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Speak Low, if You Speak of Love–Certainly these Nostalgia-Merchants Never Visited a Nineteenth-Century Company Town!
You cannot have a constitutional right to do something that is illegal. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others. Furthermore, social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and also attached to positions and offices open to all. There are two ambiguous phrases in the second principle, namely “everyone’s advantage” and “open to all.” Determining their sense more exactly will lead to a second formulation of the principle. The final version of the two principles considers the rendering of the first principle. By way of general comment, these principles primarily apply to the basic structure of society. They are to govern the assignment of rights and duties and to regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages. As their formulation suggests, these principles presuppose that the social structure can be divided into two more or less distinct parts, the first principle applying to the one, the second to the others. They distinguish between those aspects of the social system that define and secure the equal liberties of citizenship and those that specify and establish social and economic inequalities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
The basic liberties of citizens are, roughly speaking, political liberty (the right to vote and to be eligible for public office) together with freedom of speech and assembly; liberty of conscience and freedom of thought; freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal) property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law. These liberties are all required to be equal by the first principle, since citizens of a just society are to have the same basic rights. The second principle applies, in the first approximation, to the distribution of income and wealth and to the design of organizations that make use of differences in authority and responsibility, or chains of command. While the distribution of wealth and incomes need not be equal, it must be to everyone’s advantage, and at the same time, positions of authority and offices of command must be accessible to all. One applies the second principle by holding positions open, and then, subject to this constraint, arranges social and economic inequalities so that everyone benefits. These principles are to be arranged in a serial order with the first principle prior to the second. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
This ordering means that a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified by, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages. The distribution of wealth and income, and hierarchies of authority, must be consistent with both the liberties of equal citizenship and equality of opportunity. It is clear that these principles are rather specific in their content, and their acceptance rests on certain assumptions that I must eventually try to explain and justify. A theory of justice depends upon a theory of society in ways that will become evident as we proceed. For the present, it should be observed that the two principles (and this holds for all formulations) are a special case of a more general conception of justice that can be expressed as follows: All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone’s advantage. Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all. The illegal begins immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. Of course, this conception is extremely vague and requires interpretation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
As a first step, suppose that the basic structure of society distributes certain primary goods, that is, things that every rational human is presumed to want. These goods normally have a use whatever a person’s rational plan of life. For simplicity, assume that the chief primary goods at the disposition of society are rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth. (Later on in Part Three the primary good of self-respect has a central place.) These are the social primary goods. Other primary goods such as health and vigor, intelligence and imagination, are natural goods; although their possession is influenced by the basic structure, they are not so directly under its control. Imagine, then, a hypothetical initial arrangement in which all the social primary goods are equally distributed: everyone has similar rights and duties, and income and wealth are evenly shared. This state of affairs provides a benchmark for judging improvements. If certain inequalities of wealth and organizational powers would make everyone better off than in this hypothetical starting situation, then they accord with the general conception. Now it is possible, at least theoretically, that by giving up some of their fundamental liberties humans are sufficiently compensated by the resulting social and economic gains. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
The general conception of justice imposes no restrictions on what sort of inequalities are permissible; it only requires that everyone’s position be improved. We need not suppose anything so drastic as consenting to a condition of slavery. Imagine instead, when the economic returns are significant and their capacity to influence the course of policy by the exercise of these rights would be marginal in any case, that humans forego certain political rights. It is this kind of exchange which the two principles as stated rule out; being arranged in serial order they do not permit exchanges between basic liberties and economic and social gains. The serial ordering of principles expresses an underling preference among primary social goods. When this preference is rational so likewise is the choice of these principles in this order. In developing justice as fairness, I shall, for the most part, leave aside the general conception of justice and examine instead the special case of the two principles in serial order. The advantage of this procedure is that from the first the matter of priorities is recognized and an effort made to find principles to deal with it. One is led to attend throughout to the conditions under which the acknowledgement of the absolute weight of liberty with respect to social and economic advantages, as defined by the lexical order of the two principles would be reasonable. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
Offhand, this ranking appears extreme and too special a case to be of much interest; but there is more justification for it than would appear at first sight. Or at any rate, so I shall maintain. Furthermore, the distinction between fundamental rights and liberties and economic and social benefits marks a difference among primary social goods that one should try to exploit. It suggests an important division in the social system. Of course, the distinctions drawn and the ordering proposed are bound to be at best only approximations. There are surely circumstances in which they fail. However, it is essential to depict clearly the main lines of a reasonable conception of justice; and under many conditions anyway, the two principles in serial order may serve well enough. When necessary we can fall back on the more general conception. The fact that the two principles apply to institutions has certain consequences. Several points illustrate this. First of all, the rights and liberties referred to by these principles are those which are defined by the public rules of the basic structure. Whether humans are free is determined by the rights and duties established by the major institutions of society. Liberty is a certain pattern of social forms. The first principle simply requires that certain sorts of rules, these defining basic liberties, apply to everyone equally and that they allow the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
The only reason for circumscribing the rights defining liberty and making human’s freedom less extensive than it might otherwise be is that these equal rights as institutionally defined would interfere with one another. When principles mention persons, or require that everyone gain from an inequality, another thing to bear in mind is that the reference is to representative persons holding the various social positions, or offices, or whatever, established by the basic structure. Thus in applying the second principle I assume that it is possible to assign an expectation of well-being to representative individuals holding these positions. This expectation indicates their life prospects as these positions. This expectation indicates their life prospects as viewed from their social station. In general, the expectations of representative persons depend upon the distribution of rights and duties throughout the basic structure. When this changes, expectations change. I assume, then, that expectations are connected: by raising the prospects of the representative human in one position we presumably increase or decrease the prospects of representative humans in other positions. Since it applies to institutional forms, the second principle (or rather the first part of it) refers to the expectations of representative individuals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Neither principle applies to distributions of particular goods to particular individuals who may be individuals who may be identified by their proper names. The situation where someone is considering how to allocate certain commodities to less affluent persons who are known to one not within the scope of the principles. They are meant to regulate basic institutional arrangements. We must not assume that there is much similarity from the standpoint of justice between an administrative allotment of goods to specific persons and the appropriate design of society. Our common-sense intuitions for the former may be a poor guide to the latter. Now the second principle insists that each person benefit from permissible inequalities in the basic structure. When one views it as a concern, this means that it must be reasonable for each relevant representative human defined by this structure to prefer one’s prospects with the inequality to one’s prospects without it. One is not allowed to justify differences income or organizational powers on the ground that the disadvantages of those in one position are outweighed by the greater advantage of those in another. Much less can infringements of liberty be counterbalanced in thus way. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
Applied to the basic structure, the principle of utility would have us maximize the sum of expectations of representative humans (weighted by the number of persons they represent, on the classical view); and this would permit us to compensate for the losses of some by the gains of others. Instead, the two principles required that everyone benefit from economic and social inequalities. It is obvious, however, when the initial arrangement of equality is taken as a benchmark that there are indefinitely many ways in which all may be advantaged. The grasping of the being of another person occurs on a quite different level from our knowledge of specific things about an individual. Obviously a knowledge of the drives and mechanisms which are in operation in the other person’s behaviour is useful; a familiarity with one’s patterns of interpersonal relationships is highly relevant; in formation about one’s social conditioning, the meaning of particular gestures and symbolic actions is of course to the point, and so on ad infinitum. However, when we confront the overreaching, most real fact of all—namely, the immediate, living person oneself, all these fall on to a quite different level. When we seek to know a person, the knowledge about one must be subordinated to the overarching fact of one’s actual existence. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
In the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages the verb “to know” is the same word as that which means to copulate with. This is illustrated time and again in the King James translation of the Bible—“Abraham knew his wife and she conceived…” and so on. Thus the etymological relation between knowing and loving is exceedingly close. Though we cannot go into this complex topic, we can at least say that knowing another human being, like loving one, involves a kind of union, a dialectical participation with the other. This is called the “duel mode.” If one is to be able to understand an individual, one must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking. The encounter with the being of another person has the power to shake one profoundly and may potentially be very anxiety-arousing. It may also be joy-creating. In either case, it has the power to grasp and move one deeply. And obviously the individual has defended oneself from anxiety at the price not only of the isolation of oneself from the other but also of the radical distortion of reality. For one does not ten really see the other person. It does not disparage the importance of the technique to point out that technique, like data, must be subordinated to the fact of the reality of two persons in the room. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
However, we find ourselves up against a dilemma. Our human being has become a sort of indeterminate clay which would have to receive [the desires] passively—or one would be reduced to a simple bundle of these irreducible drives or tendencies. In either case the human disappears; we can no longer find “the one” to whom this or that experience has happened. Either in looking for the person we encounter a useless, contradictory metaphysical substance—or else the being whom we seek vanishes in a dust of phenomena bound together by external connections. However, what each of us requires in this very effort to comprehend another is that one should never resort to this idea of substance, which is inhuman because it is well this side of the human. Also, if we admit that the person is a totality, we can not hope o reconstruct one by an addition or by an organization of the diverse tendencies which we have empirically discovered in one. Every attitude of the person contains some reflection of this totality. A jealousy of a particular date in which a subject posits oneself in history in relation to a certain person signifies for the one who knows how to interpret it, the total relation to the World by which the subject constitutes oneself as a self. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
This empirical attitude is by itself the expression of the choice of an intelligible character. There is no mystery about this. It is interesting that the term “mystic” is used in this derogatory sense to mean anything we cannot segmentize and count. The odd belief prevails in our culture that if we cannot make it mathematical, a thing or experience is not real, and if we can reduce it to numbers it is somehow real. Thus we deny reality of our own experience. The term “mystic,” in this disparaging sense, is generally used in the service of obscurantism; certainly avoiding an issue by derogation is only to obscure it. Is not the scientific attitude rather, to try to see clearly what it is we are talking about and then to find whatever terms or symbols can best, with least distortion, describe this reality? It should not so greatly surprise us to find that “being” belongs to that class of realities, like “love” and “consciousness” (for two other examples), which we cannot segmentize or abstract without losing precisely what we set out to study. This does not, however, relieve us from the task of trying to understand and describe them. The loss of the sense of being is related on one hand to our tendency to subordinate existence to function: a human knows oneself not as a human or self but as a ticket-seller in the subway, a grocer, a professor, a vice president of Cresleigh, or by whatever one’s economic function may be. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
And on the other hand, this loss of the sense of being is related to the mass collectivist trends and widespread conformist tendencies in our culture. Indeed, I wonder if a psychoanalytic method, deeper and more discerning than any of that has been evolved until now, would not reveal the morbid effects of the repression of this sense and of the ignoring of this need. We need to be cognizant of freedom to become aware that there are forces in the World acting upon us. This is the sphere where we have the potential capacity to pause before reacting and thus to cast some weight on whether our reaction will go this way or that. And this, therefore, is the sphere where one, the human being, is never merely a collection of drives determined forms of behaviour. Hymans are the beings who can be conscious of, and therefore responsible for, their existence. It is this capacity to become aware of one’s own being which distinguishes the human being from other beings, as far as we know. Humans are not only being-in-itself, as all beings are, but also being-for-itself. They are the person-who-is-responsible-for-one’s-own-existence choosing. If the reader will keep in mind that being is a participle, a verb form implying someone in the process of being something, the full meaning of the term human being will be clearer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
We can understand another human being only as we see what one is moving toward, what one is becoming; and we can know ourselves only as we project our potentia in action. The significant tense for human beings is thus the future—that is to say, the critical question is what I am pointing toward, becoming, what I will be in the immediate future. Thus, being in the human sense is not given once and for all. It does not unfold automatically as the cypress tree does from the seed. For an intrinsic and inseparable element in being human is self-consciousness. If one is to become oneself, humans are the particular being who has to be aware of oneself, be responsible for oneself. As far as we know, human beings are also the particular being who knows that at some future moment one will not be; one is the being who is always in a dialectical relation with nonbeing, death. And one not only knows one will sometime not be, but one can, in one’s own choices one makes once and for all at the point of considering suicide; it reflects to some degree a choice made at every instant. The profound awareness of human beings is one pictured with incomparable beauty. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
The do-it-yourself movement has accompanied, paradoxically, increasing specialization in the occupational sphere. As one’s job narrows, perhaps, one seeks the challenge of new skill-acquisition in the Cresleigh Home. However, specialization also means that one’s interpersonal encounters with artisans in the Cresleigh Home proliferate and become more impersonal. It is not a matter of familiar encounter with the local smith or grocer—a few well-known individuals performing a relatively large number of functions, and with whom one’s casual interpersonal contacts may be a source of satisfaction, and are in any case a testimony to the stability and meaningful interrelatedness of human affairs. One finds instead a multiplicity of narrow specialists—each perhaps a stranger (the same type of repair may be performed by a different person each time). Every relationship, such as it is, must start from scratch, and it is small wonder that the householder turns away from such an unrewarding prospect in apathy and despair. Americans thus find themselves in a vicious circle, in which their extrafamilial relationships are increasingly arduous, competitive, trivial, and irksome, in part as a result of efforts to avoid or minimize potentially irksome or competitive relationships. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
As the few vestiges of stable and familiar community life erode, the desire for a simple, cooperative life style grows in intensity. The most seductive appeal of radical ideologies for Americans consists in the fact that all in one way or another attack the competitive foundations of our society. Each touches a responsive doubt, and the stimuli arousing this doubt must be carefully unearthed and rooted out, just as the Puritan must unearth and root out the stimuli of the pleasures of the flesh that excite one. Both efforts are ambivalent, since, the seek and destroy process is a part a quest for the stimulus itself. The Puritanical censor both wants the stimuli of the pleasures of the flesh and is in part of a quest to destroy it, and one’s job enables one to gratify both of these contradictory desires. There is a similar prurience in the efforts of groups such as the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to uncover subversion. Just as the censor gets to experience far more pornography than the average human, so the Congressional red-baiter gets to hear as much Anti-Patriot ideology as one wants, which is apparently quite a lot. Now it may be objected that American society is far less competitive than it once was, and the appeal of radical ideologies should hence be diminished. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
A generation of critics has argued that the entrepreneurial individualist of the past has been replaced by a bureaucratic, security-minded, Organization Human. Much of this historical drama was written through the simple device of comparing yesterday’s owner-president with today’s assistant sales manager; certainly these nostalgia-merchants never visited a nineteenth-century company town. Another distortion is introduced by the fact that it was only the most ruthlessly competitive robber barons who survived to tell us how it was. Little is written about the neighbourhood store that extended credit to the less affluent, or how Mrs. Sarah Winchester paid her employees three times the national average and built houses for them and their families on her estate around her mansion (unfortunately most the Victorian homes that were around the mansion were destroyed, but the mansion still stands as well as one guest house), or the small town industry that refused to lay off local workers in hard times—they all went under together. And as for the organization humans—they left us no sags. Despite these biases real changes have undoubtedly occurred, but even if we grant that the business World as such was more competitive, the total environment contained more cooperative, stable, and personal elements. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
The individual worked in smaller firm with lower turnover in which one’s relationships were more enduring and less impersonal, and in which the ideology of Adam Smith was tempered by the fact that the participants were neighbours and might have been childhood playmates. Even if the business World was a cannibalistic as we imagine it (which seems highly unlikely), one encountered it as a deviant episode in what was otherwise a more comfortable and familiar environment than the organization human can find today in or out of one’s office. The organization human complex is simply an attempt to restore the personal, particularistic, paternalistic environment of the family business and the company town; and the other-directed “group think” of the suburban community is a desperate attempt to bring some old-fashioned small-town collectivism into the transient and impersonal life-style of the suburb. The social critics of the 1950’s were so preoccupied with assailing these rather synthetic substitutes for traditional forms of human interdependence that they lost sight of the underlying pathogenic forces that produced them. Medical symptoms usually result from attempts made by the body to counteract disease, and attacking such symptoms often aggravates and prolongs the illness. This appears to be the case with the feeble and self-defeating efforts of twentieth-century Americans to find themselves a viable social context. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
“And now, it came to pass in the twenty and sixth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, behold, when the Lamanites awoke on the first morning of the first month, behold, they found Amalickiah was dead in his own tent; and they also saw that Teancum was ready to give them battle on that day. And now, when the Lamanites saw this they were affrighted; and they abandoned their design in marching into the land northward, and retreated with all their army into the city of Mulek, and sought protection in their fortifications. And it came to pass that the brother of Amalickiah was appointed king over the people; and his name was Ammoron; thus king Ammoron, the brother of king Amalickiah, was appointed to reign in his stead. And it came to pass that he did command that his people should maintain those cities, which they had taken by the shedding of blood; for they had not taken any cities save they had lost much blood. And now, Teancum saw that the Lamanites were determined to maintain those cities which they had taken, and those parts of the land which they had obtained possession of; and also seeing the enormity of their number, Teancum thought it was not expedient that he should attempt to attack them in their forts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
“However, he kept his men around about, as if making preparations for war; yea, and truly he was preparing to defend himself against them, by casting up walls round about and preparing places of resort. And it came to pass that he kept thus preparing for war until Moroni had sent a large number of humans to strengthen his army. And Moroni also sent orders unto him that he should retain all the prisoners who fell into his hands; for as the Lamanites had taken many prisoners, that he should retain all the prisoners of the Lamanites as a ransom for those whom the Lamanites had taken. And he also sent orders unto him that he should fortify the land Bountiful, and secure the narrow pass which led into the land northward, lest the Lamanites should obtain that point and should have power to harass them on every side. And Moroni also sent unto him, desiring him that he would be faithful in maintaining the quarter of the land, and that he would seek every opportunity to scourge the Lamanites in that quarter, as much as in his power, that perhaps he might take again by stratagem or some other way those cities which had been taken out of their hands; and that he also would fortify and strengthen the cities round about, which had not fallen into the hands of the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“And he also said unto him, I would come unto you, but behold, the Lamanites are upon us in the borders of the land by the west sea; and behold, I go against them, therefore I cannot come unto you. Now, the king (Ammoron) had departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and had made known unto the queen concerning the death of his brother, and had gathered together a large number of humans, and had marched forth against the Nephites on the borders by the west sea. And thus he was endeavouring to harass the Nephites, and to draw away a part of their forces to that part of the land, while he had left to possess the cities which he had taken, that they should also harass the Nephites on the borders by the east sea, and should take possession of their lands as much as it was in their power, according to the power of their armies. And thus were the Nephites in those dangerous circumstances in the ending of the twenty and sixth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. However, behold, it came to pass in the twenty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, that Teancum, by the command of Moroni—who has established armies to protect the south and the west borders of the land, and had begun his march towards the land Bountiful, that he might assist Teancum with is humans in retaking the cities which they had lost– #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“And it came to pass that Teancum had received orders to make an attack upon the city of Mulek, if it were possible retake it. And it came to pass that Teancum made preparations to makes an attack upon the city of Mulek, and march forth with one’s army against the Lamanites; but he saw that it was impossible that he could overpower them while they were in their fortifications; therefore he abandoned his designs and returned again to the city Bountiful, to wait for the coming of Moroni, that he might receive strength to his army. And it came to pass that Moroni did arrive with his army at the land of Bountiful, in the latter end of the twenty and seventh year f the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And in the commencement of the twenty and eight year, Moroni and Teancum and many of the chief captains held a council of war—what they should do to cause the Lamanites to come out against them to battle; or that they might by some means flatter them out of their strongholds, that they might gain advantage over them and take again the city of Mulek. And it came to pass they sent embassies to the army of the Lamanites, which protected the city of Mulek, to their leader, whose name was Jacob, desiring hm hat he would come out with is armies to meet them upon the plains between the two cities. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“However, behold, Jacob, who was a Zoramite, would not come out with his army to meet them upon the plains. And it came to pass that Moroni, having no hopes of meeting them upon fair grounds, therefore, he resolved upon a plan that he might decoy the Lamanites out of their strongholds. Therefore he caused that Teancum should take a small number of humans and march down near the seashore; and Moroni and his army, by night, marched in the wilderness, on the west of the city Mulek; and thus, on the morrow, when guards of the Lamanites had discovered Teancum, they ran and told it unto Jacob, their leader. And it came to pass that the armies of the Lamanites did march forth against Teancum, supposing by their numbers to overpower Teancum because of the smallness of his numbers. And as Teancum saw the armies of the Lamanites coming out against him he began to retreat down by the seashore, northward. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites saw that he began to flee, they took courage and pursued them with vigour. And while Teancum was thus leading away the Lamanites who were pursuing them in vain, behold, Moroni commanded that a part of his army who were with him should march forth into the city, and take possession of it. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“However, behold, Jacob, who was a Zoramite, would not come out with his army to meet them upon the plains. And it came to pass that Moroni, having no hopes of meeting them upon fair grounds, therefore, he resolved upon a plan that he might decoy the Lamanites out of their strongholds. Therefore he caused that Teancum should take a small number of humans and march down near the seashore; and Moroni and his army, by night, marched in the wilderness, on the west of the city Mulek; and thus, on the morrow, when guards of the Lamanites had discovered Teancum, they ran and told it unto Jacob, their leader. And it came to pass that the armies of the Lamanites did march forth against Teancum, supposing by their numbers to overpower Teancum because of the smallness of his numbers. And as Teancum saw the armies of the Lamanites coming out against him he began to retreat down by the seashore, northward. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites saw that he began to flee, they took courage and pursued them with vigour. And while Teancum was thus leading away the Lamanites who were pursuing them in vain, behold, Moroni commanded that a part of his army who were with him should march forth into the city, and take possession of it. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And thus they did, and slew all those who had been left to protect the city, yea, all those who would not yield up their weapons of war. And thus Moroni had obtained possession of the city Mulek with a part of his army, while he marched with the remainder to meet the Lamanites when they should return from the pursuit of Teancum. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did pursue Teancum until they came near the city Bountiful, and then they were met by Lehi and a small army, which had been left to protect the city Bountiful. And now behold, when the chief captains of the Lamanites had beheld Lehi with his army coming against the, they fled in much confusion, lest perhaps they should not obtain the city Mulek before Lehi should overcome them; for they were wearied because of their march, and the humans of Lehi were fresh. Now the Lamanites did not know that Moroni had been in their rear with his army; and all they feared was Lehi and his men. Now Lehi was not desirous to overtake them till they should meet Moroni and his army. And it came to pass that before the Lamanites had retreated far they were surrounded by the Nephites, by the humans retreated far they were surrounded by the Nephites, by the humans of Moroni on the one hand, and the humans of Lehi on the other, all of whom were fresh and full of strength. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“However, the Lamanites were wearied because of their long march. And Moroni commanded his humans that they should fall upon them until they had given up their weapons of war. And it came to pass that Jacob, being their leader, being also a Zoramite, and having an unconquerable spirit, he le the Lamanites forth to battle with exceeding fury against Moroni. Moroni being in their course of march, therefore Jacob was determined to slay them and cut his way through the city of Mulek. However, behold, Moroni and his humans were more powerful; therefore they did not give way before the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they fought on both hands with exceeding fury; and there were many slain on both sides; yea, and Moroni was wounded and killed. And Lehi pressed upon their rear with such fury with his strong humans, that the Lamanites in the rear delivered up their weapons of war; and the remainder of them, being much confused, knew not whither to go or to strike. Now Moroni seeing their confusion, he said unto them: If ye will bring forth your weapons of war and deliver them up, behold we will forbear shedding your blood. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
“And it came to pass that when the Lamanites had heard these words, their chief captains, all those who were not slain, came forth and threw down their weapons of war at the feet of Moroni, and also commanded their humans that they should do the same. However, behold, there were any that would not; and those who would not deliver up their swords were taken and bound, and their weapons of war were taken from them, and they were compelled to march with their brethren forth int the land Bountiful. And now the number of prisoners who were taken exceeded more than the number of those who had been slain, yea, more than those who had been slain on both sides,” reports Alma 52.1-40. He walked the path that descends to death; Himself still living, He braved the journey and brought rebirth to those beyond hope dwelling in the coldest regions, living in the halls of Earth. Facing Death boldly, He led him to love and taught him the secrets that only He knew. It was His great courage that taught us to dare and His example that we should follow in the heart of trouble that may beset us. Come, my beloved, with chorus of praise, welcome Bride Sabbath, the Queen of the days. “Keep and Remember!”—in divine Word He that is One Alone, made His will heard; One is the name of Him, One is the Lord! His are the fame and the glory and praise! #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
Cresleigh Homes
It may be warm, but we still feel the fall spirit creeping in! 🍂 Have you started decorating your home for fall?
If you are stumped on where to start, keep an eye out for our upcoming blog post for how to get into the fall spirit! 😍 https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/
How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth it is to Have a Thankless Child!
Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long. People frequently list this as one of their most annoying symptoms. They complain that their headaches bother them and now, when they come from treatment, they want to bother us with their symptoms. They are, of course, welcome to do so. However, we in turn bother them—we ask them to take more responsibility and less aspirin. We do this by asking them to discover through experiencing how they produce their headaches. (The “aha” experience of discovery is one of the most powerful agents for the cure). We ask them first to localize the pain and to stay, or sit, or lie with the tension. We ask them to concentrate on the pain, not to dispose of it. In the beginning only a few will be able to stand the tension. Most people will tend to interrupt immediately with explanations, associations, or by pooh-poohing what we are doing. Consequently, the therapist has to work through one way of interrupting after another, and one has to change these interruptions into “I” functions. This means that even before we work on the headache itself, we have already done a considerable amount of integration. Suppose, for example, the therapist asks the patient to stay with one’s pains and the patient say, as often as happens, “this is all nonsense.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 27
If one learns to say, instead, “what you are trying to do is all nonsense,” one is taking a tiny step forward. With such a small step we have transformed a minute particle of “it” into a contact function, into a self-expression. We might even follow up one’s statement and ask the individual to elaborate on it. This would give one an opportunity to come out with a lot of one’s unspoken skepticism, distrust, and so on, and all of these are part of the unfinished businesses that are preventing one’s total participation in the present. However, finally the individual will be able to stay with one’s headache, and with one’s pains, which one can now localize. This staying with is opening up the possibility for development of contact with the self. If one stays with one’s pains one may find that one has been contracting some muscles or that one feels a numbness. Let us say that one discovers one’s pans are associated with muscle contractions. Then we will ask one to exaggerate the contacting. One will then see how one can voluntarily create and intensify one’s own pains. One might then say, as a result of one’s discoveries up to now, “It is as if I were screwing up my face to cry.” The therapist might then ask, “Would you like to cry?” And then, if we ask one to direct that remark directly to us, to say it to our face, one might well burst out crying and weeping. “I will not cry, darn you! Leave me alone, leave me alone!” #RandolphHarris 2 of 27
Apparently, then, one’s headache was an interruption of the need to cry. It has become apparent that one has lost one’s need to interrupt one’s crying by giving oneself headaches. At best, the individual may lose one’s need to cry, too, for if the therapy can be concentrated on this one factor for a long enough period of time, one may be able to work through the past interruptions that also led to the need to cry in the present. However, even before this stage, progress has been made. The individual has transformed a partial involvement (headache) into a total involvement (weeping). One has transformed a psychosomatic symptom into an expression of the total self, because in one’s shout burst of despair one was wholly and totally involved. So through he concentration technique the individual has learned how to participate fully in at least one present experience. One has learned at the same time something about one’s process of self-interruption and the ways in which these self-interruptions are related to the totality of one’s experience. One has discovered one of one’s means of manipulation. The neurotic is, as we said, self-interrupter. All schools of psychotherapy take this fact into account. Dr. Freud, as a matter of fact, built his therapy around a recognition of this phenomenon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27
Of all the possible forms of self-interruption one chose a very decisive one, which he called the Censor. He said, “Do not interrupt the free flow of your associations.” However, one also assumed that the Censor was the servant of embarrassment, and thus spoke Dr. Freud: “Do not be embarrassed.” Precisely with these two taboos one interrupted the individual’s experience of one’s embarrassment and one’s experience of its dissolution. This results in a desensitization, an inability to experience embarrassment, or even (and this applies still more to individuals in Reichian theraph) in overcompensating brazenness. What has to be tackled in therapy is not the censored material but the censoring itself, the form that self-interruption takes. Again, we cannot work from the inside out, but only from the outside in. The therapeutic procedure (which is the re-establishment of the self by integrating the dissociated parts of the personality) must being the individual to the point where one is no longer neurotic. How can we do this without making the mistake of interrupting the interruption? We have previously mentioned Dr. Freud’s command, “do not censor,” which is in itself a censoring of the censor, an interruption of the process of censoring. #RandolphHarris 4 of 27
What we have to do is notice and deal with the hows of every interruption, rather than with the censor—which is Dr. Freud’s postulated why of interruption. If we deal with the interruptions per se, we deal with the direct clinical picture, with the experience that individual is living through. Again, we deal with the surface that presents itself. There is no need to guess and to interpret. We hear that interruption of a sentence or we notice that the patient holds one’s breath or we see that one is making a fist, as if to hit someone, or swinging one’s legs as if to kick, or we observe how one interrupts contact with the therapist by looking away. Is one aware of these self-interruptions? This must be our first question to one in such a situation. Does one know that this is what one is doing? As one becomes more aware of the ways in which one interrupts oneself, one will inevitably become more aware of what one is interrupting. As our example of the headache sowed, it was in staying with one’s interruption, one’s headache, that one discovered how one was using this mechanism to interrupt one’s own crying. This example shows how, by concentrating on the interruption per se—on the hows of it, not is whys—the individual comes to an awareness of the fact that one is interrupting oneself, and becomes aware of what one is interrupting. #RandolphHarris 5 of 27
One also becomes able to dissolve one’s interruptions and to live through and finish up one unfinished experience. The neurotic mechanisms of introjections, projection, and retroflection are themselves mechanisms of introjection, and often developed in response to interruptions from the outside World. In the normal process of growth, we learn through trial and error, through testing our lives and our World as freely and uninterruptedly as possible. Imagine a kitten climbing a tree. It is engaged in experimenting. It balances itself, it tests its strength and its agility. However, the mother cat will not leave it alone; she insists that it come down. “You may break your neck, you naughty kitten,” she hisses. How this would interrupt the kitten’s pleasure in growing! It would even interrupt the growth process itself. However, cats, of course, do not behave so stupidly. They leave the pursuit of safety to the human beings. On the contrary, the cat, like any other animal and any sensible human being, will consider it the essence of up-bringing to facilitate the transformation of external into self-support. The newly born kitten can neither feed, transport nor defend itself. For all this it needs its mothers. However, it will develop the means to do these things itself, partly through developing its inborn instincts, and partly through environmental teaching. #RandolphHarris 6 of 27
In the human being, the transition from external to self-support is, of course, more complicated. Consider only the need to change pampers, to dress, to cook, to choose a vocation, or to gain knowledge. Since we are forced to learn so much more through education than by using our inherited instincts, much of the animal’s intuition as to what is the right procedure is missing. Instead, the “right” procedure is established by composite fantasies which are handed over and modified from generation to generations. They are mostly support functions for social contact, such as manners and codes of behaviour (ethics), means of orientation (reading, weltanschauungen), standards of beauty (aesthetics), and social position (attitudes). Often, however, these procedures are not biologically oriented, thus disrupting the very root of our existence and leading to degeneration. Psychiatric case histories show over and over how our depreciatory orientation towards pleasures of the flesh can produce neurosis. However, whether these procedures are anti-biological or anti-personal or anti-social, they are interruptions in the ongoing process which, if left alone, would lead to self-support. Such interruptions are the nightmares of Junior’s upbringing. There are the interruptions of contact, the “do not touch that!” and the “do not do that!” that fly around his ears day in and day out. #RandolphHarris 7 of 27
Or “leave me alone! Can I not have a moment’s peace,” interrupt his wishes to interrupt mama. His withdrawals are also interrupted. “You stay here now, keep your mind on your homework and do not dream,” or “you cannot go out to play until your finish your dinner.” Shall we then follow a policy of utter non-interruption? Like any other animal, Junior has to test the World, to find his possibilities, to try to expand his boundaries, to experiment with how far he can go. However, at the same time he has to be prevented from doing serious harm to himself or others. He has to learn to cope with interruptions. The real trouble begins when the parents interfere with the child’s maturation, either by spoiling hi and interrupting his attempts to find one’s own bearings or by being overprotective, and destroying his confidence in his ability to be self-supportive within the limits of his development. They regard the child as a possession to be either preserved or exhibited. In the latter case, they tend to create precocity by making ambitious demands on the child, who at that time lacks sufficient inner support to fulfill them. In the former case, they will tend to block maturation by giving the child no chance to make use of the inner supports one has developed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 27
The first child may grow up self-sufficient, the second dependent—neither self-supportive. Our patients come to us having incorporated their parent’s interruptions into their own lives—and this is introjection. Such patients are the ones who say to us, for example, “grown men do not cry!” They come to us having disowned he offending parts of themselves—the ones that were interrupted in their childhood—this is projection. “These darn headaches! Why do I have to suffer from them!” They may turn the qualities their parents called bad, and the display of which they interrupted, against themselves. This is retroflection. “I must control myself. I must not let myself cry!” They may have become so confused by their parents’ interruptions that they give up their identity completely and forget the difference and the connection between their internal needs and the external means of satisfying them. This result is confluence. “When people yell at me, I always get a headache.” Through making our patients aware, in he here and now, by concentration, of what these interruptions are, of how these interruptions affect them, we can bring them to real integrations. We can dissolve the endless cinch in which they find themselves. #RandolphHarris 9 of 27
We can give them a chance to be themselves, because they will begin to experience themselves; this will give them a true appreciation both of themselves and others, and will enable them to make good contact with the World, because they will know where the World is. Understanding means, basically, seeing themselves as part of the total field and thus becoming related both to themselves and to the World. This is good contact. However, let us not omit the tragic words of the Preacher. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What has been is what shall be; what has gone on is what shall go on; and there is nothing new under the Sun. Is there a thing of which it is said: Lo, this is new? It was already in existence in the ages which were before us,” reports Ecclesiastes 1.2, 9-10. And this is the answer the apostle gives: Therefore if any one is in Christ, one is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all things have become new,” reports 11 Corinthians 5.17. (And Jesus said to them:) “No one puts a piece of new cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into new wineskins, and so both are preserved,” reports Matthew 9.16-17. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27
We are so accustomed to living in a society that stresses individualism that we need to be reminded that “collectivism” in a broad sense has always been the more usual lot of humankind, as well as of most other species. Most people in most societies have been born into and died in stable communities in which the subordination of the individual to the welfare of the group was taken for granted, while the aggrandizement of the individual at the expense of one’s fellows was simply a crime. This is not to say that competition is an American invention—all societies involve some sort of admixture of cooperative and competitive institutions. However, our society lies near or on the competitive extreme, and although it contains cooperative institutions I think it is fair to say that Americans suffer from their relative weakness and peripherality. Studies of businesses executives have revealed, for example, a deep hunger for an atmosphere of trust and fraternity with their colleagues (with whom they must, in the short, run, engage in what Riesman calls “antagonistic cooperation”). The competitive life is a lonely one, and its satisfactions are very short-lived indeed, for each race leads only to a new one. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27
In the past, as so many have pointed out, there were in our society many oases in which one could take refuge from the frenzied invidiousness of our economic system—institutions such as the extended family and the stable local neighbourhoos in which one could take pleasure from something other than winning a symbolic victory over one of one’s fellows. However, these have disappeared one by one, leaving the individual more and more in a situation in which one must try to satisfy one’s affiliative and invidious needs in the same place. This has made the balance a more brittle one—the appeal of cooperative living more seductive, and the need to suppress our longing for it more acute. In recent decades the principal vehicle for the tolerated expression of this longing has been the mass media. Popular songs and film comedies have continually engaged in a sentimental rejection of the dominant mores, maintaining that the best things in life are free, that love is more important than success, that keeping up with the Hilton’s is absurd, that personal integrity should take precedence over winning, and so on. However, these protestations must be understood for what they are: a safety valve for the dissatisfactions that the modal American experiences when one behaves as one thinks one should. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27
The same human who chuckles and sentimentalizes over a happy-go-lucky hero in a film would view one’s real-life counterpart as frivolous and irresponsible, and suburbanites who philosophize over their back fence with complete sincerity about their “dog-eat-dog-World,” and what-is-it-all-for, and you-cannot-take-it-with you, and success-does-not-make-you-happy-it-just-gives-you-ulcers-and-a-heart-condition-would be enraged should their children pay serious attention to such a viewpoint. Indeed, the degree of rage is, up to a point, a function of the degree of sincerity: if the individual did not feel these things one would not have to fight them so vigorously. The intensity of this reaction can in part be attributed to a kind of circularity that characterizes American individualism. When a value is as strongly held as is individualism in America the illnesses it produces tend to be treated by increasing the dosage, in the same way an alcoholic treats a hangover or a drug addict one’s withdrawal symptoms. Technological change, mobility, and the individualistic ethos combine to rupture the bonds that adhere each individual to a family, a community, a kinship network, a geographical location—bonds that give one a comfortable sense of oneself. As this sense of oneself erodes, one seeks ways of affirming it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27
However, one’s efforts at self-enhancement automatically accelerate the very erosion one seeks to halt. It is easy to produce examples of the many way in which Americans attempt to minimize, circumvent, or deny the interdependence upon which all human societies are based. We seek a private home by Cresleigh, a private Ultimate Driving Machine, a private garden, a private laundry, self-service stores or have our food and other items delivered to our door step, and do-it-yourself skills of every kind. An enormous technology seems to have set itself the task of making it unnecessary for one human being ever to ask anything of another in the course of going about one’s daily business. When economically possible, even within the family Americans are unique in their feelings that each member should have a separate room, and even a separate telephone, television, and Ultimate Driving Machine. We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it. What accidental contacts we do have, furthermore, seem more intrusive, not only because they are unsought but because they are unconnected with any familiar pattern of interdependence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27
Most important, our encounters with others tend increasingly to be competitive as a result of the search for privacy. We less and less often meet our fellow humans to share and exchange, and more and more often encounter one as an impediment or a nuisance: making the highway crowded when we are rushing somewhere, cluttering and littering the beach or park or wood, pushing in front of us at the supermarket, taking the last parking place, polluting our air and water, waking us up by the sound of a leaf blower, building a highway through our house, blocking our view, and so on. Because we have cut off so much communication with each other we keep bumping into each other, and thus a higher and higher percentage of our interpersonal contacts are abrasive. We seem unable to foresee that the gratification of a wish might turn out to be something of a monkey’s if the wish were shared by many others. We cheery the new road that initially shaves ten minutes off the drive to our country retreat but ultimately transforms it into a crowded resort and increases both the traffic and the time. We are continually surprised to fine, when we want something, that thousands or millions and maybe even billions of others want it, too—that other human beings get hot in the Summer and cold in Winter. #RandolphHarris 15 of 27
The worst traffic jams occur when a mass of vacationing tourists departs for home early to “beat the traffic.” We are too enamored of the individualistic fantasy that everyone is, or should be, different—that each person could somehow build one’s entire life around some single, unique eccentricity without boring oneself and everyone else to death. Each of us of course has one’s quirks, which provide a surface variety that is briefly entertaining, but aside from this human beings have little basis for their persistent claim that they are not all members of the same species. Since our contacts with others are increasingly competitive, unanticipated, and abrasive, we seek still more apartness and accelerate the trend. The desire to be somehow special inaugurates an even more competitive quest for progressively more rare and expensive symbols—a quest that is ultimately futile since it is individualism itself that produces uniformity. This is poorly understood by Americans, who tend to confuse uniformity with “conformity,” in the sense of compliance with or submission to group demands. Many societies exert far more pressure on the individual to mold oneself to fit a particularized segment of a total group pattern, but there is variation among these circumscribed roles. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27
Our society gives far more leeway to the individual to pursue one’s own ends, but, since it defines what is worthy and desirable, everyone tends, independently but monotonously, to purse the same things in the same way. The first pattern combines cooperation, conformity, and variety; the second, competition, individualism, and uniformity. These relationships are exemplified by two familiar processes in contemporary America: the flight to the suburbs like Cresleigh Ranch and Plumas Ranch by Cresleigh, and the do-it-yourself movement. Both attempts to deny human interdependence and pursue unrealistic fantasies of self-sufficiency. The first tries to overlook our dependence upon the city for the maintenance of the level of culture we demand. “Civilized” means, literally, “citified,” and the state of the city is an accurate index of the condition of the culture as a whole. We behave toward our cities like an irascible farmer who never feeds one’s cows and then kicks her when she fails to give enough milk. However, the flight to the suburb is in any case self-defeating, its goals subverted by the mass quality of the exodus. The suburban dweller seeks peace, privacy, nature, community, and a child-rearing environment which is healthy and culturally optimal. #Randolphharris 17 of 27
Instead one finds neither the beauty and serenity of the countryside, the simulation of the city, nor the stability of the countryside, the stimulation of the city, nor the stability and sense of community of the small town, and one’s children are exposed to a cultural deprivation equaling that of any slum child with a television set. Living in a narrow age-graded and class-segregated society, it is little wonder that suburban families have contributed so little to the national talent pool in proportion to their numbers, wealth, and other social advantages. Using cities, small towns, and rural areas for comparison. The small Midwestern town achieves its legendary dullness by a process akin to evaporation—all the warm and energetic particles depart for coastal cities, leaving their place of origin colder and flatter than they found it. However, the restless spirit in a small town knows one lives in the sticks and has a limited range of experience, while one’s suburban counterpart can sustain an illusion of cosmopolitanism in an environment which is far more constricted (a small town is a microcosm, a suburb merely a layer). And this transplantation, which has caused the transplants to atrophy, has blighted the countryside and impoverished the city. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27
A final irony of the suburban dream is that, for many Americans, reaching the pinnacle of one’s social ambitions (owning a house in the suburbs) requires one to perform all kinds of menial tasks (carrying the garbage cans, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, and so on) that were performed for one when one occupied a less exalted status. Some of this manual labour, however, is voluntary—an attempt to deny the elaborate division of labour required in a complex society. Many Americans seem quite willing to pay this price for their reluctance to engage in interpersonal encounters with servants and artisans—a price which is rather high unless the householder particularly relishes the work (some find in it a tangible relief from the intangibles they manipulate in their own jobs) or is especially good at it, or cannot command a higher rate of pay in the job market than servant artisan. Much of the great power of feelings over life derives not just from the fact that they touch us, move us, but from the fact that they creep over into other areas of our life; they pervade, they change the overall tone of our life and our World. They spread like an unstable dye or viral form or a yeast. They may take over all else in us, even that to which they have no relevance. Things and people around us then look different, take on a distinctive tone or meaning. And that can even determine the tendency and outcome of our life as a whole. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27
“And now it came to pass in the commencement of the twenty and fifth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi they having established peace between the people of Morianton concerning their lands, and having commenced the twenty and fifth years in peace; nevertheless, they did not long maintain an entire peace in the land, for there began to be a contention among the people concerning the chief judge Pahoran; for behold, there were a part of the people who desired that a few particular points of the law should be altered. However, behold, Pahoran would not alter nr suffer the law to be altered; therefore, he did not hearken to those who had sent in their voices with their petitions concerning the altering of the law. Therefore, those who were desirous that the law should be altered were angry with him, and desired that he should no longer be chief judge over the land; therefore there arose a warm dispute concerning the manner, but not unto bloodshed. And it came to pass that those who were desirous that Pahoran should be dethroned from the judgment-seat were called king-men, for they were desirous that the law should be altered in a manner to overthrown the free government and to establish a king over the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27
“And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon them the name of freemen; and thus was the division among them, for the freemen had sworn or covenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government. And it came to pass that this matter of their contention was settled by the voice of the people. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came in favour of the freeman, and Pahoran retained the judgment-seat, which caused much rejoicing among the brethren of Pahoran and also many of the people of liberty, who also put the king-men to silence, that they durst not oppose but were obliged to maintain the cause of freedom. Now those who were in favour of kings were those of high birth, and they sought to be kings; and they were supported by those who sought power and authority over the people. However, behold, this was a critical time for such contentions to be among the people of Nephi; for behold, Amalickiah had again stirred up the hearts of the people of the Lamanites against the people of the Nephites, and he was gathering together soldiers from all parts of his land, and arming them, and preparing for war with all diligence; for he had sworn to drink the blood of Moroni. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27
“However, behold, we shall see that his promise which he made was rash; nevertheless, he did prepare himself and his armies to come to battle against the Nephites. Now his armies were not so great as they had hitherto been, because of many thousands who had been slain by the hand of the Nephites; but notwithstanding their great loss, Amalickiah had gathered together a wonderfully great army, insomuch that he feared not to come down to the land of Zarahemla. Yea, even Amalickiah did himself come down, at the head of the Lamanites. And it was in the twenty and fifth year of the reign of the judges; and it was at the same tie that they had begun to settle the affairs of their contentions concerning the chief judge, Pahoran. And it came to pass that when the men who were called king-men had heard that Lamanites were coming down to battle against them, they were glad in their hearts; and they refused to take up arms, for they were so worth with the chief judge, and also with the people of liberty, that they would not take up arms to defend their country. And it came to pass when Moroni saw this, and also saw that the Lamanites were coming into the borders of the land, he was exceedingly worthy because of the stubbornness of those people whim he had laboured with so much diligence to preserve; yea, he was exceedingly wroth; his soul was filled with anger against them. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27
“And it came to pass that he sent a petition, with the voice of the people, unto the governor of the land, desiring that he should read it, and give him (Moroni) power to compel those dissenters to defend their country or to put them to death. For it was his first care to put an end to such contentions and dissensions among the people; for behold, this had been hitherto a cause of all their destruction. And it came to pass that it was granted according to the voice of the people. And it came to pass that Moroni commanded that his army should go against those king-men, to pull down their pride and their nobility and level them with the Earth, or they should take up arms and support the cause of liberty. And it came to pass that the armies did march forth against them; and they did pull down their pride and their nobility, insomuch that as they did life their weapons of war to fight against them humans of Moroni they were taken and cast into prison, for there was no time for their trials at this period. And the remainder of those dissenters, rather than be smitten down to the Earth by the sword, yielded to the standard of liberty, and were compelled to hoist the title of liberty upon their towers, and in their cities, and to take up arms in defence of their country. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27
And thus Moroni put a end to those king-men, that there were not any known by the appellation of king-men; and thus he put an end to the stubbornness and the pride of those people who professed the blood of nobility; but they were brought down to humble themselves like unto their brethren, and to fight valiantly for their freedom from bondage. Behold, it came to pass that while Moroni was thus breaking down the wars and contentions among his own people, and subjecting them to peace and civilization, and making regulations to prepare for war against the Lamanites, behold, the Lamanites had come into the land of Moroni, which was in the borders by the seashore. And it came to pass that the Nephites were not sufficiently strong in the city of Moroni; therefore Amalickiah did drive them, slaying many. And it came to pass that Amalickiah took possession of the city, yea, possession of all their fortifications. And those who fled out of the city of Nephihah; and also the people of the city of Lehi gathered themselves together, and made preparations and were ready to receive the Lamanites to battle. However, it came to pass that Amalickiah would not suffer the Lamanites to go against the city of Nephihah to battle, but kept them down by the seashore, leaving humans in every city to maintain and defend it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27
“And thus he went on, taking possession of any cities, the city of Nephihah, and the city of Lehi, and the city of Morianton, and the city of Omner, and the city of Gd, and the city of Mulek, all of which were on the east borders by the seashores. And thus had the Lamanites obtained, by the cunning of Amalickiah, so many cities, by their numberless hosts, all of which were strongly fortified after the manner of the fortifications of Moroni; all of which afforded strongholds for the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they marched to the borders of the land Bountiful, driving the Nephites because them and slaying many. However, it came to pass that they were met by Teancum, who had slain Morianton and had headed his people in his flight. And it came to pass that he headed Amalickiah also, as he was marching forth with his numerous army that he might take possession of the land Bountiful, and also the land northward. However, behold he met with a disappointment by being repulsed by Teancum and his men, for they were great warriors; for every man of Teancum did exceed the Lamanites in their strength and in their skill of war, insomuch that they did gain advantage over the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they did harass them, insomuch that they did slay them even until it was dark. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27
“And it came to pass that Teancum and his men did pitch their tents in the borders of the land Bountiful; and Amalickiah did pitch his tents in the borders on the beach by the seashore, and after this manner were they driven. And it came to pass that when the night had come, Teancum and his servant stole forth and went out by night, and went into the camp of Amalickiah; and behold, sleep had overpowered them because of their much fatigue, which was caused by the labours and heat of the day. And it came to pass that Teancum stole privily into the tent of the king, and put a javelin to his heart; and he did cause the death of the king immediately that he did not awake his servants. And he returned again privily to his own camp, and behold, his men were asleep, and he awoke them and told the all the things that he had done. And he caused that his armies should stand in readiness, lest the Lamanites had awakened and should come upon them. And thus endeth the twenty and fifth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi; and thus endeth the days of Amalickiah,” reports Alma 51.1-37. God, you are the cauldron of wisdom, from which inspiration flows. You are the broad Earth, which gives birth to all life. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27
You are the circling Moon, ruling the tides of oceans. You are the endless night sky, filled with numberless stars. You are a grove of birch trees, shining in the forest deeps. God, you are the Father of us all, and we look to you in wonder and awe. Ascribe unto the Lord, ye ministering angels, ascribe unto the Lord glory and power. Render unto the Lord the glory dude unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thundereth! The Lord is mighty; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord shattereth the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh the mountains leap like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a wild ox. The voice of the Lord heweth out flames; the Lord heweth out flames of fire. The voice of the Lord causeth the desert to tremble; the Lord maketh the desert of Kadesh tremble. The voice of the Lord maketh the oak trees dance, and strippeth the forests bare; while in His Temple everything proclaims His glory. The Lord was King at the Flood; the Lord shall remain King forever. May the Lord give strength unto His people; may the Lord bless His people with peace. In the dark night sky, the stars are shining jewels on the body of God of night. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27
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You Always Hold Your Loved One in Your Heart, but You Must Let Go of Your Grief!
