Heart and Head

November 30, 2018

Year 3, Day 334 | No Comments

Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

We balance our lives with emotion on one side of the scale and reason on the other. We love certain persons with what we call unconditional love, but we know their faults. If indeed our love is much, we reason with understanding as to how to address them in any confrontation of their faults. Our reasoning, if it is in the proper direction prevents us from excusing the faults while maintaining love quotients related to them. Our emotional relationship, if it is strong enough, prevents us from rejecting them for the thought and/or conduct that we reason to be unsatisfactory. In a court case involving family members the testimony of a family member, if permitted, is subject to suspect. The… Read more

Inside/Outside

November 29, 2018

Year 3, Day 333 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

In a study of men and women, and their relationships, David Buss, professor at the University of Michigan, discovered that in 37 cultures the results were the same for mate selection. Usually cultural anthropologists accent differences, but, in this study, there was uniformity between cultures – all of them. Men looked for women who were, in most instances, younger than themselves, and perceived to be attractive. The women carry an illusion of youth with wrinkle-free skin and good figures. Many women find this evaluation objectionable – that they are accepted on the basis of physical attractiveness. Women, Buss found, were attracted to men who were perceived to be mature and affluent. These men are admired because they have strength in… Read more

This Ol’ House

November 28, 2018

Year 3, Day 332 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

I was professionally engaged with Billy Graham, the eminent evangelist, before and after the events of 1949 in the Los Angeles Crusade that launched his person and work into decades of eminence. So it was that I met some of the persons who were well known either to the public or in their fields. One of these was Stuart Hamblen, a popular western/country-singer/entertainer. He was newsworthy for his occupation and wealth, and for a prize horse that he nurtured to race in major competition. Soon after his response to Graham to surrender his life to Christ, Hamblen wrote his most famous piece of music: This Ol’ House. He meant the piece to be a reflection that his body was the… Read more

Nature and Prejudice

November 27, 2018

Year 3, Day 331 | No Comments

Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

There was review of some research that was presumed to prove racial prejudice – as though we needed any scientific proof that there are human, even animal, prejudices. Prejudice is a given in nature, affecting virtually all biological beings. It is partly found in our natures, later permitted to take deliberate negative turns. The paucity of cannibalism in species is evidence of the invisible factor. Prejudices can only be countered by some force that affects change in the cultivation of our natures. A study was made of small children who had not been trained or educated in human prejudice. The children displayed prejudice in action and attitudes. The conclusion was that prejudice is in nature, although there are learnings that… Read more

Double Duty

November 26, 2018

Year 3, Day 330 | No Comments

Relationship with God is first understood as an individual relationship – as a loving parent with an only child. With God each of his children is aided in first meaning holding the perception that God treats him or her as though the person is the only one of children. That is to say individuals should work through their spiritual lives perceiving their relationship with God as though they alone (separate from all others) are responsible to account for themselves in the final evaluation (judgment) of a life lived. There is a sense in which no other person has advanced or impeded my relationship with God. My choices taken partly from others make all the contributions for good or ill my… Read more

News

November 25, 2018

Year 3, Day 329 | No Comments

I just reviewed my favorite newspaper page for news, important and/or human only, favorite because of its excellent book reviews appearing daily. The editorial page and daily book review usually offer evidence for the point addressed, or evaluate human experience for the reader to consider. Other media sources to which I subscribe tend to this improved approach to instruction/persuasion. Today, August 6, 2016, the day of the National Football Hall of Fame honors on National Television, the first story on the Sports page concentrates on the path of faith taken by Tony Dungy the Afro-American receiving the induction honor this evening after a life of some poverty, facing some racial prejudice, enduring neglect and effort to change his goals and… Read more

Christianity

November 24, 2018

Year 3, Day 328 | No Comments

It is to the condition of the human race that Christ addressed his redemptive plan. Theology refers to the sin condition as depravity. Depravity gives to mankind an inevitable tendency to violate righteousness that God requires for acceptance by his holy nature for his kingdom. Depravity (unsatisfactory human nature) is a spiritual cancer affecting every human life, and may be likened to suffering, or pain, that is a natural part of life as we know it, but absent in spiritual integrity. We do not like spiritual incompetency (a death factor), and may even deny it, but it is an irrefutable factor in biblical theology for every human being. We find ways of meeting suffering and pain through various means including… Read more

Thanksgiving

November 23, 2018

Year 3, Day 327 | No Comments

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

This is the date in the Today’s Page series used for the day we call Thanksgiving, an official American holiday, although the factor, for many centuries, has identified devout persons. The concept hints an impression of peace, health and prosperity. It is accented in the Bible, and in the history of peoples as an instruction of God to mankind, even when situations and contexts may have been reduced from the expectations that giving thanks may imply. In America the Pilgrims were faced with reduced circumstances, with some fear of the native peoples, with the deaths of a high percentage of their numbers in the preceding year on the rock bound coast. President Washington called for a day of Thanksgiving when… Read more

Think-Living

November 22, 2018

Year 3, Day 326 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

During my semi-retirement years, a period extending over thirty years, I have subscribed to a variety of magazines of substance and popularity for this or that emphasis in the general society, or in this or that journal in a field related to belief and human practice. I carry them for a year or two, drop them, and move on to others, but some I hold for longer periods. They offer too much to give up on their challenge. Some of them hold to a context that I would not support, but I get the orientation as challenge for self and what I want to communicate to others. On many occasions I have been surprised with what I have found that… Read more

Currency

November 21, 2018

Year 3, Day 325 | No Comments

The wise person recognizes that one of the hand-holds of life is the practical model of projecting self as indicated in perceptions of past, present and future experience and choices. Choices must be made. In the kit of tools for life structuring, it is an effective factor when rightly used for purpose. As we would not use a hammer to saw a piece of wood, so we would not use this mind concept to do more than it is designed to accomplish when rightly played out. Its first value is personal, but it moves at some pace to the social life of the person impacting many or few in the society. I have just reviewed the experience of a man… Read more

Monthly Archives: November 2018