bierkergaard

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. I did buy myself a gift of sorts for Christmas. Buying for oneself certainly diminished the surprise side of the equation but most definitely enhance the welcomeness of the gift. I suppose that buying a blender as a gift is not exactly toy-like. It is utilitarian. Sort of more like socks. Now, socks in a high-powered blender (350 HP) could be toy-like. Temporarily. Until I fried the motor. Cuisinart is the brand. Usually make good and dependable stuff. I do think that it is wise to not crush ice in this bad boy...the reviews online consistently said that was not a good idea despite the claim on the box to "crush ice." Might as well grind up rocks.   I have never ever been a vegetable dude. For years, I have been drinking V-8 with green powder (an extract of many veggies and the like) and taking a multi-vitamin and hoping this cove

When Michael Vick looks at his team, his Eagles , that's what he sees. "When I look at our football team and what we have on paper, I think about when I was growing up and the great San Francisco 49er teams, the great Green Bay Packer teams, and the great Dallas Cowboy teams, how they just positioned themselves to compete and be one of the best teams out there," Vick said. "I think we have a chance to be that. I think we have a chance to develop a dynasty." Yikes, the Eagles got totally pounded by the Giants in the last game of the season, ending with a record of 4-12, with the first three wins being at the beginning of the season. It makes the Michael Vick's quote from the this last summer even more suspect. Sure, there were injuries. More significantly and sorrowfully, Andy Reid's son died at training camp. Crystal balls have a way of shattering when life happens. Michael Vick has been beat up enough this year, quite literally. So, I am not he

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world." “We can shoot rockets into space but we can't cure anger or discontent. ” John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent My Dad was delving into an explanation of this Shakespeare inspired quote on Christmas night. My Dad is a well-read dude and in listening to him, I learn a lot. Like downloading knowledge. Doing a bit of research, I discovered that this quote had been turned into a title for a book by John Steinbeck--his last novel published in 1961. The novel looks intriguing and was apparently Steinbeck's broadside against the "Greed is Good" mantra of the American Dream. Or maybe it was a surgical skewering. Although I don't believe in the biblical office of Prophet is operational any more (for Christ has come), I do believe people can be prophetic. Steinbeck's words seem to fall into this sense of things. Do you

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the store, the merchants and customers were screaming, "More, more, more." On Christmas Eve Day, I was watching a little TV. Several commercials from retailers were touting their after Christmas sales. I think there should be moratorium on such ads. I understand first mover advantage, but it seems unholy to market such a sale before the after on a holiday like Christmas. Let Christmas be that one celebration where the day stands alone, not trammeled underfoot for what comes after. Several years ago, my extended family went from buying gifts for each other, to buying one gift for one person in a present exchange, to no gifts for anyone besides the kids. I do purchase gift cards for the children but my own personal gift count take this year was zero. Nothing at all.  My presents appear to be in the past. I am OK with that because I find not participating in the commercial side of Christmas creates room for spiritual reflectio

Matthew 25:23 "The master said, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together!' Yesterday, I was out around 7:30 am for my four mile jog. It was in the mid-30's temp-wise. I wear shorts with no sweatpants, so I have to keep moving lest I freeze from the feet up. I was coming to the close of my route, I saw that there was an envelope out in a yard. It look unopened from the distance. As I passed by, my conscience told me to turn around, as I suspected something was awry. I trotted up the lawn and indeed it was an unopened envelope; it was MIA from a mailbox. It looked like a Christmas Card with one of those letters of the year in review folded inside. The sending address was on the outside so I broke Federal Law and opened up the mailbox without authorization and deposited the letter inside and went on my way. I know that the ac

