Tree ditty

Trees are Wonderful Things
Words and Music - M. St. Germain - 1990

Trees are wonderful things.
They keep things bright and green.
They protect us from the weather and all.
Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall.
Some folks say, who needs trees.
Who has time to rake those leaves.
Cut the care and fertilizer.
Cut the tree and get an air-conditioner.

Hey, trees are wonderful things.
They make the air pure and clean.
They insure a home for every creature.
And that includes you, you can be sure.
Some think they can live apart from Nature.
And don't give a hoot about the other Creatures.
Spoil the land for money and ease.
Oh well, some day we'll have plastic trees!

Trees are wonderful things.
They could supply all of our needs.
Trees are the answer to the problems we face.
Gas and oil have a dangerous fate.
Every road with noise and pollution.
Should be lined with trees. The best solution.
Care for your forests and care for your trees.
They're not anyone's to do as they please.

Hey, trees are wonderful things.
Think about the life they bring.
'Cause when the land dries up and blows away.
You know it will be too late to say.
Trees are wonderful things.

Trees are the Solution

Trees are What's Important !
Everything depends on good Silviculture

I know I sound like a broken record sometimes. I've always said everyone's favorite thing is, building soil, whether they realize it or not. Everyone likes to eat and be healthy, right. Well I just changed my mind. Obviously good farming is important, but we won't do anything without trees. What I'm saying is, everything actually depends on good forestry. Without trees all you will have is sand. You can't grow anything in sand. Which came first, the soil or the trees? Trees create and protect soil. The whole planet and everything in it is irreducibly complex. Nothing survived millions of years without trees or soil or eyes for that matter.
In recent years there has been this campaign to tear out the dams. Mainly to save the salmon. Who's going to pay for it and all the restoration I would like to know. The dams aren't the problem. It's what we are sending down the river. The chemicals and the pollution and the sediment. What's wrong with doing quality logging and farming? Is that too radical?
Many scientists now are saying that the biggest most important thing we could do to reduce carbon emissions is to farm organically without artificial fertilizer. Is that too radical?
I've been involved in doing quality logging with horses for over 25 years. You have to get out of your car and walk through the woods to tell we've been there. I'm not aware of any kind of true natural selective logging being done anywhere around here. Maybe in a few private woodlots around the country. 99% aren't foresters at all. They're just equipment operators and mechanics. It's against their religion to do anything manually. When you can see what they've done from 5 or 10 miles away it should tell you something. If you are going to do real quality restoration forestry and leave a diverse forest behind, the horse is the best tool. This would create jobs for more people and less for machines. Too bad it's just too radical. We'll just spend a few billion and dismantle the dams and replace them with big freeways. At least it wouldn't be considered too radical. Think of the short term millionaires it would create. Of course they would all be good environmentalists.
Speaking of environmentalists. What have they done? Do you see them out there showing us good stewardship practices? "Environmentalism without faith is phony." They don't believe in any kind of Biblical stewardship. Horses aren't supposed to work, neither are people! We are just another animal. It's okay though to play god. We can create robots or chemicals to do our work for us. The industrialists are raping the hell out of northern Idaho. The only thing environmentalists have done is put small quality operators like myself out of business. They carry on one campaign after another to save the fish, save the birds, save the wolves, etc. WHAT ABOUT THE TREES !!! We aren't going to have anything without trees.
Most of our farmland is totally dependent on chemicals and nitrogen. Without them nothing will grow. The only thing that will grow is trees.
Every unproductive piece of ground, every place that's too wet, every roadside, every creek bank, should be growing a wide variety of trees. One of the reasons they aren't is because some evolutionist wants only native plants that were there before. The desert has to stay a desert, nonsense. We need more trees. Some of these intellectuals are the same ones who had the bright idea to bring Spotted Knappweed over here from Australia to control erosion!
I've always said, artificial fertilizer is the single worst invention that has happened. For years now, most people would say that it is the greatest thing that ever happened. This is how we are able to feed the world, hooey. This is how we are destroying the world. They are using NPK worldwide. Everyone is adopting our great American farming practices. How wonderful. No one has to be a small farmer.
This is by far the largest producer of carbon emissions. Plowing and NPK. Nothing else comes close. I still say the problem with the world is, no one wants to be a poor subsistence farmer and no one wants anyone else to be a poor subsistence farmer.

