Love and time—those are the only two things in all the World and all of life that cannot be bought, but only spent. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They finally won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. Disappointments acted as a challenge. Do not let difficulties discourage you. To know the finite as such, is also to know the infinite. All or nothing is one idea. Each point of space, of time, each feeling in the ego, each quality of being, is clamoring, “I am the all—there is nought else but me. The sense of a universal mirage, of a ghostly unreality, steals over us, which is the very moonlit atmosphere of much thought. What wonder then if, instead of converting, our words do but rejoice and delight, those already baptized in the faith of confusion?  Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity to which its normal consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few disjointed words and phrases, as one stars at a cadaverous-looking snow-peak from which the Sunset glow has just fled, or at the black cinder left by an extinguished brand. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

We college-bred gentry, who follow the stream upon some old-established journal, or some voluminous native author, whose names are never heard of in our circle, but who number their readers by the quarter-million. It always gives us a little shock to find this mass of human beings not only living and ignoring us and all our gods, but actually reading and writing and cogitating without ever a thought of our canons and authorities. Facts are there only for those who have a mental affinity with them. When once they are indisputably ascertained and admitted, the academic and critical minds are by far the best fitted ones to interpret and discuss them—for surely to pass from mystical to scientific speculations is like passing from lunacy to sanity; but on the other hand if there is anything which human history demonstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordinary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts, with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as fact which threaten to break up the accepted system. Each of us is in reality an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than one knows—an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself though the organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

The total consciousness is like that spectrum prolonged by the inclusion of the ultra-red and ultra-violet rays. In the psychic spectrum the “ultra” parts may embrace a far wider range, both of physiological and psychical activity, than is open to our ordinary consciousness and memory. At the lower end we have the physiological extension, mind-cures, stigmatization of ecstasies, excreta; in the upper, the hyper-normal cognitions of the medium-trance. Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. I myself, as American agent for the census, collected hundreds of cases of hallucination in healthy persons. The result is to make me feel that we all have potentially a subliminal self, which may make at any time irruption into our ordinary lives. At lowest, it is only the depository of our forgotten memories; at its highest, we do not know what it is at all. The whole subject of immortal life has its prime roots in personal feeling. What the laboratories and hospitals have lately been teaching us is not only that thought in general is one of the brain’s functions, but that the various special forms of thinking are functions of special portions of the brain. When we are thinking of things seen, it is our occipital convolutions that are active; when of things heard, it is a certain portion of our temporal lobes; when of things to be spoken, it is one of our frontal convolutions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

In other special convolutions those processes of associations go on, which permit the more abstract processes of thought, to take place. Diminished or exaggerated associations with the other regions accounts for the complexion of our emotional life, and eventually decides whether one shall be a callous brute or criminal, an unbalanced sentimentalist, or a character accessible to feeling, and yet well poised. Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of eternity. The body is treated as an essential condition to the soul’s life in this World of sense; but after death, it is said, the soul is set free, and become purely intellectual and non-appetitive being. The death of the body may indeed be the end of the sensational use of our mind, but only the beginning of the intellectual use. The body would thus be, not cause of our thinking, but merely a condition restrictive thereof, and although essential to our sensuous and terrestrial consciousness, it may be regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life. Our finitenesses and limitations seem to be our personal essence; and when the finiting organ drops away, and out several spirits revert to their original source and resume their unrestricted condition, will they then be anything like those sweet streams of feeling which we know, and which even now our brains are sifting out from the great reservoir for our enjoyment below? #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Such questions are truly living  questions, and surely they must be seriously discussed by future lecturers upon this foundation. I hope, for my part, that more than one such lecturer will penetratingly discuss the conditions of our immortality, and tell us how much we may lose, and how much we may possibly gain, if its finiting outlines should be changed? For our ancestors the World was a small, and—compared with our modern sense of it—a comparatively snug affair. Six thousand years at most it has lasted. In its history a few particular human heroes, kings, queens, ecclesiarches, and saints stood forth very prominent, overshadowing the imagination with their claims and merits, so that not only they, but all who were associated familiarly with them, shone with a glamour which even the Almighty, it was supposed, must recognize and respect. These prominent personages and their associates were the nucleus of the immortal group; the minor heroes and saints of minor sects came next, and people without distinction formed a sort of background and filling in. The whole scene of eternity (so far, at least, as Heaven and not the nether place was concerned in it) never struck to the believer’s fancy as an overwhelmingly large or inconveniently crowded stage. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

