Daily pages of reflection...for knowledge, understanding, to wisdom
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

War and Violence

March 6, 2017
Year 2, Day 65 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

At this writing there is some discussion between persons of Christian faith, and those discounting at least part of that faith as represented in Scripture.  The negative critical group argues that in several matters Scripture appears to approve of some negative human events – like warfare.  Reasons for the current discussion relate to Christian reaction to terrorism from extremists in the Muslim community who have created upheaval in the world identified not only with Muslim versus Christian controversies, but also controversies mixed between entities that hold to the same religious and/or political cultures.  Muslims are rebelling against some Muslim regimes.  Dictator/Muslim Gadhafi, was killed by Muslims, with outside help perhaps including Americans, in Libya.  The story is an ugly one… Read more

Wisdom Prayer

March 5, 2017
Year 2, Day 64 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Prayer is sometimes used as cover and reprieve for prejudice, misdirection, wrong thinking, even to dignify some humanistic cultural factors in lives and experiences.  The person of prayer, to counter wrong in any context, needs to be committed to the idea that includes a desire on the part of the prayerful person to have God’s will in all matters.  These include personal and social concerns in a troubled mix of nations and cultures.  Incorporated in this objective approach are the private issues of life for persons and families.  The prayerful person, following biblical precedent, ought to pray in such a way that the prayers will be honored in any event.  It is appropriate that the person at prayer move toward… Read more

Work and God

March 4, 2017
Year 2, Day 63 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

Following human limited patterns to discover answers to questions, what would one offer to argue for acceptance by God?  How may I satisfy myself that I have done what I ought to do to gain approval from God?  There are variant interpretations for the issue – both natural and supernatural.  One is what I become, in and of myself.  This is separate from anything else in analysis, but integral in the fact that there is a unity, if not violated, in each person that includes all that he or she is and does.  In final summary, God does not permit us to compartmentalize our persons.  For purpose here, to analyze, we are concerned with the identifiables.  If I were to… Read more

Imbalance

March 3, 2017
Year 2, Day 62 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

The expectations, challenges, problems, mystery, and the like comprise what I see as the invisibilities of our existence.  They are out there imposing themselves on us, and in here generated from our own questions, fears, and complexities about life, success or failure, or where we are in the cosmos.  Everything seems so big, and we seem so small.  We usually put up a brave front, and, over the course of time, we determine how to deal with all life’s stuff.  We fill life context as we feel we can.  But, some are overwhelmed to the point of suicide, or fall into some psychological hole, whether an abyss or just deep enough that they can’t emerge to gain normal life.  As… Read more

Birthdays to Meaning

March 2, 2017
Year 2, Day 61 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

I live the life of the mind and spirit.  I believed in the aspirations of the dedicated student, but did not know until after the death of my wife the extent of the treasure that context would mean to me.  In retirement, and now living alone, I am taken up each day in a fulfillment of the ripening of mind and spirit.  The action is a large factor contributing to health, inner gratification, meaning and understanding that enhances daily experience including spiritual enlargement found in Scripture and prayer.  It prompted me to write these Pages that I hope will contribute something to the lives of my children and their families – and students, perhaps anyone seeking life as God would… Read more

God’s Grace for All

March 1, 2017
Year 2, Day 60 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

Any thoughtful person must be drawn to better generalizations than we appear to be getting from the casual and distracting volumes of information circulating in general public.  The public is pushed around by the negatives, the conniving, the crime waves, the murders, the conflicts of nearly everything – including religions.  What if instead of accusing one another between the largely secularized West (meaningfully influenced by Christianity) and the Islamic dominated nations (internationally at odds and diluting freedom in their faith) – both holding contrary elements and accents in them, we began talking about what troubles each side, and investigated to discover if legitimate questions may be addressed peacefully?  Let there be no doubt, Islamic peoples have some just grievances that… Read more

The Ultimate

February 28, 2017
Year 2, Day 59 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

There are perhaps several dozen experiences in Scripture permitted of God that do not fit the clear standards followed by his most faithful children – as Esther, Samson, David illustrate.  There appear exceptions for a few, as there are exceptions for purpose in our natural order of life.  We conjecture the reasons for some events.  Involved persons may pay dearly for involvement.  They may offer special events for good/ill that do not follow righteous excellence in the devout – in particular circumstances.  There appears the clash of divine love and anger, and the power of judgment in the plan of God.  Sin and holiness clash, and we may expect something out of order to follow for God, man and the… Read more

Body and Soul

February 27, 2017
Year 2, Day 58 | No Comments

One who lives long encounters two applied meanings of old – old and aged.  When I retired from the administration of a college, I was perceived as entering the old generation – point of retirement.  That is fairly easy to accept in that the pleasure of retirement and freedom from some duties dilutes the inner feeling of being out of it in the business world.  There is loss of authority, and general awareness that one’s word is not as meaningful in active life as it once was.  Then in the course of events, I was needed for about ten years in the business lives of my sons.  Not on strict hours, I was given duty in the part of the… Read more

Framing in Glory

February 26, 2017
Year 2, Day 57 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

To be most assured of clarity in a discussion, one would like to start at the beginning (wherever that may be) and work through steps in the larger context of the topic to this particular occasion.  That luxury might take too much time for some of us, as it would bog down in the detours that would press in along the way.  To get from there to here is not a straight line for human beings.  So we jump into the pool of thought, belief and conduct wherever we can, hoping that good-will prevails so to help us in reaching agreement, even if it is agreement for disagreement.  For example, humanists arguing from presuppositions of nature only as context for… Read more

Divine Grace

February 25, 2017
Year 2, Day 56 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

Common Grace is from God, a gift to the world to function freely, with the application of freedom and truth to the context of mortal living in nature and applied equally, which is to say freely, to all people.  It is idealistic in that it provides context for all creation to mortal survival, perhaps perceived wrongly as though there were no living God.  It may be found in its fullness by what the wisest persons among mankind would desire for all persons, pagan or devout.  Common grace, involving unearned benefit when incorporated and not violated, is universal law in creation.  It is forceful in the survival of even imperfect mankind and our environment.  It is highly valued as universal for… Read more

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