Sola Scriptura

C.O.E.X.I.S.T ?
There's only one true religion.

All religions fall into three main groups. Monotheism, polytheism, and atheism. Monotheism includes the Biblical perspective of the triune God, the three in one, the three are one. It also includes the Biblical view of the Creator God. Polytheism includes the eastern mystic religions with their innumerable gods and there ancestor worship. Also variations of heathen and pagan. This even includes some groups who claim to be Christian. If you can imagine that. Then of course Atheism includes, communism, humanism, and essentially agnosticism.

Now let's get a little more specific. What are the seven primary religions of the world?
One - Atheism.
Two - Eastern Mystic.
Three - Judaism. - Originally the true religion.
Four - Islamic.
Five - Catholic. - Originally the true church.
Six - Apostate Protestant. - Originally a true movement.
Seven - True Protestant. - Sola Scriptura.

Religion defined is simply what we believe and practice. You've heard people say, "I'm not religious." The fact is, everyone belongs to one or more of these groups. Yes, atheism is a religion, and they are getting organized!

The question is: "Why can't we all just co-exist?"

Every war, and conflict, and controversy has been, directly or indirectly, the product of false religion. You would have to be totally ignorant of history or some kind of a fool to think that we will ever peacefully co-exist.
Let me put it this way. Anything short of true religion is to some degree terrorism.
How can you co-exist with terrorists who learned it from their religion, their traditions, and their parents and grandparents all while continuing to teach their children terror?

Remember, the worst terrorists are always on a mission for God!

There's only one way. It's called the cross. God sent his Son to show us the way. He did everything right, and many mighty works of righteousness. That didn't matter. The religious leaders would never acknowledge that He was right or that they were wrong about anything. This has been going on since Cain and Able. Cain killed his brother because God had no respect for his man made religion. He made a great sacrifice, but it was without blood. "Work without faith is vanity."

By the way. Do you know where you find the blood in the Ten Commandments? The very first. "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." No one escaped without the blood sprinkled on the door post. It was nothing to do with how perfect they were. It was an act of obedience and faith that saved them and made them free. "Every false religion is based on works. The idea that you can be good enough." There are only two kinds of people. The righteous and the wicked. What's the difference? We are all sinners and desperately wicked. The righteous acknowledge God's sovereignty and authority in His Law. Psalms and Proverbs. However the Law doesn't save us, only the blood.

I know what you are thinking. "I'm glad I'm not one of those Muslim terrorists." You might be surprised. Let's go through this again.

Atheist. Survival of the fittest. No morals, only human ethics. A terrorist religion.

Eastern Mystics. Hindus and Buddists are killing Christians by the thousands right now. Just like they were in the time of the Boxer Rebellion. This is doing them a favor. They will come back in another life. Terrorist religion.

Judaism. Not really a terrorist religion originally. God is the only judge and executioner. In times past God's people executed His judgments. Obviously, when they go on the offensive without a directive from God they are terrorists.

Islamic. You be the judge.

Catholic. Originally a true witness to the Cross of Christ. Now, if you are not baptized in the Catholic church you are going to burn in hell forever. This is why all good heretics were burned at the stake. Their invention of the most destructive doctrine of eternal torment has produced more infidels than any other. Terrorist religion.

Apostate Protestant. Most of these are just daughters of the Catholic Church (Revelation). Some of them really heap on the hellfire and brimstone. If you're not baptized into their club, you will suffer the last plagues and then burn in hell forever. This is all just confused misinterpretations of Scripture. The Bible says the righteous will endure the everlasting fire (God is). The wicked will be as ashes under our feet. God destroys the wicked ultimately. He is not a terrorist though.

Why all these religions with all their adherents? Most of them were started or distorted by someone. It's always been easier for people to believe in a man. If we would just read the Bible for ourselves we would all pretty much be on the same page. Anyone with a 5th grade education can read Genesis and the Ten Commandments. Why do we need a "Doctor of Divinity to tell us why it aint so? If you get off track with the basics there you will wander. This is why there are over 1200 Christian denominations. Everything, especially our interpretation of the Bible has to be built on the Rock of Ages. Jesus was and is the embodiment of that Law. He gave us the Ten Commandments and had them placed in the Ark between the Cherubim. The holiest place in the Holy of Hollies. In the heavenly sanctuary, His dwelling place is between the Cherubim(Psalms). The Law of God represents Him and His character. When He comes back He says to most people, "I never knew you, depart from Me, ye that practice Lawlessness."
There's only one true religion, "Sola Scriptura", anything else is man made religion. There's only one Book that claims God (the creator) as it's author.
Now you know what's wrong with the world, and the solution. " You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." "Sanctify them by Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth."

