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

Sparkling Life

December 1, 2019
Year 4, Day 335 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Life provides a number of tools that help us get on with relationships.  Some of those tools are gentle, perhaps better cast in analogy as decorations in our lives.  Decorations are important in that they inform us that we are not only subject to the necessities of substance for maintaining and advancing life, but they lift us to more than an animal level that is occupied only with necessities.  Even the animals appear to sense the beauty and specialness that the decorations of life offer, even if they are not conscious of what it is that is influencing their perceptions and ensuing conduct.  As I write this a story has appeared in the news of an animal seeing a statue… Read more

Idealism

November 30, 2019
Year 4, Day 334 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

In the beginning the word, pagan, did not assume a person to be evil, but that it is not in line with that the orthodox person believes.  I am a pagan (foreigner) to the Muslim religion, and the Muslim is a pagan to my religion.  In its ideal the word, Gentile, was used, not meant at the beginning as opprobrium, but as identification.  The negative denotation/connotation accrued for terms, like Jew or Gentile, especially for some religious contenders, cannot be denied.  During the first centuries after Christ, the Christians were often persecuted as pagans for not accepting the Roman gods.  Later Christians reduced pagans for not worshipping Christ, sometimes persecuting Christians because of some doctrinal differences that only God might… Read more

Hook Or Crook

November 29, 2019
Year 4, Day 333 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

These paragraphs are being written just a few hours after my return from the Holy Land, where I enjoyed a week of intensive travel to the various sites of Galilee and ancient Judea, now Israel and Palestine.  There are more observations to be made than I can make in these sentences, but I will try to focus a bit on the future as it relates to tradition – or heritage.  The ruins of Megiddo, or Qumran, or Masada almost scream at the historically perceptive person — scream about the inhumanity of man to man; about the aspirations of common men and women through the centuries; about the thoughts and actions of good persons like Jesus, several disciples who left signs… Read more

Double-Think

November 28, 2019
Year 4, Day 332 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

When we use figures of speech we must understand the cultural context in which they are used to gain the meaning.  It is especially important in a passage like the above.  The sentence appears in the Sermon on the Mount, the detailed outline of the only lengthy sermon of Jesus.  Portions of the sermon are reported for other occasions in his communications, suggesting that he may have repeated portions of the sermon first given and reported here in three chapters from Matthew’s Gospel. The sentence is a paragraph sandwiched between two other sub-themes in Matthew’s report.  We remember that Jesus would talk to the people for hours at a time, breaking for a meal – or the setting of the… Read more

Contradiction

November 27, 2019
Year 4, Day 331 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

At this writing, the most common cause of death in youths is accident.  If youth motivation and tendencies were better directed (motivated), there would be significant decrease in premature death in young generations.  In middle age the big killers are cancer and heart failure – encouraged by the life styles of sufficiently affluent peoples.  In elders the emerging Alzheimer’s and general decline appear to be major enemies to life.  All of these could be affected beneficially, quite dramatically, by an informed citizenry responsive to that which they learn to be true in nutrition, in exercise, in value oriented living and thinking, in attitudes and family.  These benefits come at no funding cost (above standard maintenance) to either the individual or… Read more

Evolving Culture

November 26, 2019
Year 4, Day 330 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

One of the evidences that mankind is more than animal is found in the factors of self-consciousness.  It appears in the earliest writings of humanoids that language was not highly discriminatory.  Many early writings appeared showing body parts to discriminate between men and women – when discrimination seemed important to authors.  As cultures developed, language, a vital factor in human culture, also advanced in sophistication.  Pictographs gave way to written language for serious communication.  Pictographs fell largely to graffiti and comic strips.  As discoveries of nature became more widespread and refinement became necessary for continuing progress, the word man emerged as indication of the human race.  As the human races gravitated toward type consolidation they were named by skin color… Read more

Silence

November 25, 2019
Year 4, Day 329 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Silence has several meanings.  Identity of the meaning of silence depends upon the context in which it appears.  It may mean ignorance, consideration, uncertainty, suffering, ecstasy, cowardice, evasion, approval/disapproval, or some derivative related to these contexts when it may occur.  The length of the period of silence, long or short in time, may make a difference in the interpretation of it.  Eyes, body movements, dynamics (known as non-verbal) in oral contexts, and other accompaniment (as the use of some object), perhaps also as in omissions even in written materials where silence (omission) is a factor interpreted in various ways as indicated by the culture and the participation of persons.  (Throwing a shoe at the president of the United States at… Read more

Idealism

November 24, 2019
Year 4, Day 328 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Human ideals are known, even by those persons and societies not holding to a systematic value system.  Without a value system and significant support of it, neither the individual nor the society will be satisfied with outcomes.  The individual may find a holistic life in a conflicted and contradictory world, as a society may find an order pointing toward ideals, while individuals in that society are losing out.  The great illustration of this is biblical Israel.  Under Moses and escaping Egypt there was a solidarity that held through thick and thin.  After winning the point, and with a system in place, they felt free to shift back and forth in responses, both gaining and losing their way, in and out,… Read more

Thanksgiving

November 23, 2019
Year 4, Day 327 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Of God’s gifts to mankind Scripture, prayer and the spiritual Church (and the institutional church) are special to us in that they are oriented to our needs, the world in which we live, without initial cost, creating an equality for all in information, comfort, problem solving, life meaning, courage, love and confidence in life extension.  On this faith and experience I determined to register 100 of my favorite verses. Although I quote from the King James Version of Scripture, the version that was my first influence in Christianity, I commend most versions to meaning.  I now use them in understanding and interpreting Scripture for my life and thought.  Some of those versions are clearer in statement than the KJV.  I… Read more

Think-Living

November 22, 2019
Year 4, Day 326 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

It is important, very important, in Christian perception that the thinking of the humanist oriented person will not fully jibe with the thinking of spiritually oriented persons.  When there is overlap, the Christian needs to be alert to acknowledgment of truth that is in the course of reasoning available in common grace, and the course of reasoning available in divine grace for interpretation.  This is vital in discussing the facts of either context, the extensions from the logics, the presuppositions, and whatever other factors are to be accepted or rejected in the course of thinking and discussion.  Some of this has appeared in the Pages for this date preceding this senior Page.  Those backgrounds are helpful to this Page.  Important… Read more

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