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

Near Death Experiences

June 24, 2019
Year 4, Day 175 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

It is estimated that millions (five percent) of the American population have had what are identified as Near Death Experiences (NDEs).  That means a massive number of persons have, in the face of their own deaths or very deep concerns, experienced what they identify as a realistic experience in which, in part or in all, they have gone to heaven, talked to loved ones, seen glory lights, felt total reality, and the experiences extend in many directions even to talking with Jesus, or listening in on conversations between God the Father and Jesus.  All of these reports, some book length, are rather consistent in that the writer wanted to stay in the experience and not return to earth for any… Read more

Interpretation

June 23, 2019
Year 4, Day 174 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

The foundational belief of the Christian is that God is, and that mankind can achieve social relationship with him in natural community (temporal reality), and immortal personal relationship through the redemptive gospel of Jesus Christ (spiritual reality).  It is the story of the one (individual to immortality) and the many (masses to culmination or death).  The controlled individual must relate to heaven, the unwieldy mass to nature.  There is overlap in matters and values, but there are two contexts.  The contexts are consistently brought forward in Judeo-Christian Scripture – perceived in some adequate theory of divine inspiration. It is widely accepted that the best route to the discovery of knowledge to truth in the natural context is through science.  The… Read more

Education

June 22, 2019
Year 4, Day 173 | No Comments

Jesus was likely educated to the level that Jewish peasantry was educated in his era, perhaps a bit better.  His basic education rested with his devout parents, well assisted by the synagogue.  He likely attended a rabbinical school, and could read.  It was education for life.  Since they were devout, their documentation was bonded with Old Testament Scripture as basic textbook.  Luke’s gospel includes a passage, almost parenthetical, in which Jesus, at twelve years of age, seems ahead of his years in discussing the meaning of biblical ideas.  Even Mary, his mother, doesn’t perceive the moment, and the business of God in the experience. (Luke 2:41-52)  The passage incorporates the key words for this Page. There is also a striking… Read more

Truth

June 21, 2019
Year 4, Day 172 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Truth may evade us because we do not understand that truth is not simplistic.  What is truth for me may not be truth for you.  Truth may be honesty.  Truth may be the reporting of feelings.  What makes a great painting?  I am told that this or that painting is great, selling for millions of dollars at auction.  I don’t think it’s great, and would not mount it in my home if someone paid me to do so.  A TV program accented bad art.  The commentator said he saw paintings called masterpieces that were worse than the bad art he was covering for the program.  He asked for a definition of bad art.  The answer was that bad art is… Read more

Human/Divine Parable

June 20, 2019
Year 4, Day 171 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

In the human context we are not visited with the full knowledge of the depth and extension of the meaning of the attributes of God.  Our experience in human attributes reflected and found as nature’s parables of God are quite distant from those of God, more distant than that found in mankind from the most gifted animals.  Even our performances of human attributes are humbled in the single greatest attribute of this or that animal.  Many animals can run faster than human beings, turtles may live longer, eagles see better, dogs outperform in olfactory skills, and so the story may be extended, but none of the animals can act so well in the context of life as mankind does –… Read more

Passages

June 19, 2019
Year 4, Day 170 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Life is made more complex in that we face passages, transitions into varied contexts in life.  Those passages may be upward to better things, or downward to lesser.  They may appear slowly, or they may come in like a tsunami that seems unmanageable.  Many are small and some are extensive, but all are important to the order of mankind and nature.  They appear both in personal and social patterns, for individual persons and nations.  The personal and the social affect each other, sometimes colliding so to create tangled webs for us.  It takes well-formed maturity to manage the passages of life – large and small.  One is impressed how quickly the infant makes passage from womb to outer nature, from… Read more

Beliefs and Colleagues

June 18, 2019
Year 4, Day 169 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

What is the greatest problem in societies relative to balance for the purpose of caring for the needs of all the people of earth?  The question is important because there are enough resources, or we believe there are, when management is well ordered to care for the consequences of God’s original creation of conscious life as parable to his conscious life.  His heavenly throne is related to his earthly footstool.  Christians or non-Christians are interested, or ought to be, in the world not only for their own countries or communities in the welfare to peace and survival.  In this context we honor the creative act of God that offered something of the environment for life and the image of God… Read more

Children

June 17, 2019
Year 4, Day 168 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Our community has been treated with the sad story of the personal life of the star player on the major league football team in our state.  He admits to the charge that he switched his four years-old son so energetically that there emerged welts and open wounds on the child.  In the follow up of reporting on his life it has been reported he has six children by several mothers.  He has been charged by authorities for abuse and will appear in court in a few days.  It is alleged that his private life is quite different than his public persona.  The story is sordid.  His career is on hold.  All this is occurring at the height of his career,… Read more

Perfection

June 16, 2019
Year 4, Day 167 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Mankind yearns for excellence.  It underlies virtually everything we think about, when we think seriously about human life and accomplishment – and try to gain improvement for ourselves and society.  Perfection, as we commonly define it in the natural context, is a motivator that we may believe leads us to heaven or a heavenly society, but may lead to hell on earth.  We likely do not understand perfection’s context as God reveals it, so we create other definitions and launch ideas and contexts to gain it.  Thus far in history we have failed.  Human stabs at progress pointing to perfection go back for many centuries, with both blessing and cursing in them.  The story is well told in the speech… Read more

Doctrine

June 15, 2019
Year 4, Day 166 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

The evangelical Christian is primarily interested in the personal meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He or she must know that the foundational meaning of Christianity is personal redemption that exonerates from the condition of sin, an inherited soul-curse natural to the human race.  The condition is identified as human depravity.  The Gospel is genuine repentance (sorrow for sin on the part of the individual) and genuine acceptance in faith of the offer of Jesus Christ to deal with that condition.  Change in the person occurs in forgiveness from holy God and a spiritual insemination for belief and conduct of the person exercising faith.  The meaning is that Christianity is a personal experience for persons accepting the plan of… Read more

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