bierkergaard

Ah, Spring is here. How can I tell? A fly, the size of a gerbil with wings, was buzzing around the garage today. From there, these filthy creatures often get inside the house. And then I hunt them like Osama. So, the garage is where I make my stand like Afghanistan. Or Pakistan, to make the parallel reference correct. I get much too fired up about flies. Unlike terrorists, I shouldn't be so uptight about a fly in the house. I am usually pretty chill about most things but these flies really rattle me when they buzz around the domicile. Lina, my wife, finds it amusing, to see me so annoyed. Probably some psychological projection onto the fly of all of life's little irritants that buzz around my head perpetually which I am really in denial about.   I got in combat mode today, armed with my sandals, seeking to squash the fly like sandwich baloney, in the garage. And then it hit me. Why don't I just open the back door and let the winged nasty go out as it came in?  I mann...

The pastor of the church I attend, Veritas, posted this reflection on Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb Easter Sunday where she mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener (read Ryan's post then return to my blog. He says many things insightful). Here is the irony of it. Mary was wrong but she was also more right that she could ever imagine. Jesus, in his work on the Cross, reverses the consequences of the Fall, sin and death. The risen reality of Christ, overcoming the gravity of the grave. Those two words have to have the same origin (gravity and grave). Jesus is the gardener, one who dies like a seed in His humanity, bringing healing and growth to the barren nations of the world in his Deity. A cosmic gardener. Women traditionally, such as in Mother Nature, correspond analogically to the soil, the earth, the ground.   Ryan points out that in Jesus's time, a woman's testimony was not valid legally. Jesus is conveying an dignity to women spiritually by appearing to he...

I recently read the "Prodigal Son" passages in Luke and offered some reflections on the younger brother and the older brother at our Palm Sunday Service at Church. Rather than me wrack my brain for insights, I shared thoughts from Tim Keller. Keller in his book "The Prodigal God"  writes quite insightfully on the estrangement of both sons from the Father. The younger son, the Libertine (before returning home repentant). The older brother, the Legalist, unrepentant. Download the first chapter. Both brothers share one deep common trait. They have valued the relationship with the Father as secondary to something else. Both defined possessions as the key to their life. It is as if the Father is taken for granted, as almost unimportant and irrelevant. His sole purpose seemingly is to provide stuff. The older brother posits that he never had a goat to eat with his friends as his most scathing retort to the Father's generosity. The younger brother knew he acted as...

Thomas Kinkade, "Painter of Light," has passed away at the age of 54. An autopsy is in the works to discern whether the cause of death was anything more than natural causes. Here is him painting a picture of Graceland, Elvis Presley's home.    The art world dismissed Kinkade as a mass producer of kitsch. Glowing cottages with smoke rising lazily from the hearth evoked feelings of a simplistically surreal world where sorrow was absent. The cottage would not burn down, nor would the lives inside the cottage be wrought with strife. All was good, all was bright. I call that the Edenic archetype, memories and longings of a Garden, where death did not prevail.  Yet, his painting were only a part of  the world's spectrum and could not obscure the darkness beyond and before. Kinkade's personal life canvas had its tragic hues. I have to wonder if Kinkade's painting below, "Prince of Peace," should have been more the type of art that ultimately would...