Let Me Tell Ya How it Oughta be!

Even when your brain tells you there is none, there is hope. Research on the marriages and long-term romantic relationships of people with bipolar disorder provide additional evidence of poor social adjustment. A primary finding in this area is that people with bipolar disorder are less likely than other members of the population to be married or in stable close relationships. Those patients who have ever been married are twice as likely as subjects without a history of mania to have been divorces or separated. There is a more pervasive problems suggested with divorce or separation among patients with bipolar disorder (44 percent) than patients with unipolar depression (26 percent). This problem may be pursuant to the high levels of conflict and diminished mutuality characteristic of marriages in bipolar disorder. Among those patients who are currently married or in long-terms close relationships, what are their relationships like? People with bipolar disorder can be effervescent, enthusiastic, attractive, and expansive at times, but sad, anergic, and anhedonic at other times. In a hypomanic state, they can be frustrating, unattractive, and gloomy. This oscillation between extremes in interpersonal reactions appears to take a toll on the close relationships of those afflicted with bipolar disorder. A survey study of patients with bipolar disorder found that they longed for more emotional contact and desired more involvement in pleasures of the flesh from their partners. In this study, these patients were more likely than those with unipolar depression to long for more togetherness with their partners; they also expressed more difficulty in standing up to their partners during conflicts. From a study of women, mostly with bipolar disorder, came results showing that 56 percent experienced a disruption in their pleasures of the flesh with those they had close relationships with, and an approximately equal proportion indicated that their illness caused them to withdraw and isolate themselves from others. Because over 50 percent of this sample had a history of abuse, these results might reflect the combined effect of a traumatic interpersonal history and affective illness. Theme of dissatisfaction with pleasures of the flesh was prominent among the patients with bipolar disorder. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Notwithstanding their feelings of dissatisfaction and lack of fulfillment, patients with bipolar disorder are not as distressed over their marriages as their well spouses are. Only 5 percent of such patients indicated that they would not have married had they known about the illness, compared to 53 percent of their spouses. Only 11 percent of these same patients felt that their spouses would not have married them had they known about the illness—suggesting a serious lack of awareness or denial. Although patients with bipolar disorder will express some dissatisfaction with their marriages, they tend to underestimate the burden they present to their spouses. This same lack of awareness is evident in assessments of marital conflict. Effect sizes are underappreciated and often misinterpreted. When reliably estimated (a critical consideration), and effect-size of .05 indicates an effect that is very small for the explanation of single events but potentially consequential in the not-very-long run, and effect-size r of .10 indicates an effect that is still small at the level of single events but potentially more ultimately consequential, and effect that is of .20 indicates a medium effect that is of some explanatory and practical use even in the short run and therefore even more important, and an effect-size r of .30 indicates a large effect that is potentially powerful in both the short and the long run. A very large effect size (r = .40 or greater) and is rarely found in a large sample or in a replication. In this study, husband-wife reports of marital conflict correlated at only r = .08 for couples in which a spouse has bipolar disorder, whereas this same correlation was r = .51 for health control couples. A follow-up study produced results that were similar in some respects but a bit optimistic in other regards. When patients with bipolar disorder and their well spouses were asked if they had to live their lives over again, whether they would marry the same person, 81 percent of the patients indicated that they would, compared to only 50 percent of their well spouses. However, over 80 percent of the couples believed that their marriages were at least as good as others that they knew of. Couples in this study also described their courtships as happy and smooth, and they were indistinguishable from health controls in terms of the extent to which their marriages had met or failed to meet their expectations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

