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

Christianity

December 11, 2019
Year 4, Day 345 | No Comments

This is being written on Christmas Eve, 2014, and motivated by the variances in which Christmas is perceived and celebrated in America – and to even greater differentials in other nations.  In some areas of the world, carried by different secular or religious contexts in cultures, the incarnation of Jesus Christ from God is not believed, or may be held as a pagan concept deemed untrue in religion and culture – to the point it may be made an illegal practice in legal systems – worthy of omission.  The trail of unbelief can be perceived in any country, but is accented more in some areas than others.  Personal faith toleration in English-speaking countries is high, and Christianity in its various… Read more

Distractions

December 10, 2019
Year 4, Day 344 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Distraction is a major enemy of better things for our lives, including the meaning of truth and its benefits.  Writing about prayer, A. W. Tozer warned that distraction was a major enemy of prayer.  The person of prayer would have to make effort, resisting the interference of distraction in cultivating effective prayer experience.  It is good to be aware that distraction deflects truth and meaning in many areas of life. In the decade before the War Between the States, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.  It may have been the most important singular influence in the ending of slavery in the United States, capped only by the war itself.  A number of characters emerged from the story that… Read more

Evasion

December 9, 2019
Year 4, Day 343 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

I have just read still another article on poverty, economics, the rich and the needs of society.  It continues the old observations we have often heard that may exaggerate or evade some factors, shifts obligations, makes issues a bit too simple, follows common logics that may not apply fully – and the complications deepen.  Like many articles it carries along in comparisons that are like apples to grapes.  To carry sound analogies one must relate apples to apples, and in the next context may need to compare grapes to grapes. The most common of these may be the comparison of past performance (old context) to current (modern context).  There were poor people in ancient times, cared for or neglected by… Read more

Secularism

December 8, 2019
Year 4, Day 342 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

We may be troubled in spirit by various influences some of which include: 1) – an excess of knowledge, sometimes called information overload which is simply more than we can process as individuals so to turn to specialists; 2) – a prevailing contradiction (doubt) about what is true and false related to knowledge in faith and fact, human contexts; 3) – an uncertainty about objectivity touched by powerful emotions, like prejudice, that distorts knowledge; and, the list lengthens.  We find troublesome the journey to truth, faith and action.  How do we gain intellectual balance to personal peace?  How much does one give to gain agreement from another so to turn a matter toward solution and acceptance?  Can we be sure… Read more

God and Suffering

December 7, 2019
Year 4, Day 341 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

For majority persons the most difficult questions related to God and mankind may be found in human sufferings, especially of innocent children.  Scripture notes concern for disadvantages.  It was a point with God in dealings with Jonah.  Sending Jonah as missionary to Nineveh with a message of judgment and recovery, God forgives Nineveh cancelling judgment.  Jonah is offended at the recovery, and pouts with God while others in the city pick up on the renewal. Jonah, self-isolated, becomes angry with God.  God points out that the innocent children of Nineveh, even the uninvolved animals were considered for reprieve. Why would Jonah not be joyful in compassion?  Jonah’s prejudice got him into trouble, leading to the great fish experience.  Jonah’s message… Read more

Suffering For Good

December 6, 2019
Year 4, Day 340 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

For Christian understanding of the variances in secular and spiritual interpretation of life course this is one of the primary passages in Scripture.  If I were to choose ten Scripture passages that are of greatest benefit to the Christian in life formation, this would be one of the ten.  It has been repeated in the introduction of these pages on several occasions.  For this Senior Page, I want to review my experience with the ideas of Viktor Frankl, whose writings I encountered decades ago to personal benefit.  I am surprised that they have not received more attention than writings of lesser value in the area of interest that have often been repeated and referred.  (I was alerted when I found… Read more

Specialties and Attitudes

December 5, 2019
Year 4, Day 339 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Important to Christian individuals should be to become the best persons of faith and action they can become.  The only evaluation (judgment) that is of final concern to them is the final toting up that appears after the close of nature’s life – as noted in Scripture.  The great comfort of that firm and just report and consequence is that God is true, without error, and will be merciful with every person (individual).  There will be no complaint against his conclusions.  No one else in the universe has enough information about me to be absolutely just in determining my hits and misses in all of my life.  My friends would permit me to get by: my enemies would pile error… Read more

Sparkling Life

December 4, 2019
Year 4, Day 338 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Here we moderate attitudes to a kind of playfulness that seems, at their best, the joys of a child – moderated only with the maturity that includes more than current events.  Maturity guides even the feelings of innocence that we knew in the first years of our lives.  We can capture that beautiful context even when we are old.  Recently a lady in her nineties and bed-ridden was shown a long-lost film of her in a participation in some acting role when she was young and energetic.  She had never seen the film that had been taken by a family member.  She brightened, sat up, smiled and her eyes glistened.  She snapped her fingers, and quietly said – she could… Read more

Freedom

December 3, 2019
Year 4, Day 337 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

It is not likely that there is sound general understanding of freedom as God has it in his nature and projects it to mankind as a human right.  Although many nations consciously try to make room for true freedom, many nations make freedom a crime, sometimes punishable by death.  Freedom, like love, is in God’s nature.  His image in us makes us beneficiaries of that freedom as he defines it to us as a personal experience held by the person as part of self.  For example, the Apostle Paul was a prisoner of Rome, on his way to Rome seeking exoneration for accusations against him.  On the way the ship floundered.  The only person on board truly free appears to… Read more

Knowledgability

December 2, 2019
Year 4, Day 336 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Knowledge is so much more than most persons perceive it to be.  That extension is good and generates action necessary for sustaining and advancing human life.  Knowledge, or that which we presume to be knowledge, becomes a part of us, and we act on it – to greater or lesser degrees depending upon our human energy, status position, education, and responsibility.  We have a monumental problem in the life of this in that we may not understand the knowledge we have or believe we have.  Not understanding it for proper interpretation leading to action causes some of the ugliest events in human history for both individuals and societies.  At this time period in history the world is confronted with terrorism,… Read more

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