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

Preaching/Teaching

July 29, 2018
Year 3, Day 210 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

The extensive ranges of facts, interpretations and conclusions about almost everything with which mankind has to do are so far ranging that we often despair about finding the truth of a context for firm belief and guiding conduct.  The matter is made even more complex in the changes of culture, circumstances, history, experience, emotions, nurture and biological influences.  Preferred presumptions vary among individuals so to presuppose contradictions among them – sometimes to conflicting ends.  To believe that peace is the best option among the related options for earth life will make a different person than one who assumes that periodic wars are inevitable.  The first presumption deplores militarism in cost and participation.  The second, even when deploring the context, supports… Read more

Children

July 28, 2018
Year 3, Day 209 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

There is something within the human being that wants to know the whole story of his or her life, and to feel a biological part of it traced to previous generations, perhaps to enhance the meaning for identity.  Some persons, because of the circumstances of their lives may mute the urges for continuity, but we seek the meaning of our interests and drives from those who are serious about knowing who they are and what they were meant to be.  That knowledge is partly found in the family, the highest meaning of teamwork with obvious social beginnings in family biology.  My half-sister, now deceased, was taken with desire to find her mother decades after they last saw each other.  Living… Read more

Nature’s System

July 27, 2018
Year 3, Day 208 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

The Pages for this day address some aspects of nature that help us understand God’s plan, and ought to guide us in mankind’s plan for habitat.  We address the functioning of nature for this Page.  Scientists devoted to earth-knowledge have discovered the magnificent system in force that slowly but constantly refurbishes the earth for the benefit of life – animal and vegetable.  They have evidence that the Sun is bombarding the Solar System with rays and forces that would, without some defense, make earth like the other planets in the system, barren and uninhabitable for life as we know it.  We do not here address the matter of heaven, but note that it is mentioned in context with earth, as… Read more

Confidence

July 26, 2018
Year 3, Day 207 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

This Page needs to be read in tandem with the date for freshman and sophomore readers, so to find a mind set for what may seem like an ephemeral context for life.  We are interested here with confidence.  We see a great deal of braggadocio, gesturing, anger, feigned knowledge leading to stern criticism of those who are trying to do something to improve matters, but often stumbling,  Who are our confidence leaders?  Christians want to credit Christ in relationship with the Holy Spirit, in that no one has shown up in the intervening centuries to match them.  God began from a perception that man (Adam, male and female – Genesis 1:27) was made primary in the earthly context.  First things… Read more

Joying

July 25, 2018
Year 3, Day 206 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Lightness-of-being is one of the best life contexts – ranking among the greatest.  Physically we live in the context of air.  Fish live in the context of water.  I believe that spiritually we ought to live in the lightness-of-being context which, in Scripture, is summarized in one word, joy.  There is too little attention given for serious understanding and application of the gift of joy for life.  Christians have the addition of the spiritual factors that generate even larger benefit, especially in resort to prayer.  As with other gifts in life we must open and appropriate the gift.  Joy is not an accident, but deliberate for usefulness.  Now, what does that mean?  There are too many Bible and human references… Read more

Response

July 24, 2018
Year 3, Day 205 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

This date has been my excuse in this series for accenting reaction responses by human beings.  Reaction is noted and illustrated in the Freshman series, then followed in the Sophomore in the discussion of the Fruit of the Spirit that provides controls for Christians so to manage reactions.  We take the matter a step further here so to understand both the spiritual and intellectual concerns that can, when utilized control emotions and take the sting out of common negative reactions – both personal and social.  We need to remember that not all reactions are negative: anger, jealousy, depression, retreat, and the list extends.  Reactions may be affirmative: love, humor, peace, relief, prayer and the list extends.  The affirmatives have a… Read more

Unity

July 23, 2018
Year 3, Day 204 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

Unity is a basic principle in the effective functioning of an organization, be it a family or a nation.  It is difficult to come by.  It needs to be taught, worked through, and believed rather than assumed.  If assumed, and unity is evasive if not generated and cultivated, it will not be realized.  The citizenry needs to be educated in the context of mutual understanding and functioning in life so to be efficient in absorbing differences in genders, languages, faiths, interests, vocations, values and the list lengthens in variant factors.  Founding fathers of the United States understood the variances so moved to form from a confederacy of thirteen separate states to a democratic nation of thirteen states.  The concept was… Read more

Heaven’s Perceptions

July 22, 2018
Year 3, Day 203 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

We remember that there are two contexts for our lives – the physical (nature) and the spiritual (beyond nature).  Even though they visit each other they are also contextual on their own.  One is revealed in experience and the other in divine revelation.  There is overlap to provide communication, influence, education, understanding, wisdom, application related to both contexts.  In the origination of nature from the creative acts of God, and the value system that causes creation to function at high effectiveness when engaged – the spiritual context holds primacy.  This primacy is further supported in the perpetuity (immortality) of that appearing in the spiritual context, and limitation (mortality) in the natural. In the natural state, thinking mankind works through concepts… Read more

False Transcendence

July 21, 2018
Year 3, Day 202 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

If space permitted we might outline one of the sorrows of society in the extensive human addiction to drugs.  Addiction usually relates to negative influence found in liquids like alcohol; vapors like cigarettes, or marijuana, or the more extensive narcotics; injections of various drugs directly into the blood stream. There is also the misuse of normal physical functions like eating so addiction to food, or sex so to seek expression in any manner, or even in ways to form an ideal appearance.  We even have excesses to addiction in religion that can lead to terrorism.  We now include helpful prescription drugs that have become addictive and life threatening.  Records preserve gruesome horror stories,   China was cursed by the widespread use… Read more

Things New

July 20, 2018
Year 3, Day 201 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

In the decades following two world wars, issues related to genders have arisen in general society so to press for and achieve significant change in general culture.  For most persons, male and female, the transitional course in the culture formed rather well in an evolutionary pace, but becoming more intense in the new millennium. The process is cast in a context of equality of genders.  Equality was not doubted by the vast number of citizens, both male and female, who have been a part of democratic life.  I don’t know of any persons in my personal life circle who would ever question gender equality.  If there is such a person, I am ignorant of it, and would argue for equality… Read more

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