Have you ever learned something about God without even going to church? I know God ( Or higher power, or whatever your truth is…)can be a scary subject, especially for me.
I was taught, and wrongly by the way…that God was like this all knowing, hide behind your back waiting for you to do wrong strike you down with a thunderbolt kind of God…which co-incidentally was very much like the way my so called “father” came across.
This yelling, screaming, so called “God” that I was supposed to shiver in fear in front of and OBEY.
I think God is much more than that
I just had the best lesson on God that I have ever had, and I didn’t even go to church this Sunday. (I usually do- I’m a big time church goer.)
A real journey for me started a year ago as I was checking out things on the internet.
I stumbled across this gem. (I bet Paul would beg to differ. God, as they say, is in EVERYTHING. Even in a kiss.
And off I go on a tangent from …
“The Count Of Monte Cristo”…
“Mercedes: I don't know what dark plan lies within you. Nor do I know by what design we were asked to live without each other these 16 years. But God has offered us a new beginning...
Edmond: God?
Mercedes: Don't slap His hand away.
Edmond: Can I never escape Him? “
Mercedes: No, He is in everything. Even in a kiss.
(my point is…no matter how dramatic I am being here…You can’t escape God…( higher power, nature, whatever;p)HAHA! (You have to know my sense of humor is pretty twisted, I have an Atheist for a best friend:p)
Ok…back to the Back To Eden movie:p This is what changed everything I believed about gardening, and the proof is in the pictures of my garden this year. (I’ll post some pictures later in here…
As I watched this Back To Eden movie, I saw how wood chips retained moisture and how Paul doesn’t even WATER his plants.
The only thing that kinda put me off was how many times he said “that reminds me of a scripture” comment over and over…I mean how many times in a day do I say that? NEVER:p (Weeeeeeeell, sorta:p) I am religious, but I don’t wear it on my sleeve like that.
I have a garden, and I thought, ok, this year, I’ll put wood chips down before winter on my garden, and see what happens next year when I plant.
Fast forward to next year… (My garden...I'm going to work on more space in my 1/3 acre yard to put more chips down...and all I have to do is get paper from home depo and then put wood chips over it...NO TILLING!)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4821167820945&set=a.1697876220607.76706.1648943355&type=1&theater
I am absolutely AMAZED how rich my soil is now (It used to be the site for a pool with gravel from the last owners) and my plants I have from this year’s garden? They are like giants that have taken over. They are HUGE!
I found out not much later that he gives tours on Sundays at 2:30, so I thought…why not learn from the horse’s mouth? He lives in Washington, and so do I, so I planned the trip to his place months in advance, and waited.
The minute I got to his place a kind of peace washed over me. I saw that Paul was showing people around his apple orchard, which is amazing by the way. The trees are loaded to capacity with apples. Completely weighed down by the fruit.
(Paul and his apple tree orchard)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4816075013628&set=a.1697876220607.76706.1648943355&type=1&theater
(Paul and his apple tree orchard)
Its covered in wood chips which keeps everything moist.... he doesn't have to water it at all...
Paul is very much like a preacher and talks like one, but it didn’t bother me like I thought it would. I was immediately put at ease, which to someone like me who was told from birth almost that I have to sit down and shut up is really saying something that I felt like I did.
He is amazingly humble and loving (even towards complete strangers like me) there is a beautiful peace at his home that I attribute to his lifestyle and the way he looks at nature, and especially God. The words that come out of his mouth are all about the love of God and though I have heard those words before, it was somehow made new in the way he expressed it. I never FELT the love God has for me the way that it felt when Paul spoke of it. There was no agenda, Paul does this all for free, sharing his abundance with complete strangers, telling us all to just grab whatever we wanted, asparagus (juiciest EVER) cilantro, fennel(the sweetest I have ever tasted) lettuce, raspberries, and a ton of other things I am leaving out.
He’s like a modern day John the Baptist without all the water in jeans and a t shirt:p
He gave us all kinds of advice…things I would have never thought of, like when you put wood chips over strawberries in the winter the new growth comes up and the old dead strawberries become the mulch. He doesn’t even TILL. I didn’t till last year, and my ground is AMAZING now, when before it was cracked and dry… Good thing we didn’t get a tiller, it would just be sitting there by now.