Proverbs 25:13 As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to him that sent him, for he refresheth his soul. When I moved, I lost the my CD Bon Iver's "For Emma, Long Ago." For the uninitiated, this album is already a classic. Bon Iver is an Ebonics-like transliteration and pronunciation of the French term for "Good Winter." There is a huge back-story on this work that you can Google. No need to restate what is already out there. I want to mush the sled dogs of my thoughts into new snow. Being that this is the first winter in seven that I am not heading out to California, I am truly hoping for a "Good Winter." This somehow sounds like a mash-up between Charlie Brown's "Good Grief" and Narnia's "Always winter, never Christmas" negation. Being Nordic, I love the winter. But, I only love it if I can get warm. Pure cold is not cool without some heat.   I debated buying another CD of the w

Let Rome keep her noise, the arena of its atrocities, the circus its follies, the theater its revels . Jerome (342-420) Ancient Rome, imperial Rome, descended into decadent entertainment as a way of life. Or more accurately, death. And this was Before Cable. B.C. Historical rerun of Rome here in the old USA. As we witness the twilight of our Civilization, on the edge or ruin or redemption, which way the moral winds blow will determine our destination. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I try to resist the goods the world sells. Satan Inc. wants us to be grounded in what is passing away. It is easy to get cynical. Non-believers relish deconstructing the Faith. I can also lower the wrecking ball on our culture's Idols. It is like bowling from ten feet away. Can't miss. It doesn't take a Ph.D. What our day needs is hope, real hope. Our culture specializes in the snarky, being clever about the irrelevant, or more seriously, dismissive of the holy and sacred.  Hope

The NRA has made its statement on guns. Mo' guns, mo' better. There is a truth in this, sort of. Guns are creators of inequality in the most brutal calculus possible. I have bullets, you don't. I win. Ask the Native American how he felt being on the losing side of that equation. If everyone had guns, there would be only a questions of whose gun would be more lethal, whose hand was more steady, whose eye was sharper, and whose heart was colder. But, everyone still would have a shot no matter what was in the hand. The first shot has the edge because one bullet can do the job. I have heard the argument that guns in Colonial and Constitutional times were muskets and the 2nd amendment was based on this inefficiency . But, this was the common gun of both government and the citizen. If the government has Uzis, and the citizen has a 22 rifle, there is an inequality, and vice-versa. Yet, as a Christian, I ask is this piece of dirt that we call Earth worth fighting for? I heard

2nd Sam 1:26 I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. The last couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of hanging out with brothers. My own, three brothers, and two brothers. The latter two sets I have known since college. My biological brother, since birth. I really appreciate being granted a place in other families' brotherhood. It is an honor. We can tease each other, bust each others chops, have thoughtful conversations, do cool stuff, laugh, and have fun. We got each others' backs too. That is the most important thing for sure. In an often indifferent world that is sometimes out-and-out bad news, loyal brothers are better than a million dollars in the bank. I will take people over paper any day. The verse above has been seriously misused by those trying to build the biblical case for a sexual relationships man-to-man. There is no evidence in the text or elsewhere in Scri

John 15:15 But I have called you friends Moving back to the townhouse was a bitter pill to swallow. The one thing that made it easier getting down was the prospects of being reunited with my wood pellet stove. It has laid dormant like a Cicada for the last 7 or so years. My tenants weren't keen on it for various reasons. Thus, my first weekend back, I fired it up. I noticed a telltale sign of it working was missing. The sound of the venting mechanism exiting the smoke to outside. I looked as to why it was this way and I discovered that one of my previous tenants has removed the fuse, rendering the unit inoperable, and the fuse was nowhere to be found. The townhouse got rather smoky until the pellets stopped burning. 90% of the unit worked except the critical 10%. Sweet! I called an electrician friend of mine to see if he wanted the work and he never called back. A week later I just happened to mention me treating my home like a BBQ to a guy at Church that I don't kno