There is good reason to suspect that the sometimes positive and upbeat reports of marital well-being among patients with bipolar disorder are not just the result of grandiose delusions. In general, the marriages of psychiatric patients with positive behavioural symptoms, as would be expected with bipolar disorder, are more satisfying than those of patients with negative behavioral symptoms. Positive symptoms involve hallucinations, delusions, elated mood, and grandiosity, for example. These have no counterpart in normal functioning. Negative symptoms, on the other hand, involve an absence of normal functions, such as lack of emotion, depression, lethargy, and leisure-time impairment. It was also found that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were more likely to have positive symptom profiles, whereas those with unipolar depression were dominated by negative symptom profiles. They hypothesize that spouses of patients with positive symptoms do not hold their partners accountable for the symptoms, since these are seen as less controllable than negative symptoms. For this reason, spouses of patients with positive symptoms are able to maintain more positive views of their partners and marriages. As with family relations more generally, the EE (expressed emotion) of patients’ spouses has an impact on the course of bipolar disorder. It was found that 79 percent of patients who lived with low-EE relatives (most of whom were spouses) were free of any psychotic symptoms over a 9-month period, whereas just 18 percent of those who lived with high-EE spouses were free of psychotic symptoms, despite an average of 12.5 years of treatment with lithium. Here again, the views of a spouse toward a patient and one’s illness proved to have a substantial effect on the course of bipolar disorder. Suicide is a very serious problem associated with bipolar disorder, with rates far exceeding those for most other mental disorders. In an effort to understand why these patients attempt to commit suicide so frequently, 158 patients with bipolar disorder were examined, 68 percent of whom had attempted suicide. They should that the patients who had attempted suicide were 2.85 times more likely than those who had not to have experienced significant problems with a spouse or long-term romantic partner. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

This finding suggests that one of the key risk factors for suicide among patients with bipolar disorder may be poor relational satisfaction. God wants us not only to have a mate, but also to have a mate that satisfies us. This claim is documented in the Scriptures. “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not goo for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him,” reports Genesis 2.18. Nonetheless, there is no reason to believe that people with unipolar depression, for example, are less likely to weigh interpersonal issues when contemplating suicide. We know that bipolar depression significantly reduces the likelihood of getting married and staying married. The marriages of patients with bipolar disorder are characterized by a longing for intimacy and problems with handling conflict. Spouses of these patients have bleaker views of their marriages than the patients do, and the patients are unaware of this. The marriages of patients with positive symptom profiles are happier than those with negative symptoms profiles, explaining why some such marriages may not be as distressed. Spousal EE can adversely affect the course of bipolar disorder, putting a patient at risk for the experience of psychotic symptoms. Troubles with marriage and similar close relationships may contribute substantially to the suicide problem among people with bipolar disorder. Collectively, these findings point to impairment of marital/long-term romantic relations in bipolar disorder, with some heterogeneity possibly explained by the dominant symptom profile, which should covary with the bipolar I or II distinction. Whereas some of these problems are surely the result of living with a patient, spousal EE appears to be closely related to maintenance of bipolar disorder. Children of parents with bipolar disorder, like children of parents with unipolar depression, are at increased risk for psychosocial problems. The lifetime prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses among children of mothers with bipolar disorder was recorded at 72 percent, compared to 43 percent in children of medically ill controls and 26 percent in children of healthy mothers. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

However, 82 percent of the children of mothers with unipolar depression had a psychiatric diagnosis—more than any other group in this study. Children of mothers with bipolar disorder are thus at elevated risk for psychiatric problems of their own when compared to children in the general population. At the same time, they are no more likely to have such problems as children of mothers with unipolar depression, for whom this risk is exceptionally high. In addition to psychiatric problems such as depression and anxiety, children of parents with bipolar disorder also tend to have social-behavioural problems. These involve, for example, aggression, diminished altruism and sharing with peers, less social interaction with peers, and overreactivity to stress. In the week prior to observations of the children, the mothers with bipolar disorder were more sad, fearful, enraged, and less capable of pleasure than control mothers. Therefore, it is likely that many of the problems with social behaviours driven by negative affect, may be influenced by parents’ own problems in these same areas. Skeptics who feel that the emotional and social-behavioral problems found in the children in these studies are merely the results of a genetic transmission of psychosocial disorder might take note of parent-child synchrony in depressive episodes. When children of mothers with unipolar depression or bipolar disorder were followed over the course of a year, a high concordance was found for the occurrence and timing of children’s and mothers’ diagnoses of depressive episodes. In other words, when mothers experience a diagnosable episode of depression, their children were likely to experience one as well, in close temporal proximity. A genetic transmission model might account for parent-child concordance, but not for temporal synchrony. This suggests that this phenomenon may be the result of the corrosive effect of depression on parenting (which then has negative effects on the child), or of the collateral stressor effect (which then has negative effects on the child), or of the collateral stressor effect (in which both parent and child are negatively affected by the same stressors). #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

