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

Work and Working

January 5, 2019
Year 4, Day 5 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

It takes some doing to move from mankind’s pattern of life meaning and modus operandi to God’s context. For mankind it is better to be a prince than a pauper, a free person than an indentured person, a citizen of this country and not that one, a man or woman, to be rich rather than poor, to be educated rather than uneducated – and so the contrasts may be listed.  God does not deny that it is better for each person that this or that in the list may (or may not) serve for a better life on earth.  We work, and rightly so, to move from whatever we consider a lesser context of life to a better one.  Scripture… Read more

Learning and Living

January 4, 2019
Year 4, Day 4 | No Comments

Learning is experience.  It is most useful when it relates to us personally.  It arrives whether uninvited or sought.  Learning that seems best to us is that which is invited when needed.  Experience and daily life include some invitation, but may be guided by numerous factors over which we may have little or no control. We do not choose our parents who may or may not favor our self-vision.  In America at this writing there are innumerable voices deploring the paucity of numbers of students seeking education in mathematics and science, especially as that education relates to society’s life of commerce and social requirements.  It provides greater opportunity for employment, and at higher salary than liberal arts students and social… Read more

Ensue/Pursue

January 3, 2019
Year 4, Day 3 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We have referred to the difference between ensue and pursue.  Americans have been informed from the founding fathers that they are in the pursuit of happiness.  The implication is taken that happiness is out there someplace on the move, and we are pursuing it.  If we are intrepid detectives we are supposed to find it.  It is something to be found perhaps at the end of some rainbow road.   Many believing that wealth is the road may find that it doesn’t guarantee happiness.  Stories abound of men and women winning great riches, believing they would be happy, only to find enough troubles that they wish they had never gained financial wealth.  Despite all the warnings, masses of persons seek out… Read more

Conscience

January 2, 2019
Year 4, Day 2 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

We used to hear references to conscience in serious discussion.  We seldom include conscience in our discussions at the time of this writing.  For some persons conscience appears to be ephemeral, and appears in other terminology of the publics and the courtroom, as well as the church.  Perhaps the loss has emerged from the displays of poor, even tragic, performance of distorted conscience.  Again, the mass of mankind may be interpreting the value of something on the basis of its violations.  Violations of conscience on the part of some persons from whom we expect to see admired conduct or affirmations are not to be used to condemn the uses of good conscience for rightness.  Though society may fall to some… Read more

Community and Values

January 1, 2019
Year 4, Day 1 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

I lived in San Francisco for seventeen years.  It is a storied city of about fifty square miles, set on hills, with the beauty of great waters on three sides, and a highly developed corridor South toward San Jose with the productive Salinas Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains.  S. F. is the center of a much larger community of cities and urban development south, east across the Bay, including north and northeast.  Across to the north is a magnificent area extending upwards from the Golden Gate through Santa Rosa and onward to Oregon.  The North feels pastoral and woodsy, with magnificent vineyards, protection of the environment, and cultivating nature.  The whole area is creative, has excellent educational facilities, and contributes… Read more

House and Home

December 31, 2018
Year 3, Day 365 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

The above was addressed by the Apostle to women, but like all Scripture the use of gender does not mean only the identity of one or excuse duty from the other. In the full passage, reference is made to the whole family – not only the nuclear family of mother, father and child. To observe much of home-life, and hear talk of family members on every day experiences, we may wonder if modern persons have learned about what attitudes and environments ought to be relative to blood or intimate relationships. We seek to join the family bond and reflections of life and values God meant for us. The details are so extensive we must limit for this Page. We are… Read more

Open Secret

December 30, 2018
Year 3, Day 364 | No Comments

In the context (sin/righteousness, confession/forgiveness, casualness/responsibility) referred to on this date for Today’s Page from Volumes 1 and 2, I found any doubts had faded, sins/guilt were expunged by true confession, and maturity advanced by upgrading my conduct and thinking. Christian life became stronger, growing, with a firm sense of devotion and meaning that I had not felt previous to the process of Christian nurture as it applied to me. My inner orientation turned from mortal environment to immortal, but made me a better ambassador in the mortal context. My guidance depended upon the context of prayer, instruction from Scripture, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit in determining best personal performance, not only for God, but for the society… Read more

Ending the Beginning

December 29, 2018
Year 3, Day 363 | No Comments

What a summary is this text (repeated several times in Pages) for life to death, and it applied to a person who lived six thousand years ago when the harshness of living conditions was far in excess of what we encounter today. We can become quite graphic about personal life of that time, a time when meals were cooked on open fires; when there was a bartering system and little for purchase of food or clothing; when there was no bathroom tissue or napkins; when there were only a few practitioners knowing far less about diseases than today’s layman; when there were no security or protective forces like police and firemen; when there was no public education or public facilities,… Read more

Change In Order

December 28, 2018
Year 3, Day 362 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

We are thinking forward to the Senior Series in these Daily Pages and to the end of this writing project, aimed principally at young Christians in formulation of their faith and the context of Christian life – incorporating both formal (institutional) and experiential (daily life) education. I venture for this day to outline the context of life and culture for the biblical Christian – as I interpret the context. The Christian must believe that God is first personal, dealing with each person in privacy from all other persons. This is made personal in Jesus Christ, who is recognized as the redemptive person. That redemptive experience introduces vital change in the total life of the person of Christian biblical faith. The… Read more

Interpretation and Truth

December 27, 2018
Year 3, Day 361 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

I am much taken with the problems of interpretation as related to literary translations – to the meaning of self, religion, society, family, freedom, love and a dozen or so other themes important to our lives. I wince, and sometimes deplore, the applications when varieties of interpretations are applied to biblical passages. Some persons make the Bible literature only, and others nearly equate Scripture with God. (We must remember that God is a person in human terms and not to be equated with any other factor than himself.) Planet Earth: We are told by serious scholars that it all began with a big bang – and it may have. What caused the big bang? Why would God be denied as… Read more

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