Humans are indeed controlled by their own environment, but we must remember, for the most part, it is an environment largely of their own making. The evolution of a culture is a gigantic exercise in itself of control. Justice is a complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the active exercise of complete virtue; and it is complete because its possessor can exercise it in relation to another person, and not only by oneself. Many communities have created restorative justice programs, yet these programs are often reactionary. They typically focus on trying to heal the offender, victim, and the community only after a criminal act has occurred. While these alternative justice programs are important components in restoring justice within communities, they are hampered by Western-imposed structures and Eurocentric concepts of crime and punishment. In the United States of American today, the American criminal justice system holds approximately 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. Every year, 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (about 160,000 on any given day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanor under a year; at least 25 percent of people who go to jail will be arrested again within that same year—often those dealing with poverty, mental illness, and substance abuse disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration. It is thought that the use of judgement and punishment actually works against the healing process. An already unbalanced person is moved further out of balance. What the threat of incarceration does do is generally keep people from coming forward and taking responsibility for the hurt they are causing. It reinforces the silence, and therefore promotes, rather than breaks, the cycle of violence that exists. In reality, rather than making the community a safer place, the threat of jail places the community at more risk. If people committed crimes by accident and were truly sorry, that argument would be true. However, many people commit crimes because they want to and believer they will not be caught. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
When a person knows what they are doing is wrong, but keeps doing it, they do not need therapy nor rehabilitation, they need punishment to serve as an inhibitor to breaking the law. Yet, it true that some people do break the law by accident or necessity and rehabilitation may help those individuals, much like it does first time offenders. That is why in some branches of the law judges rely on standards rather than strict rules and precedents, enjoying, in effect, wide discretion, or the law authorizes administrators to decide cases on their merits in the light of very general cans of policy, subject only to procedural safeguards of impartiality. The dominant American justice paradigm is not an extension of the slavery catch and release program and some officers are extremely lenient with suspects, but in many cases it is perceived as a further imbalance and disrespect, for justice does not always seek to restore or heal the offender, the immediate family, friends who are also victims, or the entire community that is forced out of balance by the transgression. Today, it is mostly without social structures, practices, and teachings that could help prevent injustice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
Although there is much cultural diversity among North American Indian nations, traditional practices emphasize civil rather than criminal sanctions. The goal of indigenous justice is to promote peace, heal the network of relationships, and eradicate political, spiritual, and emotional injustices. And that model may be a blue print that people consider using, but then it may lead to imprisoning people for not paying debts, or it would allow the wealthy to commit crimes without ever being held accountable. The Great Circle of Justice consists of interrelated socialization structures and practices that provide a multidimensional system of checks and balances that work in unison to retain diversity and harmony within communities and society. The preventative mechanisms are found within the traditional teachings—for examples, in ceremonies, songs, dance, television programs, movies, news, stories, novels, history, kinship relations, education and religion. Society should plant in the minds of people, in order to keep harmony, the concepts of compassion, cooperation, love, unity, equity, coexistence, power, respect, generosity, reciprocity, friendliness, unselfishness, peacefulness, and all other beneficial values which create an intense, diffuse, and enduring solidarity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
Peace should be maintained to heal the body and mind, and to establish diversity and harmony, which will prevent injustices to the natural World and protect future generations. The keepers of knowledge can help identify and provide invaluable insights into the traditional teachings found within ceremony, prayer, and foundational narratives and stories. Narratives and stories are not extrinsic niceties, but are basic life forces needed to establish and to preserve communities and develop a common culture of shared understandings, and deeper, more vital ethics. Narratives are relevant because they serve as more than just entertainment. Narratives preserve cultural teachings and history; they transmit knowledge of the community’s norms and values. Teachings can show people how they are to live with each other and the natural World and so them what happens to people who violate the law. The duties and responsibilities of each person in the society are given and reaffirmed every time the people come together for ceremonies and social activities. This is a holistic way to strengthen the prevention of injustice, and restore balance when a transgression occurs. Church helps people, it is a system of checks and balances that depends not only on people not wanting to commit a transgression, but also know that is they commit a violent act that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” report Romans 6.23. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
