bierkergaard

In the last 7 years, I have been hit three times in my car by others who were being negligent and careless drivers. Another time, I hit a deer. I am not sure I can pin that collision on the deer as I was going a little faster that I should have been on a back country road up to work in the middle of what is functionally a "Deer Preserve" (a lot of woods, farms, and "no hunting signs" posted everywhere. A perfect storm for automotive and deer collisions). Fan-tas-tic...I found that the deer was not insured. The first accident of the three, a red Firebird went through a red light in Lancaster, smashed into my car, a fled the scene of the accident. Nice. The Lancaster Police took over an hour two show up...by that time the driver of the red Firebird had probably finished consuming his second six pack in his trailer down in Solanco. The second time was last year when a young man was going much too fast (I saw him in my rear view mirror catching up to me as a cheetah to ...

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. Peace (or shalom) was--and probably still is--a greeting among observant Jews. So it is a wish. One can see why...the Jews have had many things in their history as a race, but peace is not one of them. Peace, as Jesus taught, is based on obedience to His teachings (really His Commandments, to call them only teachings make them sound kind of voluntary). Kind of like when people call Jesus a "great teacher." Sort of like my great teacher in high school Mr. Craney...but not more than a great teacher. And if Jesus teaches that He is God, and the person doesn't buy it, could that person reall...

This time of year, we hear a lot about giving thanks....it should be easy to give thanks for the good things. The fact that we often don't, and instead take God's provision for granted, shows how piggish we can be. How about giving thanks for the hard things--adversity, trouble, sickness, weakness? Not that I'll candidate any time soon for Job-like status based on my qualifications. Don't think this is true? We flatter ourselves...often when we ask "Why?" we are really charging God with infidelity to our two greatest commandments..."I don't think I want this so you should not give it to me." Really, who sounds like the boss and who sounds like the underling? The primary sin of each human is Pride. It is an inversion of ourselves to a lofty estate of deity where what I think and what I want are the two greatest commandments. God, is demoted to servant status. I am not saying that it is easy to say "Thy will be done" and then watch ou...

Gen 50:15-20 "And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Godly men don' t strike others in spirit of self-indignation...even if others richly deserve it. Instead, they entrust to God the justificat...

The other night, I awakened around 2:30...as is often the case, I was up for a time. I often do my best and worst thinking this time of night. In the solitude and silence, my heart speaks. Sometimes my heart is at peace and I breezily drift back to sleep after a few minutes. Sometimes fear comes like a rustling wind and I am up for awhile. Then I worry that I am up, that I am going to be tired the next day...as so on. The worst fear? The unknown and the known together. What I do know distempers me like left jabs from a boxer; the unknown is the right hook that follows that I don't see coming. When I am up like this, I typical trudge over to my office and either pull out the Bible or something of a biblical nature and read. I figure if the evil one is behind my lack of being asleep because of my cares in this fallen world, the best way to redeem this time is to seek Christ in His Word. What is meant for evil turns out to be good for God is in it . Joseph's refrain is one that s...

My wife and I after much deliberation have recently purchased a 40 inch plasma TV. We hesitated for quite some time, fearful that it would suck us into its orbit like some Death Star. It got me thinking about TV. It is interesting the role of television has played in my life. I can still remember when certain TV shows were on when I was a kid. The best line up was Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley on Tuesdays at 8:00 - 9:00 on ABC (when I was in 6th grade); MASH was Monday at 9:00 on CBS; the White Shadow was on before MASH at 8:00...that was my favorite show by far. It was about a white high school basketball coach who played pro b-ball, blew out his knee, and went into coaching a bunch of inner city black kids with names like Coolidge. There was one white kid nicknamed Salami...of Italian descent. I think he rode the bench. There was an ABC program called the Night Stalker that was Friday nights that used to scare the crap out of me. It was good it was Friday night because I had pr...

There is a word that I read on a semi-regular basis in articles. The only person I have ever heard use it in conversation is my dad who speaks German. It is the German word schadenfreude. The definition from dictionary.com is: Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.German : Schaden, damage and Freude: joy. Damaged joy...I am not sure what it is about some German words...they just seem to pack a lot of awful intensity. Verbal Blitzkrieg. Heck, when I hear German spoken, it sounds like language emanating from the gut and spoken through a blender. It doesn't do much for the elegance and beauty of a language to have its most well-known speaker in history be Hitler. Another German word, much less negative, is Zeitgeist which roughly means the "spirit of the age." Drop a "Zeitgeist" here and there in conversation and people will think you are an intellectual or a pompous blowhard...so do so cautiously. I have had schadenfreude associated in my head rece...