We have probed the Earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it….That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-moth bases, we would have been evicted long ago, and perhaps that is what is going on with COVID-19. Perhaps the Earth is tired of being abused. After 96 percent of wildfires are caused by humans. Reentering America, one is struck first of all by the grim monotony of American facial expressions—hard, surly, and bitter—and by the aura of deprivation that informs them. One goes abroad forewarned against exploitation by grasping foreigners, but nothing is done to prepare the returning traveler for the fanatical acquisitiveness of one’s compatriots. It is difficult to become reaccustomed to seeing people already weighted down with possession acting as if every object they did not own were bread withheld from a hungry mouth. These perceptions are heightened by the contrast between the sullen faces of real people and the vision of happiness television offers: men and women ecstatically engaged in stereotyped symbols of fun—running through fields, strolling on beaches, dancing and singing. Smiling faces with chronically open mouths express their gratification with the manifold bounties offered by the culture. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
One begins to feel there is a sever gap between the fantasies Americans life by and the realities they live in. Americans know from an early age how they are supposed to look when happy and what they are supposed to do or buy to be happy. However, for some reason their fantasies are unrealizable and leave them disappointed and embittered. The traveler’s antennae disappear after a time. These impressions fade, and reentry process is gradually effected. American once again seem familiar, comfortable, ordinary. Yet some uneasiness lingers on, for the society seems troubled and self-preoccupied—as if suddenly large numbers of America were scrutinizing their own society with the doubtful eyes of a traveler. One of the functions of a society is to make its inhabitants feel safe, and American devote more of their collective resources to security than to any other need. They build McMansions in gated communities, have cameras inside and outside the home, every member of the family has a mobile phone and every kind of insure you can dream of. Some people even go as far as buying armored (bullet proof) Ultimate Driving Machines. Yet American still think they need more safety because of shotguns in the close, nuclear bombers patrolling overhead, and the fiction the passes as news. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
With each decade we seem to accumulate more fears, and most of these fears seem to be about each other. In the fifties we were afraid of native Communists, and although we now feel sheepish about that moment of panic, today we express the same kind of fears about the mainstream media and the political party; and in our reactions to all of these fears we have created some very real dangers. Our intense fears make many people believe their race, way of life, religion, wealth, family, home and country are in danger of total extinction. During this COVID-19 crisis, many people have seriously become fearful of a World War III. Given this lack of concern for an overwhelming threat, how can we account for the exaggerated fear of climate change? From Dr. Freud we learned long ago to suspect, when a fear seems out of proportion, that is has been bloated by a wish; and this seems particularly likely when the danger is defined as a psychological one—an evil influence. The truth about climate change is if we want to save the World, we need to stop destroying forests and rain forests. We fear storms and wild beasts, but we do not censor them. If we must guard ourselves against evil influences we there by admit to their seductive appeal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Thus the McCarthy era reached its peak after the discovery that a few Americans has responded to “brainwashing” efforts, and the fear of conversion to Communism was quite explicit in public statements and popular surveys. One survey respondent, for example, made the revealing statement that “so many people in America are eager like those soldiers of ours in Korea to fall into the traps set by Communist propaganda.” The anticommunism of that period and its institutional residues have served as a kind of political fig leaf. The same emphasis surrounds of fears of radicalism today. The political party, peace demonstrations, militance, dens, and student protests are disturbing not only because they provide a serious physical danger (say the equivalent of walking through a street gang wearing the wrong colour), but also because we fear having our secret doubts about the viability of our social system voiced aloud. It is not what happens abroad that generates hysteria, but rather what appears to be happening within ourselves. This is why force must be used against the expression of certain ideas—if the ideas pluck a responsive chord counterarguments are difficult to remember, and one must fall back on clubs and tear gas. However, what is the nature of the attraction exerted by radical ideas on unwilling conservatives? #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
We know something about the hopes that tige the old maid’s search for a ravisher under her bed, but we need to understand better the seductive impact that informs our enraged fascination with the revolutionary currents of American society. Since the very form of this question rests on certain assumptions about culture and personality, however, let me first makes these explicit. The emotional repertory of human beings is limited and standard. When caressed, we are built to feel warm, happy, and content, when frustrated feel angry, when attacked feel frightened, when insulted feel offended, when excluded jealous, and so on. However, every culture holds some of these human reactions to be unacceptable and attempts to warp its participants int some peculiar specialization. Since human beings are malleable within limits, the warping is for the most part successfully achieved, so that some learn not to laugh, some not to cry, some not to love, and some not to hate in situations in which these reactions might appropriately be expressed. This cultural warping of human emotionality is eased by compartmentalization: there are special times and places and situations where the disparaged responses are permitted, or classes of people who can provide vicarious satisfaction through conspicuous performance of some kind. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Yet there are always a few of these responses with which every society and every individual has trouble. They must be shouted down continually, although they are usually visible to the outsider. Thus although the Germans, for example, have always placed great stress on order, precision, and obedience to authority, they periodically explode into revolutionary chaos and are driven by romantic Gotterdammerung fantasies. In the same way there is a cooperative underside to competitive America, a rich spoofing tradition in ceremonious England, an elaborate pornography in all prudish societies, and so on. Rather than saying Germans are obedient or Anglo-Saxon societies stuffy or puritanical, it is more correct to day that Germans are preoccupied with issues of authority, Anglo-Saxons with the control of emotional and pleasures of the flesh expression, and so forth. Those issues about which members of a given society seem to feel strongly all reveal a conflict one side of which is strongly emphasized, the other side as strongly (but not quite successfully) suppressed. These opposing forces are much more equally balanced than the society’s participants like to recognize—were this not true there would be no need for suppression. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Life would indeed be much less frantic if we were all able to recognize the diversity of responses and feelings within ourselves, and could abandon our somewhat futile efforts to present a monolithic self-portrait to the World. Probably some exaggeration of uniformity is necessary, however, in order for us to act at all, or at least with enough consistency to permit smooth social functioning. On the individual level the delicate balance reveals itself though conversion. An individual who “converts” from one orientation to its exact opposite appears to oneself and others to have made a gross change, but actually it involves only a very small shift in the balance of a focal and persistent conflict. Just as only one percent of the voting population is needed to reserves the results of an American election, so only one percent of an individual’s internal “constituencies” need shift in order to transform one from voluptuary to ascetic, from police officer to criminal, from Communist to anticommunist, or whatever. The opposite sides are as evenly matched before, and the apparent change merely represents the desperate efforts made by the internal “majority” to consolidate its shaky position of dominance. The individual must expend just as much energy shouting down the new “minority” as one did the old; some of the most dedicated witch hunters of the 1950’s, for example, were ex-Communist. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
So the reason there is so much division in America right now is because the majority is now becoming the minority, as the demographics change. On the society levels there are more outlets from the expression of “minority” themes and sentiments, and reversals of emphasis involve more overlap between the opposing trends. The United States of America, for example, traditionally one of the most prudish societies in the World, has long displayed, in a somewhat warped and mechanical way, the greatest profusion of stimuli involving pleasures of the flesh. These considerations suggest that the fear of radical movements in America derives much of its intensity from the attraction that such movements have for their opponents—an attraction that must be stifled. However, what is it? What is so severely lacking in our society that the assertion of an alternative life style throws so many Americans into panic and rage? I would like to suggest three human desires that are deeply and uniquely frustrated by American culture: The desire for community—the wish to live in trust and fraternal cooperation with one’s fellows in a total and visible collective eternity. The desire for engagement—the wish to come directly to grips with social and interpersonal problems and to confront on equal terms an environment which is not composed of ego extensions is another human desire that is deeply and uniquely frustrated by American culture. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
The third is the desire for dependence—the wish to share responsibility for the control of one’s impulses and the direction of one’s life. When I say that these three desires are frustrated by American culture, this need not conjure up romantic images of individual struggling against society. In every case it is fair to say that we participate eagerly in producing the frustration we endure—it is not something merely done t us. For these desires are in each case subordinate to their opposites in that vague entity called the American Character. Americans have voluntarily created and voluntarily maintained a society which increasingly frustrates and aggravate these secondary yearnings, to the point where they threaten to become primary. Groups that in any way personify this threat are therefore feared in an exaggerated way, and will be until Americans as a group are able to recognize and accept those needs within themselves. “Thus says the Lord Who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters. Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, even now it is springing to light. Do you not perceive it? A way will I make in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!” (Isaiah 43.16, 18-19.) #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Most of the conditions we commonly speak of as feelings are really not feelings at all; but the feeling tones or sensations that accompany those conditions are so powerful that the conditions themselves become identified with the associated sensations. This is true love and hatred or contempt, for example, but also with hurry and peace and with self-esteem and discouragement. Now, there are some extremely serious dangers here. When we confuse the condition with the accompanying feeling—peace, for example, with the feeling of peacefulness—we very likely will try to manage the feelings and disregard or deny the reality of the conditions. That way lie such things as “falling in love with love” and most of all the well-known addictions. The person who primarily wants the feeling of being loved or being “in love” will be incapable of sustaining loving relationships, whether with God or with other humans. And the person who wants the feeling of peacefulness will be unable to do the things that make for peace—especially, doing what is right and confronting evil. So, as far as our planning for spiritual formation is concerned, we must choose and act with regard to the condition, good or bad, and allow the feelings to take care of themselves, as they certainly will. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
In particular, we must never directly cherish, protect, or manipulate feelings, whether in ourselves or others. When negative feelings have themselves become so overwhelming that they threaten to take over our lives, this is the only exception to this rule. Then we must take steps to remove the negative feeling (grief or pain, for example). Prayer or even medication for such feelings is then wise. However, even so, the focus on the feeling must not be allowed to prevent our dealing, when and as we can, with the conditions from which that feelings arises. A well-known minister, after his wife passed away, said he had learned that there is a difference between turning loose your loved one and turning loose your grief. You always hold your loved one in your heart, but you must let go of your grief. So far as possible, we must always away from painful and destructive feelings. Simply that. Walk away. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers. On the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, so that I had to reject them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
However, this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people for I will forgive their guilt and I will remember their sins no more,” reports Jeremiah 31.31-34. Charles Darwin. Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) has offered a model of emotion for various other theorists and researchers. Darwin focuses on emotive expressions—that is, on visible gestures—and not on the subjective meanings associated with them. These gestures, he posits, were acquired during a prehistoric period and have survived as “serviceable associated habits.” Originally linked to actions these emotive gestures become actions manque. The emotion of love, for example, is the vestige of what was once a direct act of copulation. The baring of teeth in rage is a vestige of the once immediate act of biting. The expression of disgust is the vestige of what was once the immediate act of regurgitating a noxious thing. For Darwin, there is no emotion without gesture although there may be gesture without action. (The says the Lord God: ) “I will give them a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within them. I will remove their heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh,” reports Ezekiel 11.19. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Darwin’s theory of emotion, then, is a theory of gesture. The question for later students thus became: are emotive gestures universal or are they culturally specific? Darwin’s own general conclusion was that they were universal. Darwin distinguished between facial expressions of emotion that are innate and universal and facial gestures (not necessarily of emotion) that are learned and thus culturally variable. He devised a sixteen-item questionnaire and sent it to thirty-six missionaries and others who had lived in non-Western societies. One question was: “Can a dogged or obstinate expression be recognized, which is chiefly shown by the mouth being firmly closed, a lowering brow, and a slight frown?” Based on his returned questionnaires, Darwin concluded that “the chief expressive actions” of human beings were innate and therefore universal. Despite his generally universalist interpretations, however, Darwin concluded that some nonverbal behaviours (such as weeping, kissing, nodding, and shaking the head in affirmation and negation) were not universal but culture-specific and “learned like the words of a language.” However, the debate has been carried forward by those who argue that emotional expressions are probably innate, and those who argue that they are modeled on language and therefore culturally variable. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
What is missing from both sides of this debate is what was missing in Darwin’s theory from the beginning: a conception of emotion as subjective experience and a more subtle and complex notion of how social factor impinge. Humans compete with each other for control of the ritual apparatus, which is a powerful tool for commanding people by controlling their emotions. The ego is a mediator between the id (drive) and conscious expression. Affects are seen as signals of impending danger (from inside or outside) and as an impetus to action. The ego is assigned the capacity to postpone id drives, to neutralize or bind them. One emotion—anxiety—is the model for all others because it is more important due to the unpleasantness of anxiety which leads to the development of various ego defenses against unpleasantness. As analysts we recognize that anxiety occupies a special position in mental life. It is the motive for defense. Defenses serve the purpose of minimizing, or, if possible, preventing the development of anxiety. Anxiety was initially defined in a way that bypasses the ego: anxiety is the reaction to an influx of stimuli which is too great for the mental apparatus to master or discharge. (Thus says the Lord God: ) “I ignore the troubles of the past. I shut mine eyes to them. For, behold, I create new Heavens and a new Earth. The past shall be forgotten and never come to mind. Humans shall rejoice forever in what I now create,” reports Isaiah 65.16, 17. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
So we see that God is a worker and that humans, created in God’s image, is a worker and that work is good. However, then come the Fall and the Curse. “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return,” Genesis 3.17-19. The Curse made nature uncooperative, so that work became painful toil and humans had to sweat for a living. Today our working conditions vary. Some sweat more than others. We may be in a better position than some. However, the norm for the World is “painful toil.” Even more, the normal experience of humankind is one’s labour is a malaise of futility. The writer of Ecclesiastes gave this universal expression as he bemoaned his plight from the perspective of one who leaves God out of his life. In 2.4-10 he describes his professional success in acquiring vineyards and gardens and parks and enslaved humans and flocks and treasures. He was greater than all his contemporaries. He was denied nothing his eyes desired. However, he concluded in verse 11, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing gained under the Sun.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
And he reiterates in verse 17, “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the Sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the win.” Humans and others, this is as far as work will take you apart from God. You will engaged in it because, though fallen, you are in the image of God and because work is part of the natural order, and it will produce its benefits and satisfactions—but it will also be toil, and its joys will be ephemeral. Studs Terkel has revealed what has always been true under the Sun when God is left out. “And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of Earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites. And upon the top of these ridges of Earth he caused that there should be timers, yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a human, round about the cities. And he caused that upon those works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high. And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
“And they were prepared that they could cast stones from the top thereof, according to their pleasure and their strength, and slay one who should attempt to approach near he walls of the city. Thus Moroni did prepare strongholds against the coming of their enemies, round about every city in all the land. And it came to pass that Moroni caused that his armies should go forth into the east wilderness; yea, and they went forth and drove all he Lamanites who were in the east wilderness into their own lands, which were south of the land of Zarahemla. And the land of Nephi did run in a straight course from the east sea to the west. And it came to pass that when Moroni had driven all the Lamanites out of the east wilderness which was north of the lands of their own possessions, he caused that the inhabitants who were in the land of Zarahemla and in the land round about should go forth into the east wilderness, even to the borders by the seashore, and possess the land. And he also placed armies on the south, in the borders of their possessions, and caused them to erect fortifications that they might secure their armies and their people from the hands of their enemies. And thus he cut off all the strongholds of the Lamanites in the East wilderness, yea, and also on the west, fortifying the line between the land of Zarahemla and the land of Nephi, from the west sea, running by the head of the river of Sidon—the Nephites possessing all the land northward, yea, even all the land which was northward of the land Bountiful according to their pleasure. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“Thus Moroni, with his armies, which did increase daily because of the assurance of protection which his works did bring forth unto them, did seek to cut off the strength and the power of the Lamanites from off the lands of their possession, that they should have no power upon the lands of their possession. And it came to pass that the Nephites began the foundation of a city, and they called the nae of the city Moroni; and it was by the east sea; and it was on the south by the line of the possessions of the Lamanites. And they also began a foundation for a city between the city of Moroni and the city of Aaron, joining he borders of Aaron and Moroni; and they called the name of the city, or the land, Nephihah. And they also began in that same year to build many cities on the north, one in a particular manner which they called Lehi, which was in the north by the borders of the seashore. And thus ended the twentieth year. And in these prosperous circumstances were the people of Nephi in the commencement of the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And they did prosper exceedingly, and they became exceedingly rich; yea, and they did multiply and wax strong in the land. And thus we see how merciful and jus are all the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of humans; yea, we can behold that his words are verified, even at this time, which he spake unto Lehi, saying: #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Blessed art thou and thy children; and they shall be blessed, inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. However, remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. However, remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And we see that these promises have been verified to the people of Nephi; for it has been their quarrelings and their contentions, yea, their murderings, and their plunderings, their idolatry, their whoredoms, and their abominations, which were among themselves, which brought them their wars and their destructions. And those who were faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord were delivered at all times, whilst thousands of their wicked brethren have been consigned to bondage, or to perish by the sword, or to dwindle in unbelief, and mingle with the Lamanites. However, behold, there was never a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges. And it came to pass that the twenty and second year of the reign of the judges also ended in peace; yea, and also the twenty and third year. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“And it came to pass that in the commencement of the twenty and fourth year of the reign of the judges, there would also have been peace among the people of Nephi had it not been for a contention which took place among them concerning the land of Lehi, and the land of Morianton, which joined upon the borders of Lehi; both of which were on the borders by the seashore. For behold, the people who possessed the land of Morianton did claim a part of the land of Lehi; therefore there began to be a warm contention between them, insomuch that the people of Morianton took up arms against their brethren, and they were determined by the sword to slay them. However, behold, the people who possessed the land of Lehi fled to the camp of Moroni, and appealed unto him for assistance; for behold they were not in the wrong. And it came to pass that when the people of Morianton, who were led by a man whose name was Morianton, found that the people of Lehi had fled to the camp of Moroni they were exceedingly fearful lest the army of Moroni should come upon them and destroy them. Therefore, Morianton put it into their hearts that they should flee to the land which was northward, which was covered with large bodies of water, and take possession of the land which was northward. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And behold, they would have carried this plan into effect, (which would have been a cause to have been lamented) but behold, Morianton being a man of much passion, therefore he was angry with one of his maid servants, and he fell upon her and beat her much. And it came to pass that she fled, and came over to the camp of Moroni, and told Moroni all things concerning the matter, and also concerning their intentions to flee into the land northward. Now behold, the people who were in the land Bountiful, or rather Moroni, feared that they would hearken to the words of Morianton and unite with his people, and thus he would obtain possession of those parts of the land, which would lay a foundation for serious consequences among the people of Nephi, yea, which consequences would lead to the overthrow of their liberty. Therefore Moroni sent an army, with their camp, to head the people of Morianton, to stop their flight into the land northward. And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east. And it came to pass that the army which was sent by Moroni, which was led by a man whose name was Teancum did meet the people of Morianton. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
And when Teancu met the people of Morianton, so stubborn were the people of Morianton, (being inspired by wickedness and his flattering words) that a battle commenced between them, in which Teancum did slay Morianton and defeat his army, and took them prisoners, and returned to the camp of Moroni. And thus ended the twenty and fourth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And thus were the people of Morianton brought back. And upon their covenanting to keep the peace they were restored to the land of Morianton, and a union took place between them and the people of Lehi; and they were also restored to their lands. And it came to pass that in the same year that the people of Nephi had peace restored unto them, that Nephihah, the second chief judge, died, having filled the judgment seat with perfect uprightness before God. Nevertheless, he had refused Alma to take possession of those records and those things which were esteemed by Alma and his fathers to be most sacred; therefore Alma had conferred them upon his son, Helaman. Behold, it came to pass that the son of Nephihah, Pahoran, was appointed to fill the judgment-seat, in the stead of his father; yea, he was appointed chief judge and governor over the people, with an oath and sacred ordinance to judge righteously, and to keep the peace and the freedom of the people. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Pahoran also had the power to grant unto them their sacred privileges to worship the Lord their God, yea, to support and maintain the cause of God all his days, and to bring the wicked to justice according to their crime. And Pahoran did fill the seat of his father, and did commence his reign in the end of the twenty and fourth year, over the people of Nephi,” Alma 50.1-40. Wonder and awe, as I sit in your presence, you who sit in the gateway, in this World and in the other, mediating the power that shines through, letting pass what I need, and what I can use, holding back in mercy what I cannot. Seen against the brightness, your dark silhouette is still and sharp and clear. Sitting fiercely, with perfect intent, pure in your purpose, source of terror and comfort. A roaring fire, you sit in my heart’s center. A rampaging bull, you tear through my soul. A searing bolt, you cut through my life. A skirring arrow, you slice me in two. A standing stone, you are my anchor. The Lord reigneth while the people stand in awe; He is enthroned upon His judgment seat, while the Earth trembles. The Lord is mighty in Zion; He is exalted over all peoples. They praise His name: “God is great and revered, is holy.” Mighty King who loveth justice, Thou hast established equity; Justice and righteousness hast Thou wrought in Jacob. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
A tall-standing cypress tree is our God, supporting the Worlds on his limbs, each World ordered according to the spreading of His branches. Into each World, His twigs extend, bearing the leaves and birds that are our lives. From what source is the tree nourished? Where do its roots extend? Deep within the void they reach and are fed there from the substance of the Goddess. He makes known her will, giving it form, from which we might know it and live according to its pattern. Shaper and essence, open my eyes, open my ears, open my heart, that I might perceive the sacred pattern and conform my life to it. The goddess is the one who is Lady of all, and she is the one of whom I would speak, the one who gives birth and the one who brings death, beginning and end of the course of our lives. God is the Lord Almighty. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool, declaring: “Holy is He!” Moses and Aaron were among His priests; Samuel was among those that called upon His name, calling upon the Lord and being answered. He would speak unto them out of a pillar of cloud; they kept His testimonies and the laws He gave them. Thou, O Lord, didst answer them; Thou wast a forgiving God unto them, through punishing them for their evil. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Cauliflower is Nothing but a Cabbage with a College Education!
We agree completely on everything, including that fact that we do not see eye to eye. The principles of justice for institutions must not be confused with the principles which apply to individuals and their actions in particular circumstances. Now by an institution I shall understand a public system of rules which defines offices and positions with their rights and duties, powers and immunities, and the like. These rules specify certain forms of action as permissible, others as forbidden; and they provide for certain penalties and defenses, and so on, when violations occur. As examples of institutions, or more generally social practices, we may think games and rituals, trials and parliaments, markets and systems of property. An institution may be thought of in two ways: first as an abstract object, that is, as a possible form of conduct expressed by a system of rules; and second, as the realization in thought and conduct of certain persons at a certain time and place of the actions specified by the rules. There is an ambiguity, then, as to which is just or unjust, the institution as realized or the institution as an abstract object. It seems best to say that it is the institution as an abstract object is just or unjust in the sense that any realization of it would be just or unjust. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
An institution exists at a certain time and place when the actions specified by it are regularly carried out in accordance with a public understanding that the system of rules defining the institution is to be followed. Thus parliamentary institutions are defined by a certain system of rules (or family of such system to allow for variations). These rules enumerate certain forms of action ranging from holding a session of parliament to taking a vote on a bill to raising a point of order. Various kinds of general norms are organized int a coherent scheme. A parliamentary institution exists at a certain time and place when certain people perform the appropriate actions, engage in these activities in the required way, with a reciprocal recognition of one another’s understanding that their conduct accords with the rules they are to comply with. In saying that an institution, and therefore the basic structure of society, is a public system of rules, I mean then that everyone engages in it knows what one would know if these rules and one’s participation in the activity they define were the result of an agreement. A person taking part in an institution knows what the rules demand of one and of others. One also knows that the others know this and that they know that ne knows this, and so on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
To be sure, the condition is not always fulfilled in the case of actual institutions, but it is a reasonable simplifying assumption. The principles of justice are to apply to social arrangements understood to be public in a sense. Where the rules of a certain subpart of an institution are understanding that those in this part can make rules for themselves as long as these rules are designed to achieve ends generally acceptable and others are not adversely affected. The publicity of the rules of an institution insures that those engaged in it know what limitations on conduct to expect of one another and what kinds of actions are permissible. There is a common basis for determining mutual expectation. Moreover, in a well-ordered society, one effectively regulated by a shared conception of justice, there is also a public understanding as to what is just and unjust. It is necessary to note the distinction between the constitutive rules of an institution, which established its various rights and duties and so on, and strategies and maxims for how best to take advantage of the institution for particular purposes. Rational strategies and maxims are not themselves part of the institution. Rather they belong to the theory of it, for example to the theory of parliamentary politics. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Normally the theory of an institution, just as that of a game takes the constitutive rules as given and analyzes the way in which power is distributed and explains how those engaged in it are likely to avail themselves of its opportunities. In designing and reforming social arrangements one must, of course, examine the schemes and tactics it allows and the forms of behaviour which it tends to encourage. Ideally the rules should be set up so that humans are led by their predominant interests to act in ways which further socially desirable ends. The conduct of individuals guided by their rational plans should be coordinated as far as possible to achieve results which although not intended or perhaps even foreseen by them are nevertheless the best ones from the standpoint of social justice. Bentham thinks of this coordination as he artificial identification of interests, Adam Smith as the work of the invisible hand. It is he aim of the ideal legislator in enacting laws and of the moralist in urging their reform. Still, the strategies and tactics followed by individuals, while essential to the assessment of institutions, are not part of the public system of rules which define them. We may also distinguish between a single rule (or group of rules), and institution (or a major part thereof), and the basic structure of the social system as a whole. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
The reason for doing this is that one or several rules of an arrangement may be unjust without the institution itself being so. Similarly, an institution may be unjust although the social system as a whole is not. There is the possibility not only that single rules and institutions are not by themselves sufficiently important but that within the structure of an institution or social system one apparent injustice compensates for another. The whole is less unjust than it would be if it contained but one of the unjust parts. Further, it is conceivable that a social system may be unjust even though none of its institutions are unjust take separately: the injustice is a consequence of how they are combined together into a single system. One institution may encourage and appear to justify expectations which are denied or ignored by another. These distinctions are obvious enough. They simply reflect the fact that in appraising institutions we may view them in a wider or a narrower context. There are, it should be remarked, institutions in regard to which the concept of justice does not ordinarily apply. A ritual, say, is not usually regarded as either just or unjust, although cases can no doubt be imagined in which this would be true, for example, the ritual sacrifice of the first-born or of prisoners of war. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
A general theory of justice would consider when rituals and other practices not commonly thought of as just or unjust are indeed subject to this form of criticism. Presumably they must involve in some way the allocation among persons of certain rights and values. However, our concern is solely with the basic structure of society and its major institutions and therefore with the standard cases of social justice. Now let us suppose a certain basic structure to exist. Its rules satisfy a certain conception of justice. We may not ourselves accept its principles of justice in the sense that for this system they assume the role of justice: they provide an assignment of fundamental rights and duties and they determine the division of advantages from social cooperation. Let us also imagine that this conception of justice is by and large accepted in the society and that institutions are impartially and consistently administered by judges and other officials. That similar cases are treated similarly, the relevant similarities and differences being those identified by the existing norms. The correct rules as defined by institutions is regularly adhered to and properly interpreted by authorities. This impartial and consistent administration of laws and institutions, whatever their substantive principles, we may call formal justice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
If we think of justice as always expressing a kind of equality, then formal justice requires that in their administration laws and institutions should apply equally (that is, in the same way) to those belonging to the classes defined by them. As Sidgwick emphasized, this sort of equality is implied in the very notion of a law or institution, once it is thought of as a scheme of general rules. Formal justice is adherence to principle, or as some have said, obedience to system. It is obvious that law and institutions may be equally executed and yet be unjust. Treating similar cases similarly is not a sufficient guarantee of substantive justice. This depends upon the principles in accordance with the basic structure is framed. There is no contradiction in supposing that a slave or caste society, or one sanctioning the most arbitrary forms of discrimination, is evenly and consistently administered, although this may be unlikely. Nevertheless, formal justice, or justice as regularity, excludes significant kinds of injustices. For if it is supposed that institutions are reasonably just, then it is of great importance that the authorities should be impartial and not influenced by personal, monetary, or other irrelevant considerations in their handling of particular cases. Formal justice in the case of legal institutions is simply an aspect of the rule of law which supports and secures legitimate expectations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
One kind of injustice is the failure of judges and others in authority to adhere to the appropriate rules or interpretations thereof in deciding claims. A person is unjust to the extent that from character and inclination one is disposed to such actions. Moreover, even where laws and institutions are unjust, it is often better that they should be consistently applied. In this way those subject to them at least know what is demanded and they can try to protect themselves accordingly; whereas there is even greater injustice if those already disadvantaged are also arbitrarily treated in particular cases when the rules would give them some security. On the other hand, it might still better in particular cases to alleviate the plight of those unfairly treated by departments from the existing norms. How far we are justified in doing this, especially at the expense of expectations founded in good faith on current institutions, is one of the tangled questions of political justice. In general, all that can be said is that the strength of the claims of formal justice, of obedience to system, clearly depend upon the substantive justice of institutions and the possibilities of their reform. Some have held that in fact substantive and formal justice tend to go together and therefore that at least grossly unjust institutions are never, or at any rate rarely, impartially and consistently administered. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
