandelier, to create a rainbow effect all day long. 

Having grown up, to the extent I grew up, as part of a patent office family in the burbs of Washington, DC, I remember thinking: “There’s nothing really protectable here.” The motor base was basically of the same type that was used decades before to track, center, and image stars through long exposure photography. Then, when someone decided it would be useful to follow our own sun across the sky with solar panels, the same basic techniques were used.

The thing that was unique about the SunnyBot, was that the user could effectively dial-in the reflection angle, and have that angle continuously recalculated as the primary mirror moves, and as the reflector target remains fixed. Most of the comments I read, prior to cancellation of the KickStarter campaign, related almost exclusively to hobbyist or novelty uses such as the one involving the chandelier.

Even though I failed to see a viable and protectable business model, I was really disappointed when the developers seemed to give up on the project. To me, the promise for such a device was in feeding the world without having to destroy more forests. The idea, that one could set a robot controlled mirror on a pole in a clearing and beam a shaft of light under the forest canopy, to a growing dome or greenhouse, thrilled me.

While the original SunnyBot was largely built upon ‘prior art,’ it was also marketed lousy. The highest and best value proposition for such a device was not pretty rainbows on dining room walls. It is rather, increasing the kind of photosynthesis that is used to produce your Impossible Burger.

For those that object to the way large agri-business concerns operate, for those concerned about the lack of transparency with respect to what’s actually in our food, having a growing dome over the kitchen would be a dream come true. And, having just the right combination of shade from deciduous trees and light precisely directed from the clearings, is now more realistic than ever before. For safety, the mirror system could even be detuned by means of pneumatics or hydraulics should the electricity fail. Got that Superman?

To round out such a vision, a rotating clock wheel type gantry system would insure the plants within the dome each received an appropriate share of available natural light. Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) sensors on the dome could be monitored by an inexpensive Arduino or Raspberry Pie computer. That computer could log the intensity and wavelength of the light entering through the window and then calculate the precise amount and color of any artificial light needed to support optimal plant growth.

The software that would control the mirrors, as well as that needed to measure and control the light within the dome, could be developed and maintained within the public domain to insure the maximum benefit to a great humanity. The scripts necessary, to produce the required mechanical parts with 3D printers, could also be made available royalty free. All of the things necessary, to insure world wide food security though a system that reflects the design criteria that then insures there will be “no single point of potential failure,” are well within our grasp.

Precisely directed illumination complemented by customized gantry systems are in use today in vertical farms located within, or at the edge of, major cities. These futuristic farms also make extensive use of hydroponics techniques that include micro-irrigation, specialized nutrient solutions, and optimized gas envelopes. But once the cities become dependent upon these large farms and the cross country trucking is winding down, a pathogen introduced intentionally or accidentally could take out a big part of the food supply for an entire city.

The no single point of potential failure doctrine will ultimately drive the movement towards produce department sized growing domes as well as the home scaled growing dome. When the oops factor presents itself, as it undoubtedly will, we would have options. I’m excited about building a growing dome over my kitchen. Even so, I’ve experienced more than my share of senior moments lately and will likely make some mistakes. Sooo neighbor, don’t be surprised if I knock on your door and ask to borrow a tomato.

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There is abundant evidence that human beings were working stone over two and a half million years ago. Early humans were making Acheulean axes and other large cutting tools over one and a half million years ago.

Two hundred thousand years ago middle stone age tool kits included scrapers, stone awls, the points of spears. And yet, two thousand years ago and even today, anyone working the land would regard a field of stone as a royal pain in the . . . 

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus described such places as having “little soil.” It would quickly dry out which meant that seedlings would usually be unable to obtain the necessary moisture and avoid withering in the hot sun. They would be unable to put down roots so even if they emerged in spite of such conditions, they couldn’t be relied upon to weather even a short period of drought.

Veteran cosmic rockers can recall the lyrics to a song by the Rolling Stones that includes the chant: “I ain’t got no love, I ain’t the kind to meet. ‘Cause she’ll never break this heart of stone.” The people listening to Jesus were equally well versed in Ezekiel and the chapter where God said: “I will give you a new heart and take away your heart of stone.”

Our own endurance is dependent upon the ability to put down roots. When our relationships are shallow, when our friendships are superficial, and when our communities are inauthentic, we are at risk. Working to maintain relationships can be difficult. It may involve breaking rocks, preserving what little soil we have, and even bringing in the human equivalent of soil amendments.

Where the relationships are worth having because others value them as much as we do, we would not be unequally yoked while we work the soil. In fact, where values are shared, where we are equally yoked with our cohorts, the work can be far, far more enjoyable. We are constantly reminded that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Shallow soil makes it difficult to build authentic communities. We are wholly dependent on individual relationships and hopefully these are truly genuine. Deep seated, positively symbiotic relationships occur when they are reciprocal, mutually beneficial, and complementary.

We live in a time when stone can quickly be turned into the kind of dust that can prevent soil from being compacted. It can also sometimes, through abrasive action, polish the gems of truth that we acquire in the rough. The growth that occurs in the depths of our souls, thanks to obstacles along the way is seldom achieved through just accepting the kind of situation where we are between a rock and a hard place.

Sometimes it may seem as though a field of stone is all we have within a material world. And yet, in this designer universe, the same atom that can cause kidney stones or calcify arteries, contributes to the strength of our bones and the bricks we use to build our homes.

With the right attitude, the worst case scenario can become the most stimulating challenge. Just how we rise to meet any given problem is usually a matter of spiritual idealism, of our enthusiasm for life.

Agrarian societies tend to gravitate towards the fertile bottom land where the river and all of its tributaries contribute to soil tilth as well as gut flora.There is, however, intense competition for lands that are ideally suited for providing nourishment. The Aztecs found their promised land on a small island at the center of Lake Texcoco. they lashed reeds together and built rafts on lake wetlands freshwater swamps. They scooped mud off the bottom and piled it onto these rafts to serve as soil for their produce.

The plants would send roots through the soil, penetrate the bottom of the raft, and derive nutrients directly from the waters and later the deposits on the bottom. This heroic survival story included tales of these “Chinampas,” that either included a gardener’s hut or were adjacent to the gardener’s household. The gardener would pole the raft-garden to the marketplace. Eventually these rafts were lashed together and poles were driven into the lake bottom. The island became the city of Tenochtitlan and later on, Mexico City.

Other, equally tenacious civilizations found ingenious ways to move water up hill. The hanging gardens of Babylon may eventually inspire a growing dome over your kitchen, rivers running atop the walls of your house, food and flora whenever and wherever you want or need it. And this is why the Parable of the Sower and the lessons that relate to providing favorable conditions for growth, will always ring true.

Today, crushed rock is used in most hydroponic systems. And, approximately one third of the recorded words of Jesus are in the form of parables. These parabolic analogies, many of which focus on spiritual growth, gracefully transcend time. Perhaps this is why we see so many signs that say “You are closer to God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.”

Tooling Up for Hydroponics