Category Archive: Faith

One Life and the Future

December 30, 2019

Year 4, Day 364 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

One of the most common complaints of thoughtful older persons is that they were not guided in their early years to the point of thinking seriously about: who they are, and what they want to be. When I ask older children about their futures I usually receive a poor answer that reflects neglected parenting, or a general disregard for the matter from individuals important to those I question. There is abundant testimony from successful persons about their early thoughts and experiences relevant to their adult lives. Self-identity is largely left to the individual to determine, but there are many exchanges with parents and teachers or mentors (especially family members, counselors and pastors) who can help in the process. We are… Read more

Christian Humanism

December 28, 2019

Year 4, Day 362 | No Comments

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

Approaching the end of about twenty years writing a Page for each day to cover a four years period, I feel the urge to accent the large concept of Christian culture projected into the earth cultures of the world. It is a subject addressed just two days past in this series – and on other days through four years of: TODAY’S PAGE. The projection is so large it needs to be underlined in thought and practice, so to contribute to the effective witness and model of Christianity for holistic life. We hope to find the most straightforward and clear way to present the point advanced here. The discussion begins with the assertion that the Christian and the atheist ought to… Read more

Christianity

December 11, 2019

Year 4, Day 345 | No Comments

Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

This is being written on Christmas Eve, 2014, and motivated by the variances in which Christmas is perceived and celebrated in America – and to even greater differentials in other nations. In some areas of the world, carried by different secular or religious contexts in cultures, the incarnation of Jesus Christ from God is not believed, or may be held as a pagan concept deemed untrue in religion and culture – to the point it may be made an illegal practice in legal systems – worthy of omission. The trail of unbelief can be perceived in any country, but is accented more in some areas than others. Personal faith toleration in English-speaking countries is high, and Christianity in its various… Read more

Knowledgability

December 2, 2019

Year 4, Day 336 | No Comments

Knowledge is so much more than most persons perceive it to be. That extension is good and generates action necessary for sustaining and advancing human life. Knowledge, or that which we presume to be knowledge, becomes a part of us, and we act on it – to greater or lesser degrees depending upon our human energy, status position, education, and responsibility. We have a monumental problem in the life of this in that we may not understand the knowledge we have or believe we have. Not understanding it for proper interpretation leading to action causes some of the ugliest events in human history for both individuals and societies. At this time period in history the world is confronted with terrorism,… Read more

Freedom Language

November 15, 2019

Year 4, Day 319 | No Comments

Our first concern for this Page relates to language and its search for meaning. As time passes and a language grows old it takes on considerable baggage. We have to work at getting the meaning of symbols as they either reflect important specificity, or wonder about in variant contexts in which we use and abuse the magnificent gift of language – by which we can express that which separates the human animal from the dumb animal, and the human from the divine. That difference is found in the ability to communicate reflective thought and act upon it. Certainly dumb animals in the seas, land, and air have means of communication, but that related to inward impulses related to limited emotional… Read more

Devotion To Prayer

October 27, 2019

Year 4, Day 300 | No Comments

We do well to perceive prayers as discussion between parent and child – with restrained communication from one, and limited knowledge from the other. (By using the family analogy we are recalling the preference of Jesus in using parables to freight his meanings. The Apostle Paul owed much to the patterns of Aristotle’s rhetoric. Both are used by God, although both might be faulted by divine standards.) The child stubs his toe, begins to cry and hastens to mother for comfort and some relief. The child may be sniffling, making some word sounds, and the gestures make clear the enormous extent of the conditions. There is concern from mother, not nearly as dramatic as that of the child. She knows… Read more

Faith Understanding

October 22, 2019

Year 4, Day 295 | No Comments

We choose, or lapse into, our capacities for giving and receiving. If wise we balance our lives so to gain not only what we need to do, but how we will believe and perform. This has implications for just about everything we are and mean to become. We determine, or fall into, a pattern that includes the public/privacy of our daily lives, the spending/savings of our stewardship, the needs/desires of our personalities, the disciplined/casual factors we decide to follow – and other comparisons/contrasts that taken together determine the course of life for us in style, values and meaning related to desired ends. They form our characters, personalities, activities – all summarized as the degree of maturation that we gain for… Read more

Paradise

October 11, 2019

Year 4, Day 284 | No Comments

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

In spiritual context, my logic forbids me from believing that God is ever thwarted – even if in mortal logic it appears to be so in some conflicts of evil with good. It can’t be possible for conclusions, so his plans will be completed for every project that he originates. At the beginning of earth life for mankind, the feature of the image of God related to mankind assured that the perfect beginning (Eden/Adam/Eve) would be made with future consequences of perfect completion. We dare not say that for mankind – depravity, folly, mismanagement, death or any other negative, large or small, will survive in the ultimate denouement of the creative gesture of God that we summarize as nature. Mankind… Read more

Context For Hope

September 20, 2019

Year 4, Day 263 | No Comments

Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

We tend to choose or fall into the context by which we manage (live out) our lives. That becomes the whole human scope for an individual life. Those contexts, whether chosen or accidental in details, are many in number. Persons are responsible for the consequences of their own choices or those factors that are permitted to attach themselves, and have no legitimate claim to whatever is rejected or omitted from their life choices. The dominant context resulting tends toward emotional gratification to greater or lesser degree, even when it can be supported by cerebral faith evidence that we have worked through on our own. We offer to ourselves thoughtful arguments, perhaps with persuasive natural evidence. The evidence is not wholly… Read more

Courageous Love

August 9, 2019

Year 4, Day 221 | No Comments

The disciples shared the ministry of Jesus for about a thousand days, commonly stated as three years of ministry and instruction to the point of the crucifixion of Jesus. That ministry was continued for about a month after the resurrection – to believers. In the forty days until the ascension, Jesus was not always with the disciples. Of all Christ’s earthly days, the Apostle John chose about fifteen in the thousand to write about. About a third of the Gospel he wrote took place on one day. John was taken with several themes for accent. One theme was love. He identified love as something in the nature of God, represented in the love of Christ to the disciples, and from… Read more

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