God and Nature

December 26, 2018

Year 3, Day 360 | No Comments

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

This is a summary Page of the main ideas of the four years of TODAY’S PAGE possible here, near the end of the third year, because the release of the manuscript in final editing is taken by me as the beginning of whatever ministry and meaning this project may have, first to my family, and then onward to the parents and students considering the meaning of Christian education for life and effective functioning for persons both in the natural/humanistic context (without consideration of deity) and in the natural/Christian context. Nature and Super-nature: The world system is the same for both Christian and non-Christian. A value system is built into the context of life and is articulated in Scripture, but is… Read more

Searchers

December 24, 2018

Year 3, Day 358 | No Comments

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

In academic journals there may appear articles, lengthy and short, reciting evidence for this and/or that point-of-view relative to some issue. Recent to this writing there appeared various defenses for the date (possible) for the birth of Christ appearing in the January/February, 2014, issue of Biblical Archaeology. There are four dates bandied about relative to Jesus’ birth. The two leading ones are 4 B.C. and 1B.C. One archaeologist made firm defense for 4 B.C. Another, in countering the first, not only argued in favor of the 1B.C. date, but wrote: The most often preferred candidate, the 4 B.C. eclipse, is, in my view, far and away the least likely one. (In human search analysts don’t permit the possibility of a… Read more

Gifting

December 23, 2018

Year 3, Day 357 | No Comments

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

The model of cerebral thought in Scripture is found in comparisons/contrasts/experiences/analogies found in parables of reality or mythology generally found in nature. The process permits the receiver of the information to interpret life from experience that is perceived to be the reality of experiences in the course of the womb of nature in which persons incubate for what follows. From our lives (private) inter-personal lives (social) form. This becomes reality for a person, driven by all the factors related to belief, motivation and interpretation for life. This includes factors that are often contradictory such as the collision of emotions (feelings) with reasons (logics). Cerebral functioning is necessary to both. Parables include directing the individual with the responsibility to extract truth… Read more

The End of the Earth

December 16, 2018

Year 3, Day 350 | No Comments

Increasingly nations are taking interest in concepts related to the end of the earth, earth as we know it. Survival or extinction is being taken seriously. From ancient times biblical literature has addressed the earth and mankind – their meaning and durability, blessings and threats, and purposes for existence. We now have a variety of prognostications based on science, faith, and assumptions both plausible and implausible. There is a general agreement that the life world, as we know it, will end. Some believe it will end with a whimper, some believe a cataclysm, some believe a dead planet, but all indicate the end of mankind unless some other locale is found for mankind to emigrate, and begin another phase of… Read more

Animal Life

December 14, 2018

Year 3, Day 348 | No Comments

Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Animals appear to be part of a great parable of earth. They belong even more to earth than mankind. They live close to the land with modest nests, dens and adaptations to their environments. They have rather simple diets, often living off the lives of other animals with a natural nutrition they seem to discover. They usually care for their young, appear to make choices in mating for the most developed species of vertebrates, even creating families among some, especially with mothers and offspring relating in the first year or so of a newborn. They manage well in the matter of giving birth and finding ways of survival. Without the care and protection of human beings the animals are in… 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

Faith Is Tough

December 3, 2018

Year 3, Day 337 | No Comments

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

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

Day Without Sun

December 1, 2018

Year 3, Day 335 | No Comments

For this date, the 1st of December in the month of Advent, I have stayed with the concept of Day Without Sun. There is an implication of mortality in it, a vital division of the world of mankind into two massive populations, those who see mortality as the beginning and end of human life, and those who see human mortality as a bridge (transition) to immortality, either blessed or condemned. The orientation, either way is a serious one, with everything hanging in the consequence. It takes faith to believe or disbelieve. In a review of a two part TV presentation of the life of Woody Allen, best known for his acting and directing in well-known films, Nancy deWolf Smith writes… Read more

Life and Planning

November 14, 2018

Year 3, Day 318 | No Comments

One of the most important bits of life information that parents ought to impart to their children is to give some attention to what those children want to be and do when they have completed the responsibilities of their professional and family lives. Too many persons are bereft after their wage/salary days are closed. Not only do they miss the paychecks, but the job, the exchange with colleagues, and the feeling they are contributing in some way to the advancement of society, perhaps their communities. For many persons growing old is something like moving to another country with a different culture than they have known. Their own society sends a mixed message to them in both gracious and demeaning ways. … Read more

Sayings

November 4, 2018

Year 3, Day 308 | No Comments

Growing old requires education so to become tolerant of emerging generations. Historically the gift of long life was seen as given of God for appropriate conduct, so to have some influence with God. Aged persons were seen as important to a community for counsel, peace, problem solving and benediction. The modernization of life with industrialization, national economies, changing family profiles and values, and a half dozen or so other influences, the aged have become somewhat superfluous. They even become, for some analysts, a burden to be insulted for requiring maintenance resources. I have read a number of these perceptions. Only now and then are elders credited for the enormous infrastructure ceded to the future, to the improved order of things… Read more

Category Archive: Faith