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

Empathy

October 12, 2017
Year 2, Day 285 | No Comments

My wife never moved speedily.  I never saw her run, but in our earlier years her pace would be considered normal.  I was the abnormal speedster.  During her middle years, and after, she moved more slowly.  I am sure that she saved herself from many bumps and bruises.  With my hurry-up approach to life activity, I experienced small accidents, bumps and falls, to show that there ought to have been a bit more speed-limit application for my life.  However, I soon made a conscious decision that I would not follow my preferred pace when I was with her.  I had noticed how many men walked ahead of their wives, and/or families, even other friends, and it struck me as a… Read more

Paradise

October 11, 2017
Year 2, Day 284 | No Comments
Section of Adoration of the Magi, artist unknown

During my early higher education, T. S. Eliot was popular in literature classes.  Students often chose from his works at forensic tourneys, especially passages from The Waste Land, sometimes, The Hollow Men.  In another poem he wrote: Our beginnings never know our ends.  That may be the case for most persons, but it doesn’t apply to all.  Perhaps if I had a conversation with Eliot during his lifetime, I might say that given the context of his writing, the sentence would stand.  In the context of my lifetime, it does not stand without some modification.  Of course I did not see much of what would comprise my life until now, at ninety-plus years of age.  I am writing about it… Read more

Scatological

October 10, 2017
Year 2, Day 283 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Christian students are especially alerted and comforted when the research/studies of both value centered institutions/researchers/scholars (that include Christians) and science/secular centered institutions, researchers/scholars (that may include Christians) move toward the same or similar conclusions in their work.  One is reluctant to admit any division between the two orientations in that verifiable evidence tends to drive us in related directions.  To hold faith in God, and values, for some seekers of truth, and exclusive naturalism for others – will inevitably cause some differences between seekers of defensible conclusions from naturalist persons than those from theist persons.  Both orientations would like to arrive, or ought to want to, at the same understanding of the facts.  It is inevitable that, in some contexts,… Read more

Government

October 9, 2017
Year 2, Day 282 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

My current reading regimen included the biography, Henry Clay: the Essential American, written by David and Jeanne Heidler.  My interest in Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster was piqued during my college years from a poll taken to name the five most eminent persons to have held membership in the United States Senate.  These three of the five were colleagues during some years, and vital to the Great Compromise of 1850 that delayed the outbreak of the American Civil War, and the attempt to create two countries from one.  (The other two Senators were LaFollette of Wisconsin, and Taft of Ohio.)  Taft, son of a president, was the only living one, of the five, at the time of the… Read more

Language And Letters

October 8, 2017
Year 2, Day 281 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop, ca. 1545–50

Language is a magnificent gift, made known best in reflective thought and a special aid for problem solving during life’s sojourn.  It provides a refined way of expression for the mind and emotions – when used rightly.  By it we give, withhold, condemn, tempt, think, encourage – verbally.  By it we resolve serious issues of life, and by it we often complicate them.  It becomes a mixed blessing of our own making.  One of the reasons we get on so well with the pets in our lives is that they can’t speak to us.  We permit them wide ranging because they are dumb, which is to say they can’t speak.  Dumb, in its primary meaning, simply means that the living… Read more

Economics

October 7, 2017
Year 2, Day 280 | No Comments

This is written in late summer, 2010.  The nation has been in the grip of an economic downturn that started early in the new century, but ramped up in 2006-8, becoming intense in the final year of the George Bush Presidential Administration, into the new one – the current period in which this page is written.  In addition, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cost billions of dollars, a lengthening catastrophe, especially when added to the devastating Katrina storm in Louisiana in 2005.  Wars have dragged on, with one becoming longer than that led by George Washington to gain American freedom (8 years).  The contextual story can be extended.  The tensions, problems, dysfunctions and calamities are weaving… Read more

Storms

October 6, 2017
Year 2, Day 279 | No Comments
Section of The Descent from the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435

In general society, we notice over-reaction and under-reaction to the conduct of mankind to this or that event, suggestion, or appeal, whether affirmative or negative.  For example: on the horrendous attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, three thousand persons lost their lives.  It might have been much worse if more complete planning had been done by the terrorists.  The stories of heroism, especially by firefighters and police, were emotionally moving for the citizenry in the city, and through the worldwide media.  Individual tragedies drew the tears of empathetic persons everywhere. An army of persons, professionals and pedestrians, went to work to aid the families who lost loved ones in an unspeakable context of… Read more

Odd Of God

October 5, 2017
Year 2, Day 278 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Last year’s Page for this day incorporated the odd and fearful experience of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.  They were guilty of lying, violating integrity, finding hypocrisy, embracing greed, and distorting the meaning of Christ and the Church.  Their approach was not unlike a modern pattern for many persons who learn how to work the system for their own benefit at a cost to others.  Many of us have found those who avoid their own responsibility to a fair system by playing it their own way in conflict with the integrity of a program.  Many social programs that are meant to serve needy persons are stretched beyond their resources by those who spend their time working around appropriate guidelines… Read more

Prophecy

October 4, 2017
Year 2, Day 277 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

Steve Jobs died, at fifty six years of age, during the first week of October, 2011.  The event was marked across the world, and the memorial words were effusive in the honor of his achievements related to near unbelievable inventions in computers, television, telephones (wireless), electronics, all enhanced by his rapid innovations that captured the imaginations of virtually every population of nations.  The Wall Street Journal in its weekend edition (10/8-9/2011) offered a near full page photograph of Jobs, and entitled the article following, The Secular Prophet.  The introductory paragraph included the following statement: Steve Jobs turned Eve’s apple, the symbol of fallen humankind, into a religious icon for true believers in technology.  But can salvation be downloaded?  At the… Read more

Genetics And More

October 3, 2017
Year 2, Day 276 | No Comments
Section of Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Benedetto Luti, 1715-20

The Language of God is a book by Francis S. Collins, a recognized scientist in fields enclosing DNA, genetics, genome research, and influences of these areas on health and conduct.  Collins quotes Einstein: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.  I feel uncomfortable about the image – given the other statements Einstein made about religion.  If an option is to be chosen, and choice is a factor, I would rather be lame than blind.  Collins doesn’t address this approach so we leave the point.  He is a thoughtful Christian, and has found a satisfactory relationship between science and his faith, proved in his writings and witness.  Our problems, as Christians, are mostly within ourselves related to orientations…. Read more

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