Text by F. Y. Drum
Illustrations by Preston Drum
ISBN: 978-1-59948-566-0
164 pages, $15
About This Book
A Gardeners Devotion Book, is a resource for gardeners to use in preparation for the coming growing season. It is meant to be read in late winter, early spring, around the time of the Lenten season of the Church. As Gardeners we realize we are often exposed to the generosity of conditions and God’s will for our survival and growth in him. Through faith, grace, patience, and perseverance with God’s help, we bring forth fruit out of the vineyard of our lives. It is intended that this manuscript inspire and motivate you to take on the yoke of Christ through these daily devotions. It is an amazing world we live in as gardeners, and it is important that through knowledge and the wisdom of God, that we learn about our environment and strive to be good stewards of the land. He first loved his land. God saw that his creation was good. It is vital that we respond to God’s desire and take care of what he has given us. Through work and the sweat of our brows, we cultivate not only the soil but our souls for him. We hope this is your aspiration. Fellow gardeners it is our prayer that you be blessed by the words, illustrations, and ideas expressed here. We feel that, A Gardeners Devotion Book, will stimulate you to pick up your hoe, shovel, and tools preparing you to be a passionate follower of Christ.
About F. Y. Drum
F.Y. Drum was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 1960s. He lived in that southern city most of his life. He attended the Mecklenburg public school system there. Played basketball frequently when he was young and had a love for nature and the outdoors. He spent a good bit of time hiking the fields and woods about the Drum’s suburban home.
Yates was not a good student although he liked math. He wanted to be a math teacher among other ideas he entertained during his adolescence. Yates did not read much on the outside. He read about science and the Bible a lot of which was encouraged mainly by his mother who was a daughter of a Methodist minister. Enjoying heavier books like the Screw tape letters by C.S. Lewis and other types of philosophy was more to his liking. In Junior high school Yates found out he liked to write but, just did not like to write about the subjects they taught you in school. Yates would skip Spanish class and go write poetry in the library. That would not happen in today’s public schools. This baffled most of his teachers who looked for answers to help this child succeed. After graduating high school he went to the community college studied life sciences. He started an interior landscape company with his business partner. She became the mother of his first son Preston who did the pictures for the devotion book while working on his masters.
In 1986 moved to Clyde North Carolina where he went to Haywood Technical Institute and got a degree in horticulture ornamentals. The mountains are beautiful, but during this time he never forgot about Charlotte, his friends, and the life he had there. He had few contacts in Clyde because he was older than most of the students. He felt he was different from them having been exposed to parenting and relationships. Before leaving Charlotte he fell in love with a girl named June. They maintained a long distance relationship for two years till they married. He would go home to see her almost every week end because he loved her.
Moved back to Charlotte in 1988 where it was easy to find a job. Worked as a spray technician in the lawn care industry. He eventually got a job as a landscape laborer working for Davidson College. Thanks to his wife’s desire that her husband not spray pesticides. She wanted him to do something more professional with his knowledge of landscaping. Yates took the job even though it meant making less money. Mr. Drum has been working at the school for 25 years now.
In his second year at the school by sheer chance he met an English professor there name Brenda Flanagan who wrote Caribbean literature. She inspired Yates to stop writing second rate poetry and work on a novel. She became his creative editor. Soon after that he began work on Inkster at Merriman which has not been published yet. Mr. Drum has been working on his book for about 20 years. During this time Yates volunteered his time writing for the college in whatever projects came along when people needed a hand with something to gain experience as a writer.
June and Yates had his second son Gray in 1993 and moved to neighboring Gaston County in the Belmont community. In 2010 June died prematurely. Gray and Yates continue to live in Belmont where they call home. His son had a love of the Bible just as he did and he consumes it with great enjoyment. Then one evening Gray suggested that Yates write a devotion Book. Soon after that work began on A Gardeners Devotion Book. Yates finished the book in about a year and dedicated it to the memory of his late wife June. All profits from the book go to the June Drum Tool Fund to support the Landscape laborers of the college.
Photosynthesis compared to the Christian life
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
–Romans 12: 2
Photosynthesis is the process by which the plant converts water, carbon dioxide, and light into food which the plant can use for growth. It was discovered in the 1700s and worked on by many scientists. Jan Van Helmont’s observations of the mass of a potted plant led to the discovery. He noticed that the amount of soil in the pot changed very little while the mass of the plant seemed to come from water. He did not know about carbon dioxide. Two other eighteenth-century scientists happened to be ministers, Joseph Priestley and Jean Senebier. They also advanced the study of plant science. The process of photosynthesis today is still not totally understood. Different plants use different ways to do the chemical reaction. It is performed by simple microorganisms and complex plants which have chloroplast primarily in leaves. People have tried to estimate in metric tons the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide to biomass. Worldwide it has been compared to the total amount of energy used by human society and is estimated to be about six times that amount. This is an enormous amount of energy.