One might call what was taking place an aristocratic view of immortality; the immortals—I speak of Heaven exclusively, for an immortality of torment need not now concern us—were always an elite, a select and manageable number. For our minds, though in one sense they may have grown a little cynical, in another they have been made sympathetic by the evolutionary perspective. Life is a good thing on a reasonably copious scale; but the very Heavens themselves, and the cosmic times and spaces, would stand aghast at the notion of preserving eternally such an ever-swelling plethora and glut of it. Our Christian ancestors dealt with the problem more easily than we do. We, indeed, lack sympathy; but they had absolute antipathy for these alien human creatures, and they naively supposed the Deity to have the antipathy, too. Being, as they were, heathen, our forefathers felt a certain sort of joy in thinking that their Creator made them as so much mere fuel for the fires of hell. Our culture has humanized us beyond that point. God, we can then say, has so inexhaustible a capacity for love that his call and need is for literally endless accumulation of created lives. He can never faint or grow weary, as we should, under the increasing supply. His scale is infinite in all things. His sympathy can never know satiety or glut. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

How, then, should it be consulted as the peopling of the vast City of God? Let us put over our mouth, like Job, and be thankful that in our personal littleness we ourselves are here at all. The Deity that suffers us, we may be sure, can suffer many another queer and wondrous and only half-delightful thing. The heart of being can have no exclusions akin to those which our poor little hearts set up. The inner significance of other lives exceeds all our powers of sympathy and insight. If we feel a significance in our own life which would lead us spontaneously to claim its perpetuity, let us be at least tolerant of like claims made by other lives, however numerous, however unideal they may seem to us to be. Let us at any rate not decide adversely on our own claim, whose grounds we feel directly, because we cannot decide favourably on the alien claims, whose grounds we cannot feel at all. That would be letting blindness lay down the law to sight. “The psalmist offers another solution. “I praise Thee for the awful wonder of my birth; Thy work is wonderful. For Thou didst form my being, and weave me together in my mother’s womb. None of my bones were hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret and molded in the lowest parts of the Earth.” Using the old mythological idea that people are formed in the abyss below the Earth, he points to the mystery of creation, not to the creation in general, but to the creation of his own being. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The God Whom he cannot flee is the Ground of one’s being. And this being, one’s nature, soul, and body, is a work of infinite wisdom, awful and wonderful. The admiration of the Divine Wisdom overcomes the horror of the Divine Presence in this passage. It points to the friendly presence of an infinitely creative wisdom. It is this mood which runs generally throughout the Old Testament. A great scholar, with whom I conversed once on the will to death in every life, exhibited the same mood, when he said, “Let us not forget that life is also friendly.” There is a grace in life. Otherwise we could not live. The eyes of the Witness we cannot stand are also the eyes of One of infinite wisdom and supporting benevolence. The centre of being, in which our own centre is involved, is the source of the gracious beauty which we encounter again and again in the stars and mountains, in flowers and animals, in children and mature personalities. However, there is something more to the psalmist’s solution. He does not simply consider the creative Ground of his being. He also looks to the creative destiny of his life. “Thine eyes saw the sum total of my days, and in Thy book they were all written. They were counted before they ever came into existence.” The psalmist uses another old mythical symbol, which is the record of Earthly events in an Heavenly book. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

He expressed poetically what we call the belief in an ultimate meaning of our life. Our days are written and counted; they are not merely accidental. One Who sees us most intimately looks at the vision of our whole life. We belong to this whole; we have a place of the utmost importance within it. As individuals and as a group, we have an ultimate destiny. And whenever we sense this ultimate destiny, whether or not it appears as great or insignificant, we are aware of God, the Ground and centre of all meaning. We can join in the psalmist’s cry of admiration: “How mysterious Thy thoughts are to me, O God! How great the sum of them is! If I were to count them, they would outnumber the sands; and if I were to come to the end of them, the span of my life would be like Thine!” The psalmist thus conquers the horror of the all-reflecting mirror and of the never-sleeping Witness by one’s recognition of the infinite mystery of life, its Ground and its meaning. However, suddenly, at the climax of one’s meditation, the psalmist turns away from God. One remembers that there is a morbid element in the picture of one’s life—enmity against God, wickedness, and bloody deeds. And since this element disturbs one’s picture, one asks God to eradicate it. In a sudden rage, one shouts, “If Thou wouldst but slay the wicked, O God, and make them people of blood depart from me, who oppose Thee in their thoughts, and utter Thy name in their crimes! Should I not despise them? I hate them with the deadliest hatred. They are also my enemies!” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