May be an image of furniture and living room

Children of mothers with either bipolar disorder or unipolar depression have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to the ill effects of stress. Furthermore, many of these stressors are at least partly self-generated by the children. Explicit comparisons of children whose mothers had unipolar depression verses bipolar disorder revealed exposure to less family conflict among children in the latter group. However, these same children experienced heightened conflict with peers, as did children of mothers with unipolar depression, when compared to both medically ill and normal controls. The offspring of parents who have bipolar disorder are at risk for both emotional and social-behavioural problems. Rates of depression, anxiety, and aggressiveness are elevated, and altruism and sharing are diminished, among such children. These children are especially vulnerable to the ill effects of stress and may actually contribute to many of these stressors that they experience, particularly those that are interpersonal in nature. The close temporal proximity of mother-child depressive episodes among mothers with either unipolar depression or bipolar disorder suggests that these children’s troubles are the result of (1) interaction with and exposure to parents with mood disorders, and/or (2) the experience of collateral stressors. The forces of evil which are unloosed upon the World attain their maximum potency with the attainment of maximum hatred. Hence revolution based on hatred is not foolish; it is criminal. Movements or humans spreading hate or promoting violence to achieve a religious, political, or social aim fall into an ancient error—that the release of evil passions can increase and not hurt the general welfare. I prefer evolution to revolution in political affairs. All revolutions are born of violence, hatred, and assassination whilst the attempt to establish and maintain them leads to oppression and despotism until their karma is exhausted. Evolution moves more slowly but also moves more peacefully, more bloodlessly. Those who seek reform are too often too impatient: so they resort to revolution or violence. The price then may be exceedingly heavy. Even where the reform has been successfully brought about by such means, the success was due chiefly to other factors. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

May be an image of table and living room

The vengeful hate-filled hysteria with which many leaders, revolutionaries, and political fanatics try to arouse their young followers can only destroy them spiritually. Agitators work up passions and hatreds and lead mobs to commit violent acts. It is the that the first Alexandrian Library in ancient Egypt was destroyed. Those youngsters who call hysterically for proletarian revolution, fill their minds with hate at the same time. This is as destructive to themselves as it is hurtful to others. If social injustices are repaired in the wrong spirit, new injustices replace the old ones. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.” That is, seek first the revolution in humans themselves, and then your quest of social justice will be assisted by higher forces. Those who demand liberty in order to destroy liberty itself are often in the noisy minority which claims that any attempt to protect liberty is an attack on “civil liberties”! If those who denounce the World so strongly would then go on to renounce it, their attacks would be more convincing. The fact that most of them continue to stay in it, to live among all its evils (and attractions), is sufficient answer to their criticisms. The mistake is to be so affected by the evils as not to see the good, so eager to destroy what is wrong tht the right is destroyed along with it. They are not evil in the fundamental sense of the word, all these humans who commit crimes to further what they believe to be a righteous cause: they are mistaken. To set the whole in order to give the commonwealth the best possible form, there are various relations to consider. First, the action of the entire body acting upon itself, that is, the relationship of the whole to the whole, or of the sovereign to the state, and this relationship, as we will see later, is composed of relationships of intermediate terms. The laws regulating this relationship bear the name political laws, and are also called fundamental laws, not without reason if these laws are wise. For there is only one way of organizing in each state. The people who have found it should stand by it. However, if the established order is evil, why should one accept as fundamental, laws that prevent it from being good? #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

