When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists. Under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word. Now, when you think about the power of feeling, one thing quickly becomes clear. No one can succeed in mastering feeling in one’s life who tries to simply take them directly; without hesitation and resist or redirect them by “willpower” in the moment of choice. To adopt that strategy is to radically misunderstand how life and the human will work, or—more likely—it is to have actually decided, deep down, to lose the battle and give in. This is one of the major areas of self-deception in the human heart. The very “giving in” can be among the most exhilarating feelings know to humans, though it can also be one of complete despair and defeat. Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—whether it is anger, fear, pleasures of the flesh, desire for food or “looking god,” the residues of woundedness, or whatever—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting their feelings instead of that of not having them—of simply changing or replacing them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Of course this is just another way of describing the ruined person, the one who makes oneself “god” in one’s World. To such persons, the idea that they should not honour their feelings is an insult. “Their god is their belly,” it will be recalled. They are enslaved to their feelings—hence “human bondage”—and have no place to stand in dealing with them. Jesus was referring to this situation when he said that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin,” reports John 8.34. By contrast, the person who happily let God be God does have a place to stand in dealing with feelings—even in extreme cases such as despair over loved ones or excruciating pain or voluptuous pleasure. They have the resources to do what they do not want to do and do what they want. They know and deeply accept the fact that their feelings, of whatever kind, do not have to be fulfilled. They send little time grieving over non-fulfillment. And with respect to feelings that are inherently injurious and wrong, their strategy is not one of resisting them in the moment of choice but of living in such a way that they do not have such feelings at all, or at least do not have them in a degree that makes it hard to decide against the when appropriate. Those who let God be God get off the conveyer belt of emotion and desire when it starts to move toward the buzz saw of sin. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

As one lets God be God, one does not wait until the conveyer belt is moving so fast toward sin that they cannot get office of it. Their aim is not to avoid sin, but to avoid temptation—the inclination to sin. They plan their path accordingly. In the presence of the facilitative attitude created by staff and by many participants, individuals gradually begin to hear one another, and then slowly to understand and to respect. The atmosphere becomes a working atmosphere, both in the large and the small groups, as people begin to delve into themselves and their relationships. As this working process goes more deeply, it can bring great personal pain and distress. Nearly always, the pain has to do with insights into self, or with the fright caused by a change in the self-concept, or with distress over changing relationships. The same woman who ,at the end of the workshop, was able to write poetically of her growth, wrote this while involved in the process: “Clutching, crawling, frightened crying deeply now, my hurting, bleeding hands, are scaling down the walls of jagged, deadly fear, into some scary put, descending steeper, down in search of someone lost, whose life I value most, and plunging, need to save.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

Another passage, taken from a participant’s diary, reflect the gradual, painful discover of an understanding which relieves the tension. “I feel so torn. Part of me is proud for handling the situation this morning with Lillian and Billy in what I think was a good way, yet I am annoyed with myself for allowing it to tear me apart. I am scared, too, because it all seems so unfinished. My whole body aches with unbearable tension as tears stream down my face. I rush down the hall to the room where our group meeting is held. I barge in and tell the group why I am late, of emotional overload that I feel, of the exhaustion. ‘I am not even recuperated from yesterday and already today has been heavy. I can truly appreciate the toll it must take on you who do counseling full time!’ Then Dallas says, ‘You must learn to take care of your own needs, Jessica. A sense of peace floods over me as I hear his words. How gentle and healing. That is all I really need to hear at this time.” So there are, in the group, experiences of frustration, distrust, anger, envy and despair. In the individual there are the personal experiences of suffering though change, of being unable to cope with ambiguity, of fear, of loneliness, of self-depreciation. The pain of leaving those you grow to love is only the prelude to an understanding of yourself and others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

However, both the group and the individual experience these sufferings as part of a process in which they are involved and in which they somehow trust—even if they could, at the moment, give no rational reason for doing so. As the workshop proceeds, there is a shift in the basis of value choices made by participants. Values that are based on authority, that derive from sources external to the person, end to be diminished. Values hat are experiences tend to be enhanced. What the person has experienced tend to be enhanced. What the person has been told is good and valuable, whether by parents, church, state, or political party, tends to be questioned. Those behaviours or ways of being that are experienced as satisfying and meaningful tend to be reinforced. The criteria for making value judgments come more and more to lie in the person, not in a book, a teacher, or a set of dogmas. The locus of evaluation is in the person, not outside. Thus, the individual comes to live increasingly by a set of standards that have an internal, personal basis. Because one is aware that these standards are based on ever changing experience, they are held more tentatively, less rigidly. They are not carved in stone, but written by the human heart. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Life in today’s World can be at times so complicated and the challenges so overwhelming as to be beyond our individual capacity to resolve them. We all need help from the Lord. Yet there are many individuals who do not know how to receive their help. They feel their urgent pleas for help have often gone unattended. How can that be when He Himself has said, “Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”? reports Doctrines and Covenants 4.7. It is evident that the Lord intends that we do our part. However, what specifically, are we to do? No one would expect to receive a result from physical law without obeying it. Spiritual law is the same. As much as we want help, we must expect to follow the spiritual law that controls that help. Spiritual law is not mysterious. It is something that we can understand. The scriptures define it in significant detail. “Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be make know unto you,” reports 1 Nephi 15.11. The Lord has the power to bless us at any time. Yet we see that to count on His help, we must consistently obey His commandments. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Our churches speak of Him day after day, Sunday after Sunday or Saturday after Saturday, some more in terms of the Heavenly king of glory. They call Him Jesus Christ, forgetting, and making us forget, what it means to say: Jesus is the Christ. The most incredible and humanly impossible event—a wandering Jewish Rabbi is the Christ—has become natural to us. Let us at least sometimes remind ourselves and our people that Jesus Christ means Jesus Who is said to be the Christ. Let us ask ourselves and others from time to time whether we can seriously agree with Peter’s ecstatic exclamation, whether we are likewise overwhelmed by the mystery of this Man. And if we cannot answer affirmatively should we not least be silent, in order to preserve the mystery of the words, instead of destroying their meaning by our common talk? And He proceeded to teach them that the Son of Humans must endure much suffering, must be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, must be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke of this quite freely. The moment in which Peter called Him the Christ, Jesus prophesied His suffering and death. He began to reveal the mystery of His Messianic destiny. It was contrary to everything that the people expected, that the visionaries dreamt, and that the disciples hoped for. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

He was to be rejected by the political authorities of the nation, whose king the Christ was supposed to be. He was to be rejected by the religious authorities of selected people whose leader the Christ was supposed to become. He was supposed to be rejected by the cultural authorities of that tradition which was supposed to overcome all pagan tradition through the Christ. He was to suffer—He Who was expected to transform all suffering into blessedness. He was to die—He Who was supposed to appear in divine glory. Jesus did not deny His Messianic vocation. In the symbolic words concerning the “rising after three days,” He indicated that His rejection and His death would not be a defeat, but rather the necessary steps to His becoming the Christ. He was to be the Christ only as a suffering and dying Christ. Only such is He the Christ, or, as He called Himself more mysteriously, the Son of Humans. Peter took Him and began to reprove Him for His words. However, Jesus turned to him, ad looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind me, you Satan. Your outlook is not God’s but human’s.” Nobody in Jesus’ time would have doubted the fact that God sent suffering and martyrdom even to the righteous. The Old Testament proved that on every page. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Therefore, it was not that fact which has made the history of the Passion the most important part of the whole Gospel. It was not the value of suffering and the value of an heroic death, which have given the power to the picture of the Crucified. There have been many pictures of creative suffering and of heroic death in human history. However, none of them can be compared with the picture of Jesus’ death. Something unique happened in His suffering and death. It was, and is, a divine mystery, humanly unintelligible, divinely necessary. Therefore, when Peter, shocked and overwhelmed by sorrow and love, tried to prevent Him from going to Jerusalem, Jesus considered his pleading a satanic temptation. It would have destroyed His Messianic character. As the Christ, He would have to suffer and die. The real Christ was not in power and glory. The Christ had to suffer and die, because whenever the Divine appears in all Its depth, It cannot be endured by humans. It must be pushed away by the political powers, the religious authorities, and the bearers of cultural tradition. In the picture of the Crucified, we look at the rejection of the Divine by humanity. We see that, in this rejection, not the lowest, but the highest representatives of humankind are judged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Whenever the Divine appears, It is a radical attack on everything that is good in humans, and therefore humans must repel It, must push It away, must crucify It. Whenever the Divine manifests Itself as the new reality, It must be rejected by the representatives of the old reality. For the Divine does not complete the human; It revolts against the human. Because of that, the human must defend itself against It, must reject It, and must try to destroy It. Yet the Divine is rejected, It takes the rejection upon Itself. It accepts our crucifixion, our pushing away, the defence of ourselves against It. It accepts our refusal to accept, and thus conquers us. That is the center of the mystery of the Christ Who would not die, and Who would come in glory to impose upon us His power, His wisdom, His morality, and His piety. He would be able to break our resistance by His strength, by His wonderful government, by His infallible wisdom, and by His irresistible perfection. However, He would not be able to win our hearts. He would bring a new law, and would impose it upon us by His all-powerful and all-perfect Personality. His power would break our freedom; His glory would overwhelm us like a burning blinding Sun; our very humanity would be swallowed in His Divinity. One of Luther’s most profound insights was that God made Himself small for us in Christ. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

In becoming the Christ, He left us our freedom and our humanity. He showed us His Heart, so that our heats could be won. When we look at the misery of our World, its evil and its sin, especially in these days which see to mark the end of a World period, we long for divine interference, so that the World and its daemonic rulers might be overcome. We long for a king of peace within history, or for a king of glory above history. We long for a Christ of power. Yet if He were to come and transform us and our World, we should have to pay the one price which we could not pay: we would have to lose our freedom, our humanity, and our spiritual dignity. Perhaps we should be happier; but we should also be lower beings, our present misery, struggle, and despair notwithstanding. We should be more like blessed animals than humans made in the image of God. Those who dream of a better life and try to avoid the Cross as a way, and those who hope for a Christ and attempt to exclude the Crucified, have no knowledge of the mystery of God and of humans. They are the ones who must expect others with a greater power to transform the World, others with a greater wisdom to change our hearts. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

However, even the greatest in power and wisdom could not more fully reveal the Heart of God and the heart of humans than the Crucified has done already. Those things have been revealed once for all. “It is finished.” In the face of the Crucified all the “more” and all the “less,” all progress and all approximation, are meaningless. Therefore, we can say of Him alone: He is the new reality; He is the end; He is the Messiah. To the Crucified alone we can say: “Thou art the Christ.” The Saviour taught: “Remember that without faith you can do nothing; therefore ask in faith. Trifle not with these things; do not ask for that which you ought not,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 8.10. There is another reason why the mind warrants special emphasis. Of all the soul’s faculties, the mind is the one that ponders, contains, and judges truth and falsity. The mind places me in contact with the external World, and when functioning properly it conforms itself to the name of the object of thought itself. The ingrained habits of thought that are formed will conform to the order of the thing being studied. What we study determines what kind of habits are to be formed. That is why Paul urged us to center on things that are true, honourable, just, pure, lovely and gracious. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

To understand this, let us consider two features of the mind: intentionality and internal structure. The intentionality of the mind. Intentionality refers to the “of-ness” or “about-ness” of our mental states. We have a thought of God, a hope for a new Ultimate Driving Machine, a belief about the media. The mind points beyond itself to the objects we use our minds to contemplate Because of intentionality, thought puts us in contact with the external World. For example, if I am in Tokyo, Japan, I can be in direct contact with London by thinking about it. My mind is directed on London, and it makes contact with this object of thought. After all, I am not thinking about the word “London” (unless someone asks me to spell it) or something else; I am thinking about London itself. The internal structure of the mind—when we come to understand something, the mind develops a conceptualization of the thing so understood. If I come to understand the workings of an Ultimate Driving Machine, my mind will possess a conceptualization of those workings. If my understanding is accurate, the conceptualization in my mind will conform to the Ultimate Driving Machine itself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

If my mind develops a conceptualization of morality, then there will be an order in my mind that locates the role of virtue and character in the overall moral life. If accurate, this conception of the role of virtue will conform to the nature of true morality that actually exists outside my mind. If my conceptualizations are false, I will fail to grasp the object as it really is. However, if my mind conforms to the nature of the object itself, I will not only grasp it truly but also gain a certain power that comes from a correct understanding of reality. Just as electricity was real but its power unavailable to us until Ben Franklin’s discovery opened our minds to grasp the true nature of electricity, so the power of the spiritual life is real but unavailable to us if we do not understand the true nature of prayer, fasting, and so forth. This is why truth is so powerful. It allows us to cooperate with reality, whether spiritual or physical, and tap into its power. As we learn to think correctly about God, specific scriptural teachings, the soul, or other important aspects of a Christian Worldview, we are placed in touch with God and those realities. And we thereby gain access to the power available to us to live in the kingdom of God. The blessing resolves those things which are beyond our own capacity to influence either personally or with the help of others. Yet we must do our part for the blessing to be realized. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

We must strive to be worthy and to exercise the requisite faith to do what we are able. Where it is intended that others help, we must use that hep also. It is through the combination of our doing what is within our power to accomplish and the power of the Lord that the blessing is realized. The B-values are not the same as our personal attitudes toward these values, nor our emotional reactions to them. The B-values induce in us a kind of “requiredness feeling” and also a feeling of unworthiness. The B-vales had better be differentiated from our human attitudes toward these B-values, at least to the extent that it is possible for so difficult a task. A listing of such attitudes toward ultimate values (or reality) included: love, awe, adoration, humility, reverence, unworthiness, wonder, amazement, marveling, exaltation, gratitude, fear, joy, et cetera. These are clearly emotional-cognitive reasons within a person witnessing something not the same as oneself, or at least verbally separable. Of course, the more the person fuses with the World in great peak or mystic experiences, the less of these intra-self reactions there would be and the more the self would be lost as a separable entity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Ideas are types existing in the Divine Mind. However, God has the proper types of all things that He knows; and therefore He has ideas of all things known by Him. As ideas are principles of the knowledge of things and of their generation, an idea has this twofold office, as it exists in the mind of God. So far as the idea is the principle of the making of things, it may be called an “exemplar,” and belongs to practical knowledge. However, so far as it is a principle of knowledge, it is properly called a “type,” and may belong to speculative knowledge also. As an exemplar, therefore, it has respect to everything made by God in any period of time; whereas as a principle of knowledge it has respect to all things known by God, even thought they never come to be in time; and to all things that He knowns according to their proper type, in so far as they are known by Him in a speculative manner. Evil is known by God not through its own type, but through a type of good. Evil, therefore, has no idea in God, either in so far as an idea is an “exemplar” nor as a “type.” God has no practical knowledge, except virtually, of things which neither are, nor will be, nor have been. Hence, with respect to these there is no idea in God in so far as idea signifies an “exemplar” but only in so far as it denotes “type.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

We hold matter to be created by God, though not apart from form, matter has its idea in God; but not apart from the idea of the composite; for matter in itself can neither exist nor be known. “And now, my son, I have somewhat more to say unto thee than what to said unto your brother; for behold, have ye not observed the steadiness of thy brother, his faithfulness, and his diligence in keeping the commandments of God? Behold, has he not set a good example for thee? For thou didst not give so much heed unto my words as did thy brother, among the people of Zoramites. Now this is what I have against thee; thou didst go on unto boasting in thy strength and thy wisdom. And this is not all, my son. Thou didst do that which was grievous unto me; for thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel. Yes, she did steal away the hearts of many; but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldest have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted. Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

“For behold, if ye deny the Holy Ghost when it once has had place in you, and ye know that ye deny it, behold, this is a sin which is unpardonable; yea, and whosoever murdereth against the light and knowledge of God, it is not easy for one to obtain forgiveness; yea, I say unto you, my son, that it is not easy for one to obtain forgiveness. And now, my son, I would to God that ye had not been guilty of so great a crime. I would not dwell upon your crimes, to harrow up your soul, if it were not for your good. However, behold, ye cannot hide your crimes from God; and expect ye repent they will stand as a testimony against you at the last day. Now my son, I would that ye should repent and forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes, but cross yourself in all these things; for except ye do this ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Oh, remember, and take it upon you, and cross yourself in these things. And I command you to take it upon you to counsel with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold, thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel. Suffer not yourself to be led away by any vain or foolish thing; suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

“Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they say your conduct they would not believe in my words. And now the Spirit of the Lord doth say unto me: Command thy children to do good, lest they lead away the hearts of many people to destruction; therefore I command you, my son, in the fear of God, that ye refrain from your iniquities; that ye turn to the Lord with all your mind, might, and strength, that ye lead away the hearts of no more to do wickedly; but rather return unto them, and acknowledge your faults and that wrong which ye have done. Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this World; for behold, you cannot carry them with you. And now, my son, I would say somewhat unto you concerning the coming of Christ. Behold, I say unto you, that it is he that surely shall come to take away the sins of the World; yea, he cometh to declare glad tidings of salvation unto his people. And now, my son, this was the ministry unto which ye were called, to declare these glad tidings unto this people, to prepare their minds; or rather that salvation might come unto them, that they may prepare the minds of their children to hear the word at the time of his coming. And now I will ease your mind somewhat on this subject. Behold, you marvel why these things should be know so long beforehand. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

“Behold, I say unto you, is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of this coming? It is not as necessary that the plan of redemption should be made known unto this people as well as unto their children? It is not as easy at this time for the Lord to send his angel to declare these glad tidings unto us as unto our children, or as after the time of his coming,” reports Alma 39.1-19. If the Master had no patience with his disciples, he and they would soon part. If he had no belief in their eventual evolution, he and they would never join. If a human hitched the Ultimate Driving Machine of one’s spiritual effort to the star of a competent and worthy spiritual guide, it is nonsensical to object that one surrenders one’s freedom whenever one surrenders one’s own personal judgment to the guide’s or even whenever one obeys a command from the guide. For who chose the guide? One, oneself. By the exercise of what faculty did one make such a choice? By the exercise of free will. Therefore the initial act was a free choice. It was also the most important one because it was causal, all one’s other acts as a disciple being merely its effects, however long be the chain which extends from it. It is because one respects the larger wisdom of the guide and trusts one’s disinterestedness that the disciple follows one in thought and practice, not because one has become a puppet. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

The aspirant who believe that one can come to a master for a few days or works and glean the teaching will glean only a sample of it. It will take one all one’s life not only to receive what a master knows but to be adjured worthy of and ready for it. If one lacks this patience and humility, one will fall into self-deception. It requires long continued communication between pupil and teacher in joint purist of the object they are seeking to understand, and then suddenly, just as light flashes forth when a fire is kindled, this wisdom is born in the mind and henceforth nourishes itself. Two such individuals as Master and student are linked together by ancient ties. Much many remain to be done in the future as it was in the past. If, in a previous incarnation, the student attained a higher phase of development than at present, this must again be achieved before results can appear in consciousness. In such a case one should work especially hard to make progress. God, I speak your name, Emptier of cauldrons, your child calls you: into the past through the mists over the border between our Worlds my words go flying straight to you. God, I speak your name, Maker of borders, your child calls you: out of the past through the mists over the border between our Worlds travel the trackway, straight to me. God, hear my words and receive my gift. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Cresleigh Homes

When your canvas is as beautiful as this one, inspiration isn’t hard to find! 🤩

At #BrightonStation the possibilities are endless. We have Home Sites 47 & 88 available in this Residence 1 floor plan! Head to our website to learn more. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-2/

Lord, God of the Heavens, inhabiting spirit of good will, please bring joy to those who come together there. Please bind us together in the spirit of Godliness. You who fill your devotees with ecstasy pouring yourself unreservedly through their hearts, I ask you for your presence here today that our gathering might be properly blessed. #CresleighHomes