Saturday morning, I could barely get out of bed. My lower back was in severe spasm. How bad did my back hurt? When I felt an urge to sneeze, I suppressed it. The thought of the sneeze reflex working its way through my back promised inestimable pain. Like being tasered. Usually when my back goes out, I can trace a cause and effect. Lift the beer fridge by myself, my back hurts. This time, no such antecedent. As far as I know, this back problem came out of nowhere like a mauling bear. I still went to New York City anyway. My buddy was preaching yesterday to a crowd of Ghanaian immigrants and others in Yonkers, NY, and said that I looked like Frankenstein walking down the streets of Brooklyn all stiff and slow-moving 6'8" of me, with women and children screaming and running the other way.That got a good laugh, although I don't particularly relish being called a monster. I did start calling him Master afterwards. Typically, I don't have these problems and the last

Matthew 20:22 But Jesus answered by saying to them, "You don't know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?" "Oh yes," they replied, "we are able!" I was never much of a coffee drinker in my 20's and 30's. Beer is another story. Despite times of abstinence from alcohol for periods of time, for various reasons, coffee is a fairly late development in my beverage agenda. Now, coffee in the a.m. daily, beer or other spirits, generally only on the weekend. So, I drink much more coffee weekly than alcohol. Don't want to become a barfly. But even my coffee drinking is generally moderate: 6 ounces or so daily but strong. I had purchased some Starbucks Christmas Blend on my way out to Pittsburgh a couple of week ago over Thanksgiving and have been drinking it down. But, I have come to the conclusion that it is much too bitter and burnt for me. My progression from crap coffee, to Star

In light of the shooting in Connecticut, questions of meaning, morality, and mortality, come forth. Tragedy is not easily assuaged. Discussions of justice take a profoundly serious turn. Many question God's goodness and as well they should. As a Christian, I take trust that God decided to create the Universe despite what has happened. Evil, pure evil, shows its face. Temporal justice, like taking out the killer, shows the human setting of the scales aright is quite miniscule. Osama authorizes the destruction of thousands and we talk as if we settled the score in a Pakistani safe house. Not so. Osama would have to die four thousand times and then we would still be left with the loss of life. The atheist has no explanation except that annihilation is the fate of all, sooner or later. By bullets or too much bacon. The reincarnationist posits that Karma must do its work and that all who died are working out their destiny. Christianity does provide a hard truth that God is the ul

   When I think of the Christmas season, I see a consumerist wave washing across America. I dive under it and watch it wreck those who try to ride it to shore. So odd that we celebrate the birth of Christ by spending so much on stuff. Jesus, the one who warned us that our lives don't consist in the abundance of our possessions. Counter-cultural Jesus. Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas. I could care less that it is a holiday that is based on a Roman celebration. God redeems Pagan celebrations just like He redeems Pagans. But, the whole tit-for-tat gift-giving, (again) I could care less. A good gift is pretty cool, but most of the time a gift is something that I could have bought for myself without feeling obligated to another. Kids are a different story. Giving gifts, within measure, makes the holiday magic for them. Let kids have fun. They will be adults soon enough. But some parents spoil their children, not only diminishing the gifts, but themselves as gift-givers

Today, I calculated the cost differential between bagels and donuts. Donuts cost about half of what bagels do and are loaded with sugar. Sold! Donuts it is. Since I live in the land of Goy (that is non-Jew I think) good bagels are costly here. I spent close to 50 dollars on three dozen bagels on Friday for a faculty breakfast. There were spreads too but still. Costly. My church was having lunch today. It is great. None of us has an idea about what others are bringing. No pre-planning. Oh, how I have left that lands of Presbyterianism, not theologically but practically. It always works out. People bring cool foods. Today I had a homemade pumpkin cheesecake with chocolate frosting. Crazy good. So, I swung to Dunkin' Donuts that appear to be taken over by Indian proprietors. One of the Hindi ladies reminded me that I could call ahead with my order. You see, I made a run on the Creme  donuts. Not Boston Creme. White Creme. Boston Creme is like Canadian Bacon. I had to go with t

