bierkergaard

My apologies for the S and f missing. Photo beggars can't be choosers...JPEG dumpster diver. In between the death of Jesus on Friday and His being raised from the dead on Sunday, is that silent Saturday, where the followers of Jesus, who had not followed and instead scattered the day before, were alone--even if they were together. Into their fears and doubts that only silence can draw out. People often clamor for "Peace and Quiet" but then promptly soil the silence with more noise of their own choosing. Silence can be frightening, where the internal voice and conscience speaks and can be heard. I know my Saturdays become my Satur-Do days, where I try to take care of all of those things and tasks I have pushed away from my mind as a broom sweeps dust into a corner. This approach is a remnant from my Ph.D. days where each Saturday was study and research time. Now, I feel really guilty and empty if I am not doing something productive and ...

Acts 12:4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. I spent a good deal of the afternoon reading the first 12 chapters of Acts. It essentially goes from the Passover when Jesus was crucified and raised to the next year's Passover when Peter was in jail. Quite an eventful year. Herod has just beheaded James to please the crowds and is now scheming for a two-fer. Take out Peter. If deliverance is what is being celebrated for Passover, it is looking like Easter in jail for Peter then to trial. And death. No slap on the wrist ahead. Peter has seen incredible events and miracles in the last 365 days so he is sleeping like a baby while in jail. He is now resolved to not fear what man can do to him. How much a difference a year can make when he cowered before a servant girl. Then an angel hits him on the ...

Frankly, I don't really care if Gays marry. Although I think it does violence to the word whose very defintion mean male and female. Or at least it did since the beginning of written language. A few thousand years or so. Details, details.   Yet, we live in a broken world. All of us are broken, some in more socially acceptable ways than others. Being gay is quite quickly becoming socially acceptable. Even hip. Probably a lot more than being morbidly obese for example. Really fat people get no grace. What concerns me more than anything are individuals and groups appropriating Scripture to justify Gay Marriage and assuming that Jesus would bless it. There is zero, and I mean zero evidence, in the Bible that homosexual activity is something that He would annoint with His blessing. It becomes an issue of twisting Scripture and that is exceedingly serious in my eyes. Satan-like. The Devil. In our Republic, our founding document, the Decla...

Philippians 3:10 I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death I was reading my devotional this morning about a word in Greek: Akedia which is translated as despondency. It was one of the eight sins defined by Pope Gregory way back in the day. I have been well-acquainted with Depression, even before it was commonly know as Depression in the Pre-Prozac days of the 1970's. I just remember feeling that life had a sorrow core that I could not counter. Even as a child, when I lacked the vocabulary for describing it, I knew it well. Only in becoming a Christian when I was 19, was I able to start to untangle where Depression came from...The Fall where the Ideal and the Real split into schism. And, the split in my head, body, soul, and spirit. For I was like the world. To feel sad about the world is actually a healthy response to an unhealthy world. Yet, when A...

Isaiah 61:4 Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, They will raise up the former devastations; And they will repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations. No type of clothing is more closely associated with the United States than the blue jean. Our flag should actually use denim as a backdrop for our States' stars. We all have come from different lands, and most of us not from privilege but as working stock. My ancestors were apparently pig farmers on my Dad's side. I am proud to note that I have bacon in my blood. So, the blue-collar blue jean is our national wear and required clothing for every Casual Day in workplaces nationwide. My school uses Casual Days weekly to raise money for a worthy cause, often more than once a week even, that I think we should call it the "Blue Jean Tax." Jesus was a Blue Jean Jew metaphorically. A working man, a carpenter, a builder. God, when He came to earth, did not settle into a position of ease but ...