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

Reasoning Minds

December 6, 2018
Year 3, Day 340 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

I decided to live the life of the mind long ago, well before I knew what that meant.  I found that I admired educated persons.  They seemed to develop more loyal families and make thoughtful projections about matters. There was less divorce.  Broken families are more common among those with no more than basic education.  They seemed to have something extra in life even though I couldn’t define it.  I have learned that they read more than unlettered persons, that they tend to accept other persons better, even if they withdrew somewhat arrogantly in the doing.  As there is a meaningful gap between the rich and the poor there is a gap between those educated and uneducated.  For the educated… Read more

Hospitality To Rights

December 5, 2018
Year 3, Day 339 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

Many persons, even nations, misunderstand hospitality in its practice and/or meaning.  To identify it as an important spiritual factor may seem silly or naïve in the discussion of great theological (sacred philosophy) themes that occupy those who give attention to ideas and conducts, their meaning and consequences.  The following offers consideration, related to a large context of racial prejudice and justice from the last half of the twentieth century, the period of my life that included contacts with many cultures, groups and individuals – both in the silent majorities of each and the leaders of each.  I drop my anchor into three specific accents in defense of peaceful activism for right seen in Lincoln, King, Graham . . . Jesus… Read more

Life and Integrity

December 4, 2018
Year 3, Day 338 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

We may not perceive that life in its revelation is formed from one and many.  As God is one/trinity in the god-head of that one, so we too are made up of a compound that is life.  There are two or more elements in a compound.  Fusing elements that make up a compound determine its nature.  We are compounds in the natural world that make of us the persons we are and become.  Without enough iron in the body, the body is different than if the proper balance in life elements were available and that leads to suffering, perhaps death – unless righted.  Without spiritual elements we are different persons than if those elements are present.  If nature’s person discovers… Read more

Faith Is Tough

December 3, 2018
Year 3, Day 337 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Often we confuse doubt and skepticism.  They belong to each other, but they are different in that they are found not in the theme in discussion but in the person of faith who is doubtful and the one who to large degree gives first loyalty to doubt.  Many persons of great faith have admitted to serious doubt, but held on to the affirmative of faith while the doubt worked its way through to resolution.  Augustine confessed to doubt, but refused it in the light of what he believed to be the truth of Scripture so well preached by Anselm.  Augustine, a distinguished teacher of rhetoric and well known in the secular Roman world, went to hear gifted Anselm preach so… Read more

Knowledge

December 2, 2018
Year 3, Day 336 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Thomas Aquinas summarized my own strong feeling: We cannot understand things . . . unless they are united to our intellect in such a way that the knower and the known become one.  We might well take flight with that statement.  Does it help us understand our faith?  Christ told the disciples that he would leave them, but that he would be in them.  He related his departure as necessary for them so that in his abandonment of the human body with its tie to nature he could then function freely in the supernatural and be (abide) with all those who would believe on him.  The abiding Christian senses that reality, but could never prove it in nature.  It is… Read more

Day Without Sun

December 1, 2018
Year 3, Day 335 | No Comments

For this date, the 1st of December in the month of Advent, I have stayed with the concept of Day Without Sun.  There is an implication of mortality in it, a vital division of the world of mankind into two massive populations, those who see mortality as the beginning and end of human life, and those who see human mortality as a bridge (transition) to immortality, either blessed or condemned.  The orientation, either way is a serious one, with everything hanging in the consequence.  It takes faith to believe or disbelieve. In a review of a two part TV presentation of the life of Woody Allen, best known for his acting and directing in well-known films, Nancy deWolf Smith writes… Read more

Heart and Head

November 30, 2018
Year 3, Day 334 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

We balance our lives with emotion on one side of the scale and reason on the other.  We love certain persons with what we call unconditional love, but we know their faults.  If indeed our love is much, we reason with understanding as to how to address them in any confrontation of their faults.  Our reasoning, if it is in the proper direction prevents us from excusing the faults while maintaining love quotients related to them.  Our emotional relationship, if it is strong enough, prevents us from rejecting them for the thought and/or conduct that we reason to be unsatisfactory.  In a court case involving family members the testimony of a family member, if permitted, is subject to suspect.  The… Read more

Inside/Outside

November 29, 2018
Year 3, Day 333 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

In a study of men and women, and their relationships, David Buss, professor at the University of Michigan, discovered that in 37 cultures the results were the same for mate selection.  Usually cultural anthropologists accent differences, but, in this study, there was uniformity between cultures – all of them.  Men looked for women who were, in most instances, younger than themselves, and perceived to be attractive.  The women carry an illusion of youth with wrinkle-free skin and good figures.  Many women find this evaluation objectionable – that they are accepted on the basis of physical attractiveness.  Women, Buss found, were attracted to men who were perceived to be mature and affluent. These men are admired because they have strength in… Read more

This Ol’ House

November 28, 2018
Year 3, Day 332 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

I was professionally engaged with Billy Graham, the eminent evangelist, before and after the events of 1949 in the Los Angeles Crusade that launched his person and work into decades of eminence.  So it was that I met some of the persons who were well known either to the public or in their fields.  One of these was Stuart Hamblen, a popular western/country-singer/entertainer.  He was newsworthy for his occupation and wealth, and for a prize horse that he nurtured to race in major competition.  Soon after his response to Graham to surrender his life to Christ, Hamblen wrote his most famous piece of music: This Ol’ House.  He meant the piece to be a reflection that his body was the… Read more

Nature and Prejudice

November 27, 2018
Year 3, Day 331 | No Comments

There was review of some research that was presumed to prove racial prejudice – as though we needed any scientific proof that there are human, even animal, prejudices.  Prejudice is a given in nature, affecting virtually all biological beings.  It is partly found in our natures, later permitted to take deliberate negative turns.  The paucity of cannibalism in species is evidence of the invisible factor.  Prejudices can only be countered by some force that affects change in the cultivation of our natures.  A study was made of small children who had not been trained or educated in human prejudice.  The children displayed prejudice in action and attitudes.  The conclusion was that prejudice is in nature, although there are learnings that… Read more

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