Those who uphold and gain from unjust arrangements, and who deny with contempt the rights and liberties of others, are not likely, it is said, to let scruples concerning the rule of law interfere with their interests in particular cases. The inevitable vagueness of laws in general and the wide scope allowed for their interpretation encourages an arbitrariness in reaching decisions which only an allegiance to justice can allay. Thus it is maintained that where we find formal justice, the rule of law and the honouring of legitimate expectations, we are likely to find substantive justice as well. The desire to follow rules impartially and consistently, to treat similar cases similarly, and t accept the consequences of the supplication of public norms is intimately connected with the desire, or at least the willingness, to recognize the rights and liberties of others and to share fairly in the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. The one desire tends to be associated with the other. This contention is certainly plausible, but I shall not examine it here. For it cannot be properly assessed until we know what are the most reasonable principles of substantive justice and under what conditions humans comes to affirm and to live by them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Once we understand the content of these principles and their basis in reason and human attitudes, we may be in a position to decide whether substantive and formal justice are tied together. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, one also oneself likewise took part of the same; that through death one might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily, he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted,” reports Hebrews 2.14-18. The darkness into which the light of Christmas shines is above all the darkness of death. The threat of death, which shadows the whole road of our life, is the dark background of the Advent expectations of humankind. Death is not merely the scissors which cuts the thread of our life, as a famous ancient symbol indicates. It is rather one of those threads which are woven into the design of our existence, from its very beginning to its end. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
The force of energy is not entirely incomprehensible: But are we not equally ignorant of the manner or force by which a mind, even the supreme mind, operates either on itself or on body? When I beseech you, do we acquire any idea of it? We have no sentiment or consciousness of this power in ourselves. We have no idea of the Supreme being but what we learn from reflection on our own faculties. Were our ignorance, therefore, a god reason for rejecting anything, we should be led into that principle of denying all energy in the Supreme Being as much as in the grossest matter. We surely comprehend as little the operations of one as the other. Is it more difficult to conceive, that motion may arise from impulses, than that it may arise from volition? All we know is our profound ignorance in both cases. Our having to die is a shaping force through our whole being of body and soul in every moment. The face of every being shows the trace of the presence of death in one’s life, of one’s fear of death, of one’s courage toward death, and of one’s resignation to death. This frightful presence of death subjects humans to bondage and servitude all their lives, according to our text. Ignorance or impotence may be pleaded for so limited a creature as humans; but those imperfections have no place in our Creator. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
So far as I stand in fear, I stand not in freedom; and I am not free to act as the situation demands, but am bund to act as the pictures and imaginations produced by my fear drives me to act. For fear is, above all, fear of the unknown; and the darkness of the unknown is filled with the images created by fear. This is true even with respect to events on the plane of daily life: the unknown face terrifies the infant; the unknown will of the parent and the teacher creates fear in the child; and all the unknown implications of any situation or new task produce fear, which is the feeling of not being able to handle the situation. All this is true to an absolute degree with respect to death—the absolutely unknown; the darkness in which there is no light at all, and in which even imagination vanishes; that darkness in which all acting and controlling cease, and in which everything which we were is finished; the most necessary and impossible idea at the same time; the real and ultimate object of fear from which all other fears derive their power, that fear the overwhelmed even Christ at Gethsemane. However, we must ask what is the reason for this fear. Are not finite, limited and unable to imagine or to wish for an infinite continuation of our finiteness? Would that not be more terrible than death? #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Is there not a feeling within us of fulfillment, of satisfaction, and of weariness with respect to life, as is evident in the words about the Old Testament Patriarchs? Is not the law “dust to dust” a natural law? However, then why is it used as a curse in the Paradise story? There must be something more profoundly mysterious about death than the natural melancholy which accompanies the realization of our transitoriness. Paul points to it, when he calls death the wages of sin, and sin, the sting of death. And our text, as well, speaks of “him that had the power of death, that is, the devil”—the organized power of sin and evil. Death, although natural to every finite being, seems at the same time to stand against nature. However, it is humans only who are able to face their death consciously; that belongs to their greatness and dignity. It is that which enables one to look at one’s life as a whole, from a definite beginning to a definite end. It is that which enables one to ask for the meaning of one’s life—a question which elevates one above one’s life, and gives one the feeling of one’s eternity. Human’s knowledge that one has to die is also human’s knowledge that one is above death. It is human’s destiny to be moral and immortal at the same time. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Events seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of anything, which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings, or common life. And now we know what the sting of death is, and why the devil has the power of death: we have lost our immortality. It is not that we are mortal which creates the ultimate fear of death, but rather that we have lost our eternity beyond our natural and inescapable mortality; that we have lost it by sinful separation from the Eternal; and that we are guilty of this separation. To be in servitude to the fear of death during our lifetime means beings in servitude to the fear of death which is nature and guilt at the same time. In the fear of death, it is not merely the knowledge of our having lost eternity. We are slaves of dear, not because we have to ide, but because we deserve to die. Every idea is copied from some preceding impression or sentiment; and where we cannot find any impression, we may be certain that there is no idea. In all single instances of the operation of bodies or minds, there is nothing that produces any impression, nor consequently can suggest any idea, of power or necessary connexion. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
However, when many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event; we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion. We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to wit, a customer connection in the thought or imagination between one object and its usual attendant; and this sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for. For as this idea arises from a number of similar instances, and not from any single instance; it must arise from that circumstance, in which the number of instances differ from every individual instance. However, this customary connexion or transition of the imagination is the only circumstance, in which they differ. In ever other particular they are alike. To be in servitude to the fear of death during our lifetime means being in servitude to the fear of death which is nature and guilt at the same time. In the fear of death, it is not merely the knowledge of our finiteness that is preserved, but also the knowledge of our infinity, of our being determined for eternity, and of having lost eternity. We are slaves of fear, not because we have to ide, but because we deserve to die! Therefore, salvation is not a magic procedure by which we lose our finiteness. It is rather a judgment which declares that we do not deserve to ide, because we are justified—a judgement which is not based on anything we have done, for then certainly we would have faith in it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
However, it is based on something that Eternity itself has done, something that we can hear and see, in the reality of a mortal human who by one’s own death has conquered one who has the power over death. If Christmas has any meaning, it has that meaning. Ask yourself, as you listen to the prophecies of Advent and to the stores of Christmas, whether your attitude toward death has changed; whether you are any longer in servitude to the fear of death; and whether you can stand the image of your own death. Do not deceive yourself about the seriousness of death—not death in general, not the death of somebody else, but your own death—by nice arguments for the immortality of the soul. The Christian message is more realistic than those arguments. It knows that we, really we, have to die; it is not just a part of us that has to die. And within Christianity there is only one “argument” against death: the forgiveness of sins, and the victory over Him who has the power of death. It speaks of the coming of the Eternal to us, becoming temporal in order to restore our eternity. The whole human is mortal and immortal at the same time, because the Eternal took part in flesh and blood and fear of death. That is the message of Christmas. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
It is true; if humans attempt the discussion of questions, which lie entirely beyond the reach of human capacity, which as those concerning the origins of Worlds, or the economy of the intellectual system or region of spirits, they may long beat the air in their fruitless contests, and never arrive at any determinate conclusion. However, if the question regard any subject of common life and experience; nothing, one would think, could preserve the dispute so long undecided, but some ambiguous expressions, which keep the antagonists still at a distance, and hinder them from grappling with each other. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit; these passions, mixed in various degrees, and distributed through society, have been, from the beginning of the World, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprises, which have ever been observed among humankind. “And now it came to pass in the eleventh month of the nineteenth year, on the tenth day of the month, the armies of the Lamanites were seen approaching towards the land of Ammonihah. And behold, the city had been rebuilt, and Moroni had stationed an army by the borders of the city and they had cast up dirt round about to shield them from the arrows and the stones of the Lamanites; for behold, they fought with stones and with arrows. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
“Behold, I said that the city of Ammonihah had been rebuilt. I say unto you, yea, that it was in part rebuilt; and because the Lamanites had destroyed it once because of the iniquity of the people, they supposed that it would again become an easy prey for them. However, behold, how great was their disappointment; for behold, the Nephites had dug up a ridge of Earth round about them, which was so high that the Lamanites could not cast their stones and their arrows at them that they might take effect, neither could they come upon them save it was by their place of entrance. Now at this time the chief captains of the Lamanites were astonished exceedingly, because of the wisdom of the Nephites in preparing their places for security. Now the leaders of the Lamanites had supposed, because of the greatness of their numbers, yea, they supposed that they should be privileged to come upon them as they had hitherto done; yea, and they had also prepared themselves with shields, and with breastplates; and they had also prepared themselves with garments of skins, yea, very think garments to cover their nakedness. And being thus prepared they supposed that they should easily overpower and subject their brethren to the yoke of bondage, or slay and massacre them according to their pleasure. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“However, behold, to their uttermost astonishment, they were prepared for them, in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi. Now they were prepared for the Lamanites, to battle after the manner of the instructions of Moroni. And it came to pass that he Lamanites, or the Amalickiahites, were exceedingly astonished at their manner of preparation for war. Now, if king Amalickiahites, were exceedingly astonished at their manner of preparation for war. Now, if king Amalickiah had come down out of the land of Nephi, at the head of his army, perhaps he would have caused the Lamanites to have attacked the Nephites at the city of Ammonihah; for behold, he did care not for the blood of his people. However, behold, Amalickiah did not come down himself to battle. And behold, his chief captains durst not attack the Nephites at the city of Ammonihah, for Moroni had altered the management of affairs among the Nephites, insomuch that the Lamanites were disappointed in their places of retreat and they could not come upon them. Therefore they retreated into the wilderness, and took their camp and marched towards the land of Noah, supposing that to be the next best place for them to come against the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“For they knew not that Moroni had fortified, or had built forts of security, for every city in all the land round about; therefore, they marched forward to the land of Noah with a firm determination; yea, their chief captains came forward and took an oath that they would destroy the people of that city. However, behold, to their astonishment, the city of Noah, which had hitherto been a weak place, had now, by the means of Moroni, become strong, yea, even to exceed the strength of the city of Ammonihah. And now, behold, this was wisdom in Moroni; for he had supposed that they would be frightened at the city Ammonihah; and as the city of Noah had hitherto been the weakest part of the land, therefore they would march thither to battle; and thus is was according to his desires. And behold, Moroni had appointed Lehi to be chief captain over the humans of that city; and it was that same Lehi who fought with the Lamanites in the valley on the east of the river Sidon. And now behold it came to pass, that when the Lamanites had found that Lehi commanded the city they were again disappointed, for they feared Lehi exceedingly; nevertheless their chief captains had sworn with an oath to attack the city; therefore, they brought up their armies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“Now behold, the Lamanites could not get into their forts of security by any other way save by the entrance, because of the highness of the bank which had been thrown up, and the depth of the ditch which had been dug round about, save it were by the entrance. And thus were the Nephites prepared to destroy all such as should attempt to climb up to enter the fort by any other way, by casting over stones and arrows at them. Thus they were prepared, yea, a body of their strongest humans, with their swords and their slings, to smite down all who should attempt to come into their place of security by the place of entrance; and thus were they prepared to defend themselves against the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the captains of the Lamanites brought up their armies before the place entrance, and began to contend with the Nephites, get into their place of security; but behold, they were driven back from time to time, insomuch that they were slain with an immense slaughter. Now when they found that they could not obtain power over the Nephites by the pass, they began to dig down their banks of Earth that they might obtain a pass to their armies, that they might have an equal chance to fight; but behold, in these attempts they were swept off by the stones and arrows which were thrown at them. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“And by pulling down the banks of Earth, they were filled up in a measure with their dead and wounded bodies. Thus the Nephites had all power over their enemies; and thus the Lamanites did attempt to destroy the Nephites until their chief captains were all slain; yea, and more than a thousand of the Lamanites were slain; while, on the other hand, there was not a single soul of the Nephites which was slain. There were about fifty who were wounded, who had not been exposed to the arrows of the Lamanites through the pass, but they were shielded by their shields, and their breastplates, and their head-plates, insomuch that their wounds were upon their legs, many of which were very severe. And it came to pass, that when the Lamanites saw that their chief captains were all slain they fled into wilderness. And it came to pass that they retuned to the land of Nephi, to inform their king, Amalickiah, who was a Nephite by birth, concerning their great loss. And it came to pass that he was exceedingly angry with his people, because he had not obtained his desire over the Nephites; he had not subjected them to the yoke of bondage. Yea, he was exceedingly worth, and he did curse God, and also Moroni, swearing with an oath that he would drink his blood; and this because Moroni had kept the commandments of God in preparing for the safety of his people. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And it came to pass, that on the other hand, the people of Nephi did thank the Lord their God, because of his matchless power in delivering them from the hands of their enemies. And thus ended the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. Yea, and there was continual peace among them, and exceedingly great prosperity in the church because of their heed and diligence which they gave unto the word of God, which was declared unto the by Helaman, and Shiblon, and Corianton, and Ammon and his brethren, yea, and by all those who had been ordained by the holy order of God, being baptized unto repentance, and sent forth to preach among the people,” report Alma 49.1-30. Excessive guru-worship provokes a reaction, a critical, sometimes sceptical attitude from which there must also be a recoil. Only after that can an honourable, honest, and true relationship be established. One should rather object to anyone’s making a cult out of one. Why not respect one’s wish and let one remain what one is—a researcher? Faith in the master is the first step, obedience to one’s injunctions is the next one, devotion toward one is the third step, and remembrance of one’s presence, name or image is the fourth. Such following of the master and practice of one’s teachings will bring one’s graces. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
Those whose temperament is innately submissive and dependent make better disciples than the others. However, they are less likely to advance father than the others. However, if the teacher must have the capacity to point out the right way, the student, in one’s turn must have the capacity to travel every step of it in thought with one. There are some tremendously difficult problems involved in the highest Quest. The key to these problems must be placed in one’s hands by the teacher. The wisest plan for one, therefore, is to work out in detail and patiently the few hints given by the teacher, to study the books suggested and to plod on the path stringently, thinking of it as a period of patient preparation for the karmic time when one will assuredly receive what one is seeking. This one will get if one has the right mental equipment, if one has expressed the desire for guidance in the right quarters, and also if one recognizes the necessity of serving humanity. You are strong, and greatly to be praised, worthy of sacrifice, Lord of life and death. You are tough, and greatly to be praised, worthy of sacrifice, Lord of life and death. You are fortified, and greatly to be praised, worthy of sacrifice, life and death. You are solid, and great to be praised worthy of sacrifice, Lord of life and death. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
You who are the sacrifice, you who are the Lord of life and death: Worthy are you, greatly to be praised. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among the peoples. Great is the Lord highly to be praised; He is to be revered above all who are worshipped as gods. For all the gods of the heathens are things of naught, but the Lord created the Heavens. Honour and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Ascribe unto the Lord, O families of humankind, ascribe unto the Lord glory and strength. Render unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; with offerings of homage, come into His courts. Let the field and all within it exult; let all the trees of the forest sing before the Lord; before the Lord, as He cometh; He cometh to judge the Earth, to judge the World in righteousness, and the nations by His truth. God is in command, ruling the herds: worthy of worship, worthy of praise. He is our anchor in the forest of spirits, ruling the wilds: worthy of worship, worthy of praise. The Lord of forests is the Lord of the city, King of the Universe, spirits, and Ancestors, king of people in this World and the next: worthy of worship, worthy of praise. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Lord, what Fools these Mortals be!
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own. We ought to read books that set the tone of our lives. Most of what we read does not have that power. It either falls within the province of our special field, or it has no meaning for us at all. However, every one of us should ask ourselves: If there one book, are there two or three books that have been absolutely central to your entire development? I read not to learn, but to live. Seen by that standard, there are not many books that are truly influential for us. Any halfway decent book will, of course, have some effect on us. No book leaves us completely untouched, any more than a serious conversation or meeting with another person does. If two people speak seriously together, they will both experience something, or—as I prefer to put it—they will both undergo a change. The change will often be so minute that we cannot detect it. However, this line of thought takes back to this point: If two people talk together and both of them remain the same people they were before, then they have not really talked at all. They have simply engaged in an exchange of words. The Old Testament in the Christian Bible made a powerful and lasting impression on me. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
As a boy I was particularly drawn to the vision of universal peace, to the vision of the lamb lying down together, and at a young age it made me believe there was a chance for World peace. In the Old Testament, one can distinguish between the psalms that reflect some inner movement, a shift from sadness to joy, and those quite different ones that maintain the same mood and that are in a certain sense, though not always, somewhat self-righteous. At the very least there is no inner conflict in them, n inner movement. There are psalms that can be understood only if we notice that the speaker begins in a state of despair. Then he overcomes his despair, but it comes back. And he overcomes it again. And only when he hits rock bottom, when his despair is most intense, does a sudden, miraculous change come about, a change accompanied by a jubilant, religious, hopeful mood. Psalm 22, which begins with the words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is a good example. An interesting point is that people have often wondered why Jesus spoke these words of despair at his death. That question puzzled me when I was still a child. His words do not seem in keeping with his voluntary death and with his faith. However, there really is no contradiction here, because the psalms are cited differently in the Jewish tradition and in the Christian. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Where the Christian tradition cites a psalm by number, the Jewish tradition evokes the entire psalm by quoting the first sentence of the first few words. So what the Bible is telling us in this passage is that Jesus recited all of Psalm 22. And if you read this psalm, you will see that it begins in despair but ends as a hymn of hope. Perhaps more than any other psalm it expresses the universalistic, messianic message of early Christianity. If we fail to see the shift that takes place in that psalm, and if we think Jesus spoke only the first sentence of it, then we overlook the message. This sentence was even changed in the Gospel later because it caused misunderstandings. Well, we are getting a bit far afield here. However, then it is nice that we are not bound by a program or schedule. So that is one of the major influences in my life, and when I read the prophets today they are as fresh and alive for me as they were when I was a child, perhaps even fresher and more alive. Youth is not chronological age but the state of growing, learning, and changing. All people must be helped to regain the conditions of youth. The matriarchal position—to state the case briefly—stands for the principle of unconditional human love. A mother loves her children without any regard for their merits. She loves them because they are her children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
And if a mother loved her baby only when it smiled sweetly and was well behaved, then many a child would starve to death. A father loves his children because they obey him, because they are like him. Now I am not speaking here about every mother or every father but rather about types or categories, about the classic types we see exemplified throughout the history of paternal and maternal love. Taken individually, people are so mixed that we find many maternal fathers and many paternal mothers. The difference has to do with the social order, with whether it is patriarchal or matriarchal. The conflict between the two is nowhere more beautifully articulated then in Sophocles’’ Antigone. Antigone embodies the matriarchal principle: “I am here not to hate but to love,” while Creon embodies the patriarchal one, the principle that makes the state supreme over all other human values (and a principle that we would call fascist today). Many human beings experience a longing for some extraordinary figure like a god of goddess, who will relieve one of one’s responsibilities, eliminate the risks of life, indeed, even relieve us of our fear of death, and shelter us in a kind of paradise. For that protection, we pay the price of dependence on religion and God. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Unlike God, we do not start with nothing and make something of it. We start with ourselves as nothing and makes something of the nothing with the things at hand. The relationship of one human being to another and to the specifically human emotions that are rooted not in instinct but rather in human’s existences, are what make us come alive. Deep in the hearts of almost all people, they want more peace than war, more life than death, more light than darkness. However, some people are sadomasochist, they are people with an unlimited passion for exerting power and control over others but also for subjection of the self. We see this more during the COVID-19 crisis with the restrictions on businesses and people, but the dependence on the federal government and people shaming others for not wearing masks. Now, in the light of more extensive study and better insight, I have come to consider another factor even more important. This factor is called necrophilia. Ordinarily that term is applied only to a sexual perversion, but in using it as I do, I am following the example of the great Spanish philosopher Unamuno, who said in a speech he gave in Salamanca in 1936 that the Falangist motto “Long live death: was a necrophiliac moto. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
What I mean by necrophilia in a nonsexual and nonphysical sense is a fascination with everything that is dead, lifeless, with everything having to do with dismemberment, with the destruction of living relationships. The necrophiliac is motivated not by a love for the living but by an attraction to the purely mechanical. Necrophilia means love for what is dead. Nekros means corpse. Necrophilia is not a love of death but a love of dead things, of everything that is not alive. Its opposite is a love of the living, a love for everything that grows, that has structure, that forms a unity, that is not dismembered. Many necrophiliacs have a characteristic facial expression. They look as if they smell something rotten, but there is no bad odor present. What this indicates is that these people regard living things, not dead ones, as filth, and they consequently relate to them in this archaic way—by smelling and sniffing. There are some individuals who enjoy smelling foul odors. They are attracted to bad smalls or to excrement and carrion. This perversion is visible in their facial expressions. With necrophiliac types you will find that the face remains immobile. They do not react; they are frozen. With biophilic people, the face shows a great variety of expressions, and it lights up in the presence of whatever is alive. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Another way we can express this is to say that the necrophiliac is hopelessly boring. A biophile is never boring. It does not matter what one talks about. The subject can be quite insignificant, but whatever one says is always marked by vitality. A necrophiliac may say something intelligent, but it does not come alive. We have all had the experience of hearing an intellectual say something terribly clever, yet we are bored by it. Conversely, a much less brilliant person can say something quite simple (this is bringing us back to our starting point this evening, the subject of conversation), and we are not bored at all. On the contrary, we are stimulated, because it is life that is speaking to us. We are always drawn to what is alive. It is vitality that makes people attractive. These says people seem to think—we humans talk this way, and the cosmetic industry tries to convince women that it is true—we seem to think people can make themselves attractive and lovable if they paint their faces this way or that way or adopt a certain expression that is supposed to be modern and irresistible. A lot of people fall for that kind of thing, usually people who do not have much of a self. There is only one thing that really attracts us, and that is vitality. We can observe that in people who are falling in love. In their desire to please and attract the other, they in fact become livelier than they usually are. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
The only problem with people becoming livelier than they usually are is once they have achieved their goal and “have” each other, their desire to be more alive is much reduced. Then they suddenly become quite different, and after a while they do not love each other anymore. They do not even know why they fell in live in the first place. Their partners are changed. They are no longer beautiful, because they no longer have the beauty that vitality brings to the face. There are two basic tendencies in people and they are a propensity for life and a propensity for death and destruction. Eros, the vital force or the force of love, strives for the integration of the whole, for union, while the goal of the death wish is disintegration or, dismemberment, dissection. Necrophilia and biophilia are two forces of equal strength. The desire to destroy is as strong in people as is their joy of life. That could be why there is so much crime and the population keeps growing so rapidly. As a result of increase competition, scarcity of resources, population growth, and crime, a lot of people have no chance to be free and to develop their own powers, people are hemmed in, and live in a class or in a society in which everything functions in a mechanical, lifeless way and people are losing their capacity for spontaneity. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
This link between thwarted vitality and necrophilia is evident in individuals. It is by no means rare to find people whose families were so “dead” that the children never experience even bureaucratized, routine, subject rules. Life consisted solely of possessing things, owning things. The parents regarded any sign of spontaneity in their children as inherently bad. It is clear beyond any doubt that children are naturally very lively and active, a fact proved by recent neurophysiological and psychological studies. The child becomes more and more discouraged and then takes another direction a direction in which the nonliving becomes central. In the final analysis we can say that a person who finds no joy in living will try to avenge oneself and will prefer to destroy life rather than feel that one can make no sense of one’s life at all. One may still be alive physiologically, but psychologically one is dead. That is what gives rise to the active desire to destroy and to the passionate need to destroy everyone, including oneself, rather than confess that one has been born yet has failed to become a living human being. That is a bitter feeling for those who experience it, and we are not indulging in mere speculation if we assume that the wish to destroy follows on this feeling as an almost inevitable reaction. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
I am afraid that our preoccupation with everything mechanical encourages necrophilia to increase. And COVID-19, social distancing, and masks are making it even harder to connection with people, read their emotions and enjoy life, especially with nearly 30,000,000 people and approximately 1,000,000 dead globally. We are running away from life. It is difficult to explain in any concise way why it is that things are taking the place of human beings in our cybernetic society and culture, pushing human beings aside, but perhaps in is due to the World being overpopulated ad evolution. People are becoming increasingly uncertain about their own being. When I speak of “being” here I am using a term of great importance in the history of philosophy. What is being? I am less interested in its philosophical meaning here than I am in its experiential aspect. Let me give a simple example. A woman might come to an analyst and begin describing herself something like this: Well, Doctor, I “have” a problem. I “have” a happy marriage, and I “have” two children, too, but I am “having” so many difficulties. Every sentence she produces uses the verb “to have.” The entire World is represented as an object of having. In earlier time (and I know this from my own experience in both English and German) she would have said: I feel miserable, I am satisfied, I am worried, I love my husband, or perhaps I do not love him or I doubt that I love him. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
In any language like that, people speak about what they are, about their own activity, about the feelings they experience, not about objects or possessions. People are more and more inclined to express their being with nouns followed by some form of the verb “to have.” I have everything, but I am nothing. Some people are convinced that they must “have” things and “get” people in order to live because they do not see a future for themselves in the name of the nation or of the law or of the party or of necessity or of God or of any other authorities they may come up with. So their life has to “have” conditions in which they can “get” people and flourish. Lies can tie us to a political part, but ultimately it is only the truth that can lead to the liberation of humans. However, too many people are afraid of freedom and prefer illusions to it. They do not want to believe in God, they are to believe they are god. Because people take a party line. Party politics can put blinders on us. We could say, in a certain sense, that party politics can makes us apolitical. I do not mean that as an attack on political parties, nor do I deny their necessity, but I do feel that when our political life is dominated by party politics, we run the danger of becoming unpolitical. We need more independent people. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
It is essential to your political lives that there be politically active people who, from their own perspectives come right out and say what they think, what they know. Private and public life cannot be separated. We cannot split off our knowledge of ourselves from our knowledge of society. Both belong together. The truth is indivisible. We cannot see reality here and remain closed to it there. That dulls our cutting edge and makes our search for the truth ineffectual. And we can see ourselves rightly only if we can see others rightly, only if we can see them in the context of their social circumstances, which is to say, only if we look sharply and critically at all that is going on around us in the World. This is what love demands of us, too. And if we love our fellow humans, we cannot limit our insight and our love only to others as individuals. That will inevitably lead to mistakes. We have to be political people, I would even say passionately involved political people, each of us in the way that best suits our own temperaments, our working lives, and our own capabilities. The intellectual has one prime task to fulfill, first, last, and always. It is one’s job to search out the truth as best one can and to speak that truth. It is not the intellectual’s primary calling, it is not one’s primary function, to draft political platforms. And to say this does not contradict what I have just been saying about political activity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
However, it is the intellectual’s special task—and this is what defines one’s role or should define it—to purse the truth without compromise and without regard for one’s own or anyone else’s interests. If intellectuals restrict their function of finding and speaking the whole truth in the service of any party program or any political goals, no matter how praiseworthy the program or the goals may be, then those intellectuals are failing in their own unique task and, ultimately, in the most important political task they have. For political progress depends on how much of the truth we know, how clearly and boldly we speak it, and how great an impression it makes on other people. “And when even was come, there came a rich person from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: This man went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded it to be given up. And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
“Now on the morrow, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that the deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I raise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal one away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them,” reports Matthew 27.57-66. In the Nuremburg War-Crime Trials a witness appeared who had lived for a time in a grave in a Jewish grave-yard, in Wilna, Poland. It was the only place he—and many others—could live, when in hiding after they had escaped the gas chamber. During this time he wrote poetry, and one of the poems was a description of a birth. In a grave nearby a young woman gave birth to a boy. The eighty-year-old gravedigger, wrapped in a linen shroud, assisted. When the newborn child uttered his first cry, the old man prayed: “Great God, hast Thu finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave?” However, after three says the poet saw the child sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for him. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
This story, which surpasses anything the human imagination could have invented, has not only incomparable emotional value, but also tremendous symbolic power. When I first read it, it occurred to me more forcefully than ever before that our Christian symbols, take from the gospel stories, have lost a great deal of their power because too often repeated and too superficially used. It has been forgotten that the manger of Christmas was the expression of utter poverty and distress before it became the place where the angels appeared and to which the star pointed. And it has been forgotten that the tomb of Jesus was the end of His life and of His work before it became the place of His final triumph. We have become insensitive to the infinite tension which implied in words of the Apostles’ Creed: “suffered…was crucified, dead, and buried…rose again from the dead.” We already know, when we hear the first words, what the ending will be: “rose again;” and for many people it is no more than the inevitable “happy ending.” The old Jewish grave-digger knew better. For him, the immeasurable tension implicit in the expectation of the Messiah was a reality, appearing in the infinite contrast between the things he saw and the hope he maintained. The depth of this tension is emphasized by the last part of the story. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
