bierkergaard

Last Sunday, our gathering of Veritas Church volunteered for this organization : (www.bindinglove.org) Binding Love is a non-profit that takes donated clothes and turns them into scarves and sells them, directing the proceeds to help get women out of sex trafficking in Thailand. Our job on Sunday was to cut the clothes into the size needed for scarves. Kind of full circle for the clothes since many of them are crafted in the developing world by poorly paid labor. Mostly women, mind you.  I found my 7th grade Home Econ. class to be of little residual value as I attempted to cut the clothing straight. Yet, it was a fun day and despite the seriousness of the situation of the sex trade, I was getting silly. I put on the pink shirt and had other scraps of clothes around my neck and pink and blue wristbands that were previously sleeves.  Someone commented that I looked like a mash-up of Richard Simmons and Rocky, and then me and another guy alternated between soun...

Last Friday, a call went out on Facebook that a farmer friend of mine needed a hand unloading 7,000 pounds of potatoes coming in late on a tractor-trailer. The truck was delayed, some of those that were going to help out when the shipment was supposed to have come in earlier in the day, had to leave. I was at home when I saw the message. I was going to lift weights. I decided to pick up potatoes instead. I remembered an old comic in Mad Magazine where a kid is lifting weights while his poor mom is taking out a massive trash can load of garbage. It is easy to ignore pleas for help. Pretend I didn't see it. The story of the Good Samaritan starts with seeing but not responding. Luke 10 is clear that they saw.   However,  I decided to run contrary to my individual inertia and hopped in my car and headed West to York. It was only while driving out to the location that I recalled that my farmer friend had bailed me out years before when, during one Halloween Night, he hurried...

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead , Phil. 3:13 Last year when my appendix ruptured, it was a fairly painful experience from start to finish. One relic that I kept was a pair of hospital issued blue socks with some branding from a health care conglomerate in plastic fused onto the fabric. Not very comforting on any measure employed.   I haven't worn them since the hospitalization. A couple of weeks I asked myself the question of "Why I Am Keeping These Around?" For the fond memories of peeing fire, trying to rock out of bed, the killer antibiotic, the nurse stealing a trifling $5.00 out of my wallet?   I would put a photo of the blue socks as a pic but I am just not into giving them any publicity. Soon to be in the trash.  There was no reason to keep the socks except as a reminder of the unsavoriness of the entire experience. The low-poin...

I watched a fascinating documentary this morning titled "Of Two Minds." It is available as an instant download on Netflix. It is the personal stories of several individuals, and their loved ones, on the highs and lows of being Bipolar. It was heart-wrenching with some humorous pathos and a good deal of narcissism. One of my theories is that at least some people have mental health disorders because they are essentially self-focused. Much of this arises out of prior trauma that was and is real and damaging. Pain is a very ego-centering and cementing experience. Yet, this pain now creates a internally-driven compulsion to think of oneself a lot--and that can make anyone crazy. I found myself admiring the people in the documentary a great deal but also tiring of their lament. C.S. Lewis said it well, "Christianity does not call us to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less." I know that when I dwell on myself, nothing good comes from it. It i...

Henri Nouwen's book The Wounded Healer popularized Jung's archetype drawn from mythology. Nouwen writes, “The man who articulate the movements of his inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him who heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.” The He is Jesus. Not Dr. Oz. In lay terms, our own wounds, properly healed, provide a path to help illuminate and create room for the healing of others' wounds.Ultimately, as our wounds are given to Jesus, the wounded healer Himself (by whose stripes we are healed), ministry arises. We all hurt, we all have been wounded, we carry scars both visible and invisible. God with us is also God wounded with us and for us. Over a month ago, on my thrice weekly redemption run to the river and back, I h...

In the last couple of months, I have heard a lot more usage of the phrase "their demons" as in a person battling their demons. Probably most associated with the death du jour of the most recent celebrity because of self-destruction... Most people using the phrase are utilizing it euphemistically. They don't believe in the cosmic personality Lucifer, the fallen Archangel and his minions like Orcs in Lord of the Rings. Instead, demons is a term synonymous to addictions. Particularly, in drug and alcohol abuse. Addictions are like an itch, the more one scratches them, the more scratching ensues. A iron cycle of cause and effect. A Merry Go-Round that goes faster and faster until the gears grind and the engine blows. Who should want a stupid fake gold ring anyway? I have been in a mode of stripping down recently. Less food and drink, a desire to stabilize the pendulum of consumption from excess and deprivation. My gut is a daily reminder that, like Rome, it was not b...

Philippians 4:5 Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. I did a little investigation of the Greek word used here by Paul for moderation. I discovered an interesting fact. The same word is used by James and Peter in their respective Epistles. Paul, Peter, and James, the Pillars of the Early Church. I think we can conclude that moderation, being gentle, and patience, is pretty high on the list of Christ virtues and is in fact a component of love. Impatience is often an outworking of pride, believing that we are first in all things. Jostle to the front of the line. Me first. Don't you know who I am? On Sunday, I met a buddy for beers at The Fridge , a Lancaster City establishment, that looks like a garage for beer and pizza, with a certain Craft chic. As we sat in comfy chairs around the big potty belly stove, made way back in the day in Columbia, Pa., we shot the breeze for a few hours. We sipped our beers. I selected as one of my two beers for the da...