23 For the LORD, your God, dried up the waters of the
Jordan in front of you until you crossed over, just as the LORD, your God, had done at the Red Sea, drying
it up in front of us until we crossed over, 24 in order that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of
the LORD is mighty, and that you may
fear the LORD, your God, forever.”
Remember when you finish reflecting
to thank the Lord for your successes and have a grateful heart.
Often times we are afraid
of shadows but when are eyes are fixed on the promise of God we are filled with
optimism.
When Joshua crossed the
Jordan he had a representative from each tribe take up a stone from the river
to immortalize the day God stopped the Jordan to recall the day Israel received
the promise of God. So today being within the harvest season it would be a good
time to reflect what harvests that we have had since last year; to focus
ourselves on the light rather than the shadows.
So what are the 12
harvests of memorial stones of your life for the last year? Some areas you may
want to review for success are:
1.
Emotional: How have I grown in love?
2.
Mental: Have I developed any new paradigms?
3.
Physical: Have I overcome a physical weakness?
4.
Spiritual: Have I developed Holy Fear and walked with
the Lord? Have I developed any new virtues?
5.
Career: Have I progressed in my career or aided someone
in theirs?
6.
Family: Have I had family successes and been open to
new life?
7.
Financial: Have I made progress in stewardship of the resources
that God has given me?
8.
Learning: Has my mind been open to the Lord and new
learning?
9.
Community: Has there been success in areas where I work
with my local community?
10. Church:
Has there been growth in my participation with my parish?
11. Environment:
Have I done my part to be environmentally responsible?
12. Companionship:
Have I listened, been nurturing, and positive?
To find what is beautiful
in our own lives takes some degree of discernment and discernment the next
characteristic of John McCain’s framework of being a person of destiny is to
develop within ourselves the ability to have discernment. Discernment is the
ability to judge well or perception in the absence of judgment with a view to
obtaining spiritual direction. McCain points out to us that Leonardo da Vinci is the person who best
portraits the trait of discernment. John says of da Vinci[1]:
He was a scientist who painted
masterpieces as part of his grand ambition to see all that was visible in
nature. He could see more than others could see, because he looked more
intently and inquisitively than others looked, because he knew how to see. He
would never need to rely on others’ experience. The rules of experience are all
that is needed to discern the true from the false; experience is what helps all
men to look temperately for the possible, rather than cloaking oneself in
ignorance.” His education had not bred him to revere the classic artworks of
the Greek and Roman age as the achievements of the highest aesthetic, the
aesthetic rediscovered, reborn, in the Renaissance. He would draw, paint, and
sculpt life as he observed it, as much of life as was visible to the human eye,
without compromising his observations by imposing on them or his art the standards
of expression of a past age. His ambition was all-encompassing. He intended to
observe, comprehend, and explain nature with drawings, painting, and
sculpture—not some of nature, such as the workings of the human body, for example,
but all of it. He wanted to understand everything that his penetrating eye, his
extraordinarily disciplined observation, could discern. He would lament later
in life, “I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the
quality it should have.” He was a scientist of every discipline, an artist of
every medium. He was anatomist, botanist, biologist, physicist, aerologist,
astrologist, paleontologist, mechanic, painter, sculptor, architect, engineer,
mapmaker, designer of pageants, and more. All these creations of his
hyperactive mind were conceived in service to an endeavor—war—that he loathed.
In later years, he would draw a design for a submarine (like his tank,
centuries before the first prototype was constructed) but would keep the plan
secret lest anyone actually use it to harm another. He was, after all, a
vegetarian who couldn’t bear to destroy a living creature to feed his appetite.
I think it can be accurately said that Leonardo, whether or not he would agree,
was a philosopher before he was an artist, scientist, or engineer. Central to
his genius was his conception of a theory of knowledge that employed both
science and art, to see, comprehend, and reveal the way nature worked. Leonardo
was well read and sought to know how things moved, and why, which was an
intense lifelong interest. Nothing, he thought, could be fully learned from
books. Trying to acquire a complete understanding of a subject from a musty Latin
text was a fool’s errand to him. “Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing
to authority is not using his intelligence,” he argued. “He is just using his
memory.” Experience, seeing the thing for yourself, and taking pains to make
sure you see it clearly was the only sure way to acquire knowledge. “Although
nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to
do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this proceed to
investigate the reason.”
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