After three days the child was not elevated to glory; he drank his mother’s tears, having nothing else to drink. Probably he died and the hope of the old Jew was frustrated once more, as it had been frustrated innumerable times before. No consolation can be derived from this story; there cannot be a happy ending—and precisely this is the truth about our lives. In a remarkable passage of his book, Credo, Karl Barth writes about the word “buried” in the Creed: “By a person’s being buried it is evidently confirmed and sealed—seemingly in his presence, actually already in his absence—that he has no longer a present, any more than a future. He has become pure past. He is accessible only to memory, and even that only so long as those who are able and willing to remember him are not themselves buried. And the future toward which all human present is running is just this: to be buried.” These words describe exactly the situation in which the pious old Jew payed: “Great God, hast Thou finally sent the Messiah to us?” We often hide the seriousness of the “buried” in the Creed, not only for the Christ, but also for ourselves, but imagining that not we shall be buried, but only a comparatively unimportant part of us the physical body. That is not what the Creed implies. It is the same subject, Jesus Christ, of Whom it is said that He suffered and that He was buried and that He was resurrected. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Jesus Christ was buried, He—His whole personality—was removed from the Earth. The same is true of us. We shall die, we—our personality, from which we cannot separate our body as an accidental part—shall be buried. Only if we take the “buried” in the gospel stories as seriously as this, can we evaluate the Easter stories and can we evaluate the words of the grave-digger, “Who else than the Messiah can be born a grave?” His question has two aspects. Only the messiah can bring birth out of death. It is not a natural event. It does not happen every day, but it happens on the day of the Messiah. It is the most surprising, the most profound, and the most paradoxical mystery of existence. Arguments for the immortality of an assumedly better part of us cannot bring life out of the grave. Eternal life is brought about only with the coming of the “new reality,” the eon of the Messiah, which, according to our faith, has already appeared in Jesus as the Christ. However, there is another side to the assertation that nobody other than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grace, a side, which, perhaps, was less conscious to the pious Jew. The Christ must be buried in order to be the “Christ,” namely, He Who has conquered death. The gospel story we have heard assures us of the real and irrevocable death and burial of Jesus. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The women, the high priests, the soldiers, the sealed stone—they are all called by the gospel to witness to the reality of the end. We ought to listen more carefully to these witnesses, to the ones who tell us with triumph or cynicism that Jesus has been buried, that He is removed forever from the Earth, that no real traces of Him are left in our World. And we ought also to listen to the others who say, in doubt and despair, “But we trusted that it had been He Who should have redeemed Israel.” It is not hard to hear both these voices today, in a World where there are so many places like the Jewish cemetery in Wilna. It is even possible to hear them in ourselves, for each of us to hear them in oneself. And, if we hear them, what can we answer? Let us be clear abut this. The answer of Easter is not a necessity. In reality, there is no inevitable happy ending as there is in perverted and perverting cinemas. However, the answer of Easter has become possible precisely because the Christ has been buried. If it did not come from the complete end of the old life, the new life would not really be new life. Otherwise, it would have to be buried again. However, if the new life has come out of the grave, then he Messiah Himself has appeared. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“And now it came to pass that, as soon as Amalickiah had obtained the kingdom he began to inspire the hearts of the Lamanites against the people of Nephi; yea, he did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from towers, against the Nephites. And thus he did inspire their hearts against the Nephites, insomuch that in the latter end of the nineteenth years of the reign of the judges, he having accomplished his designs thus far, yea, having been made king over the Lamanites, he sought also to reign over all the land, yea, and all the people who were in the land, the Nephites as well as the Lamanites. Therefore he had accomplished his design, for he had hardened the hearts of the Lamanites and blinded their minds, and stirred them up to anger, insomuch that he had gathered together a numerous host to go to battle against the Nephites. For he was determined, because of the greatness of the number of his people, to overpower the Nephites and to bring them into bondage. And thus he did appoint chief captains of the Zoramites, they being the most acquainted with the strength of the Nephites, and their places of resort, and the weakest parts of their cities; therefore he appointed them to be chief captains over his armies. And it came to pass that they took up their camp, and moved forth toward the land of Zarahemla in the wilderness. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Now it came to pass that while Amalickiah had thus been obtaining power by fraud and deceit, Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God. Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephite, and erecting small forts, or places round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yes, all round about the land. And in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of humans; and this he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites. And thus he was preparing to support their liberty, their lands, their wives, and their children, and their peace, and that they might live unto the Lord their God, and that they might maintain that which was called by their enemies the cause of Christians. And Moroni was a strong and a might man; he was a man of a perfect understanding; yea, a man that did not delight in bloodshed; a man whose would did joy in the liberty, and his brethren from bondage and slavery. Yea, a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God, for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his people; a man who did labour exceedingly for the welfare and safety of the people. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Yea, and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ, and he had sworn with an oath to defend his people, his rights, and his country, and his religion, even to the loss of his blood. Now, if it were necessary, the Nephites were taught to defend themselves against their enemies, even to the shedding of blood; yea, and they were also taught never to give an offense, yea, never to raise the sword except it were to preserve their lives. And his was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land; yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger; and also, that God would make it known unto them wither they should go to defend themselves against their enemies, and by so doing, the Lord would deliver them; and this was the faith of Moroni, and his heart did glory in it; not in the shedding of blood but in doing good, in preserving his people, yea, in keeping the commandments of God, yea, and resisting iniquity. Yes, verily, verily I say unto you, if all humans had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of humans. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“Behold, he was a man like unto Ammon, the son of Mosiah, yea, and even the other sons of Mosiah, yea, and also Alma and his sons, for they were all humans of God. Now behold, Helaman and his brethren were no less serviceable unto the people than was Moroni; for they did preach the word of God, and they did baptize unto repentance all humans whosoever would hearken unto their words. And thus they went forth, and the people did humble themselves because of their words, insomuch that they were highly favoured of the Lord, and thus they were free from wars and contentions among themselves, yea, even for the space of four years. However, as I have said, in the latter end of the nineteenth year, yea, notwithstanding their peace amongst themselves, they were compelled reluctantly to contend with their brethren, the Lamanites. Yea, and in fine, their wars never did cease for the space of many years with the Lamanites, notwithstanding their much reluctance. Now, they were sorry to take up arms against the Lamanites, because they did not delight in the shedding of blood; yea, and this was not all—they were sorry to be the means of sending so many of their brethren out of the World into an eternal World, unprepared to meet their God. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“Nevertheless, they could not suffer to lay down their lives, that their wives and their children should be massacred by the barbarous cruelty of those who were once their brethren, yea, and had dissented from their church, and had let them and had gone to destroy them by joining the Lamanites. Yea, they could not bear that their brethren should rejoice over the blood of the Nephites, so long as there were any who should keep the commandments of God, for the promise of the Lord was, if they should keep his commandments they should prosper in the land,” reports Alma 48.1-25. God of the In-between, you I praise, you who sit at ease in the midst of chaos, you who sit at ease on the edge of a sword. Can anyone attain the mastery you should as you hold your place between life and death? Can anyone rival the poise your presence radiates as you sit in the gateway between past and future? Can anyone sit so still, but be ready to move at the exact time the moment requires? Lord who holds death and life equally in your hands, I stand in your presence today and give you my praise. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; revere Him all that inhabit the Earth. The Lord reigneth. Let the Heavens be glad and the Earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all within it give praise. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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From the Gold Bar of Heaven No Person is Justified in Doing Evil on the Ground of Expediency
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your own work. Note just what it is about your work that the critics do not like—then cultivate it. That is the only part of your work that is individual and worth keeping. I tend to learn the most from small, intense experiences which illuminate for me different aspects of what I am doing. They also illustrate in a vivid fashion some of the more abstract concepts of a person-centered approach. Frequently I write them down in order to store them as memories or to provide them for the use of the people involved. We must look still more closely at feeling. “Feeling” encompasses a range of things that are “felt”: specifically, sensations, desires, and emotions. We feel warm, hungry, an itch, or fearful. “Feelings” include dizziness and thirst, sleepiness and weariness, pleasures of the flesh and desire, pain and pleasure, loneliness and homesickness, anger and jealousy; but also comfort and satisfaction, a sense of power and accomplishment, curiosity and intellectual gratifications, compassion for others and the enjoyment of beauty, sense of honour, and delight in God. Aesthetic experiences (of art and beauty), personal relations, and actions all involve feeling and, moreover, require that the feeling be somehow “right.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
There is no complete list of human feelings, and it would be a formidable task to define what feeling is. We have not attempted that here and need not concern ourselves with it. A familiar range of feelings frame our day-to-day existence, and we know a lot about these feelings and how important they are to our lives and to how we act and relate to one another. We know, for example, that feelings move us, and that we enjoy being moved. They give us a sense of being alive. Without feeling we have no interest in things, no inclination to action. To “lose interest in life” means we have to carry on by mere exertions of will or by waiting for things to happen. That is a condition to be dreaded, and it cannot be sustained for long. That is why so many people become dependent upon “substances” and activities that give them feeling, even if the dependence badly harms them and those near them. Such a condition is also the frequent background of suicide. A beautiful young woman, an artist, committed suicide after the death of her old, unprepossessing father. It was her last wish to be buried with him. The question this woman’s death posed continued to gnaw at those who loved her. How could she have loved her father so much that she chose death with him over the joys of life, joys that were accessible and familiar to her? #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
Feeling is essential to life. We must accept this and work with it. And you can be sure that harmful feeling, feeling associated with evil—arising from it or producing it—will eventually be take by a human being as better than no feeling at all. Healthy feelings, properly ordered among themselves are essential to a good life. So if we are to be formed in Christlikeness, we must take good care of our feelings and not just let them “happen.” The one known as the Good Samaritan, in the story by Jesus (Luke 10.30-37) was distinguished from the priest and the Levite by the fact that “when he saw him [the wounded man], he felt compassion” (verse 33). This feeling of compassion is what led him to help them man and “be a neighbour to” him (verses 36-37). Did the priest and the Levite then have no feelings? Of course not. They had feelings alright: feelings of disdain, perhaps, or of fear for the harm that might come to them if they became involved, or a feeling of urgency as they remembered the business awaiting them at the end of their journey, which, being their own business, moved them more than did the need of this unfortunate man to be helped out of his mortally dangerous situation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
They had feelings that motivated them to selfish actions, and they hardened their hearts to any other feelings of sympathy and concern for the half-dead man that might have competed for their attention. My sense of the World is not that of a modern human but of a premodern one; and that attitude is reinforced by studying the Talmud, reading the Bible a lot, and hearing a lot of stories about my ancestors, who had all lived in a World that predated the bourgeois World. Let me tell you a story to illustrate what I mean. One of my great-grandfathers was a great Talmudist, but he was not a rabbi. He has a small shop in Bavaria, and he earn very little money. Then one day he was offered a chance to earn more money if he would do a little traveling. He had a lot of children, and that did not make his lot any easier. His wife said to him: “Maybe you should think about taking this opportunity. You would be gone only three days a month, and we would have a little more money.” And he said: “Do you think I should do that and lose more than three days of study a month?” She replied: “For God’s sake, of course not!” And that was the end of that. So my great-grandfather sat in his shop and studied the Talmud. Whenever a customer came in, he would look up and snap at him: “Is there not some other shop you can go to?” That was the World that was so real to me. I found the modern World strange. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
I recall that when I was ten or twelve whenever someone told me he was a salesman or businessman I always felt a little embarrassed. I would think to myself: God, he must feel awful having to admit that he is not doing anything else with life except earning money. Imagine, having nothing else to do! In the meantime I have learned that that is quite normal. What eventually attracted me to the modern World was that in capitalism, there was a synthesis between the things of the past that were still alive for me and the things of the modern World that I loved. The aspects of the modern World that had their roots in the old and felt close to me, and that is why I experienced no contradiction between those two Worlds. Such was the World I was familiar with, the World I enjoyed, and so I became an eager student of everything that created this link between the old and the new. Many of the feelings that animate us are destructive of others and ourselves. Jesus’s younger brother, James, pointedly asked, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel,” reports James 4.1-2. And elsewhere he points out that “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing,” reports James 3.16. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
This goes far to explain what happens in many homes, churches, and other social groups. However, the need is to remove the cause (the underlying feelings) and not just the effect (the conflict), which, if denied or suppressed without removal of the feelings, will only break out again. The Old Testament book of Proverbs is full of wise sayings about the good and evil of feelings in human life. As we have already seen, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” reports Proverbs 9.10. Moreover, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions, reports Proverbs 10.12. “When pride comes, then comes dishonour,” reports Proverbs 11.2. “Anxiety in the heart of humans weighs it down,” reports Proverbs 12.25. “A cheerful heart has a continual feast,” reports Proverbs 15.15. “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones,” reports Proverbs 17.22. “One who loves pleasure will become a poor human; one who loves wine and oil will not become rich,” reports Proverbs 21.17. “The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, honour and life,” reports Proverbs 22.4. “They heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags,” reports Proverbs 23.21. “The fear of humans brings a snare, but one who trusts in the LORD will be exalted,” reports Proverbs 29.25. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
And so forth. It is part of divine and human wisdom to realize that feelings are central to our existence and to make sure they are good feelings. And indeed they can be strong, healthy ones. We do not have to be victimized by destructive feelings. Even the feelings that harm us are, for the most part, not bad in themselves, but are somehow not properly limited or subordinated. They are not of order feelings are, with a few exceptions, good servants. However, they are disastrous masters. Denial and repression of the feeling are not the answer. Now, if we have destructive feelings, and everyone does sometimes, we should not deny that we have them nor try to repress them—though we also should not, normally, dump them on others by acting them out. In any case, let it be very clear that we are not in favour of denying feelings or repressing them. That is not the answer to our problem. The proper course of action is to replace destructive feelings with others that are good, or to subordinate them—anger and pleasures of the flesh, for example—in a way that makes them constructive and transforms their effects. The process of spiritual formation in Christ will do this by grace—effectively and intelligently received, and put into constant practice. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Several other points about feelings must be considered before we come to deal with particular feelings (emotions, sensations, desires) and what can be done for their transformation into Christlikeness. If therapy is successful the individual will inevitably have taken care of the tag ends of one’s past unsolved problems, because these tag ends are bound to cause trouble in the present, and so they are bund to come up in the course of the therapeutic session, disguised in any number of different ways—disassociations, nervous habits, fantasies, et cetera. However, these tags ends of the past are also current problems which inhibit the individual’s participation in the present. The neurotic is, by accepted definition, a person whose difficulties make one’s present life unsuccessful. In addition, by our definition, one is a person who chronically engages in self-interruption, who has an inadequate sense of identity (and thus cannot distinguish properly between oneself and the rest of the World), who has inadequate means of self-support, whose psychological homeostasis is out of order, and whose behaviour arises from misguided efforts in the direction of achieving balance. Within this general framework, we can see what must be done. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
The neurotic finds it difficult to participate fully in this present—one’s past unfinished business gets in one’s way. One’s problems exist in the here and now—and yet too often only part of one is here to cope with them. Through therapy, one must learn to live in the present, and one’s therapeutic sessions must be one’s first practice at this hitherto unaccomplished task. Gestalt therapy is therefore a “here and now” therapy, in which we ask the patient during the session to turn all one’s attention to what one is doing at the present, during the course of the session—right here and now. Gestalt therapy is an experiential therapy, rather than a verbal or an interpretive therapy. We ask our patients not to talk about their traumas and their problems in the removed area of the past tense and memory, but to re-experience their problems and their traumas—which are their unfinished situations in the present—in the here and now. If the patient is finally to close the book on one’s past problems, one must close it in the present. For one must realize that if one’s past problems were really past, they would no longer be problems—and the certainly would not be present. In addition, as an experiential therapy, the Gestalt technique demands of the patient that one experiences oneself as fully as one can here and now. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
We ask the individual to become aware of one’s gestures, of one’s breathing, of one’s emotions, of one’s voice, and of one’s facial expressions as much as of one’s pressing thoughts. We know that the more one becomes aware of oneself, the more one will learn about what one’s self is. As one experiences the ways in which one prevents oneself from “being” now—the ways in which one interrupts oneself—one will also begin to experience the self one has interrupted. In this process, the therapist is guided by what one observes about the individual. Here lit it suffice to say that the therapist should be sensitive to the surface the patient presents so that the therapist’s broader awareness can become the means by which the patient is enabled to increase one’s own. The basic sentence with which we ask our patients to begin therapy, and which we retain throughout its course—not only in words, but in spirit—is the simple phrase: “Now I am aware.” The now keeps us in the present and brings home the fac that no experience is ever possible except in the present. And the present, itself, is of course an ever changing experience. Once the now is used, that patient will easily use the present tense throughout, work on the phenomenological basis and, provide the material for the past experience which is required to close the gestalt, to assimilate a memory, to right the organismic balance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
The “I” is used as an antidote to the “it” and develops the individual’s sense of responsibility for one’s feelings, thoughts and symptoms. The “am” is one’s existential symbol. It brings home whatever one experiences as part of one’s being, and, together with one’s now, of one’s becoming. One quickly learns that each new “now” is different from the previous one. The “aware” provides the individual with the sense of one’s own capacities, and abilities, one’s own sensoric and motor and intellectual equipment. It is not the conscious—for that is purely mental—it is the experience sifted, as it were, only through the mind and through words. The “aware” provides something in addition to the conscious. Workings, as we do, with what the individual has, one’s present means of manipulation, rather than with what one has not developed or what one has lost, the “aware” gives both therapist and patient the best picture of the patient’s present resources. For awareness always takes place in the present. It opens up possibilities for action. Routine and habits are established functions, and any need to change them requires that they should be brought into the focus of awareness afresh. The mere idea of changing them presupposes the possibility of alternative ways of thinking and acting. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Without awareness, there is no cognition of choice. Awareness, contact, and present are merely different aspects of one and the same process—self-realization. It is here and now that we become aware of all our choices, from small pathological decisions (is this pencil lying straight enough?) to the existential choice of devotion to a cause or avocation. How does this “now I am aware,” this here and now therapy work in action? Let us take the example of a neurotic whose unfinished business is the unfinished labour of mourning a dead parent. Aware or unaware, such a patient fantasizes that one’s guiding parent is still around; one acts as if the parent were still alive and conducts one’s life by outdated directions. To become self-supportive and to participate fully in the present as it is, one has to give up this guidance; one has to part, to say a final good-bye to one’s progenitor. And to do this successfully, one has to go to the deathbed and face the departure. One has to transform one’s thoughts about the past into actions in the present which one experiences as if the now were the then. One cannot do it merely by re-recounting the scene, one must re-live it. One must go through and assimilate the interrupted feelings which are mostly of intense grief, but which may have in them elements of triumph or guilt or any number of things. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
It is insufficient merely to recall a past incident, one has to psychodramatically return to it. Just as talking about oneself is a resistance against experiencing oneself, so the memory of an experience—simply talking about it—leaves it isolated as a deposit of the past—as lacking in life as the ruins of Pompei. You are left with the opportunity to make some clever reconstructions, but you do not bring them back alive. The neurotic’s memory is more than simply a hunting ground for the archeologists of human’s behaviour we call psychoanalysts. It is the uncompleted event, which is still alive and interrupted, waiting to be assimilated and integrated. It is here and now, in the present, that this assimilation must take place. The psychoanalysts, out of the vast stores of one’s theoretical knowledge, might explain to the patient: “You are still tied to your mother because you feel guilty about her death. It was something you wished for in childhood and repressed, and when your wish came true, you felt like a murderer.” And there may be elements of truth in what one says. However, this kind of symbolic or intellectual explanation does not affect the individual’s feelings, for these are the result not of one’s sense of guilt, but of one’s interruption of it when one’s mother died. If one has permitted oneself fully to experience one’s guilt then, one would not feel distressed now. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
In Gestalt therapy we therefore required that the individual psychodramatically talk to one’s dead mother. Because the neurotic finds it difficult to live and experience oneself in the present, one will find it difficult to stick to the here and now technique. One will interrupt one’s present participation with memories of the past, and one will persist in talking about them as if they were indeed past. One finds it less difficult to associate tan to concentrate and, in concentrating, to experience oneself. Whether concentrating on one’s body sensations or one’s fantasies—although at first one will find this a miserable task—one’s unfinished business makes concentration a major project for one. One no longer has a clear sense of the order of one’s needs—one tends to give them all equal value. One is like the young man Stephen Leacock once spoke about who hot on his horse and galloped off madly in all directions. It is not a desire to make one’s life miserable that lies behind our request to make one capable of concentrations. If one is to move towards full participation in the present, to take the first step towards productive living, one must learn to direct one’s energies—that is, to concentrate. One will be able to move from “now I need this” to “now I need that,” only if one truly experiences each now and each need. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
In addition, the concentration technique (focal awareness) provides us with a tool for therapy in depth, rather than in breadth. By concentrating on each symptom, each area of awareness, the individual learns several things about oneself and one’s neurosis. One learns what one is actually experiencing. One learns how one experiences it. And one learns how one’s feelings and behaviour in one area are related to one’s feelings and behaviour in other areas. We often use mercy and grace, as referred to God, interchangeably as synonyms, and some Bible commentators understand their use that way. Though the two words are very close in their meaning, they are usually distinguished as follows: “God’s goodness, exercised toward the unworthy, is called grace; toward the suffering, it is called pity, or mercy.” It may be defined as the goodness or love of God shown to those who are in misery or distress, irrespective of their deserts. Then, I understand the term grace in Hebrews 4.16 to mean that particular expression of grace we have been considering: divine enabling thought the Help of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we approach the throne of grace needing first mercy, because we come as ones in misery of distress. God in His mercy then gives us grace—that is, divine enabling through His Spirit—to help us in our time of need. We are thus enabled to cope with whatever adversity, trial, or dilemma we face in a Godly manner. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
I have analyzed Hebrews 4.15-16 rather extensively because we need to understand how to appropriate the grace of God through prayer. I believe all of us need to grasp more fully what it means to come to the throne of grace. We need to grasp in the depth of our souls what it means that we do have a High Priest, Jesus, who is able and disposed to sympathize with out weaknesses. Above all, we simply need to go to the throne of grace to find the grace to help in time of need. That is what I did in the incident I recounted at the beginning of this essay. I went to the throne of grace and told God I did not have the ability to respond to what I thought was His will for me at the time. I asked Him for the spiritual strength to say yes to Him. The disciples went to the throne of grace when Peter and John had been commanded by the Jewish rulers not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. They prayed, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your words with great boldness,” reports Acts 4.29. They went to God’s throne of grace, and they asked for grace, specifically the grace to speak boldly for Christ in the face of tremendous opposition. September 11, 2001 was a crucial event in the development of many people. People were in grips of fear when what seemed like a war broke out on American soil. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Many youths did not understand what was going on. However, it was not long before they began to see through all the supposed justifications for it, and so they started to puzzle over a question that has pursued them for the rest of their lives. How it is possible that millions of people can kill millions of other people, that they let themselves be killed, that it can take years before an end can be called to this inhuman situation? And all that for goals that are in part quite obviously irrational and for political notions that no one would sacrifice one’s life for if one could only see them for what they are. How is war politically possible, and how is war psychologically possible? These have become burning questions that have influenced the thinking of many more than any others right up to the present day. And 19 years later, we are now faced with another crisis. COVID-19 is sweeping the World and leveling millions of people physically and financially, and when they need help, no one is there for them because our lawmakers are taking their $10,000.00 a month in salary and other endorsements they may receive and living comfortably, while people struggle, lose their homes, go hungry, suffer and die. Remember us this day, O Lord our God, for our good, and be mindful of us for a life of blessing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
With Thy promise of salvation and mercy, please deliver us and be gracious unto us; have compassion upon us and save us. Unto Thee do we lift our eyes for Thou art a gracious and merciful God and King. O Lord our God, please bestow upon us the blessings of Thy festivals for life and peace, for joy and gladness, even as Thou hast graciously promised to bless us. [Our God and God of our fathers, accept our rest.] Sanctify us through Thy commandments, and grant our portion in Thy Torah; please give us abundantly of Thy goodness and make us rejoice in Thy salvation. Purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth. In Thy living favour, O Lord our God, let us inherit with joy and gladness Thy holy [Sabbath and] festivals; and may Israel who sanctifies Thy name, rejoice in Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest [the Sabbath and] Israel and the festivals. “Now we will return in our record to Amalickiah and those who had fled with him into the wilderness; for, behold, he had taken those who went with him, and went up in the land of Nephi among the Lamanites, and did stir up the Lamanites to anger against the people of Nephi, insomuch that the kind of the Lamanites sent a proclamation throughout all his land, among all his people, that they should gather themselves together again to go to battle against the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
“And it came to pass that when the proclamation had gone forth among them they were exceedingly afraid; yea, they feared to displease the proclamation had gone forth among them they were exceedingly afraid; yea, they feared to go to battle against the Nephites lest they should lose their lives. And it came to pass that they would not, or the more part of them would not, obey the commandments of the king. And now it came to pass that when the proclamation had gone forth among them they were exceedingly afraid; yea, they feared to displease the king, and they also feared to go to battle against the Nephites lest they should lose their lives. And it came to pass that they would not, or the more part of them would not, obey the commandments of the king. And now it came to pass that the king was wroth because of their disobedience; therefore he gave Amalickiah the command of that part of his army which was obedient unto his commands, and command him that he should go forth and compel them to arms. Now behold, this was the desire of Amalickiah; for he being a very subtle man to do evil therefore he laid the plan in his heart to dethrone the king of the Lamanites. And now he had got the command of those parts of the Lamanites who were in favour of the king. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
“And he sought to gain favour of those who were not obedient; therefore he went forward to the place which was called Onidah, for thither had all the Lamanites fled; for they discovered the army coming, and supposing that they were coming to destroy them, therefore they fled to Onidah, to the place of arms. And they had appointed a man to be king and a leader over them, being fixed in their minds with a determined resolution that they would not be subjected to go against the Nephites. And it came to pass that they had gathered themselves together upon the top of the mount which was called Antipas, in preparation to battle. Now it was not Amalickiah’s intention to give then battle according to the commandments of the king; but behold, it was one’s intention to gain favour with the armies of Lamanites, that he might place himself at their head and dethrone the king and take possession of the kingdom. And behold, it came to pass that he caused his army to pitch their tents in the valley which was near the mount Antipas. And it came to pass that when it was night he sent a secret embassy into the mount Antipas, desiring that the leaders of those who were upon the mount, whose name was Lehonti, that he should come down to the foot of the mount, for he desired to speak with him. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“And it came to pass that when Lehonti received the message he durst not go down to the foot of the mount. And it came to pass that Amalickiah sent again the second time, desiring him to come down. And it came to pass that Lehonti would not; and he sent again the third time. And it came to pass that when Amalickiah found that he could not get Lehonti to come down off from the mount, he went up into the munt, nearly to Lehonti’s camp; and he sent again the fourth time his message unto Lehonti, desiring that he would bring his guards with him. And it came to pass that when Lehonti had come down with his guards to Amalickiah, that Amalickiah desired him to come down with his army in the night-time, and surround those men in their camps over whom the king had given him command, and that he would deliver them up into Lehonti’s hands, if he would make him (Amalickiah) a second leader over the whole army. And it came to pass that Lehonti came down with his men and surrounded the men of Amalickiah, so that before they awoke at the dawn of the day they were surrounded by the armies of Lehonti. And it came to pass that when they saw that they were surrounded, they pled with Amalickiah that he would suffer them to fall in with their brethren, that they might not be destroyed. Now this was the very thing which Amalickiah desired. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“And it came to pass that he delivered his men, contrary to the commands of the king. Now this was the thing that Amalickiah desired, that he might accomplish his designs in dethroning the kind. Now it was the custom among the Lamanites, if their chief leader was killed, to appoint the second leader to be their chief leader. And it came to pass that Amalickiah caused that one of his servants should administer poison by degrees to Lehonti, that he died. Now, when Lehonti was dead, the Lamanites appointed Amalickiah to be their leader and their chief commander. And it came to pass that Amalickiah marched with his armies (for he had gained his desires) to the land of Nephi, to the city of Nephi, which was the chief city. And the king came out to meet him with his guards, for he supposed that Amalickiah had fulfilled his commands, and that Amalickiah had gathered together so great an army to go against the Nephites to battle. However, behold, as the king came out to meet him Amalickiah caused that his servants should go forth to meet the king. And they went and bowed themselves before the king, as if to reverence him because of his greatness. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“And it came to pass that the king put forth his hand to raise them, as was the custom with the Lamanites, as a token of peace, which custom they had taken from the Nephites. And it came to pass that when he had raised the first from the ground, behold he stabbed the king to the heart; and he fell to the Earth. Now the servants of Amalickiah raised a cry, saying: Behold, the servants of the kind have stabbed him to the heart, and he has fallen and they have fled; behold, come and see. And it came to pass that Amalickiah commanded that his armies should march forth and see what had happened o the king; and when they had come to the spot, and found the king lying in his gore, Amalickiah pretended to be wroth, and said: Whosoever loved the king, let him go forth, and pursue his servants that they may be slain. And it came to pass that all they who loved the king, when they heard these words, came forth and pursued after servants of the king. Now when the servants of the king saw an army pursuing after them, they were frightened again, and fled into the wilderness, and came over into the land of Zarahemla and joined the people of Ammon. And the army which pursued after them returned, having pursued after them in vain; and thus Amalickiah, by his fraud, gained the hearts of the people. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And it came to pass on the morrow he entered the city of Nephi with his armies, and took possession of the city. And now it came to pass that the queen, when she had heard that the king was slain-for Amalickiah had sent an embassy to the queen informing her that the king had been slain by his servant, that he had pursued them with his army, but it was in vain, and they had made their escape—therefore, when the queen had received this message she sent unto Amalickiah, desiring him that he would spare the people of the city; and she also desired him that he should come in unto her; and she also desired him that he should bring witnesses with him to testify concerning the death of the king. And it came to pass that Amalickiah took the same servant that slew the king, and all them who were with him, and went in unto the queen, unto the place where she sat; and they all testified unto her that the king was slain by his own servants; and they said also: They have fled; does not this testify against them? And thus they satisfied the queen concerning the death of the king. And it came to pass that Amalickiah sought the favour of the queen, and took her unto him to wife; and thus by his fraud, and by the assistance of his cunning servants, he obtained the kingdom. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“Yea, he was acknowledged king throughout all the land, among all the people of the Lamanites, who were composed of the Lamanites and the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites, and all the dissenters of the Nephites, from the reign of Nephi down to the present time. Now these dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites, yea, having been instructed in the same knowledge of the Lord, nevertheless, it is strange to relate, not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent, and more wild, wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites—drinking in with traditions of the Lamanites; giving way to indolence, and all manner of lasciviousness; yea, entirely forgetting the Lord their God,” reports Alma 47.1-36. I think now of the ancient times, when your worship first was established. It has been a long time now since your worship was celebrated as it should be, with processions in the marketplaces, with games to unite the scattered tribes, with hospitality granted to strangers in your name. Throughout the lonely times, you have waited patiently, in the sure foreknowledge that the night would end. See now, on the horizon; the light of dawn begins to creep over the edge of the World! #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
We need not wait much longer before the Sun will rise again and shine down once more on a World in which your worship is no longer neglected. Through the long night, we have kept your faith; in secret or in disguise we have performed the sacred acts. Sometimes, even unbeknownst to us, we have kept ancient lore alive. Now we hope to return to the light, to practice your ways openly and without fear, drawing the thoughts of other to you. In the backs of our people’s minds, they have remembered you, God. God, we pray to you! We who has been faithful, pray to you! Repository of all wisdom, out of which all others have only a share: it is to you we look when we need advice. The words you speak drop like late Summer rains, refreshing after a drought, awakening the dormant grass. Again and again I call to you, again and again you answer me. Old Wise One, it is you whom I worship. My love pours out, even as your bounty pours out. What I do here is only an image of your greater generosity. I pour out my love to the ancient High One, I make my offerings to One who should be worshipped. The Lord reigneth; He is robed in majesty; the Lord if robed, He hath girded Himself with strength. Now is the Earth firmly established; it shall not be moved. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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They Day of Glory Has Arrived–The Strongest Force in Our Universe is Not Overriding Power, but Love!
The entire movement to acquire antiques was born out of sheer respect for things that lasted longer than fifteen minutes. We are part of an incredible paradox. On the one hand, we want self-sufficiency, independence, privacy. Each person, even each family member, wants and “needs” an Ultimate Driving Machine, so that one person never has to adjust to the schedule or the wants of another. The family home comes with a dishwasher, so that family members need not cooperate in washing the dishes. If not an absolute “must,” a separate room for each members of the family is always the goal, and these days many kids have their own bedrooms and a play room, and each parent usually has more than one room as well, the den is usually reserved for the father and the mother has an office. When we commute by train or bus, we bury our respective noses in our own newspapers or books or laptop or tablet so that we can avoid communicating with the person next to us. It is very clear that the utmost in privacy is none too private. Our slogan could well be that of Greta Garbo: “I vant to be alone.” We pursue privacy and self-sufficiency in almost every possible way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Many of us abhor superficial communication—chitchat, long conversations on trivial topics, cocktail-party burbling, lengthy arguments over everything from politics to baseball. So, to avoid such “a waste of time,” we remove ourselves from situations in which such superficiality is the expected level of communication. We in the West seem to have made a fetish out of complete individual self-sufficiency, of not needing help, of being completely private except in a very few selected relationships. This way of living would have been completely impossible during the most of history, but modern technology makes this goal achievable. With my private room, private Ultimate Driving Machine, private office, private (and preferably unlisted) telephone, with food and clothing purchased in large impersonal stores, with my own stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer-dryer, I can be practically immune from intimate contact with any other person. What with social media and dating applications, and singles bars, even intimate moments can be satisfied without personal intimacy. The utmost in privacy of personal life can be—and often is—achieved. We have reached our goal. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
However, we pay a price. From our alienated young people come our criminals, capable of senseless violence. From our private middle years, we “progress” to be a very lonely “senior citizen” status. Both the young and the old are almost completely useless in our modern society, and are made keenly aware of that uselessness. They have no place. They are private, isolated—and hopeless. Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they will have jobs and get enough money to buy things. We must realize that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of separateness. Humanity has to rediscover that we prize deep intimacy, that it helps us grow, that it empowers us to act in our society. We are to be sad with one another, and we are to rejoice with one another. We have to be quite willing to put up with discomfort in order to be together. We have to relearn to enjoy nourishing one another. When we find our private selves lost in the larger endeavour of forming a community, we will discover that this gives us a deeper and more solid sense of self. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Perhaps the most dramatic and far-reaching future significance of our work is simply our way of being and acting as humans. To create a climate where power is shared, where individuals are empowered, where groups are dealt with as being trustworthy and competent to face problems—this is unheard of in ordinary life. Our schools, our government, our businesses and corporations are permeated with the view that neither the individual nor the group is trustworthy. There must be power over, power to control. The hierarchical system is inherent in our whole culture. Even in many of our religions, persons are regarded as basically sinful, and hence, in need of discipline and guidance. In the psychological sphere, psychoanalysis takes a similar view—that at the core, individuals are full of unconscious impulses which, if uncontrolled, would wreak havoc upon society. The paradigm of Western culture is that the essence of persons is dangerous; thus, they must be taught, guided, and controlled by those with superior authority. Yet out experience, and that of an increasing number of humanistic psychologists, has shown that another paradigm is far more effective and constructive for the individual and for society. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
It is that, given a suitable psychological climate, humankind is trustworthy, creative, self-motivated, powerful, and constructive—capable of releasing undreamed-of potentialities. The first paradigm of controlling the evil in human nature has brought civilization to the brink of disaster. Can society come to see the effectiveness of the second paradigm? It appears to be the only hope for survival. Our goal as a nation and World is to create a harmonious unity out of citizens. Imagine reaching the point where people can truly hear and understand and respect one another, where humanness had a higher priority than power. The results could have the most profound significance. I do not mean all the problems will be resolved. Not all. However, even the most difficult tensions and demands will become more soluble in a human climate of understanding and mutual respect. If a group of individuals, no matter how antagonistic or hostile its members, are willing to gather in the same room together, we know the attitudes and skills that can move it in the direction of a communicative mutual respect, and eventually toward becoming a community. If we utilize the knowledge we have today, the impact on education in the future would be phenomenal. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The knowledge we have today could make future education a climate of trust in which curiosity, the natural desire to learn, could be nourished and enhanced. It could free students, faculty, and administrators alike to engage in a participatory mode of decision-making about all aspects of learning. It could develop a sense of community in which the destructive competition of today would be replaced by cooperation, respect for others, and mutual helpfulness. It could be a place where students would come to prize themselves, would develop self-confidence and self-esteem. It could be a situation in which both students and faculty would increasingly discover that source of values in themselves, coming to an awareness that the good life is within, not dependent on outside sources. In such an educational community, students could find an excitement in intellectual and emotional discovery which would lead them to become lifelong learners. These are not “pie-in-the-sky” statements. These goals are realistic and achievable, but we have to stop doubting peace is a reality. Much like how recently President Donald J. Trump secured a historic deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to advance peace and prosperity in the region. What does this signify for the future? #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
In any new development, a subterranean current in the popular mind and feeling, which grows stronger and stronger until, with a seeming suddenness, it breaks forth into clearly articulated forms in various places and countries. This is why President Trump is advocating law and order. Law and order weeds out corruption and discrimination and makes it so people can live in peace and prosper. In this sense I believe there is, alongside the obviously destructive forces on our planet, a growing current that will lead to a new level of human awareness. There is the strong interest in holistic healing; the recognition of undeveloped psychic powers within each individual; the mysterious, unspoken communication that is so evident in our groups; a dimly sensed recognition that the strongest force in our Universe is not overriding power, but love. I know with certain that the problem is not that people cannot love. The problem is with their receptors for love. If one has dysfunction of one’s receptors of God’s love, one can lose one’s way and succumb to dangers, such as hopelessness, helplessness, and loneliness. When a person’s receptors for God’s love is dysfunctional, God’s influence in one’s life is minimized. The ability to sense Heavenly Father and His Son’s love and caring is lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Without Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and Their influence in our lives, we have no shepherd. Without Them, there is no sail—meaning there is no power. Without Them, there is no anchor—meaning there is no stability, especially in times of storm. Without Them, there is nothing which to steer—meaning there is no direction. No power, no stability, and no direction are all consequences of dysfunctional receptors for Their love. Receptor dysfunction for God’s love does not happen all at one—but slowly and imperceptibly over time. An inability to sense God’s love can also stem from sin or not pressing forward on the covenant path. Such inability can also be due to physical or mental illness that may require professional help. When indicated, God expects us to seek professional help. The first step is to repent. Repentance is a joyful process. If you stole Leo’s lunch and keep stealing it, then repent and never do it again and ask God for forgiveness. Remember that God does not really care who you were and what you did. God cares who you are, what you are doing, and who you are becoming. When, or whether, this cluster of new ways of seeing human beings in relation to the Universe will emerge fully into the open, I cannot predict. I simply point to the fact that the harmonious sense of community that occurs in our workshops enhances all the separate springs of this flowing subterrane current. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
To further highlight this illustration, the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica covers 74,000 square miles—the size of the US State of Florida or Great Britain—and it is particularly susceptible to climate and ocean changes. Over the past 30 years, the overall rate of ice loss from Thwaites and its neighbouring glaciers has increased more than 5-fold. It was recently discovered that deep seabed channels beneath Thwaites Glacier is the pathway for warm ocean water and causing the ice to melt faster. So, if we are creating peaceful subterranean of love, peace, law and order, we could dissolve hate before people realize what is happening, at much faster rate than people believed possible. Our workshop experiences, along with the many other manifestations of this current, mean to me that humankind may be moving into a far different type of consciousness than exists today. We all must wait upon the social will. If the time comes when our culture tires of the endless fleecing of our economy, looting, rioting, vandalisms, homicidal feuds, despairs of the use of force and war as a means of bringing peace, becomes discontent with the half-lives that its members are living—only then will our culture seriously look for alternatives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
When people are ready to solve the ills of society, they will not find a void. They will discover that there are means for facilitating the resolutions of feuds. They will find that there are ways of building community without sacrificing the potential and creativity of the person. They will realize that there are ways, already tried out on a small scale, of enhancing learning, of moving toward new values, of raising consciousness to unexpected levels. They will find that there are ways of being that do not involve power over persons or groups. They will discover that harmonious community can be built on a basis of mutual respect and enhanced personal growth. That, to my mind, is our basic contribution as humanistic psychologist with a person-centered philosophy—we have created working models on a small scale which our culture can use when it is ready. Many of these small-scale models are seen in the suburbs in communities like Cresleigh Ranch and Plumas Ranch by Cresleigh Homes. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in out time of need,” reports Hebrews 4.15-16. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
God’s power enables us to respond to the various circumstances and challenges hat constantly come to us. Perhaps the idea of appropriating the grace of God is a new thought to you, and you are not quite sure what I mean. The basic meaning of the word if “to take possession of,” and that is what we do when we appropriate God’s grace. We take possession of the divine strength He has made available to us in Christ. To use an analogy, we draw on an inexhaustible bank account, the account of God’s grace. Now there are times when the Holy Spirit works in a sovereign way in our lives, apart from any appropriating activity on our part, but more often God expects us to acts to appropriate His grace. To this end, God has provided four principal means of doing so: prayer, His word, submission to His providential workings in our lives, and the ministry of others. The first avenue of appropriating God’s grace is simply to ask for it in prayer. When we realize that we have reached the limits of our commitment, sometimes we may consider ceasing to ask God for guidance and begin to ask for the grace—that is, the spiritual ability—to say yes to what we think is His will. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The throne of grace is a figurative expression for God seated on His throne as the God of all grace. It is obviously not the throne itself but God on the throne who will give us His grace in time of need. In Revelation 6.16-17, God is portrayed sitting on His throne as the God of wrath and judgment. The people who see Him in that setting will call for mountains and rocks to fall on them to hide from His face and His wrath. The prophet Isaiah saw God seated on His throne as the God of infinite majesty and holiness. Isaiah was awestruck and cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I love among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (6.5). However, in Hebrew 4.16, we see, not a throne of wrath, nor even a throne of infinite majesty and holiness, but a throne of grace. We are encouraged to come to this throne, not with terror because of His wrath, nor with awed fear because of His holiness, but with confidence because of His grace. God is indeed the infinitely holy God, high and exalted as Isaiah saw Him, and He will one day manifest Himself as the God of wrath to those who have spurned Him. However to us who are His children, He is the God of grace seated on His throne of grace. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
We need to remember that it was God Himself who presented Jesus as the atonement for our sins, and the One who satisfied the justice of God and by that satisfaction turned aside God’s wrath from us. And because of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, God’s throne is no longer a throne of judgment and wrath for us but it is now a throne of grace. God, whom Paul described as living in “unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6.16), now encourages us to enter “the Most Holy Place,” His very throne room, and “draw near to God.” (Hebrews 10.19-22). This invitation is a striking contrast to the restrictions that existed under the Mosaic dispensation of the Old Testament. Under that system, only the high priest was allowed to enter the most holy place of the Temple, and then only once a year and never without the blood of the atonement (Hebrews 9.7). Now all believers may enter the Most Holy Place in Heaven, at all times, through the blood of Jesus, which was shed once for all (Hebrews 10.19). Not only may we enter, we are encouraged to enter, to come into the very presence of God, and to come with confidence because we come by the blood of Jesus. When we come to God’s throne, we need to remember He is indeed the God of all grace. He is the landowner who graciously gave a full day’s pay to the workers who had worked only one hour in the vineyard. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
God is the God who said of the sinful nation of Israel even while they were in captivity, “I will rejoice in doing them good,” reports Jeremiah 32.41. He is the God who remained faithful to Peter through all his failures and sins and made him into a mighty apostle. He is the God who, over and over again, has promised to never lead us, nor forsake us (id est Deuteronomy 31.6,8; Psalm 94.14; Isaiah 42.16; Hebrews 13.5). He is the God who “longs to be gracious to you,” reports Isaiah 30.18, and He is the God who is for you, not against you (Romans 8.31). All this, and more, is summed up in that one statement, the God of all grace. As we approach the throne of grace, we find that Jesus, our Great High Priest, has gone before us and is, even as we come, already interceding for us. “But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost the come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them,” reports Hebrews 7.24-25. Jesus is described by the writer of Hebrews as being able to sympathize with out weakness. The double negative, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness” (4.15), is equivalent to a very strong absolute assertion: “We do have a high priest who can sympathize with us. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
The truth is, He not only can be touched [with our weaknesses], but cannot but be touched. The assertion is not, It is possible that He may sympathize; but, It is impossible that He should not. Jesus can sympathize with our weakness because He has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. The word translated as sympathize means far more than the popular meaning, to feel sorry for. It is the capacity for sharing or understanding the feelings of another person. This feeling can be felt only by a person who has experienced the same or similar trials and who, consequently, understands what the other person is going through and has a desire to relieve the other’s distress. It is pity; but it is something more than pity: it is the pity which a human of kind affections feels towards those who are suffering what he himself has suffered. The Son of God, had He never become incarnate, might have pitied, but He could not have sympathized with His people. To render Him capable of sympathy, it was necessary that He should become a man that He might be susceptible of suffering, and that He should actually be a sufferer that He might be susceptible of sympathy. I suspect, however, that many of us, especially when we are experiencing physical or emotional pain, question whether or not Jesus suffered in the same way we are suffering. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
After all, Jesus never experienced prolonged unemployment, Jesus never had to deal with lawmakers who refuse to help the people they serve, was not faced with the risk of contracting COVID-19, never had a child die in an plane crash, or endured the debilitating effects of a physical disability, or watched a spouse die slowly and painfully from cancer. The biblical text does not assert that Jesus suffered in all these ways. It says, “We have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (4.15). That is, Jesus was tempted, or tried, in all the various ways human nature is afflicted. He was born into poverty and experienced rejection from His own family, reproach by the leaders of His day, desertion by His friends, and excruciating physical pain on the cross. And the absence in Scripture of any reference to Joseph or Luke 2 leads to a reasonable inference that Jesus lost his Legal, Earthy father before He was thirty. Above all, He suffered the ultimate trial, which you and I will never have to experience: being forsaken by His Heavenly Father (Mathew 27.46). Sometimes you and I feel forsaken in the midst of trial (David felt that way in Psalm 13.1), and that sense of divine abandonment is the hardest part of the trial. However, Jesus actually was forsaken by God and knew it. He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” reports Isaiah 53.3. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
So Jesus does fully understand and sympathize with us in our times of trials. We can be sure, whatever the nature of our hurts, they are not new to Him. Because Jesus can enter into our hurts and does sympathize with us, we can approach God’s throne with confidence, without being ashamed to lay our weakness before Him. He understands and He cares. We are encouraged to come to the throne of grace where we have a sympathetic High Priest already interceding for us, “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need,” reports Hebrew 4.16. “And it came to pass that as many would not hearken to the words of Helaman and his brethren were gathered together against their brethren. And now behold, they were exceedingly wroth, insomuch that they were determined to slay them. Now the leader of those who were worth against their brethren was a large and a strong man; and his name was Amalickiah. And Amalickiah was desirous to be a king; and those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their king; and they were the greater part of them the lower judges of the land, and they were seeking for power. And they had been led by the flatteries of Amalickiah, that is they would support him and establish him to be their king that he would make them rulers over the people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
“Thus they were led away by Amalickiah to dissension, notwithstanding the preaching of Helaman and his brethren, yea, notwithstanding their exceedingly great care over the church, for they were high priests over the church. And there were many in the church who believed in the flattering words of Amalickiah, therefore they dissented eve from the church; and thus were the affairs of the people of Nephi exceedingly precarious and dangerous, notwithstanding their great victory which they had over the Lamanites, and their great rejoicing which they had had because of their deliverance by the hand of the Lord. Thus we see how quick the children of humans do forget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do iniquity, and to be led away by the evil one. Yea, and we also see the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of humans. Yea, we see that Amalickiah, because he was a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words, that he led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly; yea, and to seek to destroy the church of God, and to destroy the foundation of liberty which God had granted unto them, or which blessing God had sent upon the face of the land for the righteous’ sake. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“And now it came to pass that when Moroni, who was chief commander of the armies of the Nephites, had heard of these dissensions, he was angry with Amalickiah. And it came to pass the he rent his coast; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole. And he fastened on his headplate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armour, about hi loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coast, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the Earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land—for thus were all the true believers of Christ, who belonged to the church of God, called by those who did not belong to the church. And those who did belong to the church were faithful; yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called, because of their belief in Christ who should come. And therefore, at this time, Moroni prayed that the cause of the Christians, and the freedom of the land might be favoured. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“And it came to pass that when he had poured out his soul to God, he named all the land which was south of the land of Desolation, yea, and in fine, all the land, both on the north and on the south—A chosen land, and the land of liberty. And he said: Surely God shall not suffer that we, who are despised because we take upon us the name of Christ, shall be trodden down and destroyed, until we bring it upon us by our own transgressions. And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part, and crying with a loud voice, saying: Behold, whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord, and enter into a covenant that they will maintain their rights, and their religion, that the Lord God may bless them. And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running together with their armour girded about their loins, rendering their garments in token, or as a covenant, that they would not forsake the Lord their God; or, in other words, if they should transgress the commandments of God, or fall into transgression, and be ashamed to take upon them the name of Christ, the Lord should rend them even as they have rent their garments. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“Now this was the covenant which they made, and they cast their garments at the feet of Moroni, saying: We covenant with our God, that we shall be destroyed, even as our brethren in the land northward, if we shall fall into transgression; yea, he may cast us at the feet of our enemies, even as we have cast our garments at thy feet to be trodden under foot, if we shall fall into transgression. Moroni said unto them: Behold, we are a remnant of the seed of Jacob; yea, we are a remnant of the seed of Joseph, whose coast was rent by his brethren into many pieces; yea, and now behold, let us remember to keep the commandments of God, or garments shall be rent by our brethren, and we be cast into prison, or be sold, or be slain. Yea, let us preserve our liberty as a remnant of Joseph; yea, let us remember the words of Jacob, before his death, for behold, he saw that part of the remnant of the coat of Joseph was preserved and had not decayed. And he said—Even as this remnant of garment of my son hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of the seed of my son be preserved by the hand of God, and be taken unto himself, while the remainder of the seed of Joseph shall perish, even as the remnant of this garment. Now behold, this giveth my soul sorrow; nevertheless, my soul hath joy in my son, because of that part of his seed which shall be taken unto God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“Now behold, this was the language of Jacob. And now who knoweth but what the remnant of the seed of Joseph, which shall perish as his garment, are those who have dissented from us? Yea, and even it shall be ourselves if we do not stand fast in the faith of Christ. And now it came to pass that when Moroni has said these words he went forth, and also sent forth in all parts of the land where there were dissensions, and gathered together all the people who were desirous to maintain their liberty, to stand against Amalickiah and those who had dissented, who were called Amalickiahites. And it came to pass that when Amalickiah saw that the people of Moroni were more numerous than the Amalickiahites—and he also saw that his people were doubtful concerning the justice of the cause in which they had undertaken—therefore, fearing that he should not gain the point, he took those of his people who would and departed into the land of Nephi. Now Moroni thought it was not expedient that the Lamanites should have any more strength; therefore he thought to cut off the people of Amalickiah, or to take them and bring them back, and put Amalickiah to death; yea, for he knew that he would stir up the Lamanites to anger against them, and cause them to come to battle against them; and this he knew that Amalickiah would do that he might obtain his purpose. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“Therefore Moroni thought it was expedient that he should take his armies, who has gathered themselves together, and armed themselves, and entered into a covenant to keep the peace—and it came t pass that he took his army and marched out with his tens into the wilderness, to cut off the course of Amalickiah in the wilderness. And it came to pass that he did according to his desires, and marched forth into the wilderness, and headed the armies of Amalickiah. And it came to pass that Amalickiah fled with a small number of his men, and the remainder were delivered up to the hands of Moroni and were taken back into the land of Zarahemla. Now, Moroni being a man who was appointed by the chief judges and the voice of the people, therefore he had power according to his will with the armies of the Nephities, to establish and to exercise authority over them. And it came to pass that whomsoever of the Amalickiahites that would not enter into a covenant to support the cause of freedom, that they might maintain a free government, he caused to be put to death; and there were but few who denied the covenant of freedom. And it came to pass also, that he caused the title of liberty to be hoisted upon every tower which was in all the land, which was possessed by the Nephites; and thus Moroni planted the standard of liberty among the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“And the began to have peace again in the land; and thus they did maintain peace in the land until nearly the end of the nineteenth years of reign of the judges. And Helaman and the high priests did also maintain order in the church; yea, even for he space of four years did they have much peace and rejoicing in the church. And it came to pass that there were many who died, firmly believing that their souls were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ; thus they went out of the World rejoicing. And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land—but not so much with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the causes of diseases, to which humans were subject by the nature of the climate—but there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ are happy in him, as we must needs suppose,” reports Alma 46.1-41. How shall I find words that can capture the truth? I am far too bold even to try. For how many before me have dared this, to praise you, searching themselves for new ways of speaking? If I could find only one phrase that expressed a Sunset, or a word for birds’ wings, or a sound for clouds, I would be content. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
However, so many are your wonders and so inadequate my small attempts that I can only hope to have reflected some of what you are. Or perhaps I serve you best when I fall silent in your presence, God. What is done in the night, you see it. What is done in the day, you see it. Who can hide from you, who are found in all things? Where would we hide from you, who are fund in all things? Why would we hide from you, whose love pours out on all things? We thankfully acknowledge that Thou art the Lord our God and God of our fathers, the God of all that lives, our Creator and Creator of the Universe. We offer blessings and thanksgiving to Thy great and holy name because Thou hast kept us in life and sustained us; so mayest Thou continue to keep us in life and sustain us. O gather our exiles into the courts of Thy holy sanctuary to observe Thy statutes, to do Thy will, and to serve Thee with a perfect heart. We give thanks unto Thee. Blessed be God to whom we are every grateful. O Lord, our God, please be gracious unto Thy people and accept their prayer. Please restore the worship to Thy sanctuary and receive in love the supplications of your children; and may the worship of Thy people be ever acceptable unto Thee. O may our eyes witness Thy return to Zion. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who restorest Thy divine present unto the land. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Waiting for the Angel to Stir the Water, I Realized I am Almost a God the Creator—The World I See is My World!
The faces of the past are like leaves that settle to the ground, they may the Earth rich and thick, so that new fruit will come forth every Summer. Radio and television have contributed greatly to the demise of the art of conversation. Scientist have attempted to pin down the difference between the effects of radio and television and have not as yet been able to turn up any solid results. It seems to me that neither radio nor television is an agent of dialogue. They work indirectly. In both of them there is someone on the giving end and someone on the receiving end. There can be no contradictions, no back talk. When the radio or TV is turned on, conversation stops. Radio and TV can create the impression of conversation, but they cannot really make it come about. That, I think, is a privilege reserved for living human beings. The crucial issue is whether radio and television invite us, stimulate us, challenge us to converse or whether they are inimical to the conditions that make conversation possible. However, in that regard radio seems less harmful to me than television. Television encourages passivity, a comfortable consumer mentality, more than any other medium. It is the most successful means we have ever developed to help us “pass time.” However, real conversation demands time. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
If we pass our time and kill our time, conversation cannot flourish. Radio, if I am seeing things rig, does not exert so strong an attraction. It promotes and demands more alertness, more imagination. It could be, if it wanted to be, an inexhaustible source of material for conversation. It cannot offer conversation itself, but it can offer the stuff of conversation. It can point us toward other, more basic and direct means of communication, calling our attention, say, to the uniqueness and delight of face-to-face conversation. In many cases, when people turn on the radio, they are still free. However, when an individual turns on the TV and there is a program that interests them, they become addicted to them and do not want to move from in front of the screen. With the assistance of radio technology, one can listen to a conversation somewhat in the same way that they listen to someone else speaking on the telephone, and to be honest, it can be much better than the gibberish and chatter coming out of most people’s mouths because there is a topic that is meant to keep people interested. What we hear on the radio is not, of course, as personal as a telephone conversation, but we take both the telephone and radio in stride. We are not fascinated by them, and so I can truly say that we are free either to listen to the radio or not listen to it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
My reaction to television is quite different. With television I lose a bit of my freedom. The minute the set is turned on and I see the picture on it, I experience what I would hesitate to call a compulsion but what is certainly a strong impulse or inclination to watch, even if I know intellectually that the program is utter drivel. I do not means to say that everything on television is drivel, some of it is very fascinating and highlights lifestyles we may be interested in, or inform of about myths we what to know about, some people even use television shows like a book club and discuss them so they forego sin by gossiping about real life people. People feel drawn to watch TV because it transports them to other realities they want to explore. Television holds a fascination far greater than that of radio. It exerts a kind of psychological spell that cannot be explained in terms of the content of any particular program. I have often asked myself what this fascination is, and I think it is rooted in some very profound level of our nature: By merely pressing a button, we can summon another World into our living rooms. That appeals to profound magical instincts. With television I become a kind of god. I can get rid of the reality I actually live with, and in its place I can create a new reality that appears when I press the button. #RandolpHarris 3 of 23
I am almost God the Creator. The World I see is my World. That reminds me of a story that not only illustrates this point vividly but also has the advantage of being true. A father and his six-year-old son were riding in the family car on a rainy, stormy day. They had a flat tire and had to stop to change it. Given the weather, that was a thoroughly unpleasant task, and the boy said to his father, “Daddy, can we not change to a different channel?” that is the way the child saw the World. If this one does not suit me, I will switch to another one. My wife recently read a novel by a Polish author and then told me a story, which I found utterly intriguing. The novel tells about the son of a very wealthy and eccentric man. The body grows up in his parental house but in total isolation. All he has available to him is a television set. He leaves it on all day, and he thinks that what he sees on it is reality (acute television intoxication). The young man never says a word, cannot say a word, because he knows nothing. All he can do is watch, because for him the World is nothing but a television show. However, precisely because he says nothing and because he eventually winds up in the house of one of the most powerful men in America, people think he must be terribly important. Pretty soon everyone knows his name, and in the end he is nominated for president because he never says anything and has not any opinions at all. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
This story illustrates just what I have been talking about. Reality and what we see in television have become one, and I think that this experience of being able to press a button and makes another World become a reality is—as you have said—a profound, atavistic experience and one that we find incredibly seductive. That is why television has no need, as it were, to offer anything “good.” Its appeal lies in the very nature of the medium. People are drawn to it the way they are to shooting star or to any other exciting spectacle—where they can remain spectators and are in no way prepared to take any action themselves. The flip side of this illusion of power (that can be had by pressing a button) is, then, total passivity. With radio, the possibility still remains that listening can be a kind of response, a predisposition to activity that should not be confused with merely waiting for enlightenment. Television has brought about drastic changes in our listening habits. Now that television has gotten people of the habit of attending to anything fully and closely, we can no longer assume that we have our listeners’ attention. Television has reduced radio to a more modest role. Indeed, radio hardly qualifies as a mass medium any more—a situation for which we should perhaps be grateful. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Should not radio therefore be defining new tasks for itself that will take into account these differences we have been discussing here? I know that South German Radio has offered an extensive series of programs covering subjects ordinarily treated in university courses. The language has been somewhat simpler perhaps, but that is all to the good. (If instructors used simpler language to convey more content, it would be an improvement in our university courses.) This, it seems to me, is an admirable task for radio and one in which it can fill a significant educational role. It is remarkable with how little concentration people think, live, and work these days. Work is so fragmented and shattered that concentration is usually only mechanical and partial. We rarely encounter that full concentration that involves the whole person. A worker on an assembly line who has to tighten the same screw over and over again needs a certain kind of concentration is usually only mechanical and partial. We rarely encounter that full concentration that involves the whole person. A worker on an assembly line who has to tighten the same screw over and over again needs a certain kind of concentration to keep up one’s pace, but this type of concentration is capable of listening without one’s thoughts wandering off; one will not try to do five things at once because one cannot find any one thing that really satisfies one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
And, of course, without concentration we cannot accomplish anything. Everything we do without concentration will have little value. If concentration is lacking, our activities will not provide us or anyone else with satisfaction. That holds true for all of us, not just for great artist or scientist. I now turn to the notion of reflective equilibrium. The need for this idea arises as follows. According to the provisional aim of mortal philosophy, one might says that justice as fairness is the hypothesis that the principles which would be chosen in the original position are identical with those that match our considered judgments and so these principles describe our sense of justice. However, this interpretation is clearly oversimplified. In describing our sense of justice an allowance must be made for the likelihood that considered judgments are no doubt subject to certain irregularities and distortions despite the fact that they are rendered under favourable circumstances. When a person is presented with an intuitively appealing account of one’s sense of justice (one, say, which embodies various reasonable and natural presumptions), one may well revise one’s judgments to conform to its principles even though the theory does not fit one’s existing judgments exactly. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
One is especially likely to do this if one can find an explanation for the deviations which undermines one’s confidence in one’s original judgments and if the conception presented yields a judgment which one finds one can now accept. From the standpoint of moral philosophy, the best account of a person’s sense of justice is not the one which fits one’s judgments prior to one’s examining any conception of justice, but rather the one which matches one’s judgments in reflective equilibrium. As we have seen, this state is one reached after a person has weighed various proposed conceptions and one has either revised one’s judgments to accord with one of them or held fast to one’s initial convictions (and the corresponding conception). The notion of reflective equilibrium introduces some complications that call for comment. For one thing, it is a notion characteristic of the study of principles which govern actions shaped by self-examination. Moral philosophy is Socratic: we may wan to change our present considered judgments once their regulative principles are brought to light. And we may want to do this even though these principles are a perfect fit. A knowledge of these principles may suggest further reflections that lead us to revise our judgments. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
This feature is not peculiar though to moral philosophy, or to the study of other philosophical principles such as those of induction and scientific method. For example, while we may not expect a substantial revision of our sense of correct grammar in view of a linguistic theory the principles of which seem especially natural to us, such as change is not inconceivable, and no doubt our sense of grammaticalness may be affected to some degree anyway by this knowledge. However, these is a contrast, say, with physics. To take an extreme case, if we have an accurate account of motions of the Heavenly bodies that we do not find appealing, we cannot alter these motions to conform to a more attractive theory. It is simply good fortune that the principles of celestial mechanics have their intellectual beauty. There are, however, several interpretations of reflective equilibrium. For the nation varies depending upon whether one is to be presented with only those descriptions which more or less match one’s existing judgments except for minor discrepancies, or whether one is to be presented with all possible descriptions to which one might plausibly conform one’s judgements together with all relevant philosophical arguments for them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
In the first case we would be describing a person’s sense of justice more or less as it is although allowing for the smoothing out of certain irregularities; in the second case a person’s sense of justice may or may not undergo a radical shift. Clearly it is the second kind of reflective equilibrium that one is concerned with in moral philosophy. To be sure, it is doubtful where one can ever reach this state. For even if the idea of all possible descriptions and of all philosophically relevant arguments is well-defined (which is a questionable one), we cannot examine each of them. The most we can do is to study the conceptions of justice known to us through the tradition of moral philosophy and any further ones that occur to us, and then to consider these. This is pretty much what I shall do, since in presenting justice as fairness I shall compare its principles and arguments with a few other familiar views. In light of these remarks, justice as fairness can be understood as saying that the two principles previously mentioned would be chosen in the original position in preference to other traditional conceptions of justice, for example, those of utility and perfection; and that these principles give a better match with our considered judgments on reflection than these recognized alternatives. Thus justice as fairness moves us closer to the philosophical ideal; it does not, of course, achieve it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
This explanation of reflective equilibrium suggests straightway a number of further questions. For example, does a reflective equilibrium (in the sense of the philosophical ideal) exist? If s, is it unique? Even if it is unique, can it be reached? Perhaps the judgments from which we begin, or the course of reflection itself (or both), affect the resting point, if any, that we eventually achieve. It would be useless, however, to speculate about these matters here. They are far beyond our reach. I shall not even ask whether the principles that characterize one person’s considered judgments are the same as those that characterize another’s. I shall take for granted that these principles are either approximately the same for persons whose judgments are in reflective equilibrium, or if not, that their judgments divide along a few lines represented by the family of traditional doctrines that I shall discuss. (Indeed, one person may find oneself torn between opposing conceptions at the same time.) If human’s conceptions of justice finally turn out to differ, the ways in which they do is a matter of first importance. Of course we cannot know how these conceptions vary, or even whether they do, until we have a better account of their structure. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
And this we now lack, even in the case of one human, or homogeneous group of humans. Here too there is likely to be a similarity with linguistics: if we can describe one person’s sense of grammar we shall surely know many things about the general structure of language. Similarly, if we should be able to characterize one (educated) person’s sense of justice, we would have a good beginning toward a theory of justice. We may suppose that everyone has in oneself the whole form of a moral conception. So for the purposes of this essay, the views of the reader and the author are the only ones that count. The opinions of others are useful only to clear our own heads. I wish to stress that a theory of justice is precisely that, namely, theory. It is a theory of the moral sentiments (to recall an eighteenth-century title) setting out the principles governing our moral powers, or, more specifically, our sense of justice. These is a definite if limited class of facts against which conjectured principles can be checked, namely, our considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. A theory of justice is subject to the same rules of method as other theories. Definitions and analyses of meaning do not have a special place: definition is but one device used in setting up the general structure of theory. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Once the whole framework is worked out, definitions have no distinct status and stand or fall with the theory itself. In any case, it is obviously impossible to develop a substantive theory of justice founded solely on truths of logic and definition. The analysis of moral concepts and the a priori, however traditionally understood, is too slender a basis. Moral philosophy must be free to use contingent assumptions and general facts as it pleases. There is no other way to give an account of our considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. This is the conception of the subject adopted by most classical British writers through Sidgwick. I see no reason to depart from it. I believe that his view goes back in its essentials to Aristotle’s procedure in the Nicomachean Ethics. And Sidgwick thought of the history of moral philosophy as a series of attempts to state in full breadth and clearness those primary intuitions of Reason, by the scientific application of which the common moral thought of humankind may be at once systematized and corrected. He takes for granted that philosophical reflection will lead to revisions in our considered judgments, and although there are elements of epistemological intuitionism in his doctrine, these are not given much weight when unsupported by systematic considerations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Moreover, if we can find an accurate account of our moral conceptions, then questions of meaning and justification may prove much easier to answer. Indeed some of them may no longer be real questions at all. Note, for example, the extraordinary deepening of our understanding of the meaning and justification of statements in logical and mathematics made possible by developments since Frege and Cantor. A knowledge of the fundamental structures of logic ad set theory and their relation to mathematics has transformed the philosophy of these subjects in a way that conceptual analysis and linguistic investigations never could. One has only to observe the effect of the division of theories into those which are decidable and complete, undecidable yet complete, and neither complete no decidable. The problem of meaning and truth in logic and mathematics is profoundly altered by the discovery of logical systems illustrating these concepts. Once the substantive content of moral conceptions is better understood, a similar transformation may occur. It is possible that convincing answers to questions of the meaning of justification or moral judgments can be found in no other way. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
I wish, then, to stress the central place of the study of out substantive moral conceptions. However, the corollary to recognizing their complexity is accepting the fact that our present theories are primitive and have great defect. We need to be tolerant of simplifications if they reveal and approximate the general outlines of our judgments. Objections by way of counterexamples are to be made with care, since these may tell us only what we know already, namely that our theory is wrong somewhere. The important thing is to find out how often and how far it is wrong. All theories are presumably mistaken in places. The real question at any given time is which of the views already proposed is the best approximation overall. To ascertain this some grasp of the structure of rival theories is surely necessary. It is for this reason that I have tried to classify and to discuss conceptions of justice by reference to their basic intuitive ideas, since these disclose the main difference between them. In presenting justice as fairness I shall contrast it with utilitarianism. I do this for various reasons, partly as an expository device, partly because the several variants of the utilitarian view have long dominated our philosophical tradition and continue to do so. And this dominance has been maintained despite the persistent misgivings that utilitarianism so easily arouses. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
The explanation for this peculiar state of affairs lies, I believe, in the fact that no constructive alternative theory has been advanced which has the comparable virtues of clarity and system and which at the same time allays these doubts. Intuitionism is not constructive, perfectionism is unacceptable. My conjecture is that the contract doctrine properly worked out can fill this gap. I think justice as fairness an endeavor in this direction. Of course the contract theory as I shall present it is subject to the strictures that we have just noted. It is no exception to the primitiveness that marks existing moral theories. It is disheartening, for example, how little can now be said about priority rules; and while a lexical ordering may serve fairly well for some important cases, I assume that it will not be completely satisfactory. Nevertheless, we are free to use simplifying devices, and this I have often done. We should view a theory of justice as a guiding framework designed to focus our moral sensibilities and to put before our intuitive capacities more limited and manageable questions for judgment. The principles of justice identify certain considerations as morally relevant and the priority rules indicate the appropriate precedence when these conflict, while the conception of the original position defines the underlying idea which is to inform our deliberations. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
If the scheme as a whole seems on reflection to clarify and to order our thoughts, and if it tends t reduce disagreements and to bring divergent convictions more in line, then it has done all that one may reasonably ask. Understood as parts of a framework that does indeed seem to help, the numerous simplifications may be regarded as provisionally justified. However, achieving this new vision of oneself—of who one would be—must not be presumed to be a mere snap of the fingers. It will require genuine openness to radical change in oneself, careful and creative instruction, and abundant supplies of divine grace. For most people all of this only comes to them after they reach the lowest level of their lives or the worst point of a decline, and discover the total hopelessness of being who they are. Most people cannot envision who they would be without the fears, angers, lusts, power ploys, and woundedness with which they have lived so long. They identify with their habit-worn feelings. When Jesus said to the man by the pool of Bethesda, waiting for the angel to stir the waters, “Wilt thou be made whole?” he was not just passing the time of day (John 5.6). #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
We are not told how old he was, but this man had been in his impotent condition for thirty-eight years! If made whole, he would have to deal with a career change of immense proportions. To all his relatives and acquaintances he would no longer be “the one whom we take to the pool every day to wait for the angel.” He would now be…What? Who? How would he identify himself? How would be now relate to others and they to him? He might even have to get a job. Doing what? However, really, this man’s problems was nothing compared to an individual undergoing the transformation of his feelings (emotions, sensations, desires) from those he learned in the home, school, and playground as he grew up to those that characterize the inner beings of Jesus Christ. He is not no to be one who will spend hours watching TV, listening to the radio, fantasizing sensual indulgence or revenge, or who will try to dominate or injure others in attitude, word, or deed. He will no repay evil for evil—push for push, blow for blow, taunt for taunt, hatred for hatred, contempt for contempt. He will not be always on the hunt to satisfy his lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life (1 John 2.16). #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
No wonder he has no real ideal who he will be; and he must content himself with the mere identity: “apprentice of Jesus.” That is the starting point from which his new identity will emerge, and it is in fact powerful enough to bear the load. “Behold, now it came to pass that the people of Nephi were exceedingly rejoiced, because the Lord had again delivered them out of the hands of their enemies; therefore they gave thanks unto the Lord their God; yea, and they did fast much and pray much, and they did worship God; yea, and they did fast much and pray much, and they did worship God with exceedingly great joy. And it came to pass in the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, that Alma came unto his son Helaman and said unto him: Believest thou the words which I spake unto thee concerning those records which have been kept? And Helaman said unto him: Yea, I believe. And Alma said again: Believest thou in Jesus Christ, who shall come? And he said: Yea, I believe all the words which thou has spoken. And Alma said unto him again: Will ye keep my commandments? And he said: Yea, I will keep thy commandments with all my heart. Then Alma said unto him: Blessed art thou; and the Lord shall prosper thee in this land. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“However, behold, I have somewhat to prophesy unto thee; but what I prophesy unto thee ye shall not make known; yea, what I prophesy unto thee shall not be made known, even until the prophecy is fulfilled; therefore write the words which I shall say. And these are the words: Behold, I perceive that this very people, the Nephites, according to the spirit of revelation which is in me four hundred years from the time that Jesus Christ shall manifest himself unto them, shall dwindle in unbelief. Yea, and then shall they see wars and pestilences, yea, famines and bloodshed, even until the people of Nephi shall become extinct—yea, and this because they shall dwindle in unbelief and fall into the works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of iniquities; yea, I say unto you, that because they shall sin against so great light and knowledge, yea, I say unto you, that from that day, even the fourth generation shall not pass away before this great iniquity shall come. And when that great day cometh, behold, the time very soon cometh that those who are now, or the seed of those who are no numbered among the people of Nephi, shall no more be numbered among the people of Nephi. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“However, whosoever remaineth, and is not destroyed in that great and dreadful say, shall be numbered among the Lamanites, and shall become like unto them, all, save it be a few who shall be called the disciples of the Lord; and them shall the Lamanites pursue even until they shall become extinct. And now, because of iniquity, this prophecy shall be fulfilled. And now it came to pass that after Alma had said these things to Helaman, he blessed him, and also his other sons; and he also blessed the Earth for the righteous sake. And he said: Thus saith the Lord God—Cursed shall be the land, yea, this land, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, unto destruction, which do wickedly, when they are fully ripe; and as I have said so shall it be; for this is the cursing and the blessing of God upon the land, for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. And now, when Alma has said these words he blessed the church, yea, all those who should stand fast in the faith from that time henceforth. And when Alma had done this he departed out of the land of Zarahemla, as if to go into the land of Melek. And it came to pass that he was never heard of more; as to his death or burial we know not of. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“Behold, this we know, that he was a righteous man; and the saying when abroad in the church that he was taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord, even as Moses. However, behold, the scripture saith the Lord took Moses unto himself; and we suppose that he has also received Alma in the spirit, unto himself; therefore, for this cause we know nothing concerning his death and burial. And now it came to pass in the commencement of the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, that Helaman went forth among the people to declare the word unto them. For behold, because of their wars with the Lamanites and the many little dissensions and disturbances which had been among the people, it became expedient that the word of God should be declared among them, yea, and that a regulation should be made throughout the church. Therefore, Helaman and his brethren went forth to establish the church again in all the land, yea, in every city throughout all the land which was possessed by the people of Nephi. And it came to pass that they did appoint priests and teachers throughout all the land, over all the churches. And now it came to pass that after Helaman and his brethren had appointed priests and teachers over the churches that there arose a dissension among them, and they would not give heed to the words of Helaman and his brethren. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“However, they grew proud, being lifted up in their hearts, because of their exceedingly great riches; therefore they grew rich in their own eyes, and would not give heed to their words, to walk uprightly before God,” reports Alma 45.1-24. Most High, from all directions about me, the spirits are praying. The spirits of east and south are praying. The spirits of west and north are praying. The spirits below and above are praying. The spirits are praying with me. We all together are praying to you, Ancient one. Please open Heaven’s door. Looking out at my yard, I see a leaf falling from a tree, and I raise a prayer of awe for God who caused such a marvel to me. This is a sign of the necessity of Grace, the Fatherly tenderness of God, the might of the all-prevailing Name; which are never weak, never diluted, never drawling, never ill-arranged, never provocation to listlessness; which exhibit an exquisite skill of antithesis and a rhythmical harmony which he ear is loth to lose. With a marvellous flexibility, my Lord, thank you for accepting all of your children with all of the different conditions of the human spirit. This is an example of a rich variety of construction, subject to a general law of threefold division. We give glory to God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Creative Minds Always Have Been Known to Survive Any Kind of Bad Training!
If it were possible, every human would be like God; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility. The good news is we are not alone. We all face hard times. I have encountered more than one trying circumstance in my own life. These are the days when prophecies are being fulfilled. We live in the dispensation of the fulness of times, which is the time to prepare for the Saviour’s return. It is also the time to work out our own salvation. We must know what we know. We must stand spiritually and temporarily independent of all Worldly creatures. This begins by understanding that God the Father is the Father of our spirits and that He loves us, that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and Saviour, and that the Holy Ghost can communicate with our minds and our hearts. This is how we receive inspiration. We need to learn how to recognize and apply these promptings. We need to be acquainted with the promptings of the Holy Ghost, and we need to practice and apply the gospel teachings until they become natural and automatic. These promptings become the foundation of our testimonies. Then our testimonies will keep us happy and safe in troubled times. Effective Christian ministry, whether it is to one person or thousands, inevitably involves sacrifice. The Greek word we use to designate a minister is also the word used for servant. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Thus a minister of the gospel is a servant, not only of God, but of those to whom one ministers. That is why Paul could very naturally say, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.5. To minister effectively, we need not only the strength and ability to minister but also the heart and disposition of a servant. We must have the sacrificial attitude Paul had when he said, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us,” reports 1 Thessalonians 2.8. A testimony of the gospel is a personal witness borne to our souls by the Holy Ghost that certain facts of eternal significance are true and that we know them to be true. Testimony is to know and to feel, conversion is to be become. We can learn how answers come through inspiration. They come as thoughts and feelings to our minds and hearts. Occasionally answers may come as a burning in the chest. Watch for answers by paying attention to the thoughts and feelings that come into our minds. Over time we will learn to recognize these as promptings. A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
This inspiration of ideas may allow you to achieve your goals sooner than you realize, maybe even in that day. Those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus. Asking for a testimony of truth opens the window of inspiration. Prayer is the most common and powerful way to invite inspiration. Merely asking a question, even in our minds, will start to open the window. The scriptures teach, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” God’s grace will work in unusual ways in your life. Grace is the workings of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. The sense is not that God’s unmerited favour considered as the source of blessing, but rather the working of His Spirit as a concrete expression of that favour. The freest and most spontaneous acts of humans, their inward states and the outward manifestations of those states, when good, are due to the secret influence of the Spirit of God, which eludes our consciousness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
So it is God’s grace operating in them through the Holy Spirit, not the superiority of their own character, that caused such an abundant outpouring of generosity. God does not leave people to the resources of their own human nature—which is not naturally generous—but intervenes in their hearts by the power of His Spirit to create this amazing generosity. There is no question of human resources, but only of divine grace; and that same grace is available to everyone. That same grace is available to you and me to enable us to be generous in giving ourselves, which is after all the concrete expression of a sacrificial spirit. We need to be encouraged to realize that God’s grace is both sufficient and effect. We can, by His grace, fulfill whatever ministry He has given us to do in the body of Christ. We are unworthy to minister, but God considers us worthy through Christ. We are inadequate to minister, but God makes us adequate through the powerful workings of His Holy Spirit. We are not naturally given to self-sacrifice, but God gives us that spirit by His grace. All is of grace. No human worthiness or adequacy is required or accepted. Such a strong, but I believe biblical, emphasis on God’s grace apart from human worthy or adequacy does lead to the question of the relationship of grace and rewards. Does not God promise rewards to His faithful servants? #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
Did not Paul himself teacher that we must appear before the judgement seat of Christ to receive what is due us? If all our efforts are the results of God’s grace, what room is left for “faithful service”? God does not promise rewards, and what must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you have entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25.21). “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this World who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this World,” reports 1 Corinthians 5.10. However, these rewards are rewards of grace, not of merit. We never by our hard work or sacrificial service obligate God to reward us, for as Paul said in Romans 11.35, “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay one?” If all our service to God is made possible by His undeserved favour and made effective by the power of His Spirit, then we have really brought nothing to Him that we did not first receive from Him. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
If there was anything of human’s bringing, which was not of God’s bestowing, though it were never so small, it would overturn the nature of grace, and make that of works which is of grace. However, it is all of God’s bestowing. Every thought, word, or deed emanating from us that is in any way pleasing to God and glorifying to Him has its ultimate origin in God, because apart from Him, there is nothing good in us. “But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out,” reports Romans 7.8 and 18. Even the good works we bring to God are in themselves defective, both in motive and performance. It is virtually impossible to purge our motives completely of pride and self-gratification. And we can never perfectly perform those good works. The best we can do falls short of what God requires, but the truth is, we never actually do the best we can, let alone what would meet God’s perfect standard. That is why Peter spoke of our “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” reports 1 Peter 2.5. Our best works are acceptable to God only because they are made acceptable by the merit of Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
However, God does accept our merits through Christ; God accepts them on the basis of His grace. We do not do all that is commanded but come short of our duty, and that which we do is imperfect and defective in respect of manner and measures; and therefore in justice deserves punishment, rather than reward: and consequently the reward, when it is given, is to be ascribed to God’s undeserved mercy and not to our merit. Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard. You will remember that, in the verses immediately preceding the parable, Jesus promised a reward “a hundred times as much,” ore ten thousand percent. God’s rewards to us will not only be of grace, but will indeed be gracious—that is, generous beyond all measure. So the grace of God in our service to Him does not negate rewards but rather makes them possible. However, the blessing Christ promised, the blessing of great reward, is a reward of grace. The blessing is promised even though it is not earned. Our rewards in Heaven are a result of God’s crowing His own gifts. This is the amazing story of God’s grace. God saves us by His grace and transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Son by His grace. In all our trials and afflictions, He sustains and strengthens us by His grace. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
By the power of the Holy Ghost we may know the truth of all things which are right and expedient for us. We will receive strength, comfort and help to make good decisions and act with confidence in troubled times. God calls us by grace to perform our own unique functions within the Body of Christ. Then, again by grace, He gives to each of us the spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill our calling. As we serve God, He makes that service acceptable to Himself by grace, and then rewards us a hundredfold by grace. In Romans 1.17, Paul spoke of the gospel as revealing “a righteousness that is by faith from first to last”—that is, from beginning to end. That is also an appropriate term for grace, for faith is no more than the response to and appropriation of the grace of God. So the entire Christian life is a life lived under grace from first to last, from beginning to end, all “to praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves,” reports Ephesians 1.6. The Scriptural/Christian doctrine of work has an exalted origin because it is closely related to the doctrines of the creative energy of God and the image of God in humans. We meet God the Creator as a worker in Genesis 1.1-2.2. In fact, that entire section is a log of God’s work, ending with the statement that upon completion “He rested from all the work of creating that he had done,” reports Genesis 2.2. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
As Milton expressed it: The planets in their stations listening stood, while the bring pomp ascended jubilant. “Open, ye everlasting gates,” they sung; “Open, ye Heavens, you living doors; let the great Creator, from his work return’d magnificent, his six days’ work, a World. (Paradise Lost, VII.563). God’s being a worker endows all legitimate work with an intrinsic dignity. The additional teaching of Genesis 1 is that “God created humans in his own image” (1.27). We are compelled to understand from this that the image of God in humans means humans are to be workers. The way we work will reveal how much we have allowed the image of God to develop in us. There is immense dignity in work and in being workers. Humans, you mist set this on your hearts: Your work matters to God! A further observation of great importance is that work was given to humans before the Fall, before sin, before imperfection: “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden” (Genesis 2.8); “The Lord God took the human and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (2.15). From this we come to the inescapable conclusion that work is good, despite the modern thinking that it is evil and dehumanizing. Having the power to receive personal inspiration will be necessary in the coming days. #Randolphharris 9 of 26
We do not consider manual work as a curse, or a biter necessity, not even as a means of making a living. We consider it as a high human function. As a basis of human life. The most dignified thing in the life of a human being and which ought to be free, creative. Humans ought to be proud of it. If we look at this from the viewpoint of one still at an early stage of spiritual formation, it is a major step forward just to sincerely desire, not to not sin, but to have different feelings—feelings that lead away from sin. At that early stage, one has to strongly want to not want what one now wants, and to want to want what does not now want. One has to feel strong revulsion toward the wrong feeling one now has or is likely to have and at the same time strong attraction to good feeling that one does not now feel. This proves to be absolutely necessary in order to “put off the old person” (involving the wrong feeling) and “put on the new person” (involving the good feeling). So, for example, one does not merely want to not assault others verbally, or to not fall into fornication, but one really wants to not have the feelings that lead to it and takes steps to avoid those feelings. If a strong and compelling vision of myself as one who is simply free from intense vanity or desire for wealth or for indulgence in pleasures of the flesh can possess me, then I am in a position to desire to not have the desires I now have. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
If I want to purge myself of Worldly desires, those means ca be effectively sought to that end. The Vision Intent Mission (VIM) pattern of change will work here as elsewhere. This is a great time to be alive! He Lord needs each of us. This is our day; it is our time! And now let us look down into ourselves to discover there the struggle between separation and reunion, between sin and grace, in our relation to others, in our relation to ourselves, and in our relation to the Ground and aim of our being. If your soul responds to the description that I intend to give, words like “sin” and “separation”, “grace” and “reunion”, may have a new meaning for us. However, the words themselves are not important. It is the response of the deepest levels of our being that is important. If such a response were to occur among us this moment, we could say that we have known grace. Who has not, at some time, been lonely in the midst of a social event? The feeling of our separation from the rest of life is most acute when we are surrounded by it in noise and talk. We realize then much more than in moments of solitude how strange we are to each other, how estranged life is from life. Each one of us draws back into oneself. We cannot penetrate the hidden center of another individual; nor can that individual pass beyond the shroud that covers our own being. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Even the greatest love cannot break through the walls of the self. Who has not experienced that disillusionment of all great love? If one were to hurl away one’s self in complete self-surrender, one would become a nothing, without form or strength, a self without self, merely an object of contempt and abuse. Our generation knows more than the generation of our fathers about the hidden hostility in the ground of our souls. Today we know much about the profusive aggressiveness in every being. Today we can confirm what Immanuel Kant, the prophet of human reason and dignity, was honest enough to say: there is something in the misfortune of our best friends which does not displease us. Who amongst us is dishonest enough to deny that this is true also of one? Are we not almost always ready to abuse everybody and everything, although often in a very refined way, for the pleasure of self-elevation, for an occasion for boasting, for a moment of lust? To know that we are ready is to know the meaning of the separation of life from life, and of “sin abounding”. The most irrevocable expression of the separation of life today is the attitude of social groups within nations toward each other, and the attitude of nations themselves towards other nations. The walks of distance, in time and space, have been removed by technical progress; but the walks of estrangement between heat and heat have been incredibly strengthened. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
The madness being seen in American streets provides too easy an excuse for us to turn our thoughts from our own selves. However, let us just consider ourselves and what we feel, when we read, this morning and tonight, that in the entire World nearly 1 million people have died from COVID-19, and the millions are freezing, burning up, being flooded out of their homes, are sick and dying, and starving to death. The strangeness of life to life is evident in the strange fact that we can know all this, and yet can live today, this morning, tonight, as though we were completely ignorant. And I refer to the most sensitive people amongst us. In both humankind and nature, life is separated from life. Estrangement prevails among all things that live. Sin abounds. It is important to remember that we are not merely separated from each other. For we are also separated from ourselves. Humans Against Themselves is not merely an abstract idea, but rather also indicates the rediscovery of an age-old insight. Humans are split within themselves. Life moves against itself through aggression, hate, and despair. We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-live. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves in the love with which we are loved eternally. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
One who is able to love oneself is able to love others also; one who has learned to overcome self-contempt has overcome one’s contempt for others. However, the depth of our separation lies in just the fact that we are not capable of a great and merciful divine love towards ourselves. On the contrary, in each of us there is an instinct of self-destruction, which is as strong as our instinct of self-preservation. In our tendency to abuse and destroy others, there is an open or hidden tendency to abuse and to destroy ourselves. Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves. Nothing is more obvious than the split in both our unconscious life and conscious personality. Without the help of modern psychology, Paul expressed that fact in his famous words, “For I do not do the good I desire, but rather the evil that I do not desire.” And then he continued in words that might well be the motto of all depth psychology: “Now if I should do what I do not wish to do, it is not I that do it, but rather sin which dwells within me.” The apostle sensed a split between one’s conscious will and one’s real will, between oneself and something strange within and alien to one. One was estranged from oneself; and that estrangement one called “sin”. One also called it a strange “law in one’s limbs,”, an irresistible compulsion. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
How often we commit certain acts in perfect consciousness, yet with the shocking sense that we are being controlled by an alien power! That is the experience of the separation of ourselves from ourselves, which is to day sin,” whether or not we like to use that word. Thus, the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We hear the voice of that depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total, and unconditioned is demanded of us; but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, and will not accept its promise. We cannot escape, however. If that something is the Ground of our being, we are bound to it for all eternity, just as we are bound to ourselves and to all other life. We always remain in the power of that from which we are estranged. That fact brings us to the ultimate depth of sin: separated and yet bound, estranged and yet belonging, destroyed and yet preserved, the state which is called despair. Despair means that there is no escape. Despair is “the sickness unto death.” However, the terrible thing about the sickness of despair is that we cannot be released, not even through open or hidden suicide. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
For we all know that we are bound eternally and inescapably o the Ground of our being. The abyss of separation is not always visible. However, it has become more visible to our generation than to the preceding generations, because of our feeling of meaninglessness, emptiness, doubt, and cynicism—all expressions of despair, of our separation from the roots and the meaning of our life. Sin in its most profound sense, sin, as despair, abounds amongst us. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”, says Paul in the same letter in which he describes the unimaginable power of separation and self-destruction within society and the individual soul. He does not say these words because sentimental interests demand a happy ending for everything tragic. He says them because they describe the most overwhelming and determining experience of his life. In the pictures of Jesus as the Christ, which appeared to him at the moment of his greatest separation from other humans, from oneself and God, he found himself accepted in spite of his being rejected. And when found that he was accepted, he was able to accept himself and to be reconciled to others. The moment in which grace struck him and overwhelmed him, he was reunited with that to which he belonged, and from which we was estranged in utter strangeness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It dies not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to human and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept Them without grace. For if we accept without grace, we do so in the state of separation, and can only succeed in deepening the separation. We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stoke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it, certainly it does not happen. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsion reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. However, everything is transformed. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance. In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion of life with life. We experience the grace of understanding each other’s words. We understand not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also that which lies behind them, even when they are harsh or angry. For even then there is a longing to break through the walls of separation. We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same Ground to which we belong, and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the genders, of the generations, of the nations, of the races, of the cultures, and even the utter strangeness between humans and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belongs to life. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
And in the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to ourselves. We experience moments in which we accept ourselves, because we feel that we have been accepted by that which is greater than we. If only more such moments were given to us! For it is such moments that make us love our life, that makes us accept ourselves, not in our goodness and self-complacency, but in our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept oneself. However, sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say “yes” to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our self is reunited with itself. Then we can say that grace has come upon us. “Sin” and “grace” are strange words; but they are not strange things. We can find them whenever we look into ourselves with searching eyes and longing hearts. They determine our life. They abound within us and in all of life. May grace more abound within us! Thus, according to these principles, every thing is full of God. Nothing exists but by His will. Nothing possesses any power but by His concession. It may seem that these principles rob nature, and all created beings, of every power, in order to render our dependency on the Deity still more sensible and immediate. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
This theory argues surely more power in the Deity to delegate a certain degree of power to inferior creatures. It argues more wisdom to contrive at first the fabric of the World with such perfect foresight, that, of itself, and by its proper operation, it may serve all the purposes of providence, than if the great Creator were obliged every moment to adjust its parts, and animate by His breath all the wheels of that stupendous machine. “And it came to pass that they did stop and withdrew a pace from them. And Moroni said unto Zerahemnah, that we do not desire to be humans of blood. Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you. Behold, we have not come out to battle against you that we might shed your blood for power; neither do we desire to bring any one to the yoke of bondage. However, this is the very cause for which ye have come against us; yea, and ye are angry with us because of our religion. However, nor, ye behold that the Lord is with us; and ye behold that he has delivered you into our hands. And now I would that ye should understand that this is done unto us because of our religion and our faith in Christ. And now ye see that ye cannot destroy this our faith. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye se that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith. And now, Zerahemnah, I command you, in the name of that all-powerful God, who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, by our faith, by our religion, and by our rites of worship, and by our church, and by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness; and by all that is most dear unto us—yea, and this is not all; I command you by all the desires which ye have for life, that ye deliver up your weapons of wars unto us, and we will seek not your blood, but we will spare your lives, if ye will go your way and come not again to war against us. And now, if ye do not this, behold, ye are in our hands, and I will command my men that they shall fall upon you, and inflict the wounds of death in your bodies, that ye may become extinct; and then we will see who shall have power over this people; yea, we will see who shall be brought into bondage. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“And now it came to pass that when Zerahemnah had heard these sayings he came forth and delivered up his sword and his cimeter, and his bow into the hands of Moroni, and said unto him: Behold, here are our weapons of war; we will deliver them up unto you, but we will not suffer ourselves to take an oath unto you, which we know that we shall break, and also our children; but take our weapons of war, and suffer that we may depart into the wilderness; otherwise we will retain our swords, and we will perish or conquer. Behold, we are not of your faith; we do not believe that it is God that has delivered us into your hands; but we believe that it is your cunning that has preserved you from our swords. Behold, it is your breastplates and your shields that have preserved you. And now when Zerahemnah had made an end of speaking these words, Moroni returned the sword and the weapons of war, which he had received, into Zerahemnah, saying: Behold, we will end the conflict. Now I cannot recall the words which I have spoken, therefore as the Lord liveth, ye shall not depart except ye depart with an oath that ye will not return again against us to war. Now as ye are in our hands we will spill your blood upon the ground, or ye shall submit to the conditions which I have promised. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And now when Moroni had said these words, Zerahemnah retained his sword, and he was angry with Moroni, and he rushed forward that he might slay Moroni; but as he raised his sword, behold, one of Moroni’s soldiers smote it even to the Earth, and it broke by the hilt; and he also smote Zerahemnah that he took off his scalp and it fell to the Earth. And Zerahemnah withdrew from before them into the midst of his soldiers. And it came to pass that the soldiers who stood by, who smote off the scalp of Zerahemnah, took up the scalp from off the ground by the hair, and laid it upon the point of his sword, and stretched it forth unto them, saying unto them with a loud voice: Even as this scalp has fallen to the Earth, which is the scalp of your chief, so shall ye fall to the Earth except ye will deliver up your weapons of war and depart with a covenant of peace. Now there were many, when they heard these words and saw the scalp which was upon the sword, that were struck with fear; and many came forth and threw down their weapons of war at the feet of Moroni, and entered into a covenant of peace. And as many as entered into a covenant they suffered to depart into the wilderness. Now it came to pass that Zerahemnah was exceedingly wroth, and he did stir up the remainder of his soldiers to anger, to contend more powerfully against the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“And now Moroni was angry, because of the stubbornness of the Lamanites; therefore he commanded his people that they should fall upon them and slay them. And it came to pass that they began to slay them; yea, and the Lamanites did contend with their sword and their might. However, behold, their naked skins and their bare heads were exposed to the sharp swords of the Nephites; yea, behold they were pierced and smitten, yea, and did fall exceedingly fast before the swords of the Nephites; and they began to be swept down, even as the soldier of Moroni has prophesied. Now Zerahemnah, when he saw that they were all about to be destroyed, cried mightily unto Moroni, promising that he would covenant and also his people with them, if they would spare the remainder of their lives, that they never would come to war again against them. And it came to pass that Moroni caused that the work of death should cease again among the people. And he took the weapons of war from the Lamanites; and after they had entered into a covenant with him of peace they were suffered to depart into the wilderness. Now the number of their dead was not numbered because of the greatness of the number; yea, the number of their dead was exceedingly great, both on the Nephites and on the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
“And it came to pass that they did cast their dead into the waters of Sidon, and they have gone forth and are buried in the depths of the sea. And the armies of the Nephites, or of Moroni, returned and came to their houses and their lands. And thus ended the eighteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And thus ended the record of Alma, which was written upon the plate of Nephi,” reports Alma 44.1-24. Surrounded by the forest’s trees I am surrounded by the spirits of the forest. I sit here, on the needles and leaves, and spread my arms in greeting. Come to me, if you wish; I hope for your coming. I wait here for you, hoping to see you. And if you do not come, I will still leave these gifts for you, for my hands are not closed. My hands are open in generosity towards you, God, they are extended in friendship towards you. Do you hear me, Lord? I am calling to you. Here I am, Lord: Please come to me. Here are gifts for you: Come and I will give them. I am calling you, Lord. Please come and talk to me. Riding the sound of the deep drumming, please come to me as I call to you. Please come to the rhythm of the heartfelt pounding, please come to me as I call you here. Dear Lord in Heaven, please come to me as I call you hear. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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I Feared Dying, Not Because of Death, but Because it Would End My Career!
People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do. Every society faces not merely a succession of probable futures, but an array of possible futures, and a conflict over preferable futures. The pace of events is moving so fast that unless we can find some way to keep our sights on tomorrow, we cannot expect to be in touch with today. Millions of people regard their work as something they must bear, a living indignity. Their feelings are not without precedent. A dark could of dissatisfaction blankets today’s work force. For the overwhelming majority, work is dull and meaningless. This pervasive discontent has spawned the paradoxical problems of laziness on the one hand and overwork on the other. Twenty five percent of employees gives one’s best effort on the job, and about twenty percent of the average worker’s time is wasted, thus producing, in effect, a four-day work week. However, sloth is an epidemic, so is over overwork. Moonlighting is a way of life for a substantial part of our work force. When the workers at a rubber manufacturing plant in Akron, Ohio USA, were given six-hour workdays—and over half of them took on a second full- or part-time job—this was a classic illustration! #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The managerial counterpart to workers’ moonlighting is the workaholism of those who sublimate everything—family, leisure, friends, church—to career. The depths to which careerism can go is chronicled and is extreme but not an uncommon expression when a man confessed he feared dying, not because of death, but because it would end his career. This mind-set has produced an unending list of shallow folk-religion epigrams which tout the requisite qualities of successful careers: discipline—creativity is two percent inspiration and ninety eight percent perspiration; goals—if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time; savvy—success in life some not from holding a good hand, but from playing a poor hand well; perseverance—tough times never last, but tough people do; vision—some people dream dreams and ask, Why? I dream dreams and ask, Why not?; self-confidence—believe in God, and you are halfway there; believe in yourself, and you are three-quarters there. The careerists who espouse the hubris of these credos wrongly think themselves heirs of the Protestant work ethic, but they are anything but that, as we shall see. This delusion takes on personally tragic dimensions, because surveys have indicated that the work ethics of Christians and non-Christians are virtually identical. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
At church they swear allegiance to values informed by creeds and Scriptures. However, at work they bow to idols of expedience and career success. Moral camouflage has become de rigueur (required by etiquette or current fashion) in the workplace. The plain truth is, many Christian humans miserably fail in their work ethics either because of sloth or overwork or, ironically, both. What we need is a work ethic which is informed by God’s Word and religiously lived out in the workplace and the Church. The reason this is so important is that most of us spend eight to twelve of our sixteen waking hours at work five or six days a week. So how we work not only reveals who we are, but determines what we are. The Christian discipline of work must be observed de rigueur wherever God has placed us. “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. However, where in abounded, grace did much more abound,” reports Romans 5.20. Thee words of Paul summarize his apostolic experience, his religious message as a whole, and the Christian understanding of life. To discuss theses words, or to make them the text of even several sermons, has always seemed impossible to me. I have never dared to use them before. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
However, something has driven me to consider these words during the past few months, a desire to give witness to the two facts which appeared to me, in hour of retrospection, as the all-determining facts of our life: the abounding sin and the greater abound of grace. There are few words more strange to most of us than “sin” and “grace.” They are strange, just because they are so well-known. During the centuries they have received distorting connotations, and have lost so much of their genuine power that we must seriously ask ourselves whether we should use them at all, or whether we should discard them as useless tools. However, there is a mysterious fact about the great words of our religious tradition: they cannot be replaced. All attempts to make substitutions, including those I have tried myself, have failed to convey the reality that was to be expressed; they have led to shallow and important talk. There are no substitutes for words like “sin” and “grace”. However, there is a way of rediscovering their meaning, the same way that leads us down into the depths of our human existence. In that depth these words were conceived; and there they gained power for all ages; there they must be found again by each generation, and by each of us for ourselves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Let us therefore try to penetrate the deeper levels in our life, in order to see whether we can discover in them the realities of which our text speaks. It seems desirable at this point, in order to prevent misunderstanding to discuss briefly the nature of moral theory. I shall do this by explaining in more detail the concept of a considered judgment in reflective equilibrium and the reasons for introducing it. Let us assume that each person beyond a certain age and possessed of the requisite intellectual capacity develops a sense of justice under normal social circumstances. We acquire a skill in judging things to be just and unjust, and in supporting these judgments by reasons. Moreover, we ordinarily have some desire to act in accord with there pronouncements and expect a similar desire on the part of others. Clearly this moral capacity is extraordinarily complex. To see this suffices to note the potentially infinite number and variety of judgments that we are prepared to make. The fact that we often do not know what to day, and sometime find our minds unsettled, does not detract from the complexity of the capacity we have. Now one may think of moral philosophy at first (and I stress the provisional nature of the view) as the attempt to describe our moral capacity; or, in the present case, one may regard a theory of justice. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
This enterprise is very difficult. For by such a description is not meant simply a list of the judgments on institutions and actions that we are prepared to render, accompanied with supporting reasons when these are offered. Rather, what is required is a formulation of a set of principle which, when conjoined to our beliefs and knowledge of the circumstances, would lead is to make these judgements with their supporting reasons were we to apply these principles conscientiously and intelligently. A conception of justice characterizes our moral sensibility when the everyday judgments we do make are in accordance with its principles. These principles can serve as part of the premises of an argument which arrives at the matching judgments. We do not understand our sense of justice until we know in some systematic way covering a wide range of cases what these principles are. Only a deceptive familiarity with our everyday judgments and our natural readiness to make them could conceal the fact that characterizing our moral capacities is an intricate task. The principles which describe them must be presumed to have a complex structure, and the concepts involved will require a serious study. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
A useful comparison here is with the problem of describing the sense of grammaticalness that we have for the sentences of our native language. In this case the aim is to characterize the ability to recognize well-formed sentences by formulating clearly expressed principles which make the same discrimination as the native speaker. This is a difficult undertaking which, although still unfinished, is known to require theoretical constructions that far outrun the ad hoc precepts of our explicit grammatical knowledge. A similar situation presumably holds in moral philosophy. There is no reason to assume that our sense of justice can be adequately characterized by familiar common-sense precepts, or derived from the more obvious learning principles. A correct account of moral capacities will certainly involve principles and theoretical constructions which go much beyond the norms and standards cited in everyday life; it may eventually require fairly sophisticated mathematics as well. This is to be expected, since on the contract view theory of justice is part of the theory of rational choice. Thus the idea of the original position and of an agreement on principles there does not seem too complicated or unnecessary. Indeed, these notions are rather simple and can serve only as a beginning. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
So far, though, I have not said anything about considered judgments. Now, as already suggested, they enter as those judgments in which our moral capacities are most likely to be displayed without distortion. Thys in deciding which of our judgement to take into account we may reasonably select some and exclude others. For example, we can discard those judgments made with hesitation, or in which we have little confidence. Similarly, those given when we are upset or frightened, or when we stand to gain one way or the other can be left aside. All these judgments are likely to be erroneous or to be influenced by an excessive attention to our own interests. Considered judgements are simply those rendered under conditions favourable to the exercise of the sense of justice, and therefore in circumstances where the more common excuses and explanations making a mistake do not obtain. The person making the judgment is presumed, then, to have the ability, the opportunity, and the desires to reach a correct decision (or at least, not the desire not to). Moreover, the criteria that identify these judgments are not arbitrary. They are, in fact, similar to those that single out considered judgments of any kind. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
And once we regard the sense of justice as a mental capacity, as involving the exercise of thought, the relevant judgments are those given under conditions favourable for deliberating and judgment in general. Have the people of our time still a feeling of sin? Do they, and do we, still realize that sin does not mean an immoral act, that “sin” should never be used in the plural, and that not our sins, but rather our sin is the great, all-pervading problem of our life? Do we still know that it is arrogant and erroneous to divine humans by calling some “sinners” and others “righteous”? For by way of such a division, we can usually discover that we ourselves do not quite belong to the “sinners”, since we have avoided heavy sins, have made some progress in the control of this or that sin, and have been even humble enough not to all ourselves “righteous”. Are we still able to realize that this kind of thinking and feeling about sin is far removed from what the great religious tradition, both within and outside the Bible, has meant when it speaks of sin? I should like to suggest another word to you, not as a substitute for the word “sin”, but as a useful clue in the interpretation of the word “sin”: “separation”. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Separation is an aspect of the experience of everyone. Perhaps the word “sin” has the same root as the word “asunder”. In any case, sin is separation. To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation. And separation is threefold: there is separation among individual lives, separation of humans from oneself, and separation of all humans from the Ground Being. This three-fold separation constitutes the state of everything that exists; it is a universal fact; it is the fate of every life. And it is our human fate in a very special sense. For we as humans know that we are separated. We not only suffer with all other creatures because of the self-destructive consequences of our separation, but also know why we suffer. We know that we are estranged from something to which we really belong, and with which we should be united. We know that the fate of separation is not merely a natural event like a flash of sudden lightening, but that it is an experience in which we actively participate, in which our whole personality is involved, and that, as fate, it is also guilt. Separation which is fate and guilt constitutes the meaning of the word “sin”. It is this which is the state of our entire existence, from its very beginning to its very end. Such separation is prepared in the mother’s womb, and before that time, in every preceding generation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Separation is manifest in the special actions of our conscious life. It reached beyond our graves into all succeeding generations. It is our existence itself. Existence is separation! Before sin is an act, it is a state. We can say the same thing about grace. For sin and grace are bound to each other. We do not even have a knowledge of sin unless we have already experienced the unity of life, which is grace. And conversely, we could not grasp the meaning of grace without having experienced the separation of life, which is sin. Grace is just as difficult to describe as sin. For some people, grace is the willingness of a divine king and a father to forgive over and again the foolishness and weakness of his subjects and children. We must reject such a concept of grace; for it is a merely childish destruction of a human dignity. For others, grace is a magic power in the dark places of the soul, but a power without any significance for practical life, a quickly vanishing and useless idea. For others, grace is the benevolence that we may find beside the cruelty and destructiveness in life. However, it does not mater whether we say “life goes on”, or whether we say “there is grace in life”; if grace means no more than this, the word should, and will, disappear. For other people, grace indicates the gifts that one has received from nature or society, and the power to do good things with the help of those gifts. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
However, grace is more than gifts. In grace something is overcome; grace occurs “in spite of” something; grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement. Grace is the reunion of life with life, the reconciliation of the self with itself. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace transforms fate into a meaningful destiny; it changes guilt into confidence and courage. There is something triumphant in the word “grace”: in spite of the abounding of sin grace abounds much more. Implicit in the emphasis of orthodox psychotherapy is the point of view that the neurotic is a person who once had a problem, and that the resolution of this past problem is the goal of psychotherapy. The whole approach to treatment through memory and the past indicates this assumption, which runs directly counter to everything we observe about neurosis and the neurotic. The neurotic is not merely a person who once had a problem, one is a person who has a continuing problem, here and now, in the present. Although it may well be that one is acting the way one is today “because” of things that happened to one in the past, one’s difficulties today are connected with the ways one is acting today. One cannot get along in the present, and unless one learns how to deal with problems as they arise, one will not be able to get along in the future. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
The goal of therapy is to reunite the individual with one’s soul and give one the means with which one can solve one’s present problems and any that may arise tomorrow or next years. That tool is self-support, and this one achieves by dealing with oneself and one’s problems with all the means presently at one’s command, right now. If one can become truly aware at every instant of oneself and one’s actions on whatever level—fantasy, verbal or physical—one can see how one is producing one’s difficulties, one can see what one’s present difficulties are, and one can help oneself to solve them in the present, in the here and now. Each one the individual solves makes easier the solution for the next, for every solution increases one’s self-support. It is usual for humans, in such difficulties, to have resource to some invisible intelligent principle, as the immediate cause of that event, which surprises them, and which they think, cannot be accounted for from the common powers of nature. However, philosophers, who carry their scrutiny a little farther, immediately perceive, that, even in the most familiar events, the energy of the cause is as unintelligible as in the most unusual, and that we only learn by experience the frequent conjunctions of objects, without being ever able to comprehend any thing like connection between them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Here then, many philosophers think themselves obliged by reason to have recourse, on all occasions, to the same principle, which the vulgar never appeal to but in cases, that appear miraculous and supernatural. They acknowledge mind and intelligence to be, not only the ultimate and original cause of all things, but the immediate and sole cause of every event, which appears in nature. They pretend, that those objects, which are commonly denominated causes, are in reality nothing but occasions; and that the true and direct principle of every effect is not any power or force in nature, but a volition of the Supreme Being, who wills, that such particular objects should, forever, be conjoined with each other. Instead of saying, that one billiard-ball moves another, by a force, which it has derived from the author of nature; it is the Deity oneself, they say, who, by particular volition, moves the second ball, being determined to this operation by the impulses of the first ball; in consequence of those general laws, which one has laid down to oneself in the government of the Universe. However, philosophers advancing still in their enquiries, discover, that, as we are totally ignorant of the power, on which depends the mutual operation of bodies, we are no less ignorant of that power, on which depends the operation of mind on body, or of body on mind. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Nor are we able, either from our senses or consciousness, to assign the ultimate principle in one cause, more than the other. The same ignorance, therefore, reduces them to the same conclusions. They assert, that the Deity is the immediate cause of the union between soul and body; and that they are not the organs of sense, which, being agitated by external objects, produce sensations in the mind; but that it is a particular volition of our omnipotent Maker, which excites such sensation, in consequence of such a motion in the organ. In like manner, it is not any energy in the will, that produces local motion in our members: It is God himself, who is pleased to second our will, in itself impotent, and to command that motion, which we erroneously attribute to our own power and efficacy. Nor do philosophers stop at this conclusion. They sometimes extend the same inference to the mind itself, in its internal operations. Our mental vision or conception of ideas is nothing but a revelation made to us by our Maker. When we voluntarily turn our thought to any object, and rise up its image in the fancy; it is not the will which crates the idea: It is the Universal Creator, who discover it to the mind, and renders it present to us. “And now it came to pass that the sons of Alma did go forth among the people, to declare the word unto them. And Alma, also, himself, could not rest, and he also went forth. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
“Now we shall say no more concerning their preaching, except that they preached the word, and the truth, according to the spirit of prophecy and revelation; and they preached after the holy order of God by which they were called. And now I return to an account of the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites, in the eighteenth year of the reign of the judges. For behold, it came to pass that the Zoramites became Lamanites; therefore, in the commencement of the eighteenth year the people of the Nephites saw that the Lamanites were coming upon them; therefore they made preparations for war; yea, they gathered together their armies in the land of Jershon. And it came to pass that the Lamanites came with their thousands; and they came into the land of Antionum, which is the land of the Zoramites; and a man by the name of Zerahemnah was their leader. And now, as the Amalekites were of a more wicked and murderous disposition than the Lamanites were, in and of themselves, therefore, Zerahemnah appointed chief captains over the Lamanites, and they were all Amalekites and Zoramites. Now this he did that he might preserve their hatred towards the Nephites, that he might bring them into subjection to the accomplishment of his designs. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
“For behold, his designs were to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites; this he did that he might usurp great power over them, and also that he might gain power over the Nephites by bringing them into bondage. And now the design of the Nephites was to support their lands, and their houses, and their wives, and their children, that they might preserve them from the hands of their enemies; and also that they might preserve their rights and their privileges, yea, and also their liberty, that they might worship God according to their desires. For they knew that if they should fall into the hands of the Lamanites, that whosoever should worship God in spirit and in truth, the true and the living God, the Lamanites would destroy. Yes, and they also knew the extreme hatred of the Lamanites towards their brethren, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, who were called the people of Ammon—and they would not take up arms, yea, they had entered into a covenant and they would not break it—therefore, if they should fall into the hands of the Lamanites they would be destroyed. And the Nephites would not suffer that they should be destroyed; therefore they gave them lands for their inheritance. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
“And the people of Ammon did give unto the Nephites a large portion of their substance to support their armies; and thus the Nephites were compelled, alone, to withstand against the Lamanites, who were a compound of Laman and Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, and all those who had dissented from the Nephites, who were Amalekites and Zoramites, and the descendants of the priests Noah. Now those descendants were as numerous, nearly, as were the Nephites; and this the Nephites were obliged to contend with their brethren, even unto bloodshed. And it came to pass as the armies of the Lamanites had gathered together in the land of Antionum, behold, the armies of the Nephites were prepared to meet them in the land of Jershon. Now, the leader of the Nephites, or the man who has been appointed to be the chief captain over the Nephites—now the chief captain took the command of all the armies of the Nephites—and his name was Moroni; and Moroni took all the command, and the government of their ways. And he was only twenty and five years old when he was appointed chief captain over the armies of the Nephites. And it came to pass that he met the Lamanites in the borders of Jershon, and his people were armed with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“And when the armies of the Lamanites saw that the people of Nephi, or that Moroni, has prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing—now the army of Zerahemnah was not prepared with any such thing; they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones, and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins; yea, all were naked, save it were the Zoramites, and the Amalekites. However, they were not armed with breastplates, nor shields—therefore, they were exceedingly afraid of the armies of the Nephites because of their armour, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than Nephites. Behold, not it came to pass that they durst not come against the Nephites in the borders of Jerson; therefore they departed out of the land of Antionum into the wilderness, and took their journey around about in the wilderness, away by the head of the river Sidon, that they might come into the land of Manti and take possession of the land; for they did not suppose that the armies of Moroni would know whither they had gone. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“However, it came to pass, as soon as they had departed into the wilderness Moroni sent spies into the wilderness to watch their camp; and Moroni, also, knowing of the prophecies of Alma, sent certain humans unto him, desiring him that he should inquire of the Lord whither the armies of the Nephites should go to defend themselves against the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the word of the Lord came unto Alma, and Alma informed the messengers of Moroni, that the armies of the Lamanites were marching round about in the wilderness, that they might come over into the and of Manti, that they might commence an attack upon the weaker part of the people. And those messengers went and delivered the message unto Moroni. Now Moroni, leaving a part of his army in the land of Jershon, lest by any means a part of the Lamanites should come into that land and take possession of the city, took the remaining part of his army and marched over into the land of Manti. And he caused that all the people in that quarter of the land should gather themselves together to battle against the Lamanites, to defend their lands and their country, their rights and their liberties; therefore they were prepared against the time of the coming of the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“And it came to pass that Moroni caused this his army should be secret in the valley which was near the bank of the river Sidon, which was on the west of the river Sidon in the wilderness. And Moroni placed spies round about, that he might know when the camp of the Lamanites should come. And now, as Moroni knew the intention of the Lamanites, that it was their intention to destroy their brethren, or to subject them and bring them into bondage that they might establish a kingdom unto themselves over all the land; and he also knowing that it was the only desire of the Nephites to preserve their lands, and their liberty, and their church, therefore he thought it no sin that he should defend them by stratagem; therefore, he found by his spies which course the Lamanites were to take. Therefore, he divided his army and brought a part over into the valley, and concealed them on the east, and on the south of the hill Riplah; and the remainder he concealed in the west valley, in the west of the river Sidon, and so down into the borders of the land of Manti. And thus having placed his army according to his desire, he was prepared to meet them. And it came to pass that the Lamanites came upon the north of the hill, where a part of the army of Moroni was concealed. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“And as the Lamanites has passed the hill Riplah, and came into the valley, and began to cross the river Sidon, the army which was concealed on the south of the hill, which was led by a man whose name was Lehi, and he led his army forth and encircled the Lamanites about on the east in their rear. And it came to pass that the Lamanites, when they saw the Nephites coming upon them in their rear, turned them about and began to contend with the army of Lehi. And the work of death commenced on both sides, but it was more dreadful on the part f the Lamanites, for their nakedness was exposed to the heavy blows of the Nephites with their swords and their cimeters, which brought death almost at every stroke. While on the other hand, there was now and then a man fell among he Nephites, by their swords and the loss of blood, they being shielded for the more vital parts of the body, or the more vital part of the body being shielded from the strokes of the Lamanites, by their breastplates, and their armshields, and their head-plates; and thus the Nephites did carry on the work of death among the Lamanite. And it came to pass that the Lamanites became frightened, because of the great destruction among them, even until they began to flee towards the river Sidon. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And they were pursued by Lehi and his men; and they were driven by Lehi into the waters of Sidon, and they crossed the waters of Sidon. And Lehi retained his armies upon the bank of the river Sidon that they should not cross. And it came to pass that Moroni and his army met the Lamanites in the valley, on the other side of the river Sidon, and began to fall upon them and to slay them. And the Lamanites did flee again before them, toward the land of Manti; and they were met again by the armies of Moroni. Now in this case the Lamanites did fight exceedingly; yea, never had the Lamanites been known to fight exceedingly; yea, never had the Lamanites been know to fight with such exceedingly great strength and courage, no, not even from the beginning. And they were inspired by the Zoramites and the Amalekites, who were their chief captains and leaders, and by Zerahemnah, who was their chief captain, or their chief leader and commander; yea, they did fight like dragons, and many of the Nephites were slain by their hands, yea, for they did smite in two many of their head-plates, and they did pierce man of the breastplates, and they did smite off many of their arms; and this the Lamanites did smite in their fierce anger. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for a monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and children, and their all, yes, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty to which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies. And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion. And it came to pass that when the humans of Moroni saw the fierceness and the anger of the Lamanites, they were about to shrink and flee from them. And Moroni, perceiving their intent, sent forth and inspired their hearts with these thoughts—yea, the thoughts of their lands, their liberty, yea, their freedom from bondage. And it came to pass that they turned upon the Lamanites, and they cried with one voice unto the Lord their God, for their liberty and their freedom from bondage. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“And they began to stand against the Lamanites with power; and in the selfsame hour that they cried unto the Lord for their freedom, the Lamanites began to flee before them; and they fled even to the waters of Sidon. Now, the Lamanites were more numerous, yea, by more than double the number of the Nephites; nevertheless, they were driven insomuch that they were gathered together in one body in the valley, upon the bank by the river Sidon. Therefore the armies of Moroni encircled them about, yes, even on both sides of the river, for behold, on the east were the humans of Lehi. Therefore when Zerahemnah saw the humans of Lehi on the east of the river Sidon, and the armies of Moroni on the west of the river Sidon, that they were encircled about by the Nephites, they were struck with terror. Now Moroni, when he saw their terror, commanded his humans that they should stop shedding their blood,” reports Alma 43.1-54. Within the tangle of bushes and wines, among the stones and under fallen trees, the spirit of God is in the forest waiting for me. I go to Him with gifts as a token friendship. Hidden from me in the forest around me within each tree, behind each rock, the Spirit of God is gathered, unseen by people who walk, heavy-footed, through the World. I will sit quietly and wait for you, leaving you these gifts. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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