Learning the Trees [SSL174]

Today, I’m featuring excerpts from an article found in Nautilus magazine online. It’s by Khriseten Bellows called “Death & Rebirth in Forests: On the Lives of Trees”.
🚩Get access to my notes and the link to the original article at the support page here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44815763 Featured music on the episode is by Chad Crouch and is called “Song Sparrow” (CC) Listen now with the AUDIO PLAYER:
It’s coming. Now you can pre-order my book here: tiny.cc/wildland. Or, you can help an independent bookshop by shopping here: 🥰 tiny.cc/wildINDIE
The DECEMBER 2020 reading is The Great Belonging by Charlotte Donlon. We will meet on January 6 at 7:30pm with Charlotte to discuss it together. Please register here ➡️ https://www.crowdcast.io/e/spark-my-muse—book-2/register If you missed the book club discussion with author Ed Cyzewski, LIVE Dec 2, 2020 then just click for the replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/spark-my-muse—book powered by Crowdcast (When you support this work (at Patreon) you ease the financial burden I have when creating this work, but you also unlock many extras from years of episodes. You ALSO get sneak peeks on episodes, projects, and news on my book “The Wild Land Within” published with Broadleaf Books – patreon.com/sparkmymuse) SparkMyMuse.com contains over 355+ audio episodes, an online store, and resources. Roam around the website and enjoy!

CONTRIBUTIONS? Most everything I create can be enjoyed for little or nothing. Some people tell me they get excited to help out when they find something they enjoy. Sound like you? So here, it’s simple: you can pay-what-you’d-like to help. It’s appreciated. Thank you. ❤️ • VENMO: venmo.com/lisadelay • PayPal.me/lisacolondelay

Listen to a recent episode:

• Spark My Muse can thrive when you help in these two ways:

1. Share the program with another person today. 2. Leave a Rating/ Write a Review on iTunes HERE.
AND! Don’t forget to pick a subscribe option that is best for you at (sparkmymuse.com) below:
	

Episode 7 – Vine Grafting; special guest Ray Hollenbach

Show Notes Episode 7 – On Grafting Grape Vines and Special Guest Ray Hollenbach

Click to listen now:


This episode was brought to you by…

Life As Prayer: Revive Spirituality Inspired by Ancient Piety


Learn about 16th century Brother Lawrence and how his understanding of God’s presence continues to affect lives today.


 

It’s a fact: the plants that produce wine grapes don’t come from seeds. You can’t “sow grapes”. More on that soon.

And later, Student of Jesus blogger and disciple-maker Ray Hollenbach and I talk about the fruit of the spirit (debunking the most common myth about it), and a little bit about the Vineyard church he is a part of, and what his “Deeper” seminars and workshops are all about.

IMG_0581-4


Wine segment:

Wine grape plants don’t come from seeds, so how are vineyards created?

There are two main ways commercial growers get their fields ready for a grape harvest:

The first way is to plant seedlings taken from healthy and mature grape vines. This means that a harvest of good grapes for wine is 4-5 years away. Booo.

The second way is to use an older and mature vineyard and graft in (attach) new plants into the vine.

They prune down the top of the plant. They chop it nearly down to the ground, and expose some of the top to the vine stem. Then, they graft living plants into it. The grafting process means that whole new varieties of grapes in just one year, using the original root system to obtain all the necessary nutrients. Grafted in plants can also inoculate older vines against certain diseases with disease resistant pants (usually hybrid seedlings) that make the whole system healthier.

640px-Innesto_a_corona.svg

It can cost $150, per plant, to graft in new vines and it’s done in a precise sort of way with notching the root stem, adding in plants and sealing them together so they merge.

André_Thouin_1
(how to graft plants and trees)

Grafting plants has been done for thousands of years. In the bible, the church is compared, by the apostle Paul, to a wild olive plant grafted into an olive tree. The first audience hearing Paul’s words would understand this word picture: the church is an introduction of something very new. Something able to impart a whole new vitality into the current understanding of religion and closeness with God.

slide17c slide19c


 Sparking your Muse

An interview with Ray Hollenbach

Ray Hollenbach writes at Students of Jesus.com

He does the Deeper Seminar nationwide.

