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Why Can they Not Understand the Cold Logic of it?
Leaders have a significant role in creating a state of mind that promotes wisdom. They can serve as symbols of the moral unity of a community. They can express values and show one how to make the impossible dream become attained in possible stages. To know how to do it is skill. This World as we know it is passing away. God wants us to be free from anxiety. These are now the end times in which it is possible to live already as “children of the resurrection” in the manner of the World to come. However, there is a danger in seeing virginity and celibacy as a wonderful opportunity for a tranquil life, with no problems or worries. God wants us to be free from all anxiety. No matter what lifestyle one leads, there may be some things that one faces that are unpleasant. Yet, the goods, or affairs, of the Lord are the souls He died for: the Kingdom. This is why celibates and virgins exist: so that there will be someone, in the Church and in the World, who is concerned solely for God’s interests. It is not true that such people do not marry. Virgins are not people who renounce marriage. They are people who renounce life-long commitment to a creature. This becomes true and obvious for virgins from the moment when they make the person discover of Jesus as “Lord” of their life, and realize that this Lord is not Someone Who belongs only to the past (when He was on Earth), or only to the future (when we too will be with Him in Heave), but that, in virtue of His resurrection He is alive “in the Spirit” and is present at every moment in His Church. So it is not a questions of a virgin man or woman renouncing a “concrete” love for the sake of an “abstract” one, a real person for an imaginary Christ and with God, even leaving aside all the mystical significance usually associated with this term in religious language. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
We say of someone metaphorically that they have “espoused” a cause when they have given themselves wholly to it, body and soul, making the interests, risks, and success of that cause their own. In this sense we are entitled to say that the virgin has espoused the Kingdom or the Lord, but to a much greater degree, because virginity is not just espousing a “cause,” but also a person; not just for a time, but for eternity. The bond that binds the celibate and the virgin to the Lord is so total, so exclusive, that its only equivalent on the human level is when a man marries a woman. With all the more reason, the Christian celibate or virgin can make these words their own and say: “My soul is in love with Jesus Christ. Others will make sure that the World survives.” Having espoused the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are called to serve that cause; having married a person, the Lord, we are called to please that person. “The unmarried person,” St. Paul says, “is concerned with the Lord’s affairs, with how to please the Lord.” Manicheanism was a dualistic, contrasting a Prince of Darkness with a God of Light. In this contest between light and dark, good and evil, the body of the Manichean was no more than a prison, created by demons, which trapped the good light withing. The great Manichean goal was to liberate that imprisoned light. The only way to achieve this was through celibacy, which would prevent the creation of new prisons, and other ascetic practices, which would release trapped light. In a maze of lost, we search for an informing principle, a truth that will teach us how to live, will define our task, enable us to transcend our folly and cruelty, to use ourselves up in a way that counts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
The way to live should issue from our nature, from what it is we believer ourselves most deeply to be. We tend to assume that we know what we are, that our nature is obvious, given to us by direct observation of others and of ourselves; Just look around the World and look into your own heart and you will know the human condition. It is not so. What it is to be a human being is not clear at all, but deeply shrouded. Because, in the evolution from medieval times to present awareness, we have gained knowledge and the ability to deceive ourselves. We arrange not to know our nature, not to see what we are up to. Our self-deceptions are so dense, piled on so thick, like layers of paint on a Victorian being painted without stripping for over a century, layer after layer, laid on until it gets so thick it becomes an enamel. We have gone from stories to book, to the Internet and Television. There are so many layers of what we are supposed to be that it is hard to get a clear view of what we really are. Behind our loudly professed values of freedom, justice