The great peacemaker, the restorer of unity, is the one who finds a way to help people see the truth they share. In many respects, kindness does not make sense. At first glance, it seems an unnatural act, a violation of nature, to give away one’s life, or even one’s possessions. And yet, in the face of improbability, examples of altruism abound. I maintain, despite the moment’s evidence against the claim, that we are born to grow up with a fondness of each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distinct music and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection. Nonetheless, the music is there, waiting for more listeners. Let us examine our lives and determine to follow the Savior’s example by being kind, loving, and charitable. Kindness is the essence of a celestial life. Kindness is how a Christlike person treats others. Kindness permeate all of our words and actions at work, at school, at church, and especially in our homes. Care of the soul may take the form of living in a fully embodied imagination, being an artist at home and at the care of your soul; anyone can have an art studio at home, for instance. We can decorate our homes with images from our dreams and waking fantasy, which give voice to our emotions, without explanations and rational interpretations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Many people have difficulty believing in kindness as a human possibility. Past experience has taught them that other people are not to be trusted and that to accept help from someone is to open the door to exploitation. They avoid putting themselves in the vulnerable position of receiving throughout adulthood, building their identity around a corner of aloneness. There are people who take pride in being self-reliant; independent men and women whose confidence and self-esteem derive largely from being able to say to themselves: “I ask for no special favours; if need be, I can make it on my own.” Such individuals are especially threatened when the sudden need to depend on another undermines the very foundations of their personal identity. The stuff of the World is there to be made into images that become for us tabernacles of spirituality and containers of mystery. If we do not allow soul its place in our lives, we are forced to encounter these mysteries in fetishes and symptoms, which in a sense are pathological art forms, the gods in our ailments. Every day we can transform ordinary experience into the material of soul—in diaries, poems, drawings, music, letters, and watercolours. People choose to have their hearts changed by God. That is the only way God can grant the blessing of being of one heart. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

Before we can fully believe in kindness, we have to experience it personally. A person’s conception of humanity’s moral and ethical disposition is influenced by his or her specific encounters with other individuals. The power of specific encounters is both the grounding of morality and the basis for hope later in life. The scriptures teach us that the righteous exercise of morals values are dependent upon our living the principles of kindness, charity, and love. No power nor influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of one’s vocation, only by persuasion, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. As we read our experiences and learn to express them artfully, we are making life more soulful. Our homely arts arrest the flow of life momentarily so that events can be submitted to the alchemy of reflection. We can deepen the impressions of experience and settle them in the heart where they can become the foundation for soul. Our great museum of art are simply a grand model for the more modest museum that is our home. There is no reason not to imagine our homes as a place where the Muses can do their work of inspiration daily. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

One will immediately recognize the omnipresence of God, and to such degree as one’s recognition of the omnipresence of good signifies to one’s own thought the annihilation of the negative physical condition, the condition will cease to be. There are examples of solitary, irascible people, who have become soft and receptive in response to particularly tender members of the community. Later, these individuals have said that someone taking a genuine and caring interest in them gave them the impetus to make a better life for themselves. Some gave up self-destructive habits in direct response to the caring they received. You need an experience with at least one person who truly cares about you. If you did not have a close relationship when younger, and you now have one close person in your life, that makes up for the early deficiency. That person can appear at any time in the life cycle, even on the day of passing into Heaven. One does not need to make up for lost time. We live in many different circumstances. We will come from every nation and many ethnic backgrounds into the kingdom of God. And that prophesied gathering will accelerate. Another advantage to the soul of practicing the ordinary arts is the gift they leave for future generations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Tradition says that the soul thrives in a sense of time much greater than that of consciousness. To the soul the past is alive and valuable, and so is the future. As we perform the alchemy of praying, or writing on our daily experience, we are preserving our thoughts for those who follow us. The community made by spirit transcends the limits of a personal lifetime, so that we can be instructed in our own soul work by the Lord who will return to live with those who have become his people and we will be united, of one heart, unified with God, our Heavenly Father. As impulses, kindness and goodness may not be explainable in rational terms. While it is not dangerous under normal circumstances, kindness is almost inconvenient. The word derives from the Old English cynd, pertaining to race, family, or kin. Within our families, we may willingly go out of our way to be helpful, while outside this boundary we may think twice about expending any effort. There may seem to be nothing to gain from being generous with our time or talents beyond our immediate circle. Yet kindness is most moving and meaningful precisely when it is rendered by those who are not kin, or in the absence of something to gain. What distinguished rescuers from persecutors is the stronger sense of attachment to others and their feeling of responsibility for the welfare of others, including those outside their immediate familial or communal circles. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