Many American Indian nations’ wedding preparation involve young couples being instructed in the importance of marriage to the nation as well as in acceptable behaviour, which includes not abusing each other. Traditional Haudenosaunee marriages, which still occur today, are more than the combining of two people, for they bring together clans and extended family. All present the joining of the couple are reminded of these acceptable norms and their duty in making sure that they are not broken. Such indigenous justice is multidimensional, and a balancing process that contains and is dependent on numerous practices and social structures that function as preventative and restorative mechanisms in the maintenance of justice. For centuries, North American indigenous socialization practices worked to maintain balance within societies. Colonization and imposed Western structures, values, and beliefs, however, have displaced major indigenous political and spiritual structures. The displacement of these traditional structures, practices, values, and beliefs as created disharmony within many communities. Mandatory boarding schools, laws to prevent spiritual practices, and imposed political structures have been implemented to strip North American Indians of their cultural identity, languages, ceremonies, and other cultural values and practices needed to maintain healthy societies. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
With displacement of traditional indigenous practices has come fractionalization and an increase in the criminal activity, arrest, and incarceration of American Indians. The Bureau of Justice and Statistics has concluded that additional external controls in the form of stricter laws, additional law enforcement officers, and funding are needed to decrease crime. Stricter laws and forms of enforcement, however, are not the answer to the prevention of crimes, and neither will they heal and protect the character of diverse communities, which is why the United States of America’s Supreme Court ruled that 3 million acres of eastern Oklahoma—including most of Tulsa—remains American Indian reservation land. This should help restore the Great Circle of Justice, by identifying, understanding and, where possible, recreating cultural social practices and structures to maintain social balance, diversity, and harmony with their societies. Imposed forms of government and laws via colonization, the loss of lands, and policies to assimilate the North American Indian have caused many of the traditional indigenous justice mechanism to become lost or damaged. Today there are numerous tribal courts that only replicate the Western-imposed beliefs and practices of an adversarial system of justice, instead of using traditional indigenous justice methods and values. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Such tribal courts and forms of governance may be a form of internalized colonialism. These types of court continue assimilation and cause disharmony within the community as they do not preserve cultural traditions, and neither do they heal the community. This replication of imposed laws, practices, and ideas had seeped into many aspects of North American Indian governments. Many tribal codes, for example, are now merely restatements of federal and state law and devoid of indigenous knowledge, values, and norms. The Great Circle of Justice needs to be restored within American Indian restoration practices. Peacemaking and tribal courts are often transformed gradually into bureaucratic reactive models unless care is paid to the traditional codes. An important part of traditional codes is their grounding in tradition and their connection with nature. If we follow the traditional codes, then the indigenous “justice-as-healing” paradigm will replace the case-processing, primarily reactive dominant justice paradigm and its adversarial foundation. For the system to work properly, for there to be a needs-meeting justice, communities must assert their power by redefining and redesigning imposed structures. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
The traditional teachings, socialization practices, and structures that once worked to prevent social injustices can be replanted. As realists, we recognize that there are practices that probably cannot be replicated, such as living in a long house with one’s entire matrilineal, extended family. We suggest, however, that some of the traditional indigenous teachings contain the seeds of how people can once again live in Skennen (peace) or Hozho (balance and Harmony). Prior to colonization, “law” was relatively direct and accessible to indigenous North Americans since it was based on concrete notions of the individual and collective good rather than on a modern abstraction imposed by the nation-state as the ideal (largely for political purposes) to which people must conform (or be punished) in order ostensibly to have security and private property. For most North American Indians, law was accessible: the oral tradition allowed it to be carried around as part of them, rather than confined to legal institutions and inaccessible experts who largely control the language as well as the cost of using the law. Social diversity, the recognition that humans are part of nature (not separate from it), and harmony are essential to justice are what is really meant by the right to equal consideration—to be treated alike unless relevant differences have been proved. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