May be an image of one or more people, people standing and indoor

Besides, a people is in any case always in a position to change its laws, even the best laws. For if it wishes to do itself harm, who has the right to prevent it from doing so? The second relation is that of the members to each other or to the entire body. And this relationship should be as small as possible in regard to the former and as large as possible in regard to the latter, so that each citizen would be perfectly independent of all the others and excessively dependent upon the city. This always takes place by the same means, for only the force of the state brings about the liberty of its members. It is from this second relationship that civil laws arise. We may consider a third sort of relationship between man and law, namely that of disobedience and penalty. And this gives rise to the establishment of criminal laws, which basically not so much a particular kind of law as the sanction for all the others. To those three sorts of law is added a fourth, the most important of all. It is the true constitution of the state. Everyday it takes on new forces. When other laws grow old and die away, it revives and replaces them, preserves a people in the spirit of its institution and imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that of authority. I am speaking of mores, customs, and especially opinion, a part of the law unknown to our political theorists but one on which depends the success of all the others; a part with which the great legislator secretly occupies oneself, though one seems to confine oneself to the particular regulations that are merely the arching of the value, whereas mores, slower to arise, form in the end its immovable keystone. Among these various classes, only political laws, which constitute the form of government, are relevant to this subject. The consumer is increasingly being drawn into the production process of the economy. Thus eager manufacturers today recruit—even pay—customers to help design products. This is not merely true in industries that sell direct to the public—food, soap, toiletries, et cetera—but even more so in the advanced industries like electronic where de-massification is most rapid. All products are divided into two kinds: “inside-out” products and “outside-in” products. The latter are defined not by the manufacturer but by the potential customer, and these outsider products are ideal. The more we shift toward advanced manufacture, and the more we de-massify and customize production, the stronger the customer’s involvement in the production process must necessarily grow. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Today members of Computer-aided Manufacturing International (CAM-I) are hard at work classifying and coding parts and processes to permit the full automation of production. The process is already a reality in many areas, which ultimately allows a customer to feed one’s specifications into a manufacturer’s computer directly and produce a product of their desire. For example, if one wants a BMW, one can go to the dealership and purchase one off the lot. Or if one has enough money, one can go to the dealer’s website and build the Ultimate Driving Machine of their dreams, with all the features one likes, and the computer will give the consumer the manufactures suggested retail price, and one can order that particular car from the computer. Also, doctors can now use computers to design some body parts for patients and print them out in three-dimensional form. This technology is also being used to create things like toys and parts for cars and houses. The computer not only designs the product the customer wants, but it selects the manufacturing processes to be used. It assigns machines. It sequences the necessary steps from, say, milling or grinding right down to painting. It writes the necessary programs for the subcomputers or numerical control devices that run the machines. And it even feeds in an “adaptive control” that optimizes these various processes for both economic and environmental purposes. In the end, the consumer, is not merely providing the specs but punching the button that sets this entire process in action, and has become as much a part of the production process as the denim-clad assembly-line worker is in the World. Pretty soon, customer-activated manufacturing systems will start appearing in more areas of consumer life. If linked by telephone or to a personal computer, technology will eventually permit a customer to feed one’s various dimensions, select appropriate cloth, and then actually activate the laser cutter—without leaving one’s home, and then have their outfit delivered from Banana Republic or whatever retailer. This will reduce the need to outsource work to other countries because the laser process will be a more economical way to reduce cloths. It will also increase national security and encourage more firms to bring their money back to America instead of allowing it to sit in offshore accounts. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

May be an image of furniture and bedroom

The most creative person will pretty soon be able to be very creative. Namely, one will be sitting there doing things like designing a suit of clothes for oneself (and maybe even printing the outfit out at home), or making modifications to a standard design, so the computers can cut one for you by laser and sew it together for you by numerically controlled machines. You really will, because of the computers, take your specs and turn them into a car. They do, of course, have programmed within them all the federal safety regulations and all the physics of the situation so they will not let you get too far out of bound. And if to this we now add the possibility that many people are and many more will be working at home anyway in the electronic cottages of today, we begin to imagine a significant change in the “tools” available to the consumer. Many of the same electronic devices we will use in the home to do work for pay will also make it possible to produce goods or services for our own use. In this system the prosumer, who dominated in First Wave societies, is brought back into the center of economic action—but on a Third Wave, high technology basis. In short, whether we look at self-help movements, do-it-yourself trends, or new production technologies, we find the same shift toward a much closer involvement of the consumer in production. In such a World, conventional distinctions between producer and consumer vanish. The “outsider” becomes an “insider,” and even more production is shifted from Sector B of the economy to Sector A where the prosumer reigns. At this occurs we begin—glacially at first but then, perhaps, with accelerating speed—to alter that most fundamental of our institutions: the market. Many things come by revelation. By revelation the Lord told Joseph Smith to send letters to all the elders of the church to come together in Kirtland for a meeting to be held in June. The Lord promised: And it shall come to pass, that inasmuch as they are faithful, and exercise faith in me, I will pour out my Spirit upon them in the say that they assemble themselves together. They shall go forth into the regions round about, and preach repentance unto the people; and many shall be converted. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

