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

Double Duty

November 26, 2018
Year 3, Day 330 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Relationship with God is first understood as an individual relationship – as a loving parent with an only child. With God each of his children is aided in first meaning holding the perception that God treats him or her as though the person is the only one of children.  That is to say individuals should work through their spiritual lives perceiving their relationship with God as though they alone (separate from all others) are responsible to account for themselves in the final evaluation (judgment) of a life lived.  There is a sense in which no other person has advanced or impeded my relationship with God.  My choices taken partly from others make all the contributions for good or ill my… Read more

News

November 25, 2018
Year 3, Day 329 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

I just reviewed my favorite newspaper page for news, important and/or human only, favorite because of its excellent book reviews appearing daily.  The editorial page and daily book review usually offer evidence for the point addressed, or evaluate human experience for the reader to consider.  Other media sources to which I subscribe tend to this improved approach to instruction/persuasion. Today, August 6, 2016, the day of the National Football Hall of Fame honors on National Television, the first story on the Sports page concentrates on the path of faith taken by Tony Dungy the Afro-American receiving the induction honor this evening after a life of some poverty, facing some racial prejudice, enduring neglect and effort to change his goals and… Read more

Christianity

November 24, 2018
Year 3, Day 328 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

It is to the condition of the human race that Christ addressed his redemptive plan.  Theology refers to the sin condition as depravity.  Depravity gives to mankind an inevitable tendency to violate righteousness that God requires for acceptance by his holy nature for his kingdom.  Depravity (unsatisfactory human nature) is a spiritual cancer affecting every human life, and may be likened to suffering, or pain, that is a natural part of life as we know it, but absent in spiritual integrity.  We do not like spiritual incompetency (a death factor), and may even deny it, but it is an irrefutable factor in biblical theology for every human being.  We find ways of meeting suffering and pain through various means including… Read more

Thanksgiving

November 23, 2018
Year 3, Day 327 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

This is the date in the Today’s Page series used for the day we call Thanksgiving, an official American holiday, although the factor, for many centuries, has identified devout persons.  The concept hints an impression of peace, health and prosperity.  It is accented in the Bible, and in the history of peoples as an instruction of God to mankind, even when situations and contexts may have been reduced from the expectations that giving thanks may imply.  In America the Pilgrims were faced with reduced circumstances, with some fear of the native peoples, with the deaths of a high percentage of their numbers in the preceding year on the rock bound coast.  President Washington called for a day of Thanksgiving when… Read more

Think-Living

November 22, 2018
Year 3, Day 326 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

During my semi-retirement years, a period extending over thirty years, I have subscribed to a variety of magazines of substance and popularity for this or that emphasis in the general society, or in this or that journal in a field related to belief and human practice.  I carry them for a year or two, drop them, and move on to others, but some I hold for longer periods.  They offer too much to give up on their challenge. Some of them hold to a context that I would not support, but I get the orientation as challenge for self and what I want to communicate to others.  On many occasions I have been surprised with what I have found that… Read more

Currency

November 21, 2018
Year 3, Day 325 | No Comments

The wise person recognizes that one of the hand-holds of life is the practical model of projecting self as indicated in perceptions of past, present and future experience and choices.  Choices must be made.  In the kit of tools for life structuring, it is an effective factor when rightly used for purpose.  As we would not use a hammer to saw a piece of wood, so we would not use this mind concept to do more than it is designed to accomplish when rightly played out.  Its first value is personal, but it moves at some pace to the social life of the person impacting many or few in the society.  I have just reviewed the experience of a man… Read more

Mystery of Sex

November 20, 2018
Year 3, Day 324 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

Our first concern for this Page relates to language and its search for meaning.  As time passes and a language grows old it takes on considerable baggage and we have to work at getting the meaning of symbols as they either reflect important specificity, or wander about in the variant contexts in which we use and abuse the magnificent gift of language – by which we can express that which separates the human animal from the dumb animal.  That difference is found in the ability to communicate reflective thought and act upon it.  Certainly the dumb animals in the seas, on the land, and in the air have means of some communication, but that related to inward impulses related to… Read more

Felt Needs

November 19, 2018
Year 3, Day 323 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

When does one know he or she is doing something good?  Scripture informs us that we should serve the needs of others – of each other.  The adjective (good) becomes a noun and contains verb (serve) qualities.  In this context, it means doing, acting for purpose (contributing).  The implication is that it is additive to whatever is present, and the additive is commendable.  Thoughtful persons recognize that there is an underlying universal principle reflected in the simple command: Do something good.  Give something that is not existent (creative).  That underlying principle is found in the context of the oath of physicians: To Do No Harm.  The ancients often accented good (affirmatives) in its opposites.  We find it in the Ten… Read more

Humanity

November 18, 2018
Year 3, Day 322 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

It is clear to us or ought to be that there are ranges of differences between persons, differences that may be serious, and those that ought to be incorporated as both educational and flavorful for life.  These last are in a neutral zone, neither to be given undo accent or concern between persons, unless made meaningful to morality or ill effect for life.  They are present to offer some variety to life, so to keep us from being cookie cutter persons forming from the same private mold.  If not varied we might find each other boring so to reduce the miracle of life to mechanical living, predictable in thought and conduct adding nothing fresh to what we are when we… Read more

Contradictions

November 17, 2018
Year 3, Day 321 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Scripture informs us that the little foxes spoil the vines.  Our lives are full of little foxes. At this point I take advantage to reiterate that, in the holy perfection of God, anything that is less than truth, less than the ideal qualifies as sin.  We commonly forget that sin need not be something gross, ugly and damaging at severe levels, but may be something quite human like a kind of pride, or a bit of prejudice, or evasion of duty.  The list of sophisticated but wrong conducts can be made long and wrong.  They appear differently to different persons.  In 1854, Henry David Thoreau wanted his readers to think rather well of mankind.  In Walden he wrote that: the… Read more

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