It’s May now. But you probably knew that already. And each month I like to share some of my favorite interesting, though-provoking, encouraging, or enlightening articles that I came across the past month. Gleanings, if you will.
•As Parents Make More Baby Food, Industry Tries to Adapt
“Today, moms are 50 times more busy and don’t have the cooking skills that women did when we introduced baby food 80 years ago,” Mr. Boutelle said. “But the category is so bad that they’re going to the grocery and spending an afternoon boiling and cooking and filling jars and sealing them because they don’t like what’s on the shelf.”
•A Shift in the Homeschooling Movement
My heart has been heavy for the future of this movement. In recent months, the homeschooling community has been rocked by a couple of national scandals involving some of the best-known speakers/advocates of homeschooling in America. As a result, many families are struggling to find their sense of “True North.” Many feel angry, some hurt, others betrayed, and more confused.
I believe we are experiencing a shaking. That isn’t all bad. “And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Hebrews 12:27).
We’ve had some shifts before.
• (Round-Up) Now Found in Womens Breastmilk
If you are eating processed foods or foods from nearly any restaurant, odds are very high you are getting loads of this toxin, and if you are a pregnant woman, you may be passing them along to your unborn child via your baby’s placenta, umbilical cord, and in your breast milk. This is gravely concerning as there is mounting scientific evidence that Roundup may be even more toxic than DDT.
•Which side do you fall on? : The Great Milk Debate: Cow vs. Goat
•Is God Able to Provide For Another Baby?
The Scriptures are very clear that God will provide food and clothing for His people who walk in His ways and who trust Him. As believers, we do not live by what we see, but by faith in God’s living Word which cannot lie. It is an indictment to the church of God today that most “believers” do not believe. We have the same attitudes as the people who do not know God. Surely, we are a different people. We are a people who are saved by faith and now live by faith in His promises.
• North Country Farmer has written a rebuttal to an article ridiculously entitled
- “Praise God for GMO’s”
(Praise God for something He didn’t create?? What!? Guess we’ll praise Him that since He couldn’t get it right and create enough food efficiently that can feed all the people He created, that we have been able to infallibly make in a lab what He couldn’t in the beginning.)
Pittman takes the low road in his argument, never offering many sources or facts. His basic argument being that without GMOs people would starve to death.
Please read this rebuttal folks! We’re obviously going to have to address this issue among our own who don’t understand that we’re poisoning our babies in the womb- see above- (if we don’t kill them first!) because of the “good” that Monsanto is doing!
I’m feeling kind of feisty about this on so many levels. It bothers me both practically & spiritually. Stewardship of both body & earth, the curse, poor eschatology, the gullibility in believing self-serving studies done by the companies that stand to profit from them, socially in feeding the poor and understanding where to draw the boundaries in doing so…
It is NOT cheaper and more nutrient dense to eat a cheeseburger than it is to cook organically from scratch! By my calculations, our grocery budget would be 2 1/2 times HIGHER if we ate off the dollar menu (no drinks) at every meal. Practically speaking, this isn’t an issue of money. It’s an issue of education, laziness, and a preference to allow ourselves to be entertained to complacency and a willingness to let someone else take care of us. And lest anyone think that it’s easy for me to say that because we’re so well off, we’re not (in the worlds eyes- the blessing of the Lord IT maketh rich!). Considering our family size, we’re below the poverty level of one person working a full-time job on minimum wage would be.
I could go on. But sadly, I was too busy this morning planting seeds & seedlings, turning a chicken carcass into stock to use in our homegrown asparagus soup for tonights dinner, and snuggling & nursing my newest blessing of a baby daughter to have the time. You know. Feeding my family & learning lessons so that one day I might have the skills to help feed our neighborhood.
•Large Family Crisis Reduction
Life as the mother of many people has its challenges, but they do not have to be overwhelming. If we can keep certain keys in mind, we will finally be able to live productive, joyful, loving lives, no matter what circumstances we live under. These keys are:
•The Most Urgent Thing for Our Homeschooling Generation
In my mind, grass has one main purpose: it’s animal food. It is painful to drive around and look at all the wasted grass being cut and thrown away. Do you know how many animals we could raise to feed ourselves if we grazed our lawns? And the meat produced from grass-grazed animals is so much better for you than meat raised on corn and soybeans. So, as a solution to what I see as a combination of many problems, people around the country are now renting out their sheep to graze in individual yards. It’s a pretty neat idea: The sheep get to eat, and your yard gets mowed. Added bonus: your yard gets fertilized!
Where the danger lay for us and others in our position is that while we may clearly have seen God’s hand in our move, and did so with a desire to glorify Him, we can tend to lose focus over time. What generally happens is we begin to get so involved in the process of the move and change in our lives that we lose sight of the One that defines not only the place we are to be but also the means to getting there. We begin to do all we do in light of what it produces and neglect to stay focused on seeking and seeing God in all things.
• When Motherhood Feels Too Hard
• The Deliberate Agrarian: Snippet #22- Farm Story:Jerry Apps Documentary
Read or seen anything interesting lately around the web?
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