The way that Paul found out about wood chips and how much it helps in the garden is that where he lives there isn't as much water... through God and looking down at a forest while talking to God he found out how God keeps the forest as it is without watering... and it is so simple! It’s just wood chips! Paul stuck his hands deep into the soil in the woods, and realized that under the covering of the forest, was the best soil of all. And God was in it all, and he knew it.
I think in life so many things are simple... we make them complicated when it doesn't have to be...
Paul said that God has given us all these coverings for plants, and instead of using it, we get rid of it, kill it with pesticides,(Which ultimately HURTS us.) and we take everything that God gives us and literally throw it away instead of having an open mind.
Way up there high in the sky God must be going “WHAT???”
Then Paul talked about the animals and the earth how they all follow God.
He said Men are the only ones to ruin it with what we do… to kill weeds and to spray plants with chemicals and he talked about how we are hurting the earth and hurting ourselves with the pesticides...
The animals don’t do that.
He said animals listen to God, and they are completely in harmony with God, but the only creature that doesn’t listen to him and keep an open mind is US.
He said even slugs have a reason for living in God's world... (By this time I was captivated…I HATE slugs with a passion:p)
He had been frustrated and was seeing slugs eat a plant. God said “Wait”. And he was thinking
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WAIT!!!!THEY’RE EATING MY PLANTS”!!! BUT he waited and didn’t do anything to the slugs…and looked for the lesson…and suddenly he saw that…They were only eating sick plants… SO…Slugs are Gods way of getting rid of sick plants. He says that God put slugs there to get rid of diseased things because that’s the only things they eat... Pretty smart huh?
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WAIT!!!!THEY’RE EATING MY PLANTS”!!! BUT he waited and didn’t do anything to the slugs…and looked for the lesson…and suddenly he saw that…They were only eating sick plants… SO…Slugs are Gods way of getting rid of sick plants. He says that God put slugs there to get rid of diseased things because that’s the only things they eat... Pretty smart huh?
I never looked at it that way before.
Paul kept talking about God and calling him dad saying “when you have a question gardening or otherwise go ask your dad”. That God is the most loving father and wants to take care of us if we just keep our minds open and listen.. And then Paul would say…Are you listening? And just to make sure we WERE listening Paul said again…”Are you LISTENING”?
And then when I thought I couldn’t respect him more, I found out his wife is a midwife and a priestess.
(Yes, I DO believe that women can be priestesses. In my church we talk SPECIFICALLY about how women will be priestesses but that simple fact is completely ignored. Interesting how things can be right in our faces, yet we STILL ignore it. )
Paul told us a story of a place overseas where a woman was in labor...the baby came out with the cord wrapped around its neck. Everyone was freaking out and all his wife had to do was take the cord gently ,reach up and unwrap it up over the baby's head. The people were astonished... again, it's amazing to me how simple some things are and yet we make things harder than it has to be. Isn’t that so like we humans?
If a cord is wrapped around a baby’s neck next doctors automatically freak out and decide to do a cesarean instead of working with nature...not the way things were intended. Not the way God wants things to be done ... Paul said he believes women are just more spiritual in nature and naturally know when it comes to God what needs to be done, and that too many times men force their way.
The way Paul said things, it didn’t come out sounding preachy to me, but from someone humble who really wants to be a light to the world.
As he said (I hope I get this right) “He doesn’t do everything, God does all the work.” And he makes it easy if we just LISTEN.
Paul’s wife has said women were meant to have babies to be completely empowered by it, not taken down by it . Doctors take that power away from women with the things they do.
This is Carols Website...after looking at it for an hour or two and the pictures of husbands and wives in it together (inside a pool) I feel like I was ripped off going to a hospital having my daughter years ago.
I wish I would have known about something like this when I was pregnant years back. I totally would have done it.
The way Paul talks about women I sense that he has a respect for women that I’ve never seen before.
I’ve seen too many men in my past that just blow women off. Are you listening?;p
