Intentionality

November 3, 2017

Year 2, Day 307 | No Comments

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

A common idiom from the past is: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The meaning, of course, is that attempting in sincerity to do the right thing does not assure that the end will be good. Like so many sayings of cultures the statement assumes some contexts that may not be standard experience for many persons. Further, so many sayings have a ring to them that invite careful attention. However, if knowledgeable, we retain more complete understanding that there are limitations, omissions, even errors in such statements unless the agreement between persons is on the same wave length. Even then mutuality may be limited. The saying does embrace a truth that intentions, no matter how honorable, do… Read more

Faith And Trust

October 22, 2017

Year 2, Day 295 | No Comments

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

Mankind is so tied to earth that we may fumble in the way heaven deals with us. To communicate with earth may be, for God, not unlike the difference between a parent and child. The parent is heard to say to the child, in a conversation dealing with a sophisticated concern: Trust me in this, we will work it out and you will be happy with it. The trusting child does not ask for documentation, or written contract, or an advance on the promise – or anything more than the word of someone the child loves, is dependent upon, and finds the promise to be enough. There is analogy here, in that earth experience is a shadow of heaven experience. … Read more

Identifying Prayer

September 15, 2017

Year 2, Day 258 | No Comments

Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

A congregation was asked to brainstorm the program of their church. Unofficial minutes were taken of the oral questions and contributions. The list was given to me, to respond in evaluation and comment. Among the items was a question about prayer, with the implication that something may have been left out of the program of the church, in that there was no period set for the corporate prayer of the people. It is interesting that Scripture identifies the church as a house of prayer, but during recent decades, there has been relatively little prayer offered. It is also interesting that other religions accent prayer to the degree that monks will spend hours turning wheels of written prayers so to activate… Read more

Meekness

August 31, 2017

Year 2, Day 243 | No Comments

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

Meekness is often confused with timidity, even shyness, perhaps naïve behavior. It may be faked as a ruse for selfish purposes. Charles Dickens used it effectively in this way in David Copperfield. Herod faked it with the Magi, so promising to go to wherever they found the babe – so that he would go and worship him also. He played a duplicity role when he had the babes of Bethlehem murdered so as to include the unidentified person noted by the Magi. Humility is the larger term that includes meekness, but meekness has a cultural meaning with an attitude in it that is included in the clusters of Christian virtues. It is defined as humble, mild, poor, lowly, afflicted, needy… Read more

Context

August 19, 2017

Year 2, Day 231 | No Comments

Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Those following these Pages find several vital repetitions: context (complexity) for life; divine (spiritual) and common (natural) grace(s); understanding and knowledge (wisdom incorporating both natural evidence and divine revelation in faith and practice); righteousness and sin as practical issues for both mortality and immortality; culture and Christ-likeness as factors (righteousness and service to others as major work) to be modeled in the Christian life; and, several other lesser, but important emphases, most of which are subsumed under the above areas for consideration and discussion emphases. The age in which this is being written will likely be known, if history proceeds, as the Scientific Age. Science dominates both the educational/sophisticated world and the lives of ordinary citizens, many of whom could… Read more

Aloneness

August 13, 2017

Year 2, Day 225 | No Comments

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

It was mid-summer 1937, a hot day in Bainbridge, Georgia. My mother had returned for the first time in 17 years to the community of her childhood. She had long been through a hard row to hoe period of life. Leaving home in 1920, she went 1,000 miles north to the growing industrial area of northern Ohio. She sent money home to her dying father, and lived on the residue of her wages. She met and married the man who became my father, only to lose him to five years in a sanatorium, and death from tuberculosis in 1929. She held tenaciously to her three children, losing them for a short period, and surviving on her own labors, until she… Read more

Answers And Attitudes

July 14, 2017

Year 2, Day 195 | No Comments

Thoughtful persons want to know the best processes for discovering truth, and what is the truth at the end of the processes. What is the truth? Is it only partial? They would prefer to know the truth, more than the various points of view that may be interpreted as truth. What are the facts, known and unknown, and where do we go from here? Does the evidence suggest one conclusion, or variant interpretations? What is fact? Is it the same in all situations? Does history change the facts? Is truth found only in scientific investigation? Are there other routes, perhaps to other conclusions? Are there realities one process can find, and another has no clue, or mysterious clues? Writing about… Read more

What’s Fittin’

July 1, 2017

Year 2, Day 182 | No Comments

We touched on fundamentals of order a year ago on this date, and return to order for today. There is much to be said about order, to be thought through, to find the best in life. It is admitted that human beings sometimes find order to be boring, perhaps antiseptic, but that is because we are imperfect so find some comfort in disorder that we feel fits us. Rather than argue the point here, we take order as a matter of biblical affirmation. There is a God of order, and we should attempt to fit into his orderliness for our lives. If Scripture injunction does not persuade us, arguments for order are plentifully proved in the nature of things, especially… Read more

Fact Play

June 20, 2017

Year 2, Day 171 | No Comments

Key to discovery of nature’s truth is found in what is commonly called the scientific method. Begun with some issue (question), the searcher develops a theory (hypothesis), and begins procedures (research), to discover facts that are verifiable to attentive persons using proper processes. From this methodology an appropriate statement (conclusion) is made that focuses the project – as far as it has gone. The conclusion may introduce new questions which must be addressed by similar process, if final statements are to be made – statements both affirmative and negative. Miracles, if miracles are real, do not fit the scientific process as it is expressed in its current structure of the discovery of nature’s truth. Exclusively humanistic scientists likely do not… Read more

Divine Mystery

June 13, 2017

Year 2, Day 164 | No Comments

Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

We return to the theme of mystery. The word mystery is common in the discussion of theology. Several religions are listed as mystery religions, and Christianity, by dint of its affirmation, is chief among them. It is likely that most persons do not pursue and benefit from what this means. The mystery deepens in the uniqueness of Christianity. The Apostle Paul acknowledged that God is somewhat shrouded in mystery, but that there is enough known, revealed from the otherwise unknown, that mankind’s needs are met. The full story envelops both the known and unknown, so is captured in the term and experience known as faith. Faith is the clasp for us on the known and the unknown about God. What… Read more

Category Archive: Faith