2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. For some personal reasons, I was thinking about rejection today. Rejected like garbage. I considered the rejection that many of us feel in various arenas: Family  - Feeling that we were not accepted and cared for in our families. Or ignored. Or doted upon (rejecting our independence). So hard to get it right. Be merciful on ones parents, what a responsibility that so few are prepared for. Our own marriages show us how hard it is, openly exposing our inadequacies.   Peers - Call it the middle school syndrome. While not as raw as middle school, we all want to fit in and be accorded admiration and affection by our peer group; the wounds of middle school and high school can last a lifetime, known as "the best years of your life." Huh? We only think they were always the best after time has dulled the pain. Work - We strive to have employment that is b

2nd Kings 2:23 & 24 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. I have been growing my hair out. On my head, not just my ears. At almost 50 years of age, my hair grows profusely out of both places. Some odd mix of retained youth and encroaching middle age. Even as of a couple of days ago, I was intent to become hippie-like  and let the locks grow on and on. I was getting Shaggy and all I needed was Scooby-Doo. I was thinking Rasta, trying to look more spiritual and non-conformist. Guru-like. Or at least George Harrison. Caused me to reflect on those men in the Bible who had long hair. Absalom, whose locks got caught in a tree branch leading to his death by the sword and Samson whose s

On Friday night, my buddy came over and we went to get some dinner and a beer. After supping, we headed over to a local tobacco shop down in Columbia. As a result of him buying two cigars there earlier in the day, he was now a member of the smoking room club and all the privileges therein. Not exactly exclusive. It is a well-ventilated room with no carpet or fabric to retain smoke residuals. There was a well-lit fake Christmas Tree with cigar box presents underneath. Hint. Hint. Christmas shoppers. My buddy whipped out two cigars, one for him and one for me. My cigar was so dark it looked like the wrapper was made of tree bark. From the first puff or two, I knew it wasn't for me. It too heavy, me too much of a cigar lightweight. But I smoked on. I didn't want to disappoint my generous friend. Maybe it was that we were in this self-contained room. Even though it was well-ventilated, I felt like I was being suffocated slowly and softly, a smoke pillow. When I do smoke a c

This afternoon, I made my seasonal run to COCTCO. It roughly corresponds to summer, fall, winter, and spring, with maybe another visit or two thrown in. I mean it is macro-shopping. I am not a shopper by nature so I really like the once-and-done for three months vibe. I do hit the local grocery store when I only need one of something and not a twelve-pack. Like Tabasco. Or eggs, something fresh. But for meats and the like, my steer have a big "C" burned on their hide. When I came home, I prepared to unload. My trunk was packed in the Honda Civic. No bags or boxes. Au Naturel. Then, I grabbed my laundry hamper and carried the quarry inside over and over again. An easy way to be green. Nary a bag. I reflected how much of a blessing it is to be able to go to a store in an afternoon and carry home more food than my ancestors might obtain in a year. Amazing. Then, as I was eating the COSTCO faux sushi (hey, it is whole plate for ten bucks), I poured two glasses of cold wate

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. We have all heard the statement that "Pride comes before the Fall." When we are looking with our nose up in the air sniffing at how great we think we are, a rock of reality lurks in our way below on the path we trod. Since we lack a circumspect spirit step-wise, we trip and fall. I don't want to act as is if I am free of this. But how about when pride also comes after the Fall? We are down and rather admit how we found ourselves there, the proud spirit still wants to defend itself, blame-shift, and attack others. A wounded pride is like a wounded animal. Proceed with caution. It bites. We are down and stay down, all the while still acting all high and mighty. Only God can be high and mighty. When man tries to be God, he is more the Devil. In human conflict, it is true enough that it often not so clear about who is right in wrong. In most conflict, each party has a measure of both.