Communal restorative justice is essential. It can reduce social and economic injustice and it can continue to limit the impact of imprisonment, especially imprisonment that is directly related to unemployment, debt, suicide, and innumerable diseases. We need to achieve a rational understanding of human emotions, particularly the irrational ones. It is important to understand what the cases or breeding grounds are for hate, love, submissiveness, destructiveness, envy, jealousy—for all the emotions that the greater writers (take Shakespeare or Balzac or Dostoevski, for example) have treated so incisively in their plays and novels. We want to make all those emotions the subject of scientific inquiry. What are the human emotions and how can we understand them? All the psychiatrists want to know is how people can be cured of symptoms that either cause them pain or interfere with their adjustment to society and with their own success in life. However, there is also a moral purpose. We want human beings to be able to understand themselves, to discover their unconscious, so that they can achieve independence. The goal is a rule of reason, the destruction of illusion. We want to see people become free and mature. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
Our moral goals are those of the Enlightenment, or rationalism. However, these goals go beyond what other psychologists set as their own goals or understand the goals of their field to be. The only goal those psychologists set themselves was to help people function better. The human model we envision as our goal coincides in many respects with that projected by the great philosophers of the Enlightenment. An important concept is unconscious or of repression. This concept is usually forgotten today. When people think of psychoanalysis, the first thing that come to their minds are the ego, the superego, and the id; the Oedipus complex; and the theory of libido. So let us begin with repression. We often act on motives of which we are completely unconscious. A little example will show what I mean. Not so long ago I received a visit from a colleague who I know does not particularly like me. Indeed, I was rather amazed that he wanted to come see me at all. He rand the doorbell; I opened the door; he held out his hand cheerfully: “Goodbye.” Translation: His unconscious mind was already wishing he could be gone. He had not been looking forward to this visit, and he revealed that by saying “goodbye” instead of “hello.” What could either of us do? Nothing at all. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Being a psychoanalyst himself, he realized that he had given himself away. He could not apologize by saying: “That is not what I meant to say.” That would have been hopelessly naïve, for we both knew that what a psychoanalyst does with a slip of the tongue is see what it really reveals, not try to make it mean something else after the fact. The situation could be nothing but embarrassing, and we both said nothing. That is just one example of the kind of thing that happens hundreds of times. Or take another example: a sadistic father who beats his son. I think it occurs less often today than it did one hundred years ago, but let us take this example: a sadistic father, a man who takes pleasure in causing others pain or in exercising strict control over them. If you should ask hum why he does what he does (and ordinarily you will not have to bother asking, because such people are usually quite willing to volunteer the information), he will say, “I have to do it so that my son will become (or remain) a decent person. I do it out of love for him.” Do you believe that? Maybe, and then maybe not. However, just look at his face. Notice his expression when he gives his son a whipping. You will see strong emotion in his eyes. What you will see in the face of a man who is full of hate and at the same time fully of joy at being able to beat another human being. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
The same quality of hate and joy at hurting others turns un in a police officer (not, of course, all of them), in nurses, in prison guards, and in any number of private relationships. Such people will hide is quality more or less, depending on how much self-interest demands that they hide it. However, let us go back to our example of the sadistic father. If we see him in action, we know that his motive is not what he claims it is. It is not his son’s well being that interests him. That is a “rationalization.” His real motive is his sadistic impulse, but he is totally unaware of that. Or take an example of much greater historical importance: Adolph Hitler. In his conscious mind Hitler always assumed he wanted only what was best for Germany: Germany’s greatness, Germany’s vitality, Germany’s position of power in the World, and who know what all. Although he issued the cruelest of orders, he never clearly felt—as far as we can tell—that he acted out of cruelty. He always felt he was acting out of a desire to help Germany. He was acting to make manifest the laws of history; he was acting in the name of fate, in the name of race, in the name of Providence. He was not aware that he had become a man who enjoyed destruction. He could not bear the sight of dead soldiers or destroyed buildings. That is why Hitler never visited the front during World War II. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
