bierkergaard

Today was a bittersweet day. It was the end of our CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture). Weekly, from the late Spring until now, we have received a variety of organic vegetables and fruit. It was kind of a forced plan of buy now and eat later type of thing. Since we bought it, we would have to eat it...thus being healthier in our diet. Sadly, we sometimes could not keep up with the cornucopia and had to toss the food. One thing that did not go to waste? The beets...Lina loves beets. It wasn't inexpensive....$ 500 for the season. Eating organically is not a money saver over the short-term, yet I have to think that the Franken-food that we now eat as a culture costs us more than we realize. Today, I heard the projections in the not to distant future 1 in 4 Americans will be diabetic. Odd how prosperity itself can wind up being a curse. It is good to pray before we eat. It is also a good idea to pray about what we eat.

Last night I had the blessed opportunity to see Mike Roe from the 77's play at my home church. What a joy. Once, I drove down to Lexington, Kentucky, to a festival to see the 77's play during the Sticks and Stones tour over a weekend and that wound up being ill-fated on several fronts. Last night, the travel was considerably less tragic. Roe ruefully recounted how his name could be used in conjunction with a boat. So, he decided to strike back by doing a song called "Boat Ashore." Love this lyric: Crash me, wash me up on your shore Drifted way too far from my moorings and more Overboard the oars went Relentless was the roll Of the restless sea set me free from its treacherous shoals What was so sweet about the show is that he played really primal stuff from the 77's early work. As a new Christian in college, I found most Christian music totally goofy. I still remember playing the 77's album All Fall Down in my dorm room and digging it. Very few Christian b...

Mark Driscoll recently preached a sermon on Mary and Martha. Lina really got a lot out of it. My wife is an uber-Martha but she is trying to stopping being so Type A A (the second A stands for Asian, a culture that is dominant in Type A personalities). I am selectively Type A like at work, studies, or when I am brewing beer. Otherwise, I am pretty chill. So, my wife has instituted "Mary Time" every night to sit at the feet of Jesus. We are sort of in a transition with this as it does not come easy for my wife to not be task-oriented and in a doing-mode. Mary Time basically means taking time to read the Bible, journal, pray, and listen to sermons. I do mine early in the morning, Lina does hers later in the night. That's cool. But I can tell it is a struggle for Lina as I walked by her the other night during Mary Time and she was clipping coupons from Costco and then leafed through the Sierra Nevada Trading Post looking for boots. I just had to say something, "Good de...

We had an interesting discussion at Small Group Thursday night where we got on the topic of why many Christian young adults go astray after leaving the house. The prodigal is a pervasive pattern as to almost be the norm. As the one who works with teens, I was asked why I thought this was so common. Here is my take even though I haven't really researched it quantitatively and qualitatively officially but I have a lot of anecdotal evidence. I think these kids take God and grace for granted. Like it is a given. All us to this to one degree or another but it is truly a tragedy when a Christian teen decides to do a dirty dance with the devil. The naiveté is downright bizarre and awful. It is like watching a moth fly into the flame, as fast as possible. I work with a lot of non-Christian kids and many of them have been on the receiving end of sin's consequences, often through no fault of their own (besides being sinners in general, like all of humanity). One thing they really don...