On March 7, 1831, a revelation was given telling the people to gather out of the eastern lands and go to Ohio. Ohio was to be only a stopping place for them, however, for the Lord promised they should go into the western country: Gather ye out from the eastern lands, assemble ye yourselves together ye elders of my church. Go ye forth unto the western countries, call upon the inhabitants to repent, and inasmuch as they do repent, build up churches unto me. And with one heart and with one mind, gather up your riches that ye may purchase an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed unto you, and it shall be called the New America, and it shall be called America. In this revelation God warned that the people must not tell the World about America until He gave them permission, because if their enemies knew their plans, they might try to prevent them from carrying them through. The church was young and customs had not yet been established as to how its services should be conducted. Joseph was concerned about this. He prayed for enlightenment on the matter. The Lord told His people to conduct all their meetings as they were guided by the Holy Spirit, and not turn anyone away from any meeting even though one was not a believer. These instructions were given: Seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given; for verily I say unto you, They are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments. All have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every human is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby. To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, to others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life, if the continue faithful. To some it is given, by the Spirit of God, the word of wisdom. To another it is given the word of knowledge, that all may be taught to be wise and to have knowledge. To some it is given to have faith to be healed, and to others, it is given to have faith to heal. To some it is given the workings of miracles; and to others it is given to prophesy, and to others the discerning of spirits. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