View his YouTube Videos on his new channel.

Interview Notes –

Minute: 4:30

Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 New Living Translation (NLT)

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

 

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

4:48

“Fruit of the Spirit is not a gift that we get; but come as a result or outcome of natural (spiritual) health”. -Ray Hollenbach

6:30 – How parenting matures us in the same way that “making disciples” matures us.

7:30 – The Impossible Mentor 

8:30 –

“The goal of the Christian Life is NOT to get to heaven.”

9:47

The Vineyard Church

• John Wimber

10:06 –

Fuller Seminary

George Eldon Ladd 

Dallas Willard

Richard Foster

Eugene Peterson

NT Wright

12:20

Grape Vines

13:50

Grafting

14:40

“Jesus taught practically and transpositionally.”

(i.e. interacting with the transcendent in a practical way)

15:30

Student of Jesus Videos


I hope you enjoyed the podcast!
I’d like to hear from you. Please, take this short 30-second survey.

Spark My Muse

The Myth about Roots.

My dad told me that trees have roots that go down as far as the tree is tall. That was an impressive statement and it stuck with me for a long time.

It was, of course, untrue.

He didn’t know much about trees. He was, by his own admission, a “city boy”.

I don’t blame him; lots of people think tree roots go deep.

They don’t.

Any photo of a knocked down tree makes it clear.
See? Roots go out not down.
(The mistake about roots becomes pointedly obvious.)

fallen_tree

Tree roots reach out, not down.

Roots aren’t so much much like anchors hold the tree to the ground, but rather more like feet planted in the soil, in all directions, to create stability and nourishment. They can extend nearly as long as a tree is tall.

The California Redwoods seem even more impressive now, don’t they?

Forests are interconnected places where trees stretch out their roots and touch the other trees nearby, below the surface.

A web of root holds a forrest together as if the trees are playing a long game of forest footsie.


The takeaway:

Like the myth of tree roots, the roots of community don’t go down either–in ideal circumstances.  Instead, they go out, or the forest dies.


On Sunday, I’ll go back to church for the first time in 2 months. My work schedule has kept me away, but I’m happy to go back and remember everything I need to remember all over again:

• Who I am in God, in community, and in the scope of human history and the Church worldwide and over the course of eons.

Maybe I’ll learn something new about me, or about church (God’s people), or about what sacred ritual does for me.

I haven’t been separated from this weekly occurrence (for this long) in over 20 years. I’m wondering what it’ll be like to go back. (The next post -or a short series- will get into that.)

My thoughts are forming like questions:

• Will I sense the roots of others stretching out to meet me?

• Will my absence have been noticed at all?
(If a tree falls in a forest…er, um, never mind.)

• Will everything be the same or nothing, or will I be the only one who has changed?

• Will I realize how much I’ve missed it, or be surprised that it hasn’t mattered like I thought it would or should?

• Am I really part of a forest, or am I more like a lone tree on a hill?

Whatever happens, I want to be the tree that stretches out into the stream, into the living water, for nourishment and life.

german-305898_640

Jeremiah17:7-8
“Blessed is the [one] who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. “For [s]he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.

When your water turns to wine

(creative commons photo)
(creative commons photo)

 

A pilgrim is wandering around the dilapidated buildings and streets, of a wasteland.

 

Perched and dry.

No one in sight.

Nothing but scraps, and sweat, and then, finally…

 

A well.

A small well and a bucket to bring up something cool from the ground.

Oh, for that refreshment!

That splash of drink. That life-giving liquid.

 

And then, behold!

It’s not water at all.

It’s a celebration.

It’s wine.

 

 

Psalms 104:10-18

 

He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.

They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

 

The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.

 

He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:

wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.

 

The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.

The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

Natural Beauty

I’ve spent the morning making a website and marketing tools for a friend. I want to share them with you. I think you’ll be blessed.

Please visit: Shawn Shoener–Wisdom in Wood

Today’s Spiritual Reflection and Challenge:

Notice the beauty in the natural world around you. Witness the glory and goodness of the world we’ve been given.

Leave your thoughts…