These words should disturb anyone who thinks that the problem of life can be solved by meditation and religious elevation. Their mood is quite different from that of previous words. Praise turns into curse. And the trembling the heart before the all-observing God is replaced by wrath towards humans. This wrath makes the psalmist feel that one is equal with God, the God from Whim one wished to flee into darkness and death. God must hate those whom he hates; and God’s enemies must be his enemies. He has just spoken of the infinite distance between his thoughts and God’s thoughts; but he had forgotten. Religious fanaticism appears, that fanaticism which has inflamed the arrogance of Churches, the cruelty of the moralists, and the inflexibility of the orthodox. The sin of religion appears in one of the greatest Psalms. It is that sin which has distorted the history of the Church and this vision of Christianity, and which was not fully avoided even by Paul and John. Of course, we whose religious experience is poor and whose feeling of God is weak should not judge too harshly those whose lives burned with the fire of the Divine Presence and spread this fire ardently all over the World. Nevertheless, the sin of religion is real; and it contradicts the Spirit of Him, Who forbade His disciples again and again to hate His enemies as the enemies of God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Yet, a change of thought and feeling brings the psalmist suddenly back to the beginning of one’s poem. He feels quite obviously that something may have been wrong in what he has uttered. He does not know what is wrong; but he is certain that God knows. And so he concludes with one of the greatest prayers of all time: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any false way in me; and lead me the perfect way.” At this moment he asks God to do what, according to the first words of the Psalm, he does relentlelessly anyway. The psalmist has overcome his wavering between the will to flee God and the will to be equal with God. He has found that the final solution lies in the fact that the Presence of the Witness, the Presence of the centre of all life within the centre of his life, implies both a radical attack on his existence, and the ultimate meaning of his existence. We are known in a depth of morbidity through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our height vision. That infinite tension is the atmosphere in which religion lives. In that tension, when Luther discovered in Christ the Crucified the perfect symbol for our human situation, he conquered his hatred for God. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

It is the tension in which modern humans live, even thought they may have lost the way to traditional religion. A human being can be ultimately judged by whether or not one has reached and can stand that tension. To endure it is more horrible and more difficult than anything else in the World. And yet, to endure it is the only way by which we can attain to the ultimate meaning, joy, and freedom in our lives. Each of us is called to endure. May each of us have the strength and the courage to bear that vocation! For it is to that vocation that we are called as humans. Wisdom is not easy to find. It remains a divine mystery in site of its presence in all parts of the Universe. Wherever wisdom has been praised in literature, its mystery has been recognized. The book of Job asks—“Where shall wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding? Humans do not know the way to it and it is not found in the land of the living. The deep says: Not in me and in the sea says: not in me. It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air; only abyss and death say: we have heard a rumor of it with our ears.” This means that wisdom is not a human possibility. The praise of wisdom is not a praise of humans and their power. Only abyss and death—the boundary line of human existence—point to wisdom, but even they cannot give it. Only from a distance have they heard about it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Wisdom is not a matter of intellectual power; rationality is not wisdom. Death says more about wisdom than life; but death does not have the answer. Although manifest in everything that is, why is wisdom so hidden? It is because in everything that lives there are two forces at battle with each other—creative force and a destructive one, both of which emanate from the same divine Ground. As the book of Job says—“With God is wisdom and might; He has counsel and understanding. If he tears down, none can rebuild, if he shuts a human in none can open. Power and providence belong to Him, He is behind deceiver and deceived; he strips statesmen of their wits and makes a fool of councilors…He will extend a nation to destroy it, He will enlarge a nation to enslave it….Should not His majesty cause you to shudder?” No one can doubt that this is the way life is, but our poet knows that behind all this is the mystery of divine wisdom. Wisdom is in both creation and destruction. This is the deepest insight the Old Testament (OT) reached. Without it the beings of the News Testament (NT) would not have been able to endure the cross of Him Whom they called the Christ. Without it Paul could not have broken into the words—“O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God”—just after he had spoken with an aching heart of the rejection of his nation for the sake of the Gentiles. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Wisdom and mystery do not exclude each other. It is wisdom to see wisdom in the mystery and the conflicts of life. Lehi predicts that the Jews will be taken captive by the Babylonians—he tells of the coming among the Jews of a Messiah, a Saviour, a Redeemer—Lehi tells also of the coming of the one who should baptize the Lamb of God—Lehi tells of the death and resurrection of the Messiah—he compared the scattering and gathering of Israel to an olive tree—Nephi speaks of the Son of God, of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and of the need for righteousness. About 600-592 Before Christ (BC). “And now I, Nephi, proceed to give an account upon these plates of my proceedings, and my reign and ministry; wherefore, to proceed with mine account, I must speak somewhat of the things of my father, and also of my brethren. For behold, it came to pass after my father had made an end of speaking the words of his dream, and also exhorting them to all diligence, he spake unto them concerning the Jews—that after they should be destroyed, even that great city Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon, according to the own due time of the Lord, they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity; and after they should be brought back out of captivity they should possess again the land of their inheritance. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

“Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God rise up among the Jews—even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Saviour of the World. And he also spake concerning the prophets, how great a number had testified of these things, concerning this Messiah, of whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the World. Wherefore, all humankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer. And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord—yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know no; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing. And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and  he also said he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of World. And it came to pass after my father had spoken these words he spake unto my brethren concerning the gospel which should be preached among the Jews, and also concerning the dwindling of the Jews in unbelief. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

“And after they had slain the Messiah, who should come, and after he had been slain he should rise from the dead, and should make Himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles. Yea, even my father spake much concerning the Gentiles, and also concerning the house of Israel, that they should be compared like unto an olive tree, whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the Earth. Wherefore, he said it must needs be that we should be led with one accord into the land of promise, unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the Earth. And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fullness of he Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer. And after this manner of the language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren, and also many more things which I did not write in this book; for I have written as many of them as were expedient for me in mine other book. And all these things, of which I have spoken, were done as my father dwelt in a tent, in the valley of Lemuel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

“And it came to pass after I, Nephi, having heard all the words of my father, concerning the things which he saw in a vision, and also the things which he spake by the power of the Holy Ghost, which power he received by faith on the Son of God—and the Son of God was the Messiah who should come—I, Nephi, was desirous also that might see, and hear, and know these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well in times of old as in the time that he should manifest himself unto the children of men. For he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and the way is prepared for all people from the foundation of the World, if it so be that they repent and come unto him. For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round. Therefore remember, O human, for all thy doings thou shalt be brought into judgment. Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever. And the Holy Ghost giveth authority that I should speak these things, and deny them not,” reports 1 Nephi 9.1-22. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

O God, Who are both the Restorer and the Ruler of humankind; grant, we beseech Thee, that Thy Church may ever be increased by a new offspring, and grow up by the devotion of all the faithful; through Jesus Christ our Lord. My Father, when Thou art angry towards me for my wrongs I try to pacify Thee by abstaining from future sin; but teach me that I cannot satisfy Thy law, that this effort is a resting in my righteousness, that only Christ’s righteousness, ready made, already finished, is fit for that purpose; that Thy chastising for my sin is not that I should try to reform, but only that I may be more humbled, afflicted, and separated from sin, by being reconciled, and made righteous in Christ by faith; that a sense of my sufficiency and ability in Him is one means of my being immovable; that I can never be so by resting on my own faith, but by trusting in Thee as y only support, by faith; that if I cast away my faith I cast away Thee, for by faith I apprehend Thee, and as Thou art very precious, so is my faith very precious to me; that I shall short of the purity Thou requires, because in thinking I am holy I do not seek holiness, or, believing I am important, I do no more. Humble me for not being as holy as I should be, or as holy as I might be through Christ, for Thou art all, and to possess Thee is to possess all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

However, to make the creature something is to make it stand between Thee and me, so that I do not walk humbly and holily. Lord, forgive me for this. And may we pray in the spirit, for this gives of the first element of petition—in-Spirited or Spirit-directed prayer. How does prayer in the Spirit occur? In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And one who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. O God, Who hast made all those that are born again in Christ to be a royal and priestly race, grant us both the will and the power to do what Thou commandest; that Thy people who are called to eternal life may have the same faith in their hearts, and the same piety in their actions; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee, Who art of boundless goodness, and to be feared for Thy mercy, that by Thine assistance all trials, produced by Earthly sin or secular danger, may depart from us; and that in Thy Church of Latter Day Saints religious devotion may ever continue undefiled; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

NOW SELLING! Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.

Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/move-in-ready-home-site-84/

To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, we are currently closed to the public through April 7th. Like many other Bay Area businesses, closing our doors until April 7th will severely impact the employees who maintain the estate. That’s why we are offering a ticket voucher that can be used any time in the future – with no blackout dates or restrictions. Come when you are ready, but please come! Vouchers are only $26 ($13 off the box office price!) and can be purchased now. Good through May 1st, 2021! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/membership/