Acts 4:12 "There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved." It has become increasingly complex to manage all of my online accounts in regards to passwords. Where there are payment issues, I have really diversified what the passwords are so that one security leak does not become a river of ruin. But then it becomes an issue of needing to store all of those passwords in external realities which are most definitely not my brain. So, I have taken major evasionary steps to obscure access to such information. Doubt the sin nature? Don't. Industrious and wicked individuals and entities have no conscience in draining your accounts to zilch. Some evil in the world is done with an attempt to rationalize it as a necessary sacrifice to a greater good. I have to think abortion is at the top of that list. Keeping an unprepared women from motherhood, so that she still has choices, is that type of thinking. I really doubt P

Psalm 117:91 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. When we think of gifts, we imagine cool stuff, wrapped in shiny happy paper, and tied with a bow. Under the tree. Very few think of gifts as painful...they wouldn't really be gifts then. We can get bad gifts but the worst thing that can happen is that we put it in a closet, trash can, or do the dreaded re-gifting. Bad gifts don't typically inflict pain unless their is a sadist Santa in your life. I actually met someone recently whose Dad's loves fruitcake. Now, that is a sick gift. You'd think our gifts would make us appreciate the greatest gift-giver of all: God. He who has given us breath and life, the remarkable opportunity of existing.  Yet, if we bring strength to strength, our intelligence can lead us astray from having a mind for God. We believe in our intellectual emanations not based on divine wisdom. If we are powerful physically and enjoy good health, God's call

I first had Vietnamese food about 8 years ago. Like a girl, I wanted to ask it where it had been all of my life. The restaurant was a small place across from the movie theatre where a church was meeting up in Harrisburg. I generally like all Asian food...Korean, Thai, Japanese (sushi), Cambodian, and authentic Chinese (especially Szechuan), yet find Vietnamese my favorite. Although I had a Malaysian dish down in Philly one time, a deep fried yam stuffed with beef and peanuts, that was food fit for a god. One of the guys I was eating dinner with kept moaning, in a low almost inaudible tone, his pleasure with his dish.    Vietnamese cuisine is fresh and non-greasy, not sugared up like American Chinese. Through the resettlement of Vietnamese people by churches in Central Pennsylvania a couple of decades ago, some Vietnamese people decided to stay rather than head west to California to places like Little Saigon in Southern Cal. I am so glad they stayed. It adds color and culture and

Luke 10:40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving; and she came up to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister did leave me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. John 12:2 So they made him a supper there: and Martha served; but Lazarus was one of them that sat at meat with him. Let's use the word cumbered tomorrow during our Thanksgiving festivities. Let's! Man, I could lick the screen that Turkey looks so good! These two verses fascinate me and show a maturity in Martha...from a one who is cranky to one who serves willingly and joyfully. Like a raw turkey that has been cooked to maturity. Although biblical timelines are often hard to nail down, the story retold in John 12:2 is clearly later. It is post raising Lazarus from the dead, and Jesus is soon to go to the Cross. Martha serves without a peep of complaining. In the first verse, I could hear her squawk, "Hey, the blankety-blank Butterball ain't going to cook itself

Friends gave me an iron skillet. It reminds me of the one we had as kids. Could knock out a charging Great Dane with one swing. For several years, I used non-stick Teflon pans. Then, thought better of it. Who knows what they were leaching. Then, I used a steel pan with Pam spray but then considered that I was probably ingesting whatever caused food not to stick on the pan. It was some nasty sounding compound. Not food-based. So, I made a full circle back to the skillet. Now, I used butter or olive oil to grease the pan down. A particularly cool feature about an iron skillet is that the whole pan gets hot when it sits on the stove. The thing conducts heat very efficiently. One of the features of it getting hot, is that it kills the microbes that might be lurking in the pan so it is not necessary to wash the pan after every use. Just wipe it clean and let it sit on the burner for a good thirty seconds on high before cooking the next dish and bugs be gone. It saves all the washin

