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

Slavery

June 9, 2018
Year 3, Day 160 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Slavery as a concept, and as an experience in human history, and its interpretation in the Christian context comprise my interest, and belief in problem solving and freedom as appropriate to the image of God in mankind.  Slavery is best understood and interpreted, through Christian revelation and faithful perception to it, and its variety of applications by fallible interpreters.  I am highly interested in persons like Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, including abolitionists like John Brown.  My favorite is Jim Pembroke, slave, who, as a free man, took the name of James W. C. Pennington.  Born in Africa in 1809 (same year as Lincoln): he died in Florida in 1870.  He was a contender for… Read more

Judgment

June 8, 2018
Year 3, Day 159 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We continue, for this date in our four years review of Christian context, especially as it relates to education, a general theme, related to one’s point of view about Christian interpretation of life context, and specifically the matter of judgment in the mind and context of the world of truth and experience.  What did Jesus mean when he made this proposition in the Sermon on the Mount?  I have heard many sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, including this passage, and, like so many biblical passages I have heard expounded, there is so much omitted in meeting the questions one might raise on teachings. I sometimes feel a bit of exasperation.  This does not mean the speaker or writer… Read more

Mystery Is Major

June 7, 2018
Year 3, Day 158 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

Mystery is a major interest of mankind.  It emerges year after year in the media as a constant interest for popular entertainment, especially as it relates to crime, but also in probing the secrets of health, nature, and human belief and conduct. We are surrounded by mystery, and it either inspires us to seek truth unraveling mystery, or we resign ourselves to life as we find it, live out our years, and pass as self-conscious animals at the end of the years.  Some persons are put-off by mystery.  If there is God, they feel he has failed them in some way by not being clear, in the natural world – related to verifiable evidence, about himself and his processes.  In… Read more

Role Play

June 6, 2018
Year 3, Day 157 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

The application of roles to genders may have contributed to both the exploitation and value of both men and women.  Certainly that is true as roles have been defined in history.  The roles of breadwinner and soldier may have led to the exploitation of men: care of children and domesticity for women.  Without a clear moral and ethical understanding of the serving purpose of relationships there will always be confusion in the giving/taking that maintains much in society leading to some exploitation of women, men and children in common contexts – to the disadvantage of this or that segment of society.  It is in the nature of things that there is service needed that requires more of this person or… Read more

Intelligent Design

June 5, 2018
Year 3, Day 156 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

There is strong belief among theists that the universe has a design related to its parts and the whole of it. There is also a strong belief among humanists that there is no design.  Persons, both theists and humanists, also contradict those appearing in the majority of their expected context.  The farther back we go in time the more likely that we are perceived as speculating about origins and developments.  Today I read an article arguing that our present day bird species are descended from some of the ancient dinosaurs.  The development was offered in ten steps, but the steps, at each juncture, required changes unexplained to gain the step up from the previous one – from a massive land… Read more

Normal Includes Abnormality

June 4, 2018
Year 3, Day 155 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

One of the benefits of involvement in Christian ministry, or any project involving close contact with a variety of persons is to discover how many of them are normal in this acceptable context and odd (sub- normal or supra-normal) in another.  Helping me work through many of life’s conundrums caused by life’s normal, I assume for rule of thumb that somewhere around ten percent or so of the random groupings are persons above normal (that normal perceived to be the majority, the middle group, the ordinary, often unheralded), and the same percentage applying to the sub-normal group (influencing the negative position somewhat strongly in opposition to the proposals, life-styles, and duty driven concepts of prevailing society).  Every group possesses affirmation… Read more

Words, Words, Words

June 3, 2018
Year 3, Day 154 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

In a matter of months after the founding of the church, the information about the gospel of Christ, and its impact on the conduct of the adherents of the gospel required the general population to find a way to identify the persons following this new way of life.  We are not sure if the word coinage was suggested from the believers, or conjured by the public so to identify still another society among a variety of societies that made up the several orientations (contexts) of all persons in a community.  The implication, I believe, is that the name came from the general public, and, at first was simply a label to be attached to an amazing group of people who… Read more

Love Of God

June 2, 2018
Year 3, Day 153 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Of the beliefs that Christians hold, or ought to if they are biblically oriented, is that the nature of God is love.  Love in its pure meaning must not be lost in counterfeits of it, or even legitimate facets (forms) of it in human life and relationship.  When appropriated, divine love accomplishes unexpected miracles perhaps unheralded in our lives.  It can, for example, provide antidote for loneliness in the life of a Christian, and is often invoked by devoted elderly persons to carry them through their days during the closing period of their mortal days.  We are young many times but old only once.  One of the great errors of mankind is to lose the experience of the love of… Read more

Generalizations

June 1, 2018
Year 3, Day 152 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

We simply do not have the time or inclination to do what many persons want us to do in expressing our beliefs, perhaps showing the course of our thinking and justifying our conclusions and conduct.  Those same persons will do what we do – generalize.  Out of our experience (what happened to us), and research (what happened to others) we generalize in thought and language about this or that matter.  The concept of generalization even appears in studies on logic.  The Greeks gave us the syllogism as a basis for their logic.  The famous example, used through the centuries, relates:  Major premise: All men are mortal. Minor premise: Plato is a man.  Conclusion: Plato is a mortal.  The test of… Read more

Culture Of Youth

May 31, 2018
Year 3, Day 151 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We remember that orientation and context are vital to focusing on meaning, motives, understanding and conduct in life.  There are, for each of us, special nuances that press in on our thoughts, our conducts, convictions and procedures.  These nuances may force interpretations.  For example, a former special student, of more than fifty years ago, with whom I exchange ideas and mutual interests in faith, culture and discussion, raised the matter of equality of women with me.  She wondered if one of my statements implied that the growth in the equality of women in society was negative – when I noted the decline in the male percentages in education and leadership.  I felt no negative implication about women, and I am… Read more

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