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

Values And Adolescents

December 21, 2017
Year 2, Day 355 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

Modern society does not seek to learn adequately how to nurture and manage juveniles toward maturity.  Quite the opposite in that society permits, sometimes encourages, strong negative drags on emerging adults.  Errors catering to the juvenile tastes are given some force in both legal and permissive conduct.  Education does not sufficiently address the disciplines of life in the context of the private as well as the public needs of the human race.  Laws tend to broaden, permitting the young to drink alcoholic beverages at a younger age, to drive vehicles early so contributing to the largest group of reckless drivers, and the list can be extended.  It is claimed that finding fault with standards of dress, conducts, and the like… Read more

Humility

December 20, 2017
Year 2, Day 354 | No Comments

We ought to be much impressed about humility during remembrance of the first Advent Season, when God visited mankind in the form of an infant.  God visited not only in human form, but in the time of mankind, from birth to death.  God being God, and mankind being mankind, the Advent event was a miracle of something significantly greater (deity) identifying with something significantly lesser (humanity).  We here seek to know genuine humility, acknowledging that there is fake humility which is, in its odd way, a form of pride. (Colossians 2:18, 23.)  The pride of humility as counterfeit is a topic for another Page. It is important for the Christian to believe in the appeal for humility to God.  Why… Read more

Facts In Nature

December 19, 2017
Year 2, Day 353 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

In nature, with its common grace from God, the sophisticated population has been rightly convinced leading to beliefs and action with proofs related to replication of methods and evidence – for truth related to nature.  For life, order, progress, truth, understanding – get the facts, interpret them and live by the results.  There is no doubt that the consequences of that scenario have served mankind better than any alternative that preceded it – when various follies including voodoo, mythology, guessing, dreaming, magic, tribal customs that include fetishes and the like, even nothing (nihilism), held sway.  Christian missionaries in some parts of the world continue to encounter some ancient customs and practices amounting to fancifulness that not only enslaves infected populations… Read more

Family Of God

December 18, 2017
Year 2, Day 352 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

The Christmas Season is perceived as the family season.  I do not refer here to the Christmas business season that commences in September and stretches into the New Year, when gift exchanges have been put away.  Nearly a third of the year receives some Christmas accent, beginning with opening inventories and increasing in crescendo to the high point day of December 25.  It closes down in a week, beginning with trash burning or disposal on the 26th.  The tree commonly remains through New Year’s Day.  Some revelers keep it longer.  We know the season is closed on the first breaking of a New Year’s Resolution. When a poll of prostitutes was taken it was discovered that business slowed during the… Read more

Habits

December 17, 2017
Year 2, Day 351 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

The writer to the Hebrews states that sin thwarts persons who sin.  Some versions use the word entangles for the word beset of the King James Version.  The writer might well use some word like addiction if he were translating today.  Negative addiction is a result of depravity, a driving force that weakens individual choice.  It is major purpose for Scripture to offer instruction on how to deal with the expressions of sin in one’s life.  Sin, in the biblical sense of the word, does not fit the common human response on hearing the word sin.  Sin for the general public is an unpopular word.  Where it is used, it is presumed to relate to gross matters, like murder, thievery,… Read more

Earth Endings

December 16, 2017
Year 2, Day 350 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

Most persons appear to feel some skepticism about prognostications about the future, or they believe that the ultimate end is so far away that it makes no difference to them.  This last is something of the extension that we shall eat, drink and be merry for the end is a million years from the present.  That helps current generations from giving immediate attention to any belief of catastrophe in near future centuries.  If all continues in the present order of nature there may be only a few thousand persons on earth remaining alive, but not particularly meaningful for a society – from among the present day’s population of about seven to eight billion persons.  In some future period the world,… Read more

Heroics

December 15, 2017
Year 2, Day 349 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

From one era to another as history evolves, Scripture includes stories of persons who become celebrities in their generations.  We find the celebrity context as part of our education about spiritual matters. A celebrity may or may not contribute substance of value to society.  The current stable of celebrities gaining the greatest attention by the media is anchored in entertainment venues.  Talent is often lacking even though the media fawns over them with adjectives that analysts find shallow.  Celebrity status is a tricky factor.  It may have nothing to do with achievement.  It seems to have some connection with pride in the human race, both in the celebrity and in many persons making celebrities.  Media now make common celebrities. We… Read more

Animals

December 14, 2017
Year 2, Day 348 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Animals are important to the biblical story and the history of mankind.  They are noted as the property of God.  In pre-technology days they meant the difference between prehistoric and historic advancement for humanity.  It would be difficult to recover the full story of our debt to animals.  Before the Europeans touched the western hemisphere after Columbus, the native peoples we identify as Indians did not have draft animals like horses.  Those helpful animals were introduced very early in the movement of the white race westward.  The Indians took easily to the horse, as a working animal and mount for transportation.  It may be difficult for modern Americans to think of Indians without the horse.  Without the horse the Indian… Read more

Magnetism

December 13, 2017
Year 2, Day 347 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

There are persons we meet who seem to be magnetic.  They draw others to them, seemingly without effort.  Sometimes we call this force personality.  I have known a number of these persons, for good and ill, for truth or fiction, for depths or shallows.  But, we do not judge a force as a value in itself in the way it is used or manipulated.  We like to think about the force itself in the right context, so to understand it and become wary when the context is warning us of misplacement.  It is too meaningful in the course of human experience to be ignored – not to be known and understood.  It is found in shallow celebrities and in the… Read more

Depravity

December 12, 2017
Year 2, Day 346 | No Comments

Belief in depravity was a major factor in forming the new government of the United States of America.  (A redundant statement on these Pages – deliberate)  George Washington harbored strong doubts about the success of the new venture because he felt mankind to be deeply flawed.  Others too felt that depravity would be so influential that human beings, in some majority opinions, might prove to be more oppressive than royalty.  That was fundamental motivation for three independent institutions in one government – president, congress and court.  Even with that model there was unease in that each would be occupied by flawed persons making decisions for a flawed population.  Europe saw the new nation as experimental in that it would have… Read more

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