Moderation

December 11, 2018

Year 3, Day 345 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Given enough time to learn and absorb the large factors making up the flow of life as those factors are addressed in Scripture, we discover a main one we call moderation. It is a principle that marks a center of gravity for our thoughts and conduct. Do I have enough (not too much, not too little) of this or that? The principle applies across the range of our lives. Do I give sufficient time to my spiritual life (not too much, not too little)? – work? – play? – family? – rest? – habits? – education? The list grows long included on the tally of needs, obligations and desires relating to the benefit of self and others. I want to… Read more

Distractions

December 10, 2018

Year 3, Day 344 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Like most factors in natural life, distraction may be beneficial or it may be damning. It may be large or small, so large it becomes sin, so small that it is undetectable. Where it is an important option the disciplines of self-control, choice, and purpose must be invoked. Jesus and the disciples were intensely involved in ministry, so demanding there was no time for respite, even to eat, so to maintain energy for further ministry. He halted the service, withdrew with the disciples for R and R. (Mark 6:31-33) They were soon at work again when pressed by the crowd. The world is ministered to by weary persons. But the servant of the people must sometimes be served. Correctly the… Read more

Risk and Reason

December 9, 2018

Year 3, Day 343 | No Comments

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

About the issues of mortal risk and death we seem to know little about them, and talk of them even less. We understand that the general population looks rightly upon safety from risk and death to be a sign of human responsibility and maturity. In the story about Le Mans, the wife raises the question to her race driver husband that the constant death threat of high speed racing seems bizarre. She asks that if one is going to risk life it ought to be something worthwhile. She does not see that racing to win over another driver is worth the risk. The driver reveals himself to be an addict when he answers that the race is the thing and… Read more

Secularism

December 8, 2018

Year 3, Day 342 | No Comments

That specificity in religious faith has been fading over recent decades since the two world wars appears to be obvious. That there has been growth in evangelical accented movements, especially in Pentecostal fellowships there is ample evidence, but the growth has been modest when compared to the expansion of secular populations and the erosion of religious ones in this third millennium since Jesus Christ’s earthly sojourn. During this past week, the most eminent Christian evangelist of the world, Billy Graham, made a statement at age 95 to express the need for spiritual renewal. They are his dying words to the world. Losses in Christian oriented denominations, even those constructed on a firm evangelism of born again preaching in evangelical appeal… Read more

Reckoning

December 7, 2018

Year 3, Day 341 | No Comments

Through the centuries theologians and preachers have wrestled with the tendency of mankind to believe that a person’s good works (human effort on earth to be acceptable to God for admission to his heaven) will suffice to find safety to affirmation after death. The memorials of persons following their demise continue a type of human deification in records, busts/statues and speakers, especially from those who were close to heroism and self-risk for family or country, or have made contribution to life and society that deserves honor and appreciation. All that dedication and effort deserves our honor of them, but they did what life was meant to accomplish. They have fulfilled the objective of their human creation and existence. Did we… Read more

Reasoning Minds

December 6, 2018

Year 3, Day 340 | No Comments

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

I decided to live the life of the mind long ago, well before I knew what that meant. I found that I admired educated persons. They seemed to develop more loyal families and make thoughtful projections about matters. There was less divorce. Broken families are more common among those with no more than basic education. They seemed to have something extra in life even though I couldn’t define it. I have learned that they read more than unlettered persons, that they tend to accept other persons better, even if they withdrew somewhat arrogantly in the doing. As there is a meaningful gap between the rich and the poor there is a gap between those educated and uneducated. For the educated… Read more

Hospitality To Rights

December 5, 2018

Year 3, Day 339 | No Comments

Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Many persons, even nations, misunderstand hospitality in its practice and/or meaning. To identify it as an important spiritual factor may seem silly or naïve in the discussion of great theological (sacred philosophy) themes that occupy those who give attention to ideas and conducts, their meaning and consequences. The following offers consideration, related to a large context of racial prejudice and justice from the last half of the twentieth century, the period of my life that included contacts with many cultures, groups and individuals – both in the silent majorities of each and the leaders of each. I drop my anchor into three specific accents in defense of peaceful activism for right seen in Lincoln, King, Graham . . . Jesus… Read more

Life and Integrity

December 4, 2018

Year 3, Day 338 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

We may not perceive that life in its revelation is formed from one and many. As God is one/trinity in the god-head of that one, so we too are made up of a compound that is life. There are two or more elements in a compound. Fusing elements that make up a compound determine its nature. We are compounds in the natural world that make of us the persons we are and become. Without enough iron in the body, the body is different than if the proper balance in life elements were available and that leads to suffering, perhaps death – unless righted. Without spiritual elements we are different persons than if those elements are present. If nature’s person discovers… Read more

Faith Is Tough

December 3, 2018

Year 3, Day 337 | No Comments

Often we confuse doubt and skepticism. They belong to each other, but they are different in that they are found not in the theme in discussion but in the person of faith who is doubtful and the one who to large degree gives first loyalty to doubt. Many persons of great faith have admitted to serious doubt, but held on to the affirmative of faith while the doubt worked its way through to resolution. Augustine confessed to doubt, but refused it in the light of what he believed to be the truth of Scripture so well preached by Anselm. Augustine, a distinguished teacher of rhetoric and well known in the secular Roman world, went to hear gifted Anselm preach so… Read more

Knowledge

December 2, 2018

Year 3, Day 336 | No Comments

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

Thomas Aquinas summarized my own strong feeling: We cannot understand things . . . unless they are united to our intellect in such a way that the knower and the known become one. We might well take flight with that statement. Does it help us understand our faith? Christ told the disciples that he would leave them, but that he would be in them. He related his departure as necessary for them so that in his abandonment of the human body with its tie to nature he could then function freely in the supernatural and be (abide) with all those who would believe on him. The abiding Christian senses that reality, but could never prove it in nature. It is… Read more

Monthly Archives: December 2018