bierkergaard

Seriously, some of the most comments I receive on my blog posts are either about grass or groundhogs. Both topics make me go Grrrrrr alright. So, we had a drought. The grass out front died and faded to brown. We have had a ton o' rain and most of the grass is dead still. While all of the yard that is not within sight from the street is a lush verdant green, anything visible is dead as Lenin. It is like a dude who has hair all over his body--and copious amounts at that--on back, neck, arms, and belly, but his head is a cue ball. Ironies, painful ironies. The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of God stands forever.

I really like Pennsylvania weather. Just when I can't take the summer heat anymore, it turns cooler. Leaves change, burning leaves smoke aroma fills the air, and nights come sooner. I know it is illegal to burn leaves around here but I am always glad for a few "scofflaws of smoke" who flavor the air. Burn on... God knows the human heart longs for things it does not have, or once had and lost, and does not appreciate the things it does have. The seasons remind us what has been, what is, and what will come. And, in so doing, we remember and reckon ourselves blessed.

I am convinced that the primary reason why the Church struggles with evangelism is not because we don't care about people...it is just that we don't know how to care about people in practical ways that make a real difference. We are so theologized and sermonized that we have taken leave of our senses and forgotten what it takes to be human in the best way imaginable. Caring for others is not hard intellectually and strategically yet it is costly and at times can be quite inconvenient. Most of the time, it really isn't even that hard, though. Listen, love, learn from another. Lend a hand. Share a loaf. Really, come on...this does not take a Ph.D in the Bible. Knowing the right answer can be a serious deficit spiritually if we do not do the right answer. Who is worse...the Pagan who does not know the Word and acts like He does not know it OR the religious type who does know the Word but does not do it? This is not a rhetorical question. It is quite serious. Last night o...

What happens when one buys beer bottles (returnables) from a beer distributor of a brewery that closed down in the 1980's? Ummm....scum. Not sure where these bad boys were stored but it must have been someplace dark and dank. Can't complain too much, they are fine bottles for the homebrewing of Belgian Beer. 16 ouncers of thick brown glass for less than 25 cents a bottle. Yet, I spent a whole lot of the day yesterday doing my best to move the bottles out of the liquid Legionnaire's Disease Zone. I did lose a plastic hose in one of the bottles as I was filling it and could not find it despite opening the whole row of suspects. Not sure how I managed that one...my incompetence sometime mystifies even me... In the end, only three bottles remain that were still scuzzy and cruddy that I might just toss. The whole experience reminded me of when Jesus told his listeners, many of them hostile, to wash not only the outside of the jar but also the inside. We might look good ceremonia...

Wow, what a huge amount of rain we got walloped with in Pa. on Thursday....some words just sound like what they mean....WALLOPED! In my office in the high school Guidance Department, even my papers were taking on a dampened feel. Maybe I was projecting onto the papers wetness, my sense of touch just throwing its lot in with all my other senses that were overwhelmed with Waterworld. Rain was much needed...our home's front yard was parched. Hopefully, now the grass goes from brown to green again. Worried that the temps will start to fall too soon for the grass to recover and we will have freeze-dried dead grass adorning our property until March. My yard humbles me, chastises me, shows me that I am not worthy of suburbia. Just the latest episode in an ongoing saga of man versus grass, Suburban Sisyphus pushing his mower fruitlessly up a hill in search of redemption. A little fall of rain makes the flowers grow (song from Les Mis). Does a lot of rain make my grass grow too? Fascinat...

When I was down in D.C. on Saturday, I went to National Community Church close to Union Station for the 5:00 service. It meets in the bottom floor of a coffee shop that the church owns called Ebenezer's . It was a long walk from the hotel and I was pretty sweaty when I arrived.The lead pastor is a dude named Mark Batterson and I have probably been more influenced by his writing, preaching, and thinking, more than anyone else recently. I tend to gravitate to energetic, positive, and practical teaching. Plus, a sense of humor and a tad of self-deprecation. Self-deprecation can be healthy to a point (i.e. someone willing to be self-revealing about one's own weakness). It can go too far though (TMI), or it can also be false humility. I suppose the real test of humbleness is when others are deprecatory about us. Then we discover if pride is truly behind even our admissions of weakness, as in, "Gee, look how humble I am, I willing to admit how weak, stupid, and full of folly I...

About 1.5 months ago, Lina and I upgraded to a DVD/Blu-Ray Player with Wi-Fi access. Our old DVD no longer worked with all of the new anti-piracy technology in DVD's. I mean the DVD player played but the picture was schizo in one way or another. For example, with the film Incubus , the picture was all bright, bright green with outlines of characters. With the Wi-Fi access, we can download movies or TV series. Lina quickly latched onto LOST and went through the season episodes like a chain smoker does with the cigs. For a while, I tagged along. But, I found that the series riled me up with its lack of resolution. Plus, it started getting really weird. I found myself unable to sleep at night. Lina polished off like 40 episodes in three weeks and is now in season 5 somewhere. LOST is like a modern day Gilligan's Island with a malevolent streak. There are moments of lightness and joy yet trouble always is just a lurk away. I know that the writers, directors, and producers of LOST ...