bierkergaard

So, the Sixers beat the Celtics last night evening the series at 2-2. This play-off could go either way. It is the classic battle of youth and energy vs. older and wise. In case you don't follow bball, it is the Sixers that are the young guns. Historically, Boston has the upper hand. There have only been a few cases where the Sixers have beat the Celts in a play-off series. In 1983...the last championship the Sixers won, I believe the Celtics had lost previously to the Bucks. I was there to watch the Sixers win crucial game two against the Lakers at home in the old Spectrum. Our scalped tickets were so high up and far away from the court I would have needed a telescope to read the names on the uniforms. They should have passed out complimentary tissues since we were in the nosebleeed section. And the smell of crappy marijuana wafted through the air from a dude a couple of seats down who was getting even higher.     Garnett is like an old scarred Watusi warrior gear...

I made the difficult decision to not have a garden this summer out back. Too many battles with groundhogs who are joined in the battle array with a back-yard neighbor spraying weed-killer close to my garden, has caused me to lay down the hoe. It makes me sad. I like to see plants grow. It is very healing and make me feel connected to the land. I have learned from the inside-out much about Jesus's parables of sowing and reaping, wheat and tares, and the like through gardening. Experience is always the best teacher. So for the first time in five years, no garden this summer. The land needs a Sabbath. I need a Sabbath. Despite my melancholy about the decision, I know it is the right one. Admitting that I could not have a joyful garden was enough for me to say enough. When the Apostle Paul writes that "God loves a cheerful giver" this saying does not only apply to money. It can be about anything that requires a sacrifice, a service. If we cannot do something with good ...

You know what I fear more than anything? Leading an irrelevant life. Me being born, living, and dying, not amounting to a hill of beans. Dead and already buried above ground. There is a lot of ego in this, the need to be somebody, to gain admiration of the other. Yet, even after all of that sin is subtracted, there is a pure essence of wanting to matter, to mean something. Not to be erased by the pencil of eternity after I put my # 2 down that one last time. Perhaps that is why I am compelled to write. Someone in college once gave me an off-handed compliment of sorts. He said that I had a "will to write" or something to that effect. Not that I was a great writer, but that I had a drive to write. There is something permanent about words...Jesus said that His words, and ours, would never pass away. The universe takes notes. I don't think I missed my calling to be an English teacher. Although I adore books and love to write, the idea of grading essays and teaching the...

Why do some of the greatest writers, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and G.K. Chesterton all go by the first and middle initials abbreviated? I have decided to do the same. I am now E.G. Bierker in print. My birth name was Eric but I hated it as a kid. So, I pleaded with my mom after kindergarten one day for a nickname and we went with Rick. I didn't start going back to Eric until I started to write for the college newspaper. I thought Eric sounded more cerebral, which is probably why I didn't like it as a child. I wanted to be an intellectual at the university.... I have had two pieces published in my life where I received cash or another compensation. Just recently, I was one of three to win an essay contest sponsored by Likewise Books/IVP Press.  They gave me something even better than cash or a check...five books. Give me a gift card to Barnes and Noble, and I am happy as I can be. Not even a Chimay Red, White, and Blue 750 ml three pack would make me as happy. Books and beer,...