Paradise

October 11, 2018

Year 3, Day 284 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

In science the dominating biological concept of mankind, at this point in history, is that we have evolved from simple life to complex over a span of millions of years. A basic presumption in the process is that it is unguided except for whatever influences grew out of a big bang that set the process into action and provided whatever potential would survive to develop the resources. That the process could develop without a guiding intelligence, related to God, is unattractive for me to believe. The meaning of mankind in sight, hearing, feeling, smelling, believing, reflecting, and reproducing in kind is beyond any current evidence related to the large or small forces of neuter nature. The concepts of God or… Read more

Scatalogical

October 10, 2018

Year 3, Day 283 | No Comments

Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

The city newspaper provided a carefully researched article on one girl’s journey into rebellion, sex and drug addiction, into adult life and a program of recovery. The facts revealed sordidness, shame, drugs, pimps, violation and prostitution. We must wait to find out how she will emerge for her future life. We need to remember that she has life, the gift of God, and lives it in either a favorable or unfavorable context. Life finds who and what we are. What do we make of it? Scripture informs us that the best context in which to form it is in righteousness. The meaning of it is to serve others to their benefit. God interprets that as devotion to him in that… Read more

Government

October 9, 2018

Year 3, Day 282 | No Comments

Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

It is interesting that long before Israel became a kingdom under the first king, Saul, that the prediction was made that Israel would become a kingdom. They passed through theocracy under Moses, to confederacy under Judges in the Promised Land, punctuated with periods of anarchy (Judges 18-21). After many decades passed monarchy was elected by the tribes. In the end that too was lost in defeat and colonialism under other flags. Israel had survived as a people in slavery in Egypt, as it has survived through Roman domination before the time of Jesus, and through variegated governments thereafter for about two thousand years until a land area was vouchsafed again to the Nation of Israel in 1948. One of the… Read more

Life and Language

October 8, 2018

Year 3, Day 281 | No Comments

Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Language is perceived by semanticists and literati, even archaeologists, in styles, which for the purpose of our interests may be perceived as degrees – from simple to complex, from crude to high art. Any style can be used well or poorly. When used poorly it offends, even distracts from language purpose. Used well it dignifies, offers beauty, informs, lifts, persuades. The ancients in Greece and Rome highly honored the spoken word, used it often and wrote books about it. I have read some of them and have been well served by the study. They come to us, even in our time from persons as significant as Aristotle and Cicero, but others not well known in our time, but highly influential… Read more

Morality vs Morality

October 7, 2018

Year 3, Day 280 | No Comments

We are often faced with the choice of this morality or that. Some of our decisions will be identified as moral for one group and immoral for another. I presume that a Christian going to war in defense of country and family, sent to the front, and demonstrating skill in gunnery, kills soldiers in the army of the reputed enemy. He or she is not perceived as being a murderer, so is accepted of God and honored by buddies and country. For me to kill another person would be an immoral act, but may be a private decision in violation of the meaning of government and citizenship. There is paradox or contradiction related to the matter and I must be… Read more

Life Patterns

October 6, 2018

Year 3, Day 279 | No Comments

Issues of human tragedy represent common patterns mankind faces daily. We may not form adequate perspective on the larger context pressing on society. Life includes more extensive tragedies than the immediate dramatic ones. We tend to lose perspective. The witch trials of the American colonists are turned into great evidence for anti-religion. The affected few were badly treated, but the rage was not extensive, The good people who mismanaged the whole context apologized and made clear the biblical direction they wanted to follow. In a month or so the good people of society kill as many Americans on the highways as were lost at Ground Zero in 2001. Grief and cost are much greater for those who live tenacious daily… Read more

Odd Of God

October 5, 2018

Year 3, Day 278 | No Comments

In thinking about God and the creation, incorporating mankind, we wrestle with thoughts about God related to the way life matters have emerged for us. Beginning this line of thought long ago, I tended to find excuses for God. Scripture makes it clear that he doesn’t need any excuses, and he doesn’t slink away from taking responsibility. This last eases the burden of theology, but adds problems for the person trying to put God in the best light that human beings can design for him. In the oddities of man’s contexts for life and thought, we find paradoxes and contradictions. (This frustration is often referred to in these Pages.) Why, in the planning of God, would he choose a people… Read more

Future And Change

October 4, 2018

Year 3, Day 277 | No Comments

My life has spanned what may be identified as a revolution in cultural context. It has been uncomfortable and limited, but a revolution nonetheless, and must be both understood and adapted to if the individual is to be at peace and successful in the world of personal/social culture: life (person/family/relationships) work (occupation/funding), society (government/groups) and change (adaptation/education) forming contexts. My own life has spanned contexts that were not greatly progressed from that which the poor in George Washington’s day might experience. Even so we thought we were modern. Modernization tends to arrive in increments throughout history. Time periods for the increments grow shorter and the population growth spreads fresh additions into wider swaths of influence. The start-up period took centuries… Read more

Spiritual Genetics

October 3, 2018

Year 3, Day 276 | No Comments

There must never be lost in Christian theology that all persons must resolve the imperfection in the human self that creates a barrier between the individual person and God. That imperfection is identified as depravity and found in human nature that creates separation between the person and God. Depravity does not mean the person will certainly be bad, but that a condition exists between every individual and God that must be addressed if he or she is to gain personal spiritual relationship with God that gains acceptance into the family of God. Depravity creates a drive in the individual that may be so severe that he or she will think and/or act in ways that are offensive to greater or… Read more

Ending To Begin

October 2, 2018

Year 3, Day 275 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

The motto of a class of mine was: We End to Begin. The concept was that the experience of graduation was an ending, but also a beginning of a new context of life for the students. Under God, the end of the present earth is to begin a new earth. It is likely that most persons have not tangled with the mystery. I would not remark on it, if it were not introduced in Scripture. It appears that God will not be thwarted from his original plan, to have a perfect earth. What God had in mind in the arrival of the first Adam/Eve, by whatever process he used to get them to the Garden, that purpose will be achieved… Read more

Monthly Archives: October 2018