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

Doubters

August 8, 2018
Year 3, Day 220 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We here discuss an important factor in the intellectual/emotional life of mankind.  For the want of a better symbol we refer to doubt.  Words related to doubt (as also applies to doubt itself), are so full of emotional context, that we feel like we are in a mine field when we approach the theme.  There is skepticism, which may carry an emotional burden greater than mere doubt.  Doubt has many heroes, starting in our context with the age of Socrates in the western world.  It tends to call upon the restrained intellect more than the dancing emotions like joy.  It tends to assume that what is known implies the unknown, unless the unknown has a course unrelated to what is… Read more

Suffering

August 7, 2018
Year 3, Day 219 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Suffering is as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe.  We birth in suffering.  There is greater mystery to it than we find in physical analysis we encounter in the compounds of elements in our lives.  In the scientific context of life we have a fairly firm grasp on the benefits of this or that factor and the dangers, even when a good factor overly applied will become harmful, and a harmful factor in low measure may not make any difference to health in natural course.  The whole story becomes a serious and complicated matter for civilization.  At this writing the world population is facing impending tragedy, not from collision with space objects, not with atomic… Read more

Good Will

August 6, 2018
Year 3, Day 218 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

A person forced against his will is of the same opinion still.  This is an old saying that is true – sometimes and false at other times.  Northern Africa was deeply touched by Christian faith in the half millennium plus after the Crucifixion of Christ.  The cities and land areas were then conquered by a marauding Islam army, an army that moved forward until it was stopped in Spain after sweeping west over northern Africa. During the invasion, the people were often subject to horrors even to death for their Christian faith, and forced to become Muslim.  Two or so generations later northern Africa was virtually all Muslim by choice.  Similar methods are used today relative to force so to… Read more

Stewardship

August 5, 2018
Year 3, Day 217 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

A few years ago I wrote to the editor of U S A Today (then the equal in readership with the Wall Street Journal) expressing my surprise that established financial advisors and planners writing for the paper, did not recommend that financial clients or any other persons building nest-eggs for the future make charitable contributions.  These counselors were established men and women in the field of financial planning who, as a special service, evaluated portfolios presented to the publisher, large and small, from readers who were willing to reveal their financial records. They sometimes included details, such as the cost of incidentals in personal day to day functioning, but they said nothing, and I mean nothing, about giving to Church,… Read more

Generations

August 4, 2018
Year 3, Day 216 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

There is a massive feeling and teaching related to life in nature that may curse generations.  It is the illusion that all persons should somehow achieve in money-making, in doing something exciting, in travelling for purpose, in offering leadership, in being physically attractive in the light of generational styles, in gaining a collegiate experience – in the life through points of view that if gained in conduct make a person appear and feel successful.  Not to gain the American Dream for many persons is to fail, to have been lacking in ambition, to belong to those who have to rely on others, to lack vision for self and family – and the like negatives. What does all this mean?  For… Read more

Dependence

August 3, 2018
Year 3, Day 215 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

We reiterate our dependence upon God as a continuous experience, moment by moment for devout persons seeking to live the most successful lives – successful as God defines success.  Under God, that person is most successful (as God counts success) who lives responsibly as a serving child of God with righteous motivations that are seasoned by meekness, humility, grace and love.  Because we as human beings are incapable of following through adequately even to our own faithful evaluation, God provides the resources, both human and spiritual, to accomplish what he means for us to accomplish.  Our motivation is entirely related to obedience to God, obedience found in the precepts of Scripture.  That obedience is not in the light of a… Read more

Economics and Economists

August 2, 2018
Year 3, Day 214 | No Comments

The economy of a society ought to function at highest level on the needs (life survival items) of persons, and some reasonable preferences (wants/desires).  This means practicality fitting to mortal persons believing in orderly planning.  It ought to grow out of a free society which, when rightly managed, encourages simplicity.  Although preferred value thinking is not in favor of wealth for wealth’s sake, the monetary cost of labor and resources is evaluated in terms of money (acceptable tender or form of exchange).  Savings are necessary to cover the security of individuals in the management of the ups and downs inevitable in faulty human functioning, change and aging indigenous to the human situation.  Interest rates relate to borrowing reconciled with collateral,… Read more

Barrier to Faith

August 1, 2018
Year 3, Day 213 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

There are common barriers to Christian faith advanced by humanists.  These include the doctrines of depravity, hell and suffering.  Some persons resist the call to faith claiming that a good God espoused by Christians would not permit the ongoing of depraved people, that he would be too loving to send recalcitrant persons to hell, and that there has been no satisfactory explanation for suffering, especially the suffering of children.  From the limited purview of nature’s context in which we live, move and have being the points are fair and offered as reality.  If held in emotional fury, they become threatening.  If the humanist holds that understanding extends only to that available in nature, and the theist holds that faith projections… Read more

Cornered

July 31, 2018
Year 3, Day 212 | No Comments

Cornering has entered our language from a sense of an inescapable situation, causing desperate conduct in an effort to escape.  As a lad working on a farm, I saw the lightning motion of the lady of the house, farm wife and mother of my best friend, leap from her place at the dinner table and, in a trice, corner and dispatch a mouse in the kitchen.  Deftly on her way to the tragic end of the mouse she seized a broom and the lethal weapon served her purpose.  In the moment I saw the mouse turn, rise up a bit as though to take on the tormentor only to become an even better target for a marksman who knew no… Read more

Mother

July 30, 2018
Year 3, Day 211 | No Comments

My mother was born on this date in 1897, and died 96 years later.  I have recited some of the sketch of her life on this date for previous Pages.  Any person who knows me well knows about the deep thanksgiving I hold in constancy for my mother.  The memory of her is sacred to me.  This Page is especially for the attention of those who have, or expect to have developing children.  Nothing said here is meant to in any way disparage my Mother.  She was full of love, affirmatives for life, and committed to the care of others, especially her family.  She certainly did what she felt was right, and believed she knew from experience. God is the… Read more

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