The Lord’s people have always called for unity. The need for that gift to be granted to us and the challenge to maintain it will grow greater in the days ahead, in which we will be prepared as a people for our glorious destiny. “If you will not partake of goodness of God, I bid you everlasting farewell,” reports 1 Nephi 33.14. What is most striking in accounts of kindness is its simplicity. One person notices the difficulty of another and acts accordingly. It is a question not of compassion but of simply connecting, in order to see what one’s attitudes commit one to, Recognition of the other person’s reality, and the possibility of empathy, is essential. Anticipatory alertness to the reactions, feelings, and speculations of others is the essence of kindness. It would be impossible to do this unless facts could be reduced to states of consciousness. That which needs to be externally changed is not a thing in itself but a physical state of consciousness. Heightened sensitivity toward the feelings of others is exactly the change we have observed in people who have benefitted from sensitivity. When it is most fruitful, kindness, is passed on in the form of generosity toward others. Jaded people who have lived only for themselves begin to take an interest in those around them, having discovered the worth of mercy through their own vulnerability. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

Bitter people begin to experiment with nurturance, having tasted something of its satisfaction when they were suffering. In spiritual mind healing it is necessary to establish a consciousness of this foundation of truth. Our hearts will be knit together in unity. God has promised that blessing to his faithful Satins whatever their differences in background and whatever conflict rages around them. The reason that we pray and ask for that blessing is the same reason the Heavenly Father is granting it. We know from experience that joy comes when we are blessed with unity. We yearn, as spirit children of our Heavenly Father, for that joy which we once had with him in the life before this one. His desire is to grant us that sacred wish for unity out of his love for us. This is called spiritual realization. Truth based upon the reality that God is all there is. This realization is a realization of the presence and the perfection of God. We seek to arrive at a realization and recognition of the allness of God, the omnipresence of good. We must be thoroughly and sincerely convinced that there is a spiritual being and that this spiritual being is perfect; that the Kingdom of Heaven is now, and the statement of truth has actual power. “Every nation, kindred, tongue, and people shall be blessed,” reports 1 Nephi 19.17. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Social and ecological systems are sufficiently complex that our knowledge of them, and our ability to predict their future dynamics, will never be complete. We must work to reduce uncertainties when possible, improve assessments of the likelihood of various important future events, and learn. When there is uncertainty in social lives, it can produce stress, especially if we do not understand it and cannot resolve it and it will not stop. Practitioners know that uncertainty looms high in the area of natural hazards. Earthquakes along a major fault lines are inevitable, but we cannot forecast when the next one will occur. We know that a number of hurricanes will be spawned in the tropical North Atlantic. However, we cannot tell beforehand if there will be Hurricane Jerry of Heather among them or where exactly they will hit. We can reduce the vulnerability of Natomas communities by creating disincentives to build on the floodplain but cannot forecast the next Sacramento River Flood of the magnitude of the 1986 one. Or the flood in January 1850, when the Sacramento and American rivers crested simultaneously, creating major disasters. Much like natural disasters shock and stress the environment and people, when a single individual is under an ongoing and long-lasting attack and does not know why, the disruption can produce just as much stress as a natural disaster in their personal life. And so, understanding uncertainty is important for individuals, so they can develop an adaptive capacity and the ability to learn and adapt in response to perturbations. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Human agency, including the role of individuals, leaders, and institutions is important and influences outcomes. This collective capacity to manage resilience determines whether thresholds can be successfully avoided. The rule of law requires that people should be governed by accepted rules, rather than by the arbitrary decisions of rulers. These rules should be general and abstract, known and certain, and apply equally to all individuals. The purpose is to keep certain classes of people or individuals from being terrorized and having their freedom encroached upon indefinitely and without cause. Constitutional governments are based on a previous commitment to freedom under the rule of law. The essential attribute of constitutionalism is a legal limitation on government. Under constitutionalism, rulers are not above the law, government power is divided with laws enacted by one body and administered by another, and an independent judiciary exits to ensure the laws are administered objectively. An efficient and effective constitution allows government to function to protect the lives and liberties of citizens without violating the rights of some to provide gains to others. “Justice of God will fall upon those who work wickedness,” reports 1 Nephi 14.4, #RandolphHarris 9 of 9