bierkergaard

Now that the time has been adjusted an hour earlier, I can see the two giant wind turbines in the distance atop of Turkey Hill again as I descend daily for my commute to work. Here is the funny and odd thing. Every time I look, they are not moving. At all. Ever. As I did my crack investigation, I found out that they are not operational yet despite looking good to go. Always good to check the facts. Ah, the metaphor. Scripture knowledge is both structural and spiritual. The structure need to be built and enlivened by the Spirit. People these days talk about being spiritual but their spirituality is akin to a gust of wind that blows stuff around the neighborhood--garbage cans, leaves, toys, and trash--aimlessly. Have "faith in faith" kind of thinking. No objective, just subjective. The idol is flatulent tolerance. Others have the structure of religion...solid, immovable, like a rock...dead. The wind blows and blows and that rock ain't going anywhere...the pew like Pilgrim...

The term "Too Big To Fail" is an interesting and paradoxical saying. Usually bigness connotes strength and power. To be in danger of failing usually means weakness and powerlessness. So how is it, in our age, that power and powerlessness are embodied in the same institutions, like AIG, Wall Street firms, and automakers? Like this verse in Daniel shows, with a weak foundation, everything else is weak. "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay." -- Daniel 2: 31-33 (KJV) The lower one goes, to first things and founding principles--the feet, the weaker it gets. The conceit of this saying is that somehow we think we can keep these institutions from failing...backed by the biggest failing instituion...

Last night at our neighborly monthly Bible Study/Dinner get-together, we got in a discussion about truth, or Truth with a capital "T." Everyone believes in small "t" truth. Much more of a challenge to convince people that Truth exists beyond our own subjective perceptions...scholarly term for this is Constructivism. Someone mentioned, in reference to a difficult situation involving a lot of people, that these individuals had to learn "to stand up for themselves." I challenged her to rethink this. I said that we have to learn to stand up for Truth, not ourselves. I said that Truth is a warrior. Too often, when we stand up for ourselves it falls into the "me-first" mentality, look out for # 1, etc. When we stand up for Truth, we put ourselves under its banner and also accept the duty that this entails...for the Truth, like a sword, cuts both ways. We must let it does its work on and in us too. This can hurt, but it heals. Satan is called ...

Just finished a plate of eggs and it got me thinking... When I was a kid, my mom alternated between hot cereal and eggs for breakfast. Eggs were thought to be so-so nutritionally...some good, some bad. The cholesterol was presented as the major downside. So my mom, the daughter of a nutritionist, followed this plan for years. I appreciated her mindfulness. Yet, like most conventional wisdom, time has shown that nutritional advice to be not so wise. Eggs are nutritional powerhouses . More yet...they contain a large proportion of what is termed "good" cholesterol vs. "bad" cholesterol. Of course, there is a limit to how much of them we should eat daily, but for the price, there is hardly a better kind of food out there. I disagree with the last link on one point: I do think free range chicken eggs are healthier and more nutritionally vibrant....all I can say is that I have seen and tasted the difference. It is almost scary how deep a yellow organic eggs are. Jesus s...

I run around my neighborhood like a I would a track, except it is hilly. Never really knew why they called Mountville its name until I actually did more than just drive through it on 462 which is a flat as a pancake. So there is the Mount part and the Ville part. In my hood, it seems like almost everyone has a dog. I am one of those people who loves most dogs but don't really want the responsibility of taking care of it. So, I get to pet all of my furry neighbors when they are out for a walk and then they go their way and I go mine. Kind of Rent-A-Pet. I win, the dog wins. And, I get to know the people on the block. I have notice a principle in and around where I live. The smaller the dog, the nastier, vicious, and downright mean these little canine Hitler's are...there are of course some exceptions, like my neighbor's chihuahua who is totally chill and a small white little curly thing who peers at me cautiously. Small souls, like dogs, get meaner the smaller they are. ...

On Sunday night I watched a documentary about Tupac Shakur called Thug Angel . Lina is not a big fan of documentaries...but I am, so I am packing them in while she is away. The Wifi download option from Netflix is sweet. This documentary was a story of Tupac's life from start to finish, and a brutal end it was. There was a a video of him in the film when he was 17. He was quite a sensitive, perceptive, socially-conscious, and intelligent kid. Someone who I'd relish talking with as a school counselor. In the video, he recounted how there was a girl that he really loved who broke up with him because he treated her too well. Apparently, he was "too nice" in her words. The prototypical girl who loved bad boys. Ah, the sins of Eve. It seemed to be a turning point for Tupac because soon after, he embraced all things thug. He made millions. But that kid who wanted to be a force for good became an agent of evil. It was as if he said, "You want a bad-ass Nigga (he used Ni...

On the way home from work, I was listening to NPR. Yes. me hard-core Conservative that I am. I am so ashamed. Nonetheless, there was a piece aired about French Shepherd's Pie and a new book called "Around My French Table" . The author mentioned some ingredients and I began to envision what our fridge had in it to see if I could whip something up like it when I got home. A couple of days ago I had taken a 4 lb pork shoulder out of deep freeze and was thinking a stew. So, I had the meat. If you have the meat, like solid doctrine, you can go from there. Butter, yep, onions, yep, heavy cream, nope (but we did have some cream cheese, close enough), garlic, yep, carrots, yep. Although we have a pile of potatoes, I passed b/c I am trying to cut carbs. When I arrived home, I did a quick search for a pork shoulder stew recipe. I found something called Bavarian Pork Tenderloin Stew, just so I could check measurements. Not much into the slacker French these days. I also added some...