All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. Life is full of opportunities, but you must grasp them and work hard for success. Not all interactions are vigorous. Some are calm, gentle, as pleasant as a Summer breeze under a clear, star-filled sky. Others are full of anguish and struggle, with a sense of helplessness threatening—lie finding oneself caught undertow, with the fingers of death pulling one down. Our own fears and anxieties limit our life experiences. Our own inner paradoxes, our undigested memories, our compromises with life, pull us back from encounter. Sometimes it can be a tragedy that fills an individual with sorrow that remains long after the event. One has to find the courage to continue living one’s own life with a heightened sense of morality. Never underestimate the willingness of others to open their hearts and minds. Many people have an intuitive understanding of the needs of others. As life goes on, many people ask a metaphorical chess master, What is the best move in chess? Of course this question cannot be answered in any absolute sense, so the master will reply that the best move at any given time depends on the ability of the person and the specific content of the game. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

A person who is confronted with a choice, with the paradoxical pull of two equally valid concerns—community and individual, limitation and possibility, or any other significant existential issue—beings to find liberation by being more immersed in the experience itself. There is no absolute answer. How a person thinks, feels, and acts depends upon one’s abilities and the context as one understands it. An ability to hear, understand, and reflect back the explicit and implicit feelings and meanings that a person is expressing is crucial to evoking an existential moment. When one listens for feelings and meanings, conversations tend to move deeper. Usually, most people have a tendency of learning to avoid their own internal states. They seek distraction from their confusing emotions and can become estranged from their own subjective lives. Our entire focus of attention, however, must be on the subjective and intersubjective experience. Put alternatively, it is concerned with the individual’s being in the World, a condition shared by us all in that we must each experience it uniquely. The concept of being requires awareness, in the deepest possible sense, of one’s unique presence in the present as it becomes the future. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Perseverance means to continue in a given course until we have reached a goal or objective, regardless of obstacles, opposition, and other counterinfluences. Therefore, life can only be approached through one’s own immediate experience. Life requires an encounter, to engage with one’s full attention, in the present moment, one’s layers of pretense and diversion. We each construct a veil of distracting irritations and pleasure, of mental busywork, designed to protect us from awareness of our deepest existential concerns: death, isolation, responsibility, and how we are to find meaning in our lives. continuous awareness of such profound problems of existence can cause us terrible anxiety. Our diversions, if they are effective—that is, flexible and mature—allow us to go about our daily lives relatively unencumbered. Still, in life, our strengths can easily become our weaknesses. We long for what has been and desire what is not because the memories we cling to cause pain and offer comfort, as well. That is why the human experience is paradoxical. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Humans can entertain both joy and sorrow simultaneously, and one can evoke the others. Sometimes people who feel they are facing the World alone are haunted and unwilling to master their fate, and they create dark spaces in their homes, usually a bedroom. The dark spaces represent how one experiences their present life. All the people and things around them have fallen away, and they are left, alone with the memories of loved ones and, gradually, alone with less and less will to live. Of course, our goals should be to fill the measure of our creation as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father—that is, to reach exaltation and eternal life. The chronic warding off of existential awareness is often experienced as an illusion that one is “in control” of one’s life. This is a common attitude among people with substance abuse problems. Since their use of drugs and alcohol provides a particularly predictable subjective experience, they become particularly sensitized to the discomfort of unpredictable events. In addition, people who abuse substances may have unusually labile arousal regulation and hence be especially uncomfortable in the face of change. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

 Those with substance abuse issues know that they can give themselves the comfort and reassurance of a known future and superimpose it like camouflage over that unknown that actually lies ahead. The fact that this chemical future is false become it is contained within the illusory reality of their addiction may eventually become troublesome. However, until it does, substance abuse serves as a rigid and powerful chemical armor against an unappealing option—living life as it is. Many people struggle to express their creativity and them being alone is a deep concern. These people often balance the needs for autonomy with the needs for relationship, feel vulnerable, and face gaining along. Their creativity may not be in the service of work and consciousness, but in the service of the unconscious; they may immerse themselves in journal writing, doomed love affairs, and dreams. Therefore, darkness may exert a strong pull and death a romantic fascination. Death is often envisioned as a dark or ghostly lover. Vampire movies speak of the archetypal combination od death, blood, and bliss. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Instead of denying death, as so common in our culture, these people experience death as a morbid fascination, an obsession, an addiction; in fact, as a denial of living. We who are alive must make clear the distinction between creativity and self-destruction. The tendency to confuse the two has claimed too many victims. The obstacles and opposition we meet are the temptations and enticement of Satan that are designed to frustrate the Lord’s work and glory: “To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of humans,” reports Moses 1.39. Perseverance is a beneficial, active, characteristic, not passively waiting and hoping for something good to happen. It gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying. Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. So many people have given up when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success. There is no defeat except within, no really insurmountable barrier saves one’s own inherent weakness of purpose. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

We often expect great things of the pedagogue, of trained professionals, who, Heaven help us, have been stuffed full of “psychology” and is bursting with ill-assorted views as to how individuals are supposed to be constituted and how one ought to be handled. It is presumed that the youthful persons who have picked on education as a career are themselves educated; but nobody, I daresay, will venture to assert that they are all “personalities” as well. By and large, they suffer from the same defective education as the hapless children they are supposed to instruct, and as a rule are as little “personalities” as their charges. Our whole educational problem suffers from a one-sided approach to the child who is to be educated, and from an equally one-sides lack of emphasis on the uneducatedness of the educator. Everyone who has finished one’s course of studies feels oneself to be fully educated; in a word, one feels grown up. One must feel this, one must have this solid conviction of one’s own competence in order to survive the struggle for existence. Any doubt or feeling of uncertainty would hinger and cripple one, undermining the necessary faith in one’s own authority and unfitting one for a professional career. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

People expect medical professionals to be efficient and good at their jobs and not to have doubts about oneself and one’s capabilities. The professional human is irretrievably condemned to be competent. Everyone knows that these conditions are not ideal. However, with reservations, we can say that they are the best possible under the circumstances. We cannot imagine how they could be different. We cannot expect more from the average parent. If one is good at one’s job we have to be content with that, just as we have to be content with parents bringing up their children as best they can. In every individual there lurks a child—an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and that calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the human personality which wants to develop and become whole. However, the humans of today are far indeed from this wholeness. Dimly suspecting of one’s own deficiencies, one seizes upon child education and fervently devotes oneself to child psychology, fondly supposing that something must have gone wrong in one’s own upbringing and childhood development that can be weeded out in the next generation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

This intention is highly commendable, but it comes to grief on the psychological fact that we cannot correct in a child a fault that we still commit. Children are not half as stupid as we imagine. They notice only too well what is genuine and what is not. If there is anything that we wish to change in our children, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves. It may be an uncomfortable reminder that many people are still children in many respects and still need a vast amount of education. Personality is a seed that can only develop by slow stages throughout life. No one can train the personality unless one has it oneself. And it is not the child, but only the adult, who can achieve personality as the fruit of a full life directed to this end. The achievement of personality means nothing less than the optimum development of endless variety of conditions that have to be fulfilled. A whole lifetime, in all its biological, social, and spiritual aspects is needed. Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

Personality is an act of high courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-determination. To educate a human to this seems to me no light matter. It is surely the hardest task of the modern mind has set itself. And it is dangerous too, dangerous to a degree many have never imagines. However, the winsome humanity of God incarnate will elevate our spiritual horizons and galvanize our allegiance. When we read words Jesus spoke, it is clear that they are the truest things we have ever heard, and this sets our heart aflame. We know and love Jesus Christ! When john Bunyan’s Pilgrim met Christ at the front of the cross, his joy was so great he wanted to shout it to the trees and starts and brooks and birds—to breathe it to everything and everyone. George Whitefield, the evangelist of the Great Awakening, records in his diary the same phenomenon when he met Christ: “O! with what joy—joy unspeakable—even joy that was full and big with glory, was my soul filled…Surely it was the day of mine espousals—a day to be had in everlasting remembrance! At first my joys were like spring tide, and overflowed the banks.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

My heart resonates with this because that was precisely my experience when I met Christ. In fact, some of my well meaning friends tried to tone me down, saying, “We are happy for you…But take it easy!” The reality is, I simply could not keep it in, for in meeting Jesus I had experienced the primary motivation and qualification for sharing him. Humans, we must not let the self-evident nature of the truth dull us to its profundity, which is this: the more immediate and personal one’s knowledge of Christ, the more natural it is to share Christ with others. This is why those who have newly met Christ are often so verbal and successful in leading other to Him despite the absence of learned arguments. If you know Christ, you have the essential heart qualification to share him—even if you do not have all the answers. And the key to ongoing effectiveness if a perpetual freshness in your growing knowledge of Christ. Although there are men and women who have always resisted Christ, and will continue to do so, there are untold thousands who will be magnetized to Him when they understand the truth about Him. If we want pure hearts, we must repeatedly expose ourselves to the raw realities of Christ as they are recorded in the Gospels. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Magnetized hearts draw others to Christ. “The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for your body,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.13. Because the body is holy (separated to God) we will also properly care for it: nourish, exercise, and rest it. The practical center of proper care for the body is Sabbath. Now, Sabbath is a quite profound and intricate subject, and we cannot deal adequately with it here. However, no treatment of spiritual formation and the body can be complete without at least touching upon the meaning of Sabbath. The Christian philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal commented, “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of humans arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.” This remark, though somewhat of an exaggeration, contains deep insight. The capacity to simply be, to rest, would remove one from mist of the striving that leads to misery. This is a capacity that comes to fullness only when it reaches our body. Peace is a condition of the body, and until it has enveloped our body it has not enveloped us. When it is at home in the rightness and power of God, peace comes to our body. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

The infinite permutations of Nature are so vast and so varied only because they are an attempt to express the infinite being in terms of time, space, form, and motion. However, such an attempt can never come to any finality; it is endless: a forever-turning spiral. That which is finite has an end; who would deny that? Again that which has an end is seen from some point outside itself; that too must be granted; but the Universe is not seen from without itself; we cannot question that proposition either; therefore since it has no end the Universe must be infinite. Each Universe, however vast, is finite. However, the possible number of Universes is not. The Infinite Being, by some strange necessity (from the human standpoint, contemplating a fathomless mystery), forever sponsors fresh Universes as old ones decay and disappear. In this was It seems (again from the human standpoint), by giving expression to an infinite number of Universes, to be expressing Its own infinite nature. God is intelligent, God has life most perfect and eternal because His intellect is most perfect and always in act. God moves Himself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

As God is His very own very existence and understanding, so is He His own life; and therefore He so lives that He has not principle of life. Life in this lower World is bestowed on a corruptible nature, that needs generation to preserve the species, and nourishment to preserve the individual. For this reason life is not found here below apart from a vegetative soul: but this does not hold good with incorruptible natures. “And now I Moroni proceed with my record. Therefore, behold, it came to pass that because of the secret combinations of Akish and his friends, behold, they did overthrow the kingdom of Omer. Nevertheless, the Lord was merciful unto Omer, and also to his sons and to his daughters who did not seek his destruction. And the Lord warned Omer in a dream that he should depart out of the land; wherefore Omer departed out of the land with his family, and traveled many days, and came over and passed by the hill of Shim, and came over by the place where the Nephites were destroyed, and from thence eastward, and came to a place which was called Ablom, by the seashore, and there he pitched his tent, and also his sons and hi daughters, and all his household, save it were Jared and his family. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

“And it came to pass that Jared was anointed king over the people, by the hand of wickedness; and he gave unto Akish his daughter to wife. And it came to pass that Akish sought the life of his father-in-law; and he applied unto those whom he had sworn by the oath of the ancients, and they obtained the head of his father-in-law; and he applied unto those whom he had sworn by the oath of the ancients, and they obtained the head of his father-in-law, as he sat upon his throne, giving audience to his people. For so great had been the spreading of this wicked and secret society that it had corrupted the hearts of all the people; therefore Jared was murdered upon his throne, and Akish reigned in his stead. And it came to pass that Akish began to be jealous of his son, therefore he shut him up in prison, and kept him upon little or no food until he had suffered death. And now the brother of him that suffered death, (and his name was Nimrah) was angry with his father because of that which his father had done unto is brother. And it came to pass that Nimrah gathered together a small number of humans, and fled out of the land, and came over and dwelt with Omer. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

“And it came to pass that kish begat other sons, and they won the hearts of the people, notwithstanding they had sworn unto him to do all manner of iniquity according to that which he desired. Now the people of Akish were desirous for gain, even as Akish was desirous for power; wherefore, the sons of Akish did offer them money, by which means they drew away the more part of people after them. And there began to be a war between the sons of Akish and Akish, which lasted for the space of many years, yea, unto the destruction of nearly all the people of the kingdom, yea, even all, save it were thirty souls, and they who fled with the house of Omer. Wherefore, Omer was restored again to the land of his inheritance. And it came to pass that Omer began to be old; nevertheless, in his old age he begat Emer; and he anointed Emer to be king to reign in his stead. And after that he had anointed Emer to be king he saw peace in the land for the space of two years, and he died, having seen exceedingly many days, which were full of sorrow. And it came to pass that Emer did reign in his stead, and did fill the steps of his father. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

“And the Lord began again to take the curse from off the land, and the house of Emer did prosper exceedingly under the reign of Emer; and in the space of sixty and two years they had become exceedingly strong, insomuch that they became exceedingly rich—having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver and of precious things; and also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also of many other kinds of animals which were useful for the good of humans. And they also has horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful to humans, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms. And thus the Lord did pour out his blessings upon this land, which was choice above all other lands; and he commanded that whoso should possess the land should possess it unto the Lord, or they should be destroyed when they were ripened in iniquity; for upon such, saith the Lord: I will pour out the fulness of my wrath. And Emer did execute judgment in righteousness all his days, and he begat many sons and daughters; and he begat Coriantum, and he anointed Coriantum to reign in his stead. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

“And after he had anointed Coriantum to reign in his stead he lived four years, and he saw peace in the and; yea, and he even saw the Son of Righteousness, and did rejoice and glory in his day; and he died in peace. And it came to pass that Coriantum did walk in the steps of his father, and did build many mighty cities, and did administer that which was good unto his people in all his days. And it came to pass that he had no children even until he was exceedingly old. And it came to pass that his wife died, being an hundred and two years old. And it came to pass that Coriantum took to his wife, in his old age, a young maid, and begat sons and daughters; wherefore he lived until he was an hundred and forty and two years old. And it came to pass that he begat Com, and Com reigned in his stead; and he reigned forty and nine years, and he begat Heth; and he also begat other sons and daughters. And the people had spread again over all the face of the land, and there began again to be an exceedingly great wickedness upon the face of the land, and Heth began to embrace the secret plans again of old, to destroy his father. And it came to pass that he did dethrone his father, for he slew him with his own sword; and he did reign in his stead. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And there came prophets in the land again, crying repentance unto them—that they must prepare the way of the Lord or there should come a curse upon the face of the land; yea, even there should be a great famine, in which they should be destroyed if they did not repent. However, the righteous people believed not the words of the prophets, but they cast them out; and some of them they cast into pits and left them to perish. And it came to pass that they did all these things according to the commandment of the king, Het. And it came to pass that there began to be a great dearth upon the land, and the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast because of the dearth, for there was no rain upon the face of the Earth. And there came forth poisonous serpents also upon the face of the land, and did poison many people. And it came to pass that their flocks began to flee before the poisonous serpents, towards the land southward, which was called by the Nephites Zarahemla. And it came to pass that there were many of them which did perish by the way; nevertheless, there were some which fled into the land southward. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And it came to pass that the Lord did cause the serpents that they should hedge up the way that the people could not pass, that whoso should attempt to pass might fall by the poisonous serpents. And it came to pass that the people did follow the course of the beasts, and did devour the carcasses of them which fell by the way until they had devoured them all. Now wen the people saw that they must perish they began to repent of their iniquities and cry unto the Lord. And it came to pass that when they had humbled themselves sufficiently before the Lord, he did send rain upon the face of Earth; and the people began to revive again, and there began to be fruit in the north countries, and in all the countries round about. And the Lord did show forth his power unto them in preserving them from famine,” reports Ether 9.1-35. I believe that perseverance is vital to success in any endeavour, whether spiritual or temporal, large or small, public or personal. Think seriously how important perseverance, or the lack of it, has been in your own endeavours, such as Church callings, schooling, or employment. I believe that essentially all significant achievement results largely from perseverance. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

The ultimate example of perseverance is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has and will overcome every obstacle in doing the will of our Heavenly Father. Indeed, Jesus is perfect in perseverance and has taught us to be perfect even as he and is father are perfect. “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in Heaven is perfect,” reports 3 Nephi 12.48. Studying his life can help us learn and live this important principle. Around me burn the lights of Yule; I am filled with their light, renewed by their light. I pray to you, Lord, reborn, please open up us to us a new year, a new time. Please look behind and ahead and guide us through the year that is beginning. How great are Thy deeds, O Lord! Thy thoughts are very deep. The ignorant human does not know, nor does the fool understand this—the wicked may spring up as the grass, and the workers of iniquity may flourish, only to be destroyed forever. However, Thou, O Lord, shalt be exalted forever. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evil-doers drew near to destroy me, even mine enemies and my foes, they stumbled and fell. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war were waged against me, even then I would be confident. One thing have I asked of the Lord, this do I desire: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the graciousness of the Lord, and to enter into His sanctuary. For He concealeth me in His pavilion in the day of trouble; he hideth me in the shelter of His tent; He lifteth me up upon a rock. Now shall my head be lifted up victoriously above mine enemies round about me; and I will bring to His tabernacle offerings with trumpet-sound; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord my voice when I call; be gracious unto me, and answer me. Of Thee, saith my heart, “Seek God”; indeed, O Lord I will seek Thee. Conceal not Thy presence from me, turn not away Thy servant in anger. Thou hast ever been my help; cast me not off, nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. Even if my father and mother forsook me, the Lord would take me under His care. Teach my Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in an even path, because of them that lie in wait for me. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Hand me not over unto the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence. Yea, I have faith that I shall yet se the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Hope in the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, hope in the Lord. For centuries our ancestors suffered and sacrificed that we might be the recipients of the blessings of freedom. If they were willing to sacrifice so much to establish us as a free people, should be not be willing to do the same to maintain that freedom for ourselves and for future generations? Only in this foreordained land, under its God-inspired Constitution and the resulting environment of freedom, was it possible to have establish one nation under God. It is our responsibility to see that this freedom is perpetuated to that America may more easily flourish in the future. How then can we best befriend the Constitution in this critical hour and secure the blessings of liberty and ensure the protection and guidance of our Father in Heaven? First and foremost, we must be righteous. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Winchester Mystery House

Sarah Winchester’s historic Victorian Mansion has stood in the center of Silicon Valley for almost an entire century, and it will be here for the next century for future generations to unlock the secrets. We can’t wait to have you back in 2021!

Legend says that Sarah Winchester had the front-side of the house boarded up after the 1906 earthquake. Today, the most well-preserved rooms are in the front-side of the mansion. The well preserved rooms perhaps represented how she experienced her life. All the things around her had fallen away, but she kept sacred the part of her mansion that was in the best repair. As if she were symbolically holding on to the memories of when her life was “perfect.”

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