I know that I am probably the 5000th person who draws a parallel between King David and former CIA Director/Decorated US General David Petraeus. A moment of temptation becomes a millennium or more of regret. We can trace Israel's current troubles to the split in the Davidic reign when he glanced at Bathsheba and pursued her rather than averting his eyes. Adultery and murder followed, and the sword has not departed from the house. According to news accounts, Petraeus and his biographer mistress--another Army veteran--bonded over running along the Potomac. Maybe it started innocently. The title of the book, "All In" certain has a salacious and suggestive and Freudian-like double-entendre meaning in retrospect. I have to imagine one of the first lessons the military imparts to recruits is that letting your guard down is dangerous. When I worked with juvenile offenders--in a system that had a military-like discipline and code--a key principle of maintaining the unit wa

The above photo is a pictured-framed compendium of my family Christmas pictures from 1962 to the late 90's. It was a gift from my mom, the keeper of Christmas pictures, to all four boys when she left the family home in Pennsylvania to move to Florida. A closure I suppose. When I was moving the other week, I contemplated throwing it out. It was big and bulky, the covering glass weighing about 15 pounds. Maybe that is an exaggeration, but with its size--and what the pictures represented psychologically--the thing felt like it weighed a ton. A pictorial ball and chain. Despite all of the happy smiles, there is a lot of pain in the pictures. Me, a premature baby, early pics of the family life that was far from ideal, my teen years of tumult, and young adulthood in all of its lack of polish. I don't like who I am in a lot of the pictures. Looking at it often in past caused sharp jagged pain in my soul. The framed pictures spent the last 6 years in the shed out back at the previ

We have all heard the maxim, "Curiosity killed the cat." Visions of cats electrocuting themselves by biting through extension cords, falling out of trees onto hard concrete from forty feet and not landing on their feet but instead on their heads, and getting smashed by cars while toying with a dead mouse on the road, come to mind. I don't know the leading causes of accidental deaths among the feline class but the saying of curiosity being a sometimes deadly thing with cats surely is based on a tragic history. I just used my imagination to envision a curious cat coming to his end through deadly inquisitiveness. It is appointed once unto a cat to live and then comes the judgment. No nine lives (re-in-cat-nation?) for either cats or people. Although, I think the live nine lives refers to a cat who should have died after doing something stupid but escaped the claws of the reaper through dumb luck, maybe losing a paw or an eye through a misdeed, but living to mew another

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Now that the election is over, and I saw the Obama victory coming--it is like a board game--we can look back and see where Mitt Romney went wrong. This video and audio was a big blow. If Romney can't explain to the American electorate (especially this 47%) why free markets are better than gover

Well, this week I felt sort of Amish-like. No Internet/cable on the computer. Not quite technically correct. I had my iPhone which acted like an umbilical cord to the  Big Mama Web. 3GS, kept me from experiencing Tech D.T.'s (Delirium Tremens).  It is good to disconnect at times. Though it feels as if the world is passing me by without even a look back. Moving is a pain in so many ways, and getting connected at the new/old domicile was one of them. Not life-threatening, though I do use the web for more than just posting what I had for lunch. I do work, like writing this blog (semi-work because I dream of being an author), school-related tasks--doing two presentations in this next week or so--where I need access to my laptop and Internet, as well as going back and forth with my editor on my book on the college transition.  Great news, he actually thinks that the last two chapters are good. Could be better but good. That is fantastic because thus far, until now, it was thumbs-d

Ecc 3:11 It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people's minds. Yet, mortals still can't grasp what God is doing from the beginning to the end [of time]. With the ensuing move from my current domicile, I packed away most of my possessions yesterday with the plan to start moving everything pronto. Then, I was informed that the tenant in my future residence has not yet vacated. The month notice, legal in nature and several follow up phone calls, apparently failed to impress the current tenants. Legal action uttered by the Property Manager has unstuck the matter. Thus, I have a garage full of goods, my regular coffee is buried in the rubble. I resorted to Plan B. I bought some already ground Peet's Uzuri African blend yesterday afternoon. Uzuri means beautiful in Swahili as you can read above. For the coffee novices out there, Peet's Coffee, was the inspiration for Starbucks. The characteristic deep roa