This is a complex chemical reaction. The process produces oxygen and energy-producing compounds called NADPH and ATP. There are two cycles plants use to do this: the reverse Krebs cycle and the Calvin cycle. By using these, plants can produce glucose and other compounds by its chemical factory. The generally accepted formula for photosynthesis is six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water when exposed to light yield the sugar C6 {carbon} H12{hydrogen] Oxygen six as a compound and six molecules of oxygen O2. Carbon dioxide plus an electron donor {water} exposed to light energy yield carbohydrate {sugar} and an oxidized electron donor. Some parts of this process occur in light while another part happens in darkness. Plants actually grow at night by a process called respiration. This reaction happens in a specialized cell organelle called a chloroplast. There may be ten to one hundred chloroplast in a plant cell. Chlorophyll is considered a pigment which gives plants their green color. Algae and diatoms can have different pigments to do photosynthesis and can use other gases like sulfur as an electron donor. These are considered more primitive organisms from when the earth may have had more sulfur in the atmosphere. There is evidence that this type of photosynthesis has been going on since 2450-2320 million years ago and still goes on in these organisms.
Then one day it changed, and water became one of the main compounds in photosynthesis. This may have happened around two billion years ago. Photosynthesis is the main source of oxygen in the atmosphere. This is sometimes referred to in science as the oxygen catastrophe. Water became the electron donor for the transformation.
Photosynthesis can vary in intensity depending on the quality of light. Some plants can even do this process by using infrared light. Temperature also is a factor. Generally the higher the temperature, the more sugar the plant makes. There is also a cutoff point at the high end of the temperature scale where the plant produces less photosynthesis. Some insects and mollusks use processes similar to photosynthesis. The oriental hornet vespa orietalis converts sun light to electrical energy. Some mollusks use green algae in their diet to survive solely by photosynthesis for several months.
So photosynthesis is a process by which the plant makes food for itself. It does so by the transformation of water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. How is this process similar to the point that Paul is trying to make in this passage in Romans? The word “transformed” in the Greek can be used and viewed as a process not a single event. The word metamorphoo met-amor-fo-o means to transform metamorphose change transfigure transform. The same word is used during the transfiguration in Matt 17:1-13. Verse 2 the word transfigured can be traced to the same word in the Greek. The transfiguration is also recorded in Mark 9:2-8. This word is used in 2 Cor 3:18. “And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” NIV. I like the word reflect in this passage. Just as the plant has a process to exchange chemical compounds the conversion of the Christian into the likeness of Christ is a transformation. It can happen quickly or over a long period of time. Some Christian may grow faster in areas of their lives where another person will be struggling. That is why we have the church so we can observe each other, minster to one another, and genuinely help each other, not condemn one another, but with love. Paul said to bare one another burdens.
I like the word reflect because it says we can be an exact copy. If you remember Christ said a servant is not greater than his master but he servant is liken unto him. And as we have talked about before Jesus speaks of his disciples as friends and he treated them as such revealing much to them that the masses may have distorted. I also like the passage from Corinthians where it says ever increasing glory. This suggests that this is an ongoing experience one that people change under. Not that we don’t put forth our best abilities to do the perfect will of God, but more that God realizes our humanness and he knows that we are going to make mistakes if we do not continue to focus on Christ like Peter wanting to meet Jesus walking on the water. Peter had the desire to be with his Lord, that was his true motivation and as long as that stays intact the focuser will be in good hands.
Paul’s plea to be transformed is like the plant making oxygen. The Christian is supposed to be the salt of the earth. We are to do this by the transformation of our minds. The mind is one way into the soul of a person. If our mind is not right as well as our heart to do the will of God which is perfect in his sight we cannot be effective people for God, but with God’s help even the imperfect can be turned into something that glorifies the Lord. Our Christian walk is an ongoing learning experience and when we stumble we must focus on him and get back up and start to fallow once again.
Thank you Lord for being a forgiving God who is understanding and Loves us all very much. We are precious in your sight oh Lord. Help us do your will and be a witness to those who have not been transformed yet. Help us lord though your son Jesus Christ.