The explanation is not personal cowardice on Hitler’s part but rather a reluctance to see the concrete consequences of one’s own lust to destroy. We observe a similar phenomenon in people who wash compulsively. Their conscience desire is to be clean all the time. However, when we analyze such individuals, we find that they know, in their unconscious minds, that they have blood or filth on their hands. They want to free themselves from what they are consciously carrying about with them: a crime, perhaps only a potential one, a criminal intent they have to be constantly washing away. Therefore, the manifestation of COVID-19, and the need to keep social distancing and washing of the hands could be symbolic that Jesus did not die in vain and the fact that human beings are paying the consequences for continuing in sin and inequity, after all “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Chris Jesus or Lord,” reports Romans 6.23. Hitler himself had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was not a compulsive washer, but many observers noticed that he was fastidious beyond the limits of normal cleanliness. There is a parallel between Hitler and the sadistic father. Hitler did not want to own up to the reality of his destructive impulses, but perhaps that is because there was more to his motive than just simple destructiveness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Nonetheless, Hitler repressed his destructive impulses and admitted only his good intentions. Hitler was getting revenge because he felt the Jewish people had taken over Germany and were ruining it economically and also because a Jewish doctor had killed his mother. So he believed that he was a Messiah and was protecting the German race. Much like sadistic fathers have a reason from projecting their hatred on to their sons. It usually has to do with something they suffered in childhood that they want to inflict on their own child as an act or revenge or because they truly believe that their sadistic behaviour will save their son from suffering something they had to endure. In general, however, sadists have a pure lust for destruction. It is usually always present, but remains repressed and rationalized until, one day, there is no keeping I secret any longer. Examples like this—dramatic ones and undramatic ones—can be found everywhere every day. People remain unaware of their real motives because, for any number of reasons, they cannot bear to know things about themselves that either go against their own consciences or against public opinion. If they became aware of their real motives, they would find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation. And so they prefer to remain unconscious of those things and not to come into conflict with what they regard as their “better selves” or what most “respectable people” think. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
During a family time one evening, my two-year-old daughter, Annie, complained that if she only could see God, say, sitting in a chair, then prayer would be much easier. I pointed out that not only has she never seen God, neither had she ever seen me. She could see my body, but she could not see my I, myself, my ego, nor could she see my thoughts, feelings, and so forth. Persons, I told her, are invisible objects and, since God is too big to have a body, He is not perceivable in the same way a chair or a person’s body is. That evening, I expressed to Annie the Christian understanding of human persons. Historically and biblically, Christianity has held to a dualistic notion of human being. A human being is a unity of two distinct realities—body and soul. More specifically, I am my soul and I have a body. The soul, while not by nature immortal, is nevertheless capable of entering an intermediate disembodied state upon death and, eventually, being reunited with a resurrected body. The forma; name for this position is “substance dualism.” The soul (which is the same thing as the self or the I) is that immaterial, invisible thing that makes me a conscious, living human being. The soul is what I am aware of when I engage in various acts of introspection in which I am aware of what is going on “inside” me. I go where my soul goes. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
If God took my soul and put it into your body and placed your soul into my body, we would have different bodies. If my soul leaves my body, I leave my body because I am my soul. All reasoning may be divided into two kinds, namely demonstrative reasoning, or that concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning, or that concerning matter of fact and existence. That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case, seems evident; since it implies no contradiction, that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary efforts. May I not clearly and distinctively conceive, that a body falling from the clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and January, and decay in May and Just? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori. If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgment, these arguments must be probable only, or such as regard matter of fact and real existence, according to the division above mentioned. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
However, that there is no argument of this kind, must appear, if our explication of that species of reasoning be admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said, that all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition, that the future will be conformable to past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this past supposition by probably arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question. In divine knowledge there is no discursion; the proof of what is as follows. In our knowledge there is a twofold discursion: one is according to succession only, as when we have actually understood anything, we turn ourselves to understand something else; while the other mode of discursion is according to causality, as when through principles we arrive at the knowledge of conclusions. The first kind of discursion cannot belong to God. For many things, which we understand in succession if each is considered in itself, we understand simultaneously if we see them in some one thing; if, for instance, we understand the parts in the whole, or see different things in a mirror. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Now, God sees all things in one (thing) which is Himself. Therefore God sees all things together, and not successively. Likewise the second mode of discursion cannot be applied to God. First, because this second mode of discursion presupposed the first mode; for whosoever proceeds from principles to conclusions does not consider both at once; secondly, because to discourse thus is to proceed from the known to the unknown. Hence it is manifest that when the first is known, the second is still unknown; and thus the second is known not in the first, but from the first. Now the term discursive reasoning is attained when the second is seen in the first, by resolving the effects into their causes; and then the discursion ceases. Hence as God sees His effects in Himself as their cause, His knowledge is not discursive. Although there is only one act of understanding in itself, nevertheless many things may be understood in one (medium), as shown above. God does not know by their causes, known as it were previously, effects unknow; be He knows the effects in the cause; and hence His knowledge is not discursive, as was shown above. God sees the effect created causes in the causes themselves, much better than we can; but still not in such a manner that the knowledge of the effects is caused by him by the Knowledge of the created causes, as is the case with us; hence His knowledge is not discursive. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
“And now Alma, having been warned of the Lord that the armies of king Noah would come upon them, and having made it known to his people, therefore they gathered together their flocks, and took of their grain, and departed into the wilderness before the armies of king Noah could not overtake them to destroy them. And they fled eight days’ journey into the wilderness. And they came to a land, yea, even a very beautiful and pleasant land, a land of pure water and they pitched their tents, and began to till the ground, and began to build buildings; yea, they were industrious, and did labour exceedingly. And the people were desirous that Alma should be their king, for he was beloved by his people. However, he said unto them: Behold, it is not expedient that we should have a king; for thus saith the Lord: Ye shall not esteem one flesh above another, or one humans shall not think oneself above another; therefore I say unto you it is not experience that yet should have a king. Nevertheless, if it were possible that ye could always have just humans to be your king it would be well for you to have a king. However, remember the iniquity of king Noah and his priests; and I myself was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord, which caused me sore repentance. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his has in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth. Nevertheless, in this I do not glory of myself. And now I say unto you ye have been oppressed by king Noah, and have been in bondage to him and his priests, and have been brought into iniquity by them; therefore ye were bound with the bands of iniquity. And now as ye have been delivered by the power of God out of these bonds; yea, even out of the hands of king Noah and his people, and also from the bonds of iniquity, even so I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free, and that ye trust no human to be a king over you. And also trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, expect one be a human of God, walking in God’s ways and keeping God’s commandments. Thus did Alma teach his people, that every human should love one’s neighbour as oneself, that there should be no contention among them. And now, Alma was their high priest, he being the founder of their church. And it came to pass that none received authority to preach or to teach expect it were by one from God. Therefore God consecrated all their priests and all their teachers; and none were consecrated except they were just humans. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Therefore they did watch over their people, and did nourish them with things pertaining to righteousness. And it came to pass that they began to prosper exceedingly in the land; and they called the land Helam. And it came to pass that they did multiply and prosper exceedingly in the land of Helman; and they built a city of Helam. Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. Nevertheless—whosever puteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus is was with this people. For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even that God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob. And it came to pass that he did deliver them, and he did show forth his mighty power unto them, and great were their rejoicings. For behold, it came to pass that while they were in the land of Helam, yes, in the city of Helam, while tilling the land round about, behold an army of the Lamanites was in the borders of the land. Now it came to pass that the brethren of Alma fled from their fields, and gathered themselves together in the city of Helam; and they were much frightened because of the appearance of the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“However, Alma went forth and stood among them, and exhorted them that they should not be frightened but that they should remember the Lord their God and he would deliver them. Therefore they hushed their fears, and began to cry unto the Lord that he would soften the hearts of the Lamanites, that they would spare them, and their wives, and their children. And it came to pass that the Lord did soften the hearts of the Lamanites. And Alma and his brethren went forth and delivered themselves up into their hands; and the Lamanites took possession of the land of Helam. Now the armies of the Lamanites, which had followed after the people of king Limhi, had been lost in the wilderness for many days. And behold, they had found those priests of king Noah, in a place which they called Amulon; and the had begun to possess the land of Amulon and had begun to till the ground. Now the name of the leader or those priests was Amulon. And it came to pass that Amulon did plead with the Lamanites; and he also sent forth their wives, who were there daughters of the Lamanites to plead with their brethren, that they should not destroy their husbands. And the Lamanites had compassion on Amulon and his brethren and did not destroy them, because of their wives. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And Amulon and his brethren did join the Lamanites, and they were traveling in the wilderness in search of the land of Nephi when they discovered the land of Helam, which was possessed by Alma and his brethren. And it came to pass that the Lamanites promised unto Alma and his brethren, that if they show them the way which led to the land of Nephi that they would grant unto them their lives and their liberty. However, after Alma had shown them the way that led to the land of Nephi the Lamanites would not keep their promise; but they set guards round about the land of Helam, over Alma and his brethren. And the remainder of them wen to the land of Nephi; and a part of them returned to the land of Helman, and also brought with them wives and the children of the guards who had been left in the land. And the king of the Lamanites had granted unto Amulon that he should be a kind and a ruler over his people, who were in the land of Helman; nevertheless he should have no power to do anything contrary to the will of the king of the Lamanites,” reports Mosiah 23.1-39. Please spare and forgive us, O benignant Master; please stay the scourge which is deservedly coming down upon us. Please let the multitude of Thy compassions overcome the hateful mass of our sins; please let the great deep of Thine infinite goodness cover the bitter sea of our wickedness. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
We have eminent examples of Thy benignity in robbers, and harlots, and publicans, and the prodigal son; like them we also make our confession unto Thee, and fall down before Thee; please receive us, O Master, and although we fall short of their conversion and their sincere repentance, let Thine infinite goodness make up for the defect, yea, make up for everything, for in everything we utterly fall short. Every scourage and plague, and every form of destruction, which is bearing down upon us, is slight and small in comparison of our innumerable transgressions. Wherefore on account of the multitude of our sins we have no ground of confidence, O Lord the righteous Judge, whereon to supplicate of Thy goodness a relief from this terrible menace,–but the exceeding greatness of Thy tenderness and the abyss of Thy compassions, O Master full of pity, please compel us boldly to entreat what is beyond our desverings. For this cause, O God of exceeding goodness, O Lord of mercy, we beseech Thee, of Thy gentleness, to stay this sharp sword of untimely death. Please accept, O benignant Lord, the common contrition and heart-felt sorrow of us all, as Thou didst accept the tears of Hezekiah in the affliction of his heart, and didst rescue him from death. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
Please remember, O benignant One, Thy Cross and Death voluntary Passion, which Thou didst endure for us the condemned. From Thee alone do we beg assistance and relief from these horrors; for with Thee alone are possible things which are impossible with humans. Blessed art Thou forever. Lord Jesus, true God, everlasting Life, redeemer of sinners, I give my body, soul, intellect, will affection to Thee. I call the day, Sun, Earth, trees, stones, wind, rain, frost, snow, my home, bed, table, food, books, drink, clothes, to witness that I come to Thee for rest of soul from the thunders of guilt and dread of eternity. Please grant me a circumcised heart that I may love Thee, a right spirit that I may seek Thy glory, a principle within which Thou wilt own, an interest in the blood that cleanses, the righteousness that justifies, the redemption that delivers, that I may not be found a hypocrite on Judgement Day. For the sake of Thy cruel death take my time, strength, gifts, talents, usefulness, piety, which in full purpose of heart I consecrate to Thee. Let not sin find a place in my heart to becloud my vision, and may no foolish act wither my gift. Please preserve me from the falls by which others stumble, that Thy name may not be blasphemed or wounded, that Thy people may not be grieved, the Thine enemies may not be hardened, that my peace may not be injured. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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Please give me a heart full of love to Thyself and to others. Please let me discover in this life what I am before Thee, that I may not find myself another character hereafter. Prepare me for death, that I may not die after long affliction or suddenly, but after sort illness, with no confusion nor disorder, and a quiet discharge in peace, with adieu to brethren. Please let not my days end like rubbish, but give me a silent removing from the World to another. Inscribe these petitions in Thy book, present them to Thy Father, Set Thine Amen to them, as I do on my part of the covenant. We do not keep silence, O Lord, from praising Thee; because by releasing us from the evils which we deserved, Thou enablest us to celebrate Thy good gifts with gladness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes