It was until very recently considered not worthwhile to rack one’s brains over medieval abstruse alchemical symbols. A fierce controversy is already ranging today among biologist over the problems and ethical issues arising out of eugenics. Should we try to breed a better race? If so, exactly what is “better?” And who is to decide? Such questions are not entirely new. Yet the techniques soon to be available smash the traditional limits of the argument. We can now imagine reaming the human race not as a farmer slowly and labouriously “breeds up” one’s herd, but as an artist might, employing a brilliant range of unfamiliar colours, shapes, and forms. Not far from Route 80, outside the little town of Hazard, Kentucky USA, is a place picturesquely known as Valley of Troublesome Creek. In this tiny backwoods community lives a family whose members, for generations, have been marked by an unusual anomaly: blue skin. According to Dr. Madison Cawein of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, who tracked the family down and traces its story, the blue-skinned people seem perfectly normal in other respects. Their unusual colour is caused by a rare enzyme deficiency that has been passed from one generation to the next. Given our new, fast-accumulating knowledge of genetics, we shall be able to breed whole new races of bule people—or, for that matter, green, purple, or orange. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

In a World still suffering from the moral lesion of racism, this is a thought to be conjured with. Should we strive for a World in which all people share the same skin colour? If we want that, we shall no doubt have the technical means for bringing it about. Or should we, instead, work toward even greater diversity than now exists? What happens to the entire concept of race? To standards of physical beauty? To notions of superiority or inferiority? We are hurtling toward the time when we will be able to breed both super- and sub-races. As Theodore J. Gordon put it in The Future, “Given the ability to tailor the race, I wonder if we would create all men equal, or would we choose to manufacture apartheid? Might the races of the future be: a superior group, the DNA controllers; the humble servants; special athletes for the ‘game”; research scientists wit 200 IQ and diminutive bodies.” We shall have the power to produce races of morons or of mathematical savants. We shall also be able to breed babies with supernormal vision or hearing, supernormal ability to detect changes in odor, or supernormal muscular or musical skills. We will be able to create a variety breed of humans, and countless other varieties of the previously monomorphic human being. Ultimately, the problems are not scientific or technical, but ethical and political. Choice—and the criteria for choice—will be critical. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

Assuming hopefully for the moment that no dictator, self-righteous planning board or omnipotent black box is going to make genetic selections for the coming generation, then who or what is? Not parents, certainly. They will take the problem to their friendly neighbourhood Certified Gene Architect. It seems inevitable to me that there will also be competitive schools for genetic architecture. The Functionalists will persuade parents to produce babies fitted for the present needs of society; the Futurists will suggest children who will have a niche in the culture as it will have evolved in twenty years; the Romantics will insist that each child be bred with at least one outstanding talent; and the Naturalists will advise the production of individuals so balanced genetically as to be in almost perfect equilibrium. Human body styles, like human clothing styles, will become outre, or a la mode as the genetic couturiers who designed them come into and out of vogue. Buried behind this tongue-in-cheek are serious issues, made more profound by the immensity of the possibilities—some of them so grotesque that they appear to leap at us from the canvases of Hieronymus Bosch. Mention was made earlier of the idea of breeding humans with gills or implanting gills in them for underwater environments. At a meeting of World-renowned biologists in London, J.B.S. Haldane began to expatiate about the possibility of creating new, far-out forms of humans for space exploration. “The most obvious abnormalities in extra-terrestrial environments are differences in gravitation, temperature, air pressure, air composition, and radiation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

“Clearly a gibbon is better preadapted than a man for life in a low gravitational field, such as that of a space ship, an asteroid, or perhaps even the moon. A platyrrhine with a prehensile tail is even more so. Gene grafting may make it possible to incorporate such features into the human stocks.” While the scientists at this meeting devoted much of their attention to the moral consequences and perils of the biological revolution, no one challenged Dr. Haldane’s suggestions that we shall someday make humans with tails if we want them. Indeed, Dr. Lederberg merely observed that there might well be non-genetic ways to accomplish the same ends more easily. “We are going to modify man experimentally through physiological and embryological alterations, and by the substitution of machines for his parts. If we want a man without legs, we don’t have to breed him, we can chop them off; if we want a man with a tail, we will find a way of grafting it on to him.” At another meeting of scientists and scholars, Dr. Robert Sinsheimer, a Caltech biophysicist, put the challenge squarely: “How will you choose to intervene in the ancient designs of nature for man? Would you like to control the sex (gender) of your offspring? It will be as you wish. Would you like your son to be six feet tall—seven feet? Eight feet? What troubles you?—allergy, obesity, arthritic pain? These will be easily handled. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

“For cancer, diabetes, phenylketonuria there will be genetic therapy. The appropriate DNA will be provided in the appropriate dose. Viral and microbial disease will be easily met. Even the timeless patterns of growth and maturity and aging will be subject to our design. We know of no intrinsic limits to the life span. How long would you like to live?” Lest his audience mistake him, Dr. Sinsheimer asked: “Do these projections should like LSD fantasies, or the view in a distorted mirror? None transcends the potential of what we now know. They may not be developed in the way one might now anticipate, but they are feasible, they can be brought to reality, and sooner rather than later.” Not only can such wonders be brought to reality, but the odds are they will. Despite profound ethical questions about whether they should, the fact remains that scientific curiosity is, itself, one of the most powerful driving forces in our society. In the words of Dr. Rollin D. Hotchkiss of the Rockefeller Institute: “Many of us feel instinctive revulsion at the hazards of meddling with the finely balanced and far-reaching systems that make an individual what he is. Yet I believe it will surely be done or attempted. The pathway will be built from a combination of altruism, private profit and ignorance.” To this list, worse yet, he might have added political conflict and bland unconcern. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

Thus Dr. A. Neyfakh, chief of the research laboratory of the Institute of Development Biology of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, predicts with a frightening lack of anxiety that the World will soon witness a genetic equivalent of the arms race. He bases his argument on the notion that the capitalist powers are engaged in a “struggle for brains.” To make up for the brain drain, one or another of the “reactionary governments” will be “compelled” to employ genetic engineering to increase its output of geniuses and gifted individuals. Since this will occur “regardless of their intention,” an international genetics race is inevitable. And this being so, he implies, the Soviet Union ought to be ready to jump the gun. Criticized by the Soviet philosopher A. Petropavlovsky for his seeming willingness, even enthusiasm, to participate in such a race, Dr. Neyfakh shrugged aside the horrors that might be unleased by hasty application of the new biology, replying merely that the advance of science is, and ought to be, unstoppable. If Dr. Neyfakh’s political logic leaves something to be desired, his appear to cold war passion as a justification for genetic tinkering is terrifying. Nonetheless, it is safe to day that, unless specific counter-measures are taken, if something can be done, someone, somewhere will do it. The nature of what can and will be done exceeds anything that humans are yet psychologically or morally prepared to live with. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

We have to be careful with playing God, but ignoring God. People had been fed up with the waves of change sweeping the nation in the early nineties. Not only was prayer outlawed in schools, but in all public places, before football games and commencements, and in all public buildings. Even the Senate chaplaincy had been abandoned. A series of ACLU-sponsored cases had reshaped American geography: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was forced to change its name, as was Corpus Christi, Texas. St. Louis was narrowly spared by a five-four decision that held that the word saint no longer held a specifically sacred connotation. Drug dealers’ armed gangs controlled several public schools. Many assume that humans desire only what is good for them, and therefore that pleasure is a guide for desirable actions. However, we know that many of human’s desires are irrational, precisely because they harm one (if not others) and interfere with one’s development. The person who is motivated by the wish to destroy and who feels pleasure in the act of destruction could hardly present the excuse that one has the right to behave destructively because this is a desire and one’s source of pleasure. Mental cruelty, the wish to humiliate and to hurt another person’s feelings, is probably even more widespread than physical sadism. This type of sadistic attack is much safer for the sadist; after all, no physical force but “only” words have been used. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

On the other hand, the psychic pain can be as intense or even more so than the physical. I do not need to give examples for this mental sadism. Parents inflict it upon their children, professors on their students, superiors on their inferiors—in other words, it is employed in any situation where there is someone who cannot defend oneself against the sadist. (If the teacher is helpless, the students often turn into sadists.) Mental sadism may be disguised in many seemingly harmless ways: a question, a smile, a confusing remark. Who does not know an “artist” in this kind of sadism, the one who find just the right word or the right gesture to embarrass or humiliate another in this innocent way. Naturally, if the humiliation is inflicted in front of others, this kind of sadism is often all more effective. Now, Joseph Stalin was a sadist and enjoyed playing God. One particular for Stalin enjoyed was to assure people that they were safe, only to arrest them a day or two later. Of course, the arrest hit the victim all the more severely because one had felt especially safe; besides that, Stalin could enjoy the sadistic pleasure of knowing the human’s fate at the same time that he was assuring one of his favour. What greater superiority and control over another person is there? #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

Here are some specific examples: Shortly before the arrest of the Civil War hero D. F. Serdich, Stalin toasted him at a reception, suggesting that they drink to “Bruderschaft.” Just a few days before Bliukher’s destruction, Stalin spoke of hum warmly at a meeting. When an Armenian delegation came to him, Stalin asked about the poet Charents and said he should not be touched, a few months later Charents was arrested and killed. The wife of Ordzhonikidze’s Deputy Commissar A. Serebrovskii, told about an unexpected phone call from Stalin one evening in 1937. “I hear you are going about on foot,” Stalin said. “That’s no good. People might think what they shouldn’t. I’ll send you a car if yours is being repaired.” And the next morning a car from the Kremlin garage arrived for Mrs. Serebrovskii’s use. But two days later her husband was arrested, take right from the hospital. The famous historian and publicists I. Steklov, disturbed by tall the arrests, phoned Stalin an asked for an appointment. “Of course, come on over,” Stalin said, and reassured him when they met: “What’s the matter with you? The Party knows and trusts you; you have nothing to worry about.” Steklov returned home to his friends and family, and that very evening the NKVD came for him. Naturally the first thought of his friends and family was to appeal to Stalin, who seemed unaware of what was going on. It was much easier to believe in Stalin’s ignorance than in subtle perfidy. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

In 1938 I.A. Akulov, onetime Procurator of the USSR and later Secretary of the Central Executive Committee, fell while skating and suffered an almost fatal concussion. On Stalin’s suggestion, outstanding surgeons were brought from abroad to save his life. After a long and difficult recovery, Akulov returned to work, whereupon he was arrested and shot. A particularly refined form of sadism was Stalin’s habit for arresting the wives—and sometimes children—of some of the highest Soviet or Party functionaries and keeping them in a labour camp, while their humans had to do their jobs and bow and scrape before Stalin without daring even to ask for their release. It does not require much imagination to visualize the extreme humiliation of these high functionaries who could not quit their positions, could not ask for the realize of their wives or sons, and had to agree with Stalin that the arrest had been justified. Either such men had no feelings at all, or they were morally broken and had lost all self-respect and sense of dignity. Still another form of Stalin’s sadism was the unpredictability of his behaviour. There are cases of people whom he ordered to be arrested, but who after torture and severe sentences were released after a few months or years and appointed to high offices, often without explanation. Stalin’s behaviour shows clearly one element in his character—the wish to show people that he had absolute power and control over them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

By his word he could kill them, have them tortured, have them rescued again, have them rewarded; Stalin had the power of God over life and death, the power of nature to make grow and to destroy, to inflict pain and to heal. Life and death depended on his whim. This may also explain why Stalin did not destroy some people. The motive was that Stalin enjoyed the sensation of control by whim and by mood, not restricted by any—even the most evil—principle. And that is why people fear cloning. Without Christian culture and Christian hope, the modern World would come to resemble a half-derelict fun-fair, gone nasty and poverty-racked City. Wise men and women have long recognized the need for the transcendent authority of religion to give society its legitimacy and essential cohesion. One of the most vigorous arguments was made by Cicero, who maintained that religion is “indispensable to private morals and public order…and no man of sense will attack it.” Augustine argued that the essence of public harmony could be found only in justice, the source of which is divine. “In the absence of justice,” he asked, “what sovereignty but organized brigandage?” In the New World the primary civilizing force was Christianity. Christianity provided a transcendent spiritual end which gave Wester culture its dynamic purpose. It furnished the soul for the Western civilization and provided its moral legitimization; or the fir principles which could mediate between the individual and society to provide both with a sense of proportion and responsibility in order to inform behaviour. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

Much of America’s remarkable success has been credited to its religious nature; it was later called a nation with “the soul of a church.” However, men and women need more than a religious value system. They need civic structures to prevent chaos and provide order. Religion is not intended or equipped to do this; when it has tried, it has brought grief on itself and the political institutions it has attempted to control. An independent state is crucial to the commonweal. Both the City of God and the city of man are vital to society—and they must remain in delicate balance. All human history and culture may be viewed as the interplay of the competing values of these two cities; and wherever they are out of balance, the public good suffers. This is why today’s conflict is so dangerous. It would be a Pyrrhic victory indeed should either side win unconditionally. Victory for either would mean defeat for both. In the beginning God created one World (unus mundus). This He divided into two—Heaven and Earth. We can understand the extraordinary fascination emanating from the mystery. Men and women have always been spiritual beings. If this is nothing less than a restoration of the original state of the cosmos and the divine unconsciousness of the World, we gain reliable knowledge. However, modern culture, in its zeal to eliminate divisive influences and create a self-sufficient, “enlightened” society, has ignored this fundamental truth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

Along with denying God, today’s social visionaries have denied human’s intrinsic need for God. At the same time, Christianity has become a pale shadow of the radical Kingdom its Founder announced. The shock waves that threaten the very foundations of our culture today, then, emanate from society’s failure to understand human’s need for God and the Christians’ failure to accurately present Christ’s messages of the Kingdom of God. This failure creates a disadvantage of breaking up, or obscuring, the universal interrelationship of causing events to become so uncertain that a recognition of the greater relationship, id est, of the unity of the World, to become more and more difficult. So before we can hope to deal with the modern religious-political conflict, we must take what at first may seem to be a digression. However, bear with me. For until we understand the true nature of human and the true nature of Christ’s message, we cannot hope to understand the human story and why we are in the mess we are in today—or more importantly, the way out. The place to begin, then, is with human nature itself. To be found in the human body is a kind of aetheric substance. It is the best medicament not only for the body but also for the mind (mens). Though it is a corporeal substance, as a combination of the spirit and soul of the spagyric medicine it is essentially spiritual. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

Meditative philosophy consists in the overcoming of the body by mental union [unio mentalis]. This first union does not as yet make the wise human, but only the mental disciple of wisdom. The second union of the mind with the body shows forth the wise human, hoping for and expecting that blessed third union with the first unity [id est, the unus mundus, the latent unity of the World]. May Almighty God grant that all humans be made such, and may He be one in All. Just as the Church insists on the literal taking up of the physical body into Heaven, so the alchemists believe in the possibility, or even in the actual existence, of their stone or of the philosophical gold. In both cases belief was a substitute for the missing empirical reality. Even though alchemy was essentially more materialistic in its procedures than the dogma, both of them remain at the second, anticipatory stage of the coniunctio, the union of the unio mentalis with the body. Armed with psychological understanding, we are in a position to penetrate into the meaning of even the most abstruse alchemical symbols, and there is no justifiable reason why we should not apply the same method to dogma. Nobody, after all, can deny that it consists of ideas which are born of human’s imagining and thinking. The question of how far this thinking may be inspired by the Holy Ghost is not affected at all, let alone decided, by psychological investigation, nor is the possibility of a metaphysical background denied. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Psychology cannot advance any argument either for or against the objective validity of any metaphysical view. Yet, the psychic is a phenomenal World in itself, which can be reduced neither to the brain nor to metaphysics. Symbols are tendencies whose goal is as yet unknown. We may assume that the same fundamental rules obtain in the history of the human mind as in the psychology of the individual. In psychotherapy it often happens that, long before they reach consciousness, certain unconscious tendences betray their presence by symbols, occurring mostly in dreams but also in waking fantasies and symbolic action. Often we have the impression that the unconscious is trying to enter consciousness by means of all sorts of allusions and analogies, or that it is making more or less playful attempts to attract attention to itself. One can observe these phenomena very easily in a dream-series. Ideas develop from seeds in the course of history. The Assumption of the Virgin, for instance, is vouched for neither in Scripture nor in the tradition of the first five centuries of the Christian Church. For a long time it was officially denied even, but, with the connivance of the whole medieval and modern Church, it gradually developed as a “pious opinion” and gained so much power and influence that it finally succeeded in thrusting aside the necessity for scriptural proof and for a tradition going back to primitive times, and in attaining definition in spite of the fact that the content of the dogma is not even definable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

The papal declaration made a reality of what had long been condoned. This irrevocable step beyond the confines of historical Christianity is the strongest proof of the autonomy of archetypal images. When Mind concentrates itself into the World-Mind, it establishes a focus. However vast, it goes out of its own unlimited condition, it passes from the true Infinite to the pseudo-Infinite. Consequently the World-Mind, being occupied with its cosmos, cannot be regarded as possessed of the absolute character of Pure Mind. For what is its work but a movement of imagination? And where in the ineffable absolute is there room for either work or imagination? The one would break its eternal stillness, the other would veil its unchangeable reality. This of course it can never do, for Being can never become Non-Being. However, it can send forth an emanation from itself. Such an emanation is the World-Mind. Through its prolonged contemplation of the cosmos Mind thus becomes a fragment of itself, bereft of its own undifferentiated unbroken unity. Nevertheless the World-Mind, through its deputy the Overself, is still for humans the highest possible goal. Because of Mind’s presence, that which humans all call God arises, creates, and dissolves entire Worlds, kingdoms of Nature; yet Mind itself never moves, never acts, is forever still, is the ultimate of all ultimates, forever the only Unpassing, the only Unconditioned, the untouchable Mystery. Mind is the essence of all manifested things as World-Mind and the Mystery being unmanifest Nothing. The distinguishing quality of Mind is a continuous stillness, whereas that of World-Mind is a continuous activity. In the one there is absolutely nothing whereas in the other there is an infinite array of Universes. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

Mind is the essence of all conscious beings. Their consciousness is derivative, borrowed from it; they could know nothing of their power; whereas Mind alone knows all things and itself. When it knows them in time, it is World-Mind; when it knows itself alone, it is the unknown to humans and unknowable Godhead. The World-Mind pervades the cosmos; Mind extends beyond it. Among all numbers, it is the lowest one—1—which is the foundation as well as he constituent of the entire series. However, the empty number—nought—is even more important and significant because it symbolizes the inexpressible, ineffable, and inconceivable Power behind all powers. God is the maker and governor of the World. Godhead means Mind, the absolute, beyond all that is conceivable. Whether we see God’s presence in the untiring activity of the Universe or in the complete quiet of the Void, we do not see two different things but rather two phases of a single thing. World-Mind is only a function of Mind. It is not a separate entity. There is only one Life-Power, not two. Hence it is wrong to say that World-Mind arises within Mind. Similarly of the Overself; it too is a different function of the same Mind. The mind’s first expression is the Void. The second and succeeding is the Light, that is, the World-Mind. This is followed by the third, the World-Idea. Finally comes the fourth, manifestation of the World itself. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

The Supreme Godhead is unindividualized. The World-Mind is individuated (but not personalized) into emanated Overselves. The Overself is an individual, but not a person. The ego is personal. What is the meaning of the words “the Holy Trinity”? The Father is the absolute and ineffable Godhead, Mind in its ultimate being. The Son is the soul of the Universe, that is, the World-Mind. The Holy Ghost is the soul of each individual, that is, the Overself. The Godhead is one and indivisible and not multiform and can never divide itself up into three personalities. What is the Holy Trinity? How could it be three Gods? No—It is the Good, the Beautiful, and the True—three aspects of the One, only God. The holy trinity is truth, goodness, and beauty. For they are learning attributed of the divine soul in humans. Mind in itself stays always in absolute repose: there is then no operation whatever, no movement or manifestation, no creation or communication or revelation; it is forever inaccessible and unknow. This is the “Divine Darkness” of early Christian Fathers, the Godhead of medieval Christians theologians. The idea of Mind in utter repose, absolutely still, unmanifested in any way whatsoever, is the farther limit of human finite thought about the Deity. Mind as such is unconcerned with any World. It is without any limits and could not be confined in any form. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

We can learn something worthwhile from our experience with spiritual and psychological suffering—those pains of the heart that may come from a wounded conscience loneliness, disappointment, or a love that is lost. You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing about it. You need not guess, for I will tell you; I am a great coward. However, what is that to the purpose? When I think of pain—of anxiety that gnaws like fire and loneliness that spreads out like a desert, and the heartbreaking routine of monotonous misery, or again of dull aches that blacken our whole landscape or sudden nauseating pains that seem already intolerable and then are suddenly increased, of infuriating scorpion-stinging pains that startle into maniacal movement a human who seemed half dead with one’s previous tortures—it “quite o’ercrows my spirit.’ If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it. However, what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already: they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made “perfect through suffering” is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

In estimating the credibility of the doctrine two principles ought to be observe. In the first place we must remember that the actual moment of present pain is only the center of what may be called the whole tribulational system which extents itself by fear and pity. Whatever good effects these experiences have are dependent upon the center; so that even if pain itself was of no spiritual value, yet, if fear and pity were, pain would have to exist in order that there should be something to be feared and pitied. And that fear and pity help us in our return to obedience and charity is not to be doubted. Everyone has experienced the effect of pity in making it easier for us to love the unlovely—that is, to love humans not because they are in any way naturally agreeable to us but because they are our brethren. The beneficence of fear most of us have learned during the period of “crises” that led up to the present war. My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, send this whole pack of cards tumbling down. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another World and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. However, the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over—I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to require my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

In the second place, when we are considering pain itself—the center of the while tribulational system—we must be careful to attend to what we know and not to what we imagine. That is one of the reasons why we are focusing on human pain, and animal pain. About human pain we know, about animal pain we only speculate. However, even within the human race we must draw our evidence from instances that have come under our own observation. The tendency of this or that novelist or poet may represent suffering as wholly bad in its effects, a producing, and justifying, every kind of malice and brutality in the sufferer. And, of course, pain, like pleasure, can be so received: all that is given to a creature with free will must be two-edged, not by the nature of the giver or of the gift, but by the nature of the recipient. And, again, if sufferers are persistently taught by the bystanders that results are the proper and masculine results for them to exhibit, the evil results of pain can be multiplied. Indignation at others’ sufferings, though a generous passion, needs to be well managed lest it steal away patience and humanity from those who suffer and plant anger and cynicism in the stead. However, if spared such officious vicarious indignations, I am not convinced that suffering has any natural tendency to produce such evils. I did not find the front-line trenches or the C.C.S. more full than any other place of hatred, selfishness, rebellion, and dishonesty. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen humans, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects. I see in loved and revered historical figures, such as Johnson and Cowper, traits which might scarcely have been tolerable if the humans had been happier. If the World is indeed a “vale of soul making” it seems on the whole to be doing its work. Of poverty—the afflictions—I would not dare to speak as from myself; and those who reject Christianity will not be moved by Christ’s statement that poverty is blessed. However, here a rather remarkable fact comes to my assistance. Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere “opiate of the people” have a contempt for the rich, hat is, for all humankind expect the poor. They regard the poor as the only people worth preserving from “liquidation,” and place in them the only hope of the human race. However, this is not compatible with a belief that the effects of poverty on those who suffer it are wholly evil; it implies that they are good. However, Christianity paradoxically demands—that poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed. I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the World would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mouring, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

If suffer is to teach us, we need a certain perspective because we will all suffer in one way or another. The pain of a wounded conscience comes to us not just to cause suffering. It is an invitation for us to respond in a way that will ultimately lead to joy. To accept the invitation early, we simply need to stop—in midair if necessary—and turn away from whatever we were going to do. If it is too late for that, the invitation of an aroused conscience can still be accepted by a few well-known steps of repentance. This approach will also stop the pain, but it will also leave you true to yourself and to the Universe of God’s reality. At the same time, your capacity for joy will be undiminished—it may even be enhanced through newly discovered self-control. Then the next time pain of conscience comes, it will come as the voice of a friend, to tell you those sensitive, painful kinds of things you would hope a true friend would share. God, Earth-Shaker, Lord of the Sea, your undeniable power moves against this ship, which moves, in response, from side to side. This great ship, proud accomplishment of human mind and muscle, is at your mercy. We who sail on the surface of your depths acknowledge your power, and your mastery of this realm. That is why we turn our prayers toward you, to the blue-maned deep-dweller, who can stretch out His trident-armed hand and make the flat sea-surface grow mountains and canyons, founder the ships that cross it, or who can, if He wishes, still the churning, and smooth the way of the wave-cleaving ships. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

Lord of waters, we pray to you, scattering offerings overboard. Please take them and not us. Please receive them gladly and give in return calm seas and safe passage, until we return to land with gratitude for your kindness. We humble ourselves before You, the one true God, who governs the affairs of this beloved nation. We sever You only because You have granted us this privilege and authority, and so we ask You, dear Father, to please lead us. We seek Your will. Whatever all this means, please give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Please have it Your way, not ours, and please forgive us the sin that would make us blind to Your truth. It is truth that Thou alone art the Lord of all Thy people, and a mighty King to the champion their cause. Thou art the first and Thou art the last, and besides Thee we have no King or Redeemer. Thou bringest low and haughty and raisest up the lowly; Thou leadest forth the captives and deliverest the meek. Thou helpest the poor, and answerest Thy people when they call unto Thee. From captivity Thou didst redeem us, O Lord our God; and from the house of bondage Thou didst deliver us. Thou didst reveal Thy saving power at the New Years so that the children of America passed through in safety. Wherefore they praised and extolled Thee, O Lord; they offered thanksgiving to Thee, their living God. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

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