Resistance

January 21, 2019

Year 4, Day 21 | No Comments

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

There are many words that are helpful to us, sometimes very helpful, in both negative and affirmative contexts, but words that tend to fall into either excessive adoption or reputation in one direction or another. They may have positive or negative impressions on our feelings, so may be given meanings by listeners never anticipated by communicators in this or that situation, to this or that audience or person. Audience attitudes related to some words cannot be violated for emotions, even for the purpose of discussion. Resistance is built into the human psyche and should be understood and interpreted. Even though the N-word is used by some Afro-Americans in conversations among themselves in humor, the use of the word by a… Read more

Obsession

January 20, 2019

Year 4, Day 20 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Today’s Page focuses on addiction for this date in our four years of discussion about the practical and educational Christian life to application. The plan has been to provide a personal discussion about living in an imperfect world with a concept of God as a friendly and authoritative participant in the lives of those who invite him into their lives, based on Christian principles as revealed in Scripture. This applies to all of life in a sense of wholeness, found in a context of righteousness, perceived in biblical principles that offer a meaning of life unity and spiritual identity – wholeness to the person living in a complex context of nature that admits of good and evil, of sublimity and… Read more

Distortions

January 19, 2019

Year 4, Day 19 | No Comments

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

Some years ago there was an attempt to find out why so much was said, focused and written about persons and relationships that were or seemed to be distorted, conducts that reduced the force of good out of the issues of life under discussion. Why, for example, do we give so much more time to the distortions of marriage than to the beauty, love, safety, fulfillment of family life? Why do we not spend more time in identifying and cultivating that which is good and how to achieve it in this or that than to give so much space to the troublemaker, the selfish, the rebel, the drunk, the misfits, the angry, and the irresponsible? There is a significant movement… Read more

Love Missed By The World

January 18, 2019

Year 4, Day 18 | No Comments

Every child has a father, but many children have no Dad. It can also be said that every child has a mother, but some children have no Mom. However, more have Moms than Dads. The distinction of becoming a father begins with sperm and a momentary experience, but the distinction of a Dad is lifetime experience and relationship that includes a long term period of care, love, values and bonding. In years, before the end of the twentieth century, why did an increasing percentage of youngsters have no Dads? Because marriages were and are breaking up in significant numbers; because more single women are giving birth and electing to keep their babies on their own; because artificial insemination is increasing,… Read more

Two Kingdoms

January 17, 2019

Year 4, Day 17 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

There is a sense in which I feel sorry for us, for those who want to include in their earthly sojourn the context of heaven’s life. The effort is more than difficult in that heaven’s future inhabitants do not have barriers of earth’s imperfection, and earth’s inhabitants do not have heaven’s perfection. For Christians in the world, life often seems like a jumble, especially as Christians learn more and more what God and heaven, and earth too, are really like. We blame life for earth problems. There is so much we do not understand about earth with its contradictions and paradoxes. Then to add the righteousness God calls us to follow in preparation for what heaven has to offer. To… Read more

Judgment/Evaluation

January 16, 2019

Year 4, Day 16 | No Comments

Over the decades of my life I have read many writings of scholarly persons, and have been friends of many who enjoy, with me, conversation relating to life on earth in either a humanistic or spiritual orientation. It is interesting to discover that in both orientations there is something of theology. Naturalists sometimes seem to argue theology even when affirming an atheistic context for life. For my purpose on this page I will use the ideas and experiences of Dr. Oliver Sacks, an intrepid neurologist, who at eighty years of age continues his world studies of the functioning of the human mind. The article from an interview by Ron Rosenbaum accents the issues of hallucination. (The SMITHSONIAN, December 2012, Pgs…. Read more

Grief and Lament

January 15, 2019

Year 4, Day 15 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Cultures vary on their interpretation of death, both in the way expired persons’ bodies are treated and in the social/personal management of the change that death brings into the lives of those remaining. As at birth the family is accented in the life origin, the family is usually accented in life ending. The family is not only perceived as something of the beginning and ending of an individual’s life, but is treated legally as a means of managing the beginning and ending of a life. The death of a person has an ongoing meaning, no matter how small, in a period following the death. At this writing a new prince has been born to the royal family of Windsor in… Read more

Animals

January 14, 2019

Year 4, Day 14 | No Comments

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

My own deep conviction is that life is an evidence of God. Mankind tends to look for evidence of God, and failing that, the beginning of life. The presumption is that if the origin of life is found in some mechanical action in the cosmos or nature, we will have either found proof of God, or we have proof in the process unveiled that there is no personal God. Perhaps number one on the list of factors looked for by space scientists is life. They yearn to find some evidence of life outside the earth’s atmosphere. If life can’t be found, they look for an environment that might have once supported life, or could if there were life to be… Read more

Revelation

January 13, 2019

Year 4, Day 13 | No Comments

This Page is better understood in readings of Pages for this date in previous volumes that address the knotty problem of biblical meaning and interpretation in the light of human experience. The uniqueness of Scripture from other literature requires adjustment from standard preferences for literature because Scripture is addressing the issues of two very different contexts, one human and one divine. The chasm between the two is so great that Scripture admits to mystery for mankind. If a person is unwilling to exercise faith in God that covers the ultimate mystery that person is limited to humanism. Humanism also has its mystery envelope, but it is assumed that science will attack that mystery to some solutions that will improve the… Read more

Academic Hoops

January 12, 2019

Year 4, Day 12 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

This morning I read the current issue of Biblical Archaeology that included a number of articles on the latest information related to a number of topics. Some of the main ones included: 1- an article on whether or not the evidence proved Rahab a harlot or an innkeeper, and how she assisted the spies from Israel; 2- an article on Hezekiah’s tunnel, and whether or not it was Hezekiah’s or that of some other; and, 3- an article on the identity of the Kings of Israel, and whether or not they were genuine renditions. There was much else – including book reviews, a section always of interest to me in any publication. The reviews here were not so much reviews… Read more

Monthly Archives: January 2019