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

Religions

August 18, 2018
Year 3, Day 230 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Dreams, fantasies, mythology, and assorted dragons have been important mind furniture since before mankind learned to write, or the various arts created images of other-worldliness.  The year of the dragon is meaningful to many Asians.  The gods inspired the myths and arts of ancient Greece, and sometimes Rome.  Remote tribes possess sometimes exotic myths that have held for millennia.  Expressions of this mythology-bent in mankind shows itself in many ways, including astrology, sci-fi creations, and the like.  Reviewing the popular series by George R. R. Martin, and especially the fifth book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, Tom Shippey, in his review of the title stated: . . . fantasy is now where the big action is. Millions yearn,… Read more

Good Life/Good Death

August 17, 2018
Year 3, Day 229 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

On Sunday, April 27, 2014, the highly regarded TV program, Sunday Morning, declared a special edition of the secular program with the theme of Life and Death.  As a secular program it was presumed to be a special approach in public media, incorporating advertisements of secular business, which focused on the multi-cultural society, to discuss life ending with death, a program that would invariably make reference to God.  It would certainly involve claims of overlap between the natural and the supernatural – denials and affirmations, on doubts and probabilities.  I reviewed the last half of the program to which the following paragraphs relate, but believe it catches the meaning the program meant to convey.  During the first half of the… Read more

Mystery and Light

August 16, 2018
Year 3, Day 228 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Mystery is a New Testament word that carries its largest meaning in silence.  The word is translated from that meaning, as noted in concordances.  In Romans the Apostle Paul addresses both the ignorance of mankind relative to God in mystery, and the revelation of God’s message to the extent he makes himself known.  God will never be identified in nature, but nature will never be fully identified without God.  God is silent about much of what we would like to know.  What he is silent about we are left to leave the matter there and in faith accept the silence of God or conjecture about what the silence covers. (Romans 11:25)  The conjectures, noted by the Apostle, may turn into… Read more

Final Word

August 15, 2018
Year 3, Day 227 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Books have been written on the final words of persons, famous and infamous, ordinary and extraordinary. We have decided that in the last words the expiring person will leave behind thoughts that have been seasoned by life experience, and a desire to leave some perceptive information useful to those who receiving it will raise consideration, perhaps leading to life change that may be taken as part of the legacy left by the dying person.  It may be personal so to be understood as personal to individuals, or it may be social related to this or that group of persons.  Christians, for example, have given considerable attention to the last words of Jesus, spoken in the minutes before the ascension.  They… Read more

Acceptance/Approval

August 14, 2018
Year 3, Day 226 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

The imbalance in our lives for acceptance and approval is a major factor in both individuals and societies of individuals.  I may approve of something I do not accept, or accept something I do not approve.  This is a contradictory factor for virtually every person and society.  We rightly yearn for balance, but it sometimes eludes us and causes deep problems.  In the founding of America there was tension over the identity of slaves (African Americans) as relating to citizenship.  They were persons so deserved citizenship, and they like other persons in the territory had been displaced of their former citizenship.  The solution was to give them partial citizenship so to be counted in census, but without rights in a… Read more

Aloneness

August 13, 2018
Year 3, Day 225 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Much of the life we live seems out of focus.  We believe something (ephemeral) is present for us, but if in focus we would discover the photograph is somewhat different than we imagined it to be.  We look for life and meaning, knowing that life is real and that it has meaning, but so much seems jumbled and we want it sorted out.  We yearn for simplicity, but become aware that there is irresistible complexity.  To gain composure we find a scenario, or look for one, that reduces perceptions to a lowest common denominator.  It is a lesson we learned from our math teachers the first or second day we dealt with contractions.  Get the matter to the least difficult… Read more

Preaching

August 12, 2018
Year 3, Day 224 | No Comments

The importance of preaching for the Church (spiritual) context is not to be denigrated in any way by the church (institutional), but carried forward as the central public offering of every congregation.  Readers are reminded here that the use of Church (upper case C) in these Pages relates to the spiritual meaning of the Church as established at Pentecost and made up of those who, by faith, have believed in the redemptive message of Jesus Christ.  That message then is adopted not only as a matter of belief but as the guide for conduct in life.  That conduct includes devotion to God, and incremental growth (improvement) in Christian life formation.  A major concern in that performance is that it be… Read more

Preachers

August 11, 2018
Year 3, Day 223 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

I knew the broad strokes of the life of Newton, but Jonathan Aitken’s, John Newton, is the first complete biography I have read on Newton.  Newton is most famous in our era for writing the most revered hymn of the Church, Amazing Grace.  He used, in the lyrics, the word wretch.  He described himself as a wretch, even before his conversion.  It is something of presumption that some editions of the hymn in current publications have edited out wretch for a less objectionable word for the unredeemed person.  The hymn is his personal story.  If there are those who wish to communicate a different approach to human life than that given by historical writers they should write their own lyrics. … Read more

Stewardship

August 10, 2018
Year 3, Day 222 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Stewardship as God would have it may not be consistently taught in the church.  Persons are so taken with wealth concepts that when money is the main topic of discussion they shy away from a fully developed understanding of stewardship.  The tendency of most people is to avoid any discussion of their personal finances.  They are sensitive about it, and feel some threat in any serious treatment of money – more sensitive about their personal finances than the intimate sexual experience of their marriages.  We are fairly well informed that money matters are among the most cited causes of problems leading to break-up of marriages – even within marriages that survive.  Marriage break-up is often so complicated and personal that… Read more

God’s Nature

August 9, 2018
Year 3, Day 221 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

The nature of God is related to perfection, and that understanding is important to anything the human being understands about God.  Violation of the perfection of God, for any reason, requires some special procedure so to meet the requirements for future relationship with God.  Perfection requires ransom for mankind in the imperfection which has been labeled sin in the context of the Judeo-Christian Scripture.  Perfection is a problem in that it is total.  God is perfect in love, perfect in justice, perfect in holiness, and so we may proceed with observations relative to his person.  The common references to the attributes of God refer to these factors, and theology develops them for students interested in following descriptions of the nature… Read more

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