bierkergaard

Now that the time has been adjusted an hour earlier, I can see the two giant wind turbines in the distance atop of Turkey Hill again as I descend daily for my commute to work. Here is the funny and odd thing. Every time I look, they are not moving. At all. Ever. As I did my crack investigation, I found out that they are not operational yet despite looking good to go. Always good to check the facts. Ah, the metaphor. Scripture knowledge is both structural and spiritual. The structure need to be built and enlivened by the Spirit. People these days talk about being spiritual but their spirituality is akin to a gust of wind that blows stuff around the neighborhood--garbage cans, leaves, toys, and trash--aimlessly. Have "faith in faith" kind of thinking. No objective, just subjective. The idol is flatulent tolerance. Others have the structure of religion...solid, immovable, like a rock...dead. The wind blows and blows and that rock ain't going anywhere...the pew like Pilgrim...

The term "Too Big To Fail" is an interesting and paradoxical saying. Usually bigness connotes strength and power. To be in danger of failing usually means weakness and powerlessness. So how is it, in our age, that power and powerlessness are embodied in the same institutions, like AIG, Wall Street firms, and automakers? Like this verse in Daniel shows, with a weak foundation, everything else is weak. "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay." -- Daniel 2: 31-33 (KJV) The lower one goes, to first things and founding principles--the feet, the weaker it gets. The conceit of this saying is that somehow we think we can keep these institutions from failing...backed by the biggest failing instituion...

Last night at our neighborly monthly Bible Study/Dinner get-together, we got in a discussion about truth, or Truth with a capital "T." Everyone believes in small "t" truth. Much more of a challenge to convince people that Truth exists beyond our own subjective perceptions...scholarly term for this is Constructivism. Someone mentioned, in reference to a difficult situation involving a lot of people, that these individuals had to learn "to stand up for themselves." I challenged her to rethink this. I said that we have to learn to stand up for Truth, not ourselves. I said that Truth is a warrior. Too often, when we stand up for ourselves it falls into the "me-first" mentality, look out for # 1, etc. When we stand up for Truth, we put ourselves under its banner and also accept the duty that this entails...for the Truth, like a sword, cuts both ways. We must let it does its work on and in us too. This can hurt, but it heals. Satan is called ...

Just finished a plate of eggs and it got me thinking... When I was a kid, my mom alternated between hot cereal and eggs for breakfast. Eggs were thought to be so-so nutritionally...some good, some bad. The cholesterol was presented as the major downside. So my mom, the daughter of a nutritionist, followed this plan for years. I appreciated her mindfulness. Yet, like most conventional wisdom, time has shown that nutritional advice to be not so wise. Eggs are nutritional powerhouses . More yet...they contain a large proportion of what is termed "good" cholesterol vs. "bad" cholesterol. Of course, there is a limit to how much of them we should eat daily, but for the price, there is hardly a better kind of food out there. I disagree with the last link on one point: I do think free range chicken eggs are healthier and more nutritionally vibrant....all I can say is that I have seen and tasted the difference. It is almost scary how deep a yellow organic eggs are. Jesus s...