Voluntary Simplicity

Do You Need to be Poor?

"Godliness with contentment is great gain."

I was just reading about George Washington. George means "earth worker," something like geography or geologist. After 6 years of distinguished military service, he went back to farming for 16 years. When the war broke out in 1775 - well, you know the story. He was the principal player in "turning the world upside down" at that time. After the war he wanted to go back to his farm. Instead, he was the only President who was unanimously elected by the electoral college. The same thing happened 4 years later. He received 100% of the electoral votes for a second term. The whole world was watching to see if he would give up his position of power. After the war, King George III, wondered what Washington would do next. When he heard rumors that he would return to farming. He commented, "If he does he'll be the greatest man on earth." Washington refused to run for a third term and went back to his farm.

Some time ago I read "The Short History of Mexico," which recorded one bloody regime after another. Always someone starting another revolution to save the people from the aristocracy. Then when things got tough the new general or monarch would plunder the treasury and split.
In Washington's farewell address in 1796 he advised Americans not to get involved in the bloody endless wars of Europe. Washington and the "Founding Fathers" created, in a miraculous way, the "Greatest nation the world has ever known, whose Constitution is the brightest star that's ever shown." Jimmy Driftwood, Songs of the Civil War.

Earlier I mentioned the song, "Turned the world upside down." A song they played at that time. How is it that our little 13 colonies of New England, defeated the greatest power on earth?
I could go on about many great people in the past who were poor. Small and insignificant, but they had principle. They had talent. They were strong, and their poverty prepared them for the time when they would establish the course of history. Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Martin Luther, Frances Drake, John Paul Jones, Abe Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Einstein, the World War 2 boys who grew up in the "Great Depression", etc. The question is, "Do you need to be poor?" Abraham Lincoln said, "I'm not so concerned with your failure, as I am with how content you are with it."

I think all of the great people in history experienced serious setbacks and failures. Washington actually lost many more battles than he won. The important thing was, he persevered, he didn't give up. That reminds me of the lines from the Revolutionary War song "Soldier's Joy." "Here comes General Washington, He's got his horse and his sweeping run. The barefooted boys are begging to fight. And we're gonna cross the Delaware River tonight." Sometimes I think about my own history. I've been so frustrated. All of my vigilance and extra work produced nothing but starvation. All of my grand ideas and ideals have eluded me. Some people, everything they touch turns to gold. Reminds me of that Merle Haggard song. "In the good old days when times were bad. No amount of money could buy from me, the memories that I have of them. No amount of money could pay me to go back and live through it again."

Why must we learn the hard way? I've told my kids, "The worst thing that could happen would be for you to find a permanent, full time, guaranteed, stuck in a rut job! Where you have total security and faith is not required." Of course, then they all go off to college to do just that. The truth is I have never discouraged them from going to school, and it doesn't really matter as long as they remember that Dad is always right!

The fact is, God is just waiting to bless people. He has "... a thousand ways of providing for us of which we know nothing." E.G.W. So, back to the question. Why do we need to be poor? Why can't we all be rich? Why is there suffering and starvation? The answer lies in this not so old saying, "True success is exactly proportionate to how much we love the truth." The truth is; what most people would spend their money on if they had it, is vanity. Endless things to buy, with no concern for the unfortunate. Who ever attains the most idols wins? Newer houses, cars, trucks, and toys. More vacations, savings, and fancy food. The fact is, wherever the truth flourishes the poor are taken care of. This is God's character, the second tablet of His Law.

The reason most people need to be poor is that they have no self control. The reason they have no self control is that they only think of themselves. The more people have, the less likely they are to even talk to you, if you are poor. The truth is, we think we are pursing our great standard of living, but the Natives, the aboriginal people had a higher standard of living than we will ever know. We have mistaken laziness and luxury and comfort for a true lifestyle and an honest days work.