bierkergaard

Let Rome keep her noise, the arena of its atrocities, the circus its follies, the theater its revels . Jerome (342-420) Ancient Rome, imperial Rome, descended into decadent entertainment as a way of life. Or more accurately, death. And this was Before Cable. B.C. Historical rerun of Rome here in the old USA. As we witness the twilight of our Civilization, on the edge or ruin or redemption, which way the moral winds blow will determine our destination. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I try to resist the goods the world sells. Satan Inc. wants us to be grounded in what is passing away. It is easy to get cynical. Non-believers relish deconstructing the Faith. I can also lower the wrecking ball on our culture's Idols. It is like bowling from ten feet away. Can't miss. It doesn't take a Ph.D. What our day needs is hope, real hope. Our culture specializes in the snarky, being clever about the irrelevant, or more seriously, dismissive of the holy and sacred.  Hope

The NRA has made its statement on guns. Mo' guns, mo' better. There is a truth in this, sort of. Guns are creators of inequality in the most brutal calculus possible. I have bullets, you don't. I win. Ask the Native American how he felt being on the losing side of that equation. If everyone had guns, there would be only a questions of whose gun would be more lethal, whose hand was more steady, whose eye was sharper, and whose heart was colder. But, everyone still would have a shot no matter what was in the hand. The first shot has the edge because one bullet can do the job. I have heard the argument that guns in Colonial and Constitutional times were muskets and the 2nd amendment was based on this inefficiency . But, this was the common gun of both government and the citizen. If the government has Uzis, and the citizen has a 22 rifle, there is an inequality, and vice-versa. Yet, as a Christian, I ask is this piece of dirt that we call Earth worth fighting for? I heard

2nd Sam 1:26 I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. The last couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of hanging out with brothers. My own, three brothers, and two brothers. The latter two sets I have known since college. My biological brother, since birth. I really appreciate being granted a place in other families' brotherhood. It is an honor. We can tease each other, bust each others chops, have thoughtful conversations, do cool stuff, laugh, and have fun. We got each others' backs too. That is the most important thing for sure. In an often indifferent world that is sometimes out-and-out bad news, loyal brothers are better than a million dollars in the bank. I will take people over paper any day. The verse above has been seriously misused by those trying to build the biblical case for a sexual relationships man-to-man. There is no evidence in the text or elsewhere in Scri

John 15:15 But I have called you friends Moving back to the townhouse was a bitter pill to swallow. The one thing that made it easier getting down was the prospects of being reunited with my wood pellet stove. It has laid dormant like a Cicada for the last 7 or so years. My tenants weren't keen on it for various reasons. Thus, my first weekend back, I fired it up. I noticed a telltale sign of it working was missing. The sound of the venting mechanism exiting the smoke to outside. I looked as to why it was this way and I discovered that one of my previous tenants has removed the fuse, rendering the unit inoperable, and the fuse was nowhere to be found. The townhouse got rather smoky until the pellets stopped burning. 90% of the unit worked except the critical 10%. Sweet! I called an electrician friend of mine to see if he wanted the work and he never called back. A week later I just happened to mention me treating my home like a BBQ to a guy at Church that I don't kno

Saturday morning, I could barely get out of bed. My lower back was in severe spasm. How bad did my back hurt? When I felt an urge to sneeze, I suppressed it. The thought of the sneeze reflex working its way through my back promised inestimable pain. Like being tasered. Usually when my back goes out, I can trace a cause and effect. Lift the beer fridge by myself, my back hurts. This time, no such antecedent. As far as I know, this back problem came out of nowhere like a mauling bear. I still went to New York City anyway. My buddy was preaching yesterday to a crowd of Ghanaian immigrants and others in Yonkers, NY, and said that I looked like Frankenstein walking down the streets of Brooklyn all stiff and slow-moving 6'8" of me, with women and children screaming and running the other way.That got a good laugh, although I don't particularly relish being called a monster. I did start calling him Master afterwards. Typically, I don't have these problems and the last