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

Normalcy

October 2, 2017
Year 2, Day 275 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

I am surprised that this verse gains so little attention from Christian apologists. It is an argument for peace. It has been my purpose to retain the verse for this date through the volumes of daily devotional/educational Pages looking toward a mature, practical, and satisfying Christian life and culture – especially so as to engage thought of life experience for readers.  I am here engaging Christian collegians, and my family’s emerging generations, in a context I believe served me after a lifetime of study, (both secular and biblical) – travel of the world; family experience to nearly five generations; counseling for years as well as being counseled; and, engaging persons (some eminent), who I believe were both poorly and well-conditioned… Read more

Society And The Bible

October 1, 2017
Year 2, Day 274 | No Comments
Section of The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

If I were a leader in government, even if I were an atheist, I would cultivate the support of Christians for public purposes – if I had good government projections for the people as policy.  Christians are friends for government entities holding attainable ideals.  No other cultural group in general society will be more loyal for social good.  This support is based on biblical injunction; a personal feeling that government is an institution God favors; a social means for serving citizens needing services and equity; a way to carry through the injunctions to public cooperation for development of habitat; a protective device against crime and war threat; and, a means for preserving freedom within the context of nature’s limits.  In… Read more

Saints

September 30, 2017
Year 2, Day 273 | No Comments

It is clear from Scripture that God, in the creation we know about, desired to make persons who could share, to some degree, the characteristics of himself.  In this he gave some power like the achievement of goals, some insights like self-awareness and progress – the list can well be extended.  He also made mankind to find wisdom in both nature and learning, so to give love, patience, mercy, service – meaning for existence.  God sees some meaning for himself in serving the creation he inaugurated.  Even with the divine gift of self-consciousness, mankind is not God, and never will be, but we have, as Shakespeare noted in Hamlet, god-like characteristics.  Saintliness is part of the image of God, reflected… Read more

Continuity

September 29, 2017
Year 2, Day 272 | No Comments
Section of The Infant Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Guido Reni, n.d.

As I write this Pope Francis is visiting Cuba, partly to enliven the ministry of the Catholic Church there.  Although most Cubans might identify themselves as Catholic, fewer than 10% show any real interest in the church, except through the memory of tradition.  Some of the precipitous decline in public support of this arm of the Christian Church relates to the victory of Fidel Castro in 1959 that made Cuba a Communist State.  I remember well the news break in ’59 announcing the Castro take-over.  It remained for fifty years with Castro, and was turned over to his brother a few years ago.  The brother appears to be loosening some of the dictatorial elements of the regime.  It has been… Read more

Tradition

September 28, 2017
Year 2, Day 271 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

Scripture gives attention to traditional factors that are evidence of good.  When Scripture discusses the tradition(s) of the fathers the context is for truth and spiritual life.  Keeping tradition refers to what Abraham might have thought or done that set a standard for what others ought to think or do, or what they would not think or do.  It meant the same in the life and laws represented in Moses.  Many more are included, especially in Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, and the prophets, but also in traditional families. Some of the fathers set up practices and beliefs that persons of biblical faith would not want to pass on.  These too may have become traditions, but readers knew that when a… Read more

Complexity

September 27, 2017
Year 2, Day 270 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

It is well to review the Page for this date in the Freshman Volume for background.  We are at a point of high importance, the choices the individual must make in life.  The matter is made major in Scripture.  The beginning is with God’s choices.  Moses repeated rather often the words: “God shall choose . . .  or The Lord shall choose . . .   His last words to Israel were: Choose life …  The Apostle Paul noted to the Philippians that he wrestled with the matter of life and death.  He would, of himself at his age, choose death – so to be with Christ.  He also would choose life, because he was needed by God to serve his… Read more

Proverbially Speaking

September 26, 2017
Year 2, Day 269 | No Comments

This list picks up from Volume I.  51. Read something substantive every day.  52. Become a problem solver, not a problem reactor.  53. Acknowledge your aches and pains, but do not yield to them.  54. Quantity is seldom more important than quality.  55. Education is more for living than making a living.  56. Dust since you must, so start the day with dusting off the mind and soul.  57. Persons young and old should put the body in motion on virtually every opportunity.  58. Recall your best memories, so to permit experiences live again.  59. In experience make memories worth remembering.  60. Do not be offended at the losses of this life in growing old – soon fringe benefits will… Read more

Oddity Addiction

September 25, 2017
Year 2, Day 268 | No Comments
Section of The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci

One feels the urge to find extremists and argue, perhaps plead, for greater normalcy in their lives and their objectives to improve both their lives and the circumstances related to others in the world or community.  This urge is not to deny that some persons (few in the light of statistics) have chosen to live oddly in any culture, so to become counter-cultural persons for a righteous purpose as was the lifestyle of John the Baptist, or Simon the Stylite.  Such choice is shown, in gentle ways, in the life of Amish communities, or in some other different sub-culture.  It may appear in resolute form like that of the Franciscans, or some of the prophets.  The value added factor in… Read more

Intellectual Combat

September 24, 2017
Year 2, Day 267 | No Comments
Section of Noli me Tangere by Hans Holbein the Younger

From the point of view of the searcher for truth in the Christian context, the largest problems are not found in the negative responses of humanists, but the struggle with one’s own meaning of what characterizes truth and fiction.  Fiction often seems more logical than truth.  Fiction can be pared or enlarged to fit margins of plausibility or exceed them.  Some truths go far beyond those margins.  No hero for knowledge ranges farther than the Christian determining what will ultimately be found as truth and meaning.  The humanist, by definition, limits us to what is provable (replicated) in a material world and its reachable cosmos. Many Christian assertions rest upon undemonstrated statements – far out.  They are presumed alleged in… Read more

Characters

September 23, 2017
Year 2, Day 266 | No Comments
Section of The Crucifixion, Pedro Orrente, ca. 1625–30

Marc Chagall, eminent Jewish artist, became controversial in the Jewish community with his effort to reconcile Jewish and Christian faith.  Deeply, he felt Christianity had emerged from the Jewish faith orientation.  His paintings were impressive in capturing both Old and the New Testaments.  Migrating from Russia to Paris and after to the United States as the Nazi threat rose in Europe, Chagall launched efforts to compose a literature that included the whole Bible.  He put twenty five years of effort into completing the Old Testament he presented to his wife as a gift.  The entire text and illustrations were magnificently bound for her, with more modest copies for others.  One passage included Jesus hovering over the Jews during the Hitlerian… Read more

← Newer posts
Older posts →