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

Evidence

August 23, 2019
Year 4, Day 235 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

I was a forensics student in college, accenting debate but participating in oratory as my related event.  Our coach, Dr. Clarence Nystrom wanted his team members to do more than debate only so we had choices of other events.  I liked them all, including impromptu and extemporaneous speaking in which the adjudicator of our ‘off-the-cuff’ speeches during three minutes would ask a question and the student would reply verbally as though speaking to an audience.  I remember well the poorest extemporaneous speech I ever evaluated when I became a forensics coach, and the roles were reversed for me.  The student from a leading university held forth for three minutes on the administration of Herbert Hoover as the Director of the… Read more

Accidently Human

August 22, 2019
Year 4, Day 234 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

Several analysts of the circumstances related to the April, 1995, bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, have suggested that a major cause of this and other dramatic tragedies, in America, is the anger of white (Caucasian) men in the young through early middle-age periods of their lives.  These men, according to the analysts, feel put-upon by society, by government, by various interest groups and by the rhetoric of much of the mass media.  Males of many nations rightly have been taking their lumps.  In America they are portrayed as the murderers of native Americans (in Custer’s Case, the Indians got to him as he was on his way to slaughter them).  Some men became exploiters of black people… Read more

Future Wisdom

August 21, 2019
Year 4, Day 233 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

The serious evaluators, problem solvers, the persons earning the names of wisdom are often overlooked by the general population.  The media that sometimes present them gain only a little attention, as these serious men and women hold forth on matters of import related to the human condition.  Violators gain more attention – the puckish, celebrity, skeptic, disillusioned, angry, disinterested, self-centered – the list grows long.  We advance in some areas and fall back in others, sometimes recovering in this area and falling back in another – both life changing.  At this writing science is moving along rather well, government is stalled, and social conduct appears to be in decline what with the weakening of the family, the preoccupation with debilitating… Read more

Love’s Mystery

August 20, 2019
Year 4, Day 232 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Love is a mystery and that partly because it comes, in its legitimate meanings and implications, from God.  If we did not have God we would not have love above the level of manufacture related to self-interest. Altruism in us has its origin in love although it may lose its origin, as many matters lose their relationship to their origins.  This has occurred in some tribes who, in research of long past, it was discovered that the closest one remote people could identify with biblical or human love as recited by the missionary related an acknowledgment of a tingling inside.  The tribe had no word for love, but knew there was something they wanted to understand in their experience.  They… Read more

Either/Or

August 19, 2019
Year 4, Day 231 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

This Page generates from an exchange between me and a great-grandson.  For a period, we sent, each weekend an E-mail to each other touching on both personal and general life issues as they appear in Christian interpretation, consideration and application.   A major point one day related to the either/or personal attitude for the interpretation of factors in life context, as contrasted with the both/and attitude.  There needs to be enough self-knowledge for the individual to know whether or not his or her own attitude (as understood from application of principle) is flexible to treat thought and conduct with an integrity that relates to truth.  We may not realize the matter belongs to humility so for the affirming person to have… Read more

Religions

August 18, 2019
Year 4, Day 230 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

At this writing, late spring 2012, a patient lady, Suu Kyi, has been freed from house arrest that lasted for 21 years.  She traveled to Oslo, Norway where she received the Peace prize that had been announced for her two decades earlier, but she was forbidden to travel, from her military controlled homeland, Myanmar.   A visitor said on seeing her: There are so few people in the world willing to sacrifice everything for justice and peace.  She’s in the same league as Nelson Mandela.  Her husband, Buddhist scholar, Michael Aris, was not alive to see her.  He died of cancer in 1999.  Her forced seclusion continued.  In receiving her Peace Prize after so many years she used: . . …. Read more

Good Life/Good Death

August 17, 2019
Year 4, Day 229 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

This Page is a continuation of the Junior entry for this date a year ago.  The emphasis there is on altruism, especially related to human (natural) benefits identified in the meaning of persons – to serve others.  It was built into the nature of mankind by God and functions unless the person chooses to overcome inclination (beginning in childhood).  It is always present, but may be effectively muffled.  A gentleman noting my interest in my father-in-law and his wife surprised me when he said that he would like to think that if he had the opportunity he would like to believe that he would offer the attention to his parents that he saw in this exchange with my wife’s parents. … Read more

Gospel Mystery

August 16, 2019
Year 4, Day 228 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

Mystery, sometimes perceived as ignorance, must be included in any analysis of faith.  Mystery as it is used in Scripture refers to the silence about God by God.  We can only philosophize about the matter – otherwise it wouldn’t be useful mystery with which we are dealing.  Perhaps God doesn’t mind that we make some sacred guesses based on what we do know from Scripture (revelation), experience (history), and conscience (Holy Spirit), but we must know they are studied guesses not to be written in indelible memory or that we hold God to them.  Even if by accident, we are going to come down on some truths in our search.  Mystery remains.  God appears to enjoy our search, and sometimes… Read more

Final Word

August 15, 2019
Year 4, Day 227 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

We likely agree that if there is God, he has the first and last words relating to all things – in life and in death.  If we do not believe in God, we tend toward creating meaning from nature, and press it on the population.  Scripture informs us that we are incapable of making his evaluations/judgments, so we adapt to the context he offers, either human or divine.  Democratic society has decided on freedom of religion which includes not only the peaceful pursuit of faith by individuals, either alone or in concert with other individuals, or the right to avoid any religious faith.  Faith is commonly treated by secularists as cultic and superstitious – without substance for society.  This leads… Read more

Closing Doors

August 14, 2019
Year 4, Day 226 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

A major omission in the lives of a great many members of younger generations is found in a common inability or unwillingness to make appropriate decisions in life-factoring areas, and then commit to them.  This seems surprising given the tendency of youth to take risks that more mature persons would not countenance – at least for themselves.  This tendency for risk in physical involvements can be just as exciting, and far more meaningful, when transferred to ongoing concerns of life, education, family, profession, even faith.  Jim Elliot, fellow college friend of mine and eminent missionary martyr, put the point well when he said: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.  He… Read more

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