Preparation

February 28, 2019

Year 4, Day 59 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

My elder son and I were discussing marriage experience in its successes and failures, and what may be done to accent success and reduce failure. One point discussed was related to pre-marital counseling. There is a secret in pre-marriage counseling that few persons appear to contemplate, but it becomes important in the influence for good in marriages: That promises made in advance of this event (or any other human event) have greater weight than those made during or after the event. He immediately responded, in the light of understanding and approving the statement by saying: Dad, you ought to include that in one of your Pages. To comfort him (a minor motivation), and to find another insight into the advance… Read more

Holistic Christianity

February 27, 2019

Year 4, Day 58 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Christianity is first and primarily the offer of God, through Jesus Christ, to provide redemption to mankind. That adoption is necessary because human imperfection (identified as sin, faulty, immoral, etc.) demands repair if the individual desires to be included as a child of God in the spiritual (immortal) meaning identified beyond the natural (mortal) creation. God’s redemptive meaning spiritually proceeds beyond the natural creation, whereas God’s physical creation does not require spiritual identity in nature’s life – as the animals do not hold spiritual inheritance. The concept is summarized in that human beings belong to God by his creative gesture, but unacceptable for immortal relationship with God. In the acceptance of the redemptive plan of God, the human individual is… Read more

Starting at Go

February 26, 2019

Year 4, Day 57 | No Comments

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

For a world dominated by movements related to education, progress, pluralism, technology, economics, work and science as is our current world, I was arrested by the statement of Clancy Martin in The Atlantic magazine: Philosophers eager to write for popular audiences are finding readers who want answers science can’t offer. How many times have I heard/read a similar statement, and made it myself? It is an old concern for mankind – that knowledge and understanding of nature do not meet all our needs for meaning and truth. Those concerned with ideas from beyond nature are often presumed to be superstitious, death-fearing, weak thinkers, perhaps exotic/mthical about this or that. Admittedly there are some Christians beyond their depth in the controversies… Read more

Common Grace Finds Divine

February 25, 2019

Year 4, Day 56 | No Comments

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

Immediately after the national elections in November, 2012, it was announced that an honored, gifted, respected leader in the military and other national appointments had an intimate affair with the person who had written his biography. The scandal was reviewed numerous times through the media, with various interpretations, but with the universal agreement that this was a serious matter that might have meaning to national security, meant sorrow for families and friends. It provided a depressing feeling for those who had made the officer a model of what a person could be and do. The various points continue as this is being written and may not play out for a year or so from this date, highly dependent upon the… Read more

Perfection

February 24, 2019

Year 4, Day 55 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

It is not uncommon for persons to confuse themselves, in mind and action, when they are drawn into conflict with sophisticated ideas and practice. A writer to an advice columnist complained about being shut out of her community circle. With her husband, likely in retirement, she had moved into a new community, and joined in the social interchange that had been formed among the neighbors. As the new persons on the block they were invited into the home of the others for the planned periodic celebrations with food and banter. They liked it, with one objection – two of the couples in the group were gay, obvious by their arrival at the parties, simple identity with each other, leaving parties… Read more

Faith and Mankind

February 23, 2019

Year 4, Day 54 | No Comments

In general society there appears some frustration with education at the time of this writing, not only with the young, but increasing doubts as generations grow older. Elders tend to appear a bit better than the youthful generations, likely due simply to having lived longer and picking up some modest sophistication and life experience as they went along. Part of the problem, as asserted in some of these Pages, is that there is inadequate understanding between education and training taken together with significant overlap of the two. Education once referred to the development of the person – the person in relationship to self, other persons and the world, commonly referred to as the Humanities. That included the study of religion… Read more

Healing and Faith

February 22, 2019

Year 4, Day 53 | No Comments

A book by Bryan Johnson and Maria Pagano was accented in an article entitled: Can Faith Rewire an Addict’s Brain? Because Johnson is a professor at Baylor University, and Pagano at Case Western Reserve University, I followed their academic approach to respond to the question posed in the article’s title. Their answer is affirmative, that faith can revive the brain, perhaps achieved by moving the control from left to right lobes in the process. Shift in brain lobes relates to science for evidence, and the reference to faith relates to testimonials from former addicts that faith played a part in their recovery. The point struck me that the addicts were greatly helped to health through cooperative faith and science. The… Read more

Faith and Mankind

February 21, 2019

Year 4, Day 52 | No Comments

It is difficult for mankind to get a fix on God. I am reminded of my earliest algebra lessons when we learned how to work with fractions, and how to begin by finding the lowest common denominator. If faced with the fraction of 16 under 4 the student would divide the lower figure by the upper figure to 4. Both numbers were quartered. The fraction then became the conclusion of one fourth (1/4) – gaining the lowest common denominator fraction. If mankind is the lowest common denominator (1) in the piece, and God is the identified perfect 100 above the line, we presume God 100 times greater than mankind. Although no human being can do more than play games with… Read more

Look of Wealth

February 20, 2019

Year 4, Day 51 | No Comments

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

The secular concepts of wealth are mixed. Wealth is sometimes sought to the degree that persons will take on great risks to gain it even to the risk of life, the splintering of their families, the violation of their values, the loss of balance relating to self and society. Gaining it is the central purpose of most crime. With all his reputation for wisdom, Solomon risked the solidarity of Israel in his program for regal wealth. God likely permitted the folly to demonstrate how insidious the love of wealth can become, even for a wise person. Wealth may lead to waste. Solomon had more horses than he needed to carry out the legitimate meaning of a head of state. The… Read more

Philosophy

February 19, 2019

Year 4, Day 50 | No Comments

This matter of philosophy is vital for us, if life is taken to have meaning more than an accident of evolution. As noted elsewhere in these pages, I hold no offense, as a believer in God, if God chose to achieve the development of nature to the point of forming a thinking animal in which he gave a unique dimension – his own image. That is acceptable for me. My concern is not with the past, but with the future. This is with the understanding that sometimes origins offer keys to understanding. Where do we go from here? Of course we gain some clues from the past, but the reality will be future. The information needed relates to what is… Read more

Monthly Archives: February 2019