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

Acceptance

April 10, 2018
Year 3, Day 100 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

There is always something going on in society causing tension.  We know there will be changes, large and small, explainable and unexplainable, affirmative and negative, but changes inevitably.  Some will serve well and others hinder in the making of good lives.  The matter becomes especially complicated when the changes are evaluated differently within the separate cultures.  Many factors I knew as a young person and interpret as good for society then and now, are gone, some interpreted not only as unneeded or even wrong so to be displaced perhaps treated roughly for any vestigial remnant of them.  Perhaps death is the only way out for some persons conditioned to live in one generation only to find themselves during the passing… Read more

Elder Christians

April 9, 2018
Year 3, Day 99 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We return to life endings.  The Bible is clear, that the experiences of the elderly are not uniform in death.  For Abraham there appears to be fulfillment, a satisfaction that one may find in the analysis for events of Abraham’s life, with Abraham in control to the end.  For Jacob, the story ended differently with the end of life far from home, and reliant upon his younger son, Joseph, for sustenance.  Moses’ life was mixed with great blessings and great disappointments.  Even in his victorious death, he was not sustained to set foot in the promised-land west of Jordan.  We find in these and other characters, both biblical and other historical figures, a wide range of attitudes and circumstances.  We… Read more

Evidence vs Evidence

April 8, 2018
Year 3, Day 98 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

This morning, April 8, 2012, is Easter morning.  It is a day when persons who never go to church on any other day than Easter, may go to church.  These generalists do not go to scoff, or to be called Christian. They go as a gesture of mystery, which may be fathomed, from a habit feeling.  They come from a feeling that resurrection ought to be true, even if it is not, suggesting that there is an immortality of some sort.  They may feel that, even if there were not resurrection, there ought to be something that is implied in it.  They are voting for that thought as worthy of some belief as a possibility that meets an underlying longing… Read more

God and Mankind

April 7, 2018
Year 3, Day 97 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

We need to remind ourselves that mankind and God may not think alike in many contexts.  In mercy God permits considerable range for human beings, in that he knows so much more than we do, and has the tolerances he chooses to use.  God has grace/tolerance for our ignorance, distractions, omissions, contradictions, foibles – the words multiply.  In response and respect we ought to try to discover God’s modus operandi as he reveals important information in Scripture, both for spiritual and natural issues.  The burden of the Christian is to understand the fact that the presuppositions of God are not the common presuppositions of human beings.  That fact alone can, and does, lead to endless discussion in attempts to find… Read more

Time Never Again

April 6, 2018
Year 3, Day 96 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

I am a collector of thoughts cast in forms of poetic language, sometimes even in humorous bent.  I am sometimes relieved in some of my disappointments with government bodies made up of intelligent persons who can’t solve man-made problems – when I remember Winston Churchill’s remark about Americans and problems.  Churchill said: The Americans will do the right thing after they have tried everything else.  My opinion is less humorous: They could if they would.  Why do we not find ways to get around barriers to human problem-solving, especially related to those problems of our own making? This date in my several years of Pages has much to say about time, partly as mystery.  I could not let go the… Read more

Motives

April 5, 2018
Year 3, Day 95 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

There are a number of patterns and procedures that persons feeling limited by mortality, but seeking human morality or a form of justice, adopt to carry through a religion of humanism.  Many of these procedures can be made useful, and are sufficiently persuasive that even the church, during some periods of history, has adopted a few of them to achieve mortal rightness.  The large story illustrates how moral and mortal clash, and righteous with right.  Even the words, moral/mortal and righteous/right, look alike.  They are related, but not always the same.  Righteous emanates from God’s holiness, and right from the creations’ equality. The concern for this Page date is related to motives for belief and action.  The concept that the… Read more

Godding

April 4, 2018
Year 3, Day 94 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

By godding I mean the individual plays god to self and others.  (Note other Pages for this date.)  We assume that virtually everyone has a god of sorts, an authority influence that seems greater than oneself.  Perhaps the secular scientist is consistent in honoring nature to the extent that nature (conscience) becomes god.  One tends to give honor to that thing which seems greater than the individual and holds the final truth/judgment even to guide what is done in life course.  Nature (especially the Sun) has been a god of the past, and is often perceived as superstition, unrelated to personality.  It appears in uncontrollable forms.  There is pseudo-worship.  We find it in various ways. Common ones relate to beauty,… Read more

Education and Practice

April 3, 2018
Year 3, Day 93 | No Comments
Section of Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo, 1508-1512

A major article has appeared on the internet that some employers have become reluctant to hire recent college graduates.  Not long ago a B.A. college degree was a near guarantee that the student released by graduation from formal education would be given a choice of jobs, even gaining a cash advance for signing with this or that employer.  Some of the confidence came from a belief that the graduate had a clear concept of what was acceptable in social relationships, even as those relationships might be professional more than personal.  Massive financial rewards went to persons in some fields, but the workers in many general and somewhat specialized fields also provided some incentives that were attractive and unknown until recent… Read more

Anxiety

April 2, 2018
Year 3, Day 92 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Anxiety is common experience for many persons and almost unknown to others.  It occurs often in public speaking situations, but is found in many contexts.  The athlete may be so taken by anxiety on a day that his performance seems unrelated to the excellence proved in practice.  Even prominent persons in this or that field have experienced anxiety, unrelated to the real person.  Winston Churchill, during most of his career, carried copies of his speeches on his person so to resort to reading if his anxiety robbed him of his memorized outline.  Speakers have been known to begin an address, advance to a point, and in anxiety, stopped, began at the beginning, arrived near the point of previous blanking, and… Read more

Value Rationalizations

April 1, 2018
Year 3, Day 91 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

It is common to read about hypocrisy in nearly any human activity, but the embarrassment is particularly heavy on religious persons and their institutions.  With the orientations of the humanist, the naturalist, the neutralist, if they are sincere in their beliefs about God, the hypocrisy of religious folks should not be quite as accented as it is made to be by the media.  But it is made important, and the stories, sometimes lurid and sometimes sad, can appear for weeks, long after other more important news for the public has faded.  The stories of hypocrites do not offer support or denial for faith based persons.  No group should accept evaluation of its meaning and value based on hypocritical conduct.  If… Read more

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