It is given to some to speak with tongues, and to another it is given the interpretation of tongues. All these gifts come from God, for the benefit of the children of God. And unto such as God shall appoint and ordain to watch over the church are to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts, lest there by any among you professing and yet be not of God. All things must be done in the name of Christ, whatsoever you do in the spirit; and ye must give thanks unto God in the spirit for whatever blessing ye are blessed with; and ye must practice virtue and holiness before me continually. Prior to Oliver Cowdery’s departure on his mission to the West, he had acted as an unofficial historian of the church. Now it was necessary to appoint a historian whose responsibility would be to keep a record of church history. In an answer to Joseph Smith’s prayer relative to this matter, a revelation was given March 8, 1831, for John Whitmer: My servant John should write and keep a regular history, and assist you, my servant Joseph, in transcribing all things which shall be given you….to keep the church record and history continually. The Kirtland Saints were concerned because of the expected arrival of large numbers of Saints from the East in response to the instructions of Section 45 in which the Lord said, “Gather ye out from the eastern lands.” How they should accommodate so many people, even though they knew if would not be for too long a period, become a problem which gave them grave concern. A revelation, addressed to the Kirtland Saints, was given on March 8, 1831, at Kirtland in which the Lord said: Inasmuch as ye have lands, ye shall impart to the eastern brethren. Inasmuch as ye have not lands, let them buy for the present time in those regions round about as seemeth them good, for it must needs be that they have places to live for the present time. Save all the money that ye can, that in time ye may be enabled to purchase lands for an inheritance, even in the city. The place is not yet to be revealed, but after your brethren come form the east, there are to be certain men appointed, and to them it shall be given to know the place, or to them it shall be revealed and then ye shall begin to be gathered with your families. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Parley P. Pratt, Sidney, Rigdon, and Lemon Copley were sent to teach a group of Saints who wanted to know the truth, but still believed some things about God that were not true. A revelation was given through Joseph Smith, Jr., to help these Saints understand the truth about God. Jesus Christ said: America shall flourish upon the hills, and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be assembled together unto the place which I have appointed. Go forth as I have commanded you; repent of all your sins; ask and ye shall receive; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Behold, I will go before you, and be your reward; and I will be in your midst, and you shall not be cofounded; behold, I am Jesus Christ, and I come quickly. Some of these saints were having strange spiritual experiences which were not in harmony with Jesus’ teachings. The elders brought this problem to Joseph, who inquired of God, and received a revelation in May, 1831, giving this information: Behold, verily I say unto you, that there are many spirits which are false spirits, which have gone forth in the Earth, deceiving the World: and also the adversary hath sought to deceive you, that he might overthrow you. Wherefore, let every human beware lest one do that which is not in truth and righteousness before me. One that preacheth and one that receiveth, understandeth one another, and both are edified and rejoice together; and that which doth not edify, is not of God, and is darkness: that which is of God is light. The Lord explained that the Spirit of God was light and would be good. It would benefit the people and help them to understand. Any spirit which was not good, which would not benefit them, which would not help them to fuller understanding was darkness and not of God. “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness,” reports Lamentations 3.22-23. Everybody goes through disappointments and setbacks from time to time, but if we hold on to hurt and pain, we end up living negative and bitter lives. Maybe you have made some mistakes or some poor choices, and now you are tempted to sit around feeling guilty and condemned thinking something such as: “I wish I had been a better parent.” “I wish I had not vandalized his car.” “I wish I had chosen another career instead of breaking into a government office and stealing government resources.” “I wish I had not become a fake news reporter and married that other person.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Just know, My dear friend, that in every probationary period you will not be loved or praised the less than when God is topping you off with His Celestial Consolations. It is so easy to live life focused on that review mirror. We cannot do anything about the past, and we have no guarantees regarding the future; we can only do something about right now. The good story is, your past does not have to poison your future. Even if you have made some mistakes, your dreams did not workout, or you have had some unfair shakedowns, God still has good things in store for you. God will take that negative situation and turn it around for your advantage. Therefore, place your whole hope and refuge in God. In it also place all your sore spots and tight spots. In God, everything looks firm and stable; outside God, everything is fluid and chaotic! In this regard, personal friends sometimes help. Experts in their fields always think they can help. Wisdom literature has gone to great lengths wiring help down. Philosophical and theological treatises have compressed help into a few syllogisms. A gem with magic properties is no help at all. A secret garden with high walls can be a sad refuge. However, if God, or Lord, does not assist and abet, comfort and console, instruct and guard, all these special places mean nothing. Everything seems to lead to peace and felicity, but with God absent, my Dear and Noble Friend, all this seems a hill of beans; that is to say, felicity and truth seem to wilt. Therefore, the only conclusion I can draw from this is that God is the end of all good, the height of my life, the depth of my eloquence. And to hope in God above all—the strongest solace of Your servant Devouts. A maze of “may’s”! May my eyes be on You, O Lord God, if I may follow the Psalmist (123.1)! May I, as Paul in the Second Corinthians (1.3), confide in You as Father of Mercies! May You bless and sanctify my soul with Heavenly Benediction! May my soul become Your home away from home, Your country seat, your Chatsworth! May nothing be found in the temple of Your dignity that had offended Your eyes. May You keep on eye on the magnitude of Your goodness and the multitude of Your mercies, and the other eye on me! That is what the Psalmist implored, and he was no fool (69.17). #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

May You hear the prayer of Your pauper servant, crying from afar as if in the region of the shadow of death! May You protect and preserve the soul of Your small servant among the many perils of the corruptible life! And many You set me, with Lady Grace as companion, on the road to peace; that is to say, to the Land of Perpetual Clarity! Amen. When you first wake up each morning, let go of yesterday’s disappointments. Forget about the discouragement, guilt, and condemnation. You attitude should be, “A new day has come. I was waiting for so long, for a miracle to come. Everyone told me to be strong, hold on and don’t shed a tear. Through the darkness and good times, I knew I would make it through, and the World thought that I had it all, but I was waiting for You. Hush, love. I see a light in the sky. Oh, it’s blinding me. I can’t believe I’ve been touched by an angel with love. Let the rain come down and wash away my tears. Let it fill my soul and drown my fears. Let it shatter the walls for a new sun. A new day has come. Where it was dark now there is light. Where there was pain now there is joy. Where there was weakness, I found my strength.” (A New Day by Celine Dion.) The Scripture says God’s mercies are new every morning. You may have made a lot of mistakes, but God has not run out of mercy. He makes a fresh new batch every single morning. Do you know why? Because He knew we were going to use up all that He made yesterday! Receive God’s mercy and forgiveness. Today can be a new beginning. Do not be a prisoner of the past. Some people are always dwelling on their disappointments. They just cannot understand why their prayers are not being answered, why their loved one was not healed, why they were mistreated. They do not realize it, but they are allowing their past poison their future. God has a new beginning in store for them. He wants to restore what has been stolen, but they will not let go of the past. If you are not willing to let go of the old, do not expect God to do the new. If you have had some unfair things happen to you, make a decision that you are going to quit reliving those things in your memory. Instead, think on good things, things that will build you up and not tear you down, things that will encourage you and give you the hope that there is a brighter tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Your life is going to follow your thoughts. A flight into the stratosphere is strange but a fascinating experience for the first time but not so strange nor one-hundredth so fascinating as a light into a flight into a higher level of consciousness. And if it happens not on some mountaintop surrounded by enchanting scenery but on a crowded noisy bustling and tumultuous city street, one is not keenly conscious of the alteration within oneself but also feels that the World around as well as the people in it have altered in some mysterious way, too. However fantastic may be the practical consequences of this experience, due to its wrong interpretation by the mystic oneself, the essential worth and intelligible meaning of the intrinsic reality out of which it arises still remains. It not only brings about a stupendous change in one’s view of life but also a corresponding change in one’s moral conscience and character. In that great light one sees one’s old self as sinful, and so rejects it, one’s old character as defective and deficient on every side and so amends it. The rejection soon becomes habitual while the amendment is made swiftly enough. The glimpse astonishes some persons by its startling reversal of some of their cherished notions, beliefs, and opinions. The glimpse gives a human the feeling of a newness as if one were beginning a new kind of life with a new attitude and a new ethical code. With this growing feeling for spirituality may come, in some case, a new feeling for refinement, an aesthetic appreciation of the beautiful; in others, it may be some virtue or quality which reflects the sensibility or inspiration. It is a power which affects one in a strange way. At one and at the same time it isolates one from one’s fellow humans, yet units one with them as well. One is isolated because this functioning on a higher level of consciousness makes one feel like some strange visitor from outer space, just arrived on our ancient planet. However, one can enjoy the sense of Being whether isolated or surrounded by others. Although one may quite precisely and clearly understand what is happening to one, an extra-Worldly awareness develops in parallel to the spiritual development. It is a feeling of what other persons are, their mood at the time, their general disposition also. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

The times when one is brought into memorable awareness and reverent worship of the true God, the moment when the illuminative flash permeates one utterly, may have far-reaching effects on one’s later years. For one can then see the ego’s life as it really is and make new decisions concerning it which could only have been arrived at when out of the ego’s clutches. One comes away from these glimpses hushed into peace, awed by their mystery, and filled with goodwill to all beings. This attitude toward them is an absolute imperative, but it does not mean that one is to put oneself in their hands, at their mercy, by submitting to their desires, yielding to their faults. Seek forgiveness from anyone you have hurt. Forgive the people who have hurt you, release any bitterness you have been harbouring, and forgive yourself. If you are going to go forward in life, you must quit looking backward. To trust God is to be enabled to trust oneself at the very core of one’s being. Once we have been grasped by God’s affirmation of us, we have experienced love at the very heart of things, a love that cannot and will not let us go. And the power of that love begins to make all things in this fragmented World whole again. We have seen how a person’s God-given actualizing tendencies can be thwarted—how authentic responses to life can deteriorate into manipulative patterns, then into character styles, and finally, into psychotic conditions. The process could be visualized as an ever-constructing downward spiral of fear that squeezes out of a human life the God-inspired call to greatness. The other side of the human experience is the upward spiral of expansion. In this process, a person begins to manifest individual greatness by operating more and more in an actualizing way from one’s core. Our central thesis is that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4.18). This healing love causes the joyful expansion rather than the fearful constriction of the human personality. The Greek word that is used in the New Testament for this perfect love is agape. This could be translated as spontaneous, altruistic love that involves unselfishly willing the highest good of another. It is a love that cherishes, affirms, and respects the uniqueness of another person. When we say in religious language that “underneath are the everlasting arms,” we are symbolizing the agape dimension of the love that God has for every person and that is to be experienced in one’s core. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Love is the only way to comprehend another life form. However, no one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless one loves that individual. By the spiritual act of love, one is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making one aware of what one can and of what one should become makes these potentialities come true. It is being in contact with unresolved fear at the center of the personality that results in the manipulatives styles of living that we have examined. However, when we feel deeply loved, understood, and accepted in the core of our being, then our fears are healed changes and we find ourselves on the road to actualizing. Our ability to be sincere with ourselves, with God, and with other humans is really proportionate to our capacity for sincere love. And the sincerity of our love depends in large measure upon our capacity to believe ourselves loved. Most of the moral and mental and even religious complexities of our time go back to our desperate fear that we are not and can never be really loved by anyone. Whether or not one feels loved by God, one is. So a basic step in actualizing is to trust that, whether or not one understands it, one is deeply loved and affirmed by God in the core of one’s being. Prayer alone does not bring deliverance. It is the prayer of faith that brings deliverance. When you believe God and release your faith in prayer, it is conceived in the womb of the spirit and will be manifested. It will be brought forth, if you hold fast to your confession of faith. It is as though a child is conceived in its mother’s womb. When you believe you receive, your answer is then conceived in your spirit. Time may pass before it is manifest; but just as sure as a child will be delivered from its mother’s womb, so will the answer to your prayer come forth in due season. You have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you will receive the promise of the Father. (Hebrews 10.36.) Patience is a spiritual force which undergirds your faith and causes you to be constant through the trial. Here is one of the problems. So many times we have thought God said to hold fast to the prayer. However, that is not it at all. He told us not to use vain repetitions as the heathen who think God will hear them because of repeating it over and over. No. That is not what God said in His Word. He said, When ye pray, believe. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

So I am going to release my faith when I pray. Therefore if I release my faith when I pray, God says that I shall have it. It is settled then. It is finished, thank God. I do not care if it looks worse in the morning, I will not take it up again in prayer, but will hold fast to my confession. Now let me qualify some of those statements. If you go for a long period of time and your request is not manifested, but is still getting worse, you have missed it somewhere. If you have missed it, admit it and ask God where you missed it. You have missed it somewhere if it is not working. Dear Lord in Heaven, I thank You, Father, that my future happiness and fulfillment are not determined by the pains of the past. Thank You that Your mercies are new every morning. Today, I choose to believe that You have good things in store for me. Grandfather Great Spirit all over the World, the faces of living ones are alike. With tenderness they have come up out of the ground. Look upon your children that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the Day of Quiet. Grandfather Great Spirit, please fill us with Light. Give us the strength to understand, and the eyes to see. Please teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live. There are parents in our midst who mourn a beloved child taken from them in the freshness and vigour of youth, for whom they planned and hoped, upon whom they lavished loving care and affection. There are those who recall a sister or brother, now no longer among the living, with whom they grew up in happy fellowship, loyal and devoted companions who shared with them the experiences of childhood and youth. With tender emotion we all recall friends and companions who were dear to us in life and whose friendship and understanding were a constant benediction to us. In this solemn hour, we recall the members of our congregation who have answered Thy summons. They shall ever be remembered in this sanctuary which they loved and served. We reverently recall the martyrs of America of all ages, whose ranks have been tragically augmented by untold numbers of our brothers in our generation. Never shall we forget those who sacrificed their lives for the sanctification of Thy name. We remember also the heroes and righteous humans all nations who lived and died for justice, truth and peace. Though our departed are no longer with us, their memories are forever enshrined in our hearts and their influences abides with us, directing our thoughts and deeds toward the lofty purposes they cherished and for which they strived. O Lord, as we recall out departed and the blessings they bequeathed unto us, we pray Thee to keep their souls united with ours in the bond of life. May our faith, like their, be strong, our devotion to the Torah unfaltering, our love for America constant, and our concern for America and humanity unceasing. For as we identify ourselves with the life, hopes, and traditions of an eternal people, we, ourselves, takes on the aspect of eternity. May we so live that when our years draw to a close we, too, shall be remembered for good and for blessing. Amen. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20