bierkergaard

One of the best things that has happened in the last year for me is the return of the cycle. Bicycle, that is. While I was in Ph.D. studies, I lived in "Safe Mode" physically--besides driving down to Philly each week or so for ten years--I mostly stayed away from danger to avoid what I termed a discontinuous event (on and off road). I didn't want to crack my cranium, leaking knowledge as well as neurological capacity. When I earned my Ph.D., I promised myself that I would get a good mountain bike. Not the hybrid mongrel Trek that I have that is a mix between street and mountain bike. It is geared like a mountain bike and has some other mountain bike traits, without being truly trail ready. Ironically, it is best on the road where there are a ton of hills, where the gearing makes a big difference. Most street bikes don't have the high gears. Well-suited for this part of hilly Pennsylvania. Although I now have a sweet mountain biking with the proper br...

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Wednesday afternoon was over 90 plus degrees here in Pa. Summer is going out swinging yet I am happy to note that premonitions of Fall are in the air despite the up-and-down tug of warm versus cold. Fall is my favorite season. Summer's heat mellows into a melancholic brew of warmer days and cooler nights. If Pennsylvania had a thermometer, I'd set it on this cycle. Friday night I was drinking a couple of beers with a couple of buddies (literally two beers and two friends) outside of a local establishment. It was cool and breezy and I finally felt summer being exorcised from my bones. I was enjoying an Imperial Pumpkin Ale to celebrate the cooling. I get this odd itch over the summer where I can't shower without causing an outbreak of itchiness all over the top half of my body. Like a Plague or being attacked by Siberian mosquitos. It...

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. I am in a lull spiritually these days, not depressed or anything, but just a dry season. Not a crisis of faith but more of a time of waiting and thinking. I have found solace in Paul's writing of the following verse above, the great apostle admitting that he did not know what to pray for. We often don't view Paul, the writer of the magisterial Book of Romans, this way with hesitations and doubts. Questions versus answers. It is necessary at times to pause and just be, where we recognize that is normal be perplexed and confused, and to not have all of the answers. Or even try to. To grant that it is a world of complexity and just because we are certain of some key doctrines doesn't mean that everything falls in line. For instance, when Paul writes that there is "No condemn...

From the Bazooka Joe Comic Aphorism School of World Diplomacy , "When two dogs get in a fight, the third should keep his distance." Bazooka Joe gum is not very good, neither are the actual comic strips coming with the wrapped gum. However, the sayings on the bottom of the comic were and maybe still are unusually prescient. For years, I chewed Bazooka Joe. After the first initial download of sugar, it just turned into a wad of putty. No flavor and hard on the jaws to chew. So, I quit chewing it. But I still recall reading that "third dog" quote. Both dogs in the fight in Syria have foul and rabid natures. Extreme Sunnis and extreme Shiites once again going for each others' jugular, just a different country. There are innocents in the middle but damned if we are going to be able to protect them from either side. We have to stay the hell out of there or become part of the hell in there. The best that all the outside powers can try to do is staun...

There has been a lot of discussion about Miley Cyrus's performance at the MTV Awards (I think that was it). I didn't watch the show but I have heard the echo chamber reverberations in the evangelical community about what it means. Here is what it means: Miley Cyrus is a lost girl. Another child star who grew up in the light of lights, camera, action. All the discussion and pondering about what it means and how we should understand who she is because it gives us clues into teen culture I think is not a very useful exercise. It is like going outside to the local road where small creatures have been flattened like pancakes by four wheel vehicles. How much studying does one have to do to figure out what killed the critter? How much examining do we have to do to figure out what killed the culture? If anyone should be studying teen culture, its media and music, it should be me as a school counselor. But, I don't as a rule unless it is something like Harry Potter which w...

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. In girding myself up for the incoming school year of working with high school students, I have prepped by watching some silly slapstick films. First, Tommy Boy . Second, Happy Chandler.  The lead actors in each film, Chris Farley and Adam Sandler, share common comedic chops of typically playing mentally-slow characters with a reliance on physical comedy, malaprops, and dunder-headedness. Farley's work is particularly painful, despite being quite funny to watch, because of him being the fat boy who does dumb things routine....there is a good deal of sadness sometimes in silliness. Tommy Boy appears to be fairly autobiographical, so that fact/fiction distinction is overlapping. Silliness, like a bit of wasabi with sushi, goes a long way to win teens. As well as self-deprecation, teasing, and even sarcasm. Yet, it can't be too much. Respect goes down if everything is a ...

    Yesterday, during our weekly church service (people and place) a member of the community shared some thoughts about encouragement. It was a great sermon of sorts with an actual time where we went around to others and gave them an encouraging word based on an admirable trait they had. It was awkward but good. I liked particularly the Kermit shirt an early 20-something friend was wearing. That child-likeness is something he needs to hold onto as he becomes older. Heck, I wear a Bazooka Joe shirt that garners praise and I am on the cusp of 50.     The intentionality forced us to go against the grain of offering words of hope and commendation to others. We discussed why it was so difficult to do so. We arrived at no definitive answer yet agreed that truthful encouragement is foundational for community.   Encouragement needs to be honest to be lasting. As I pondered the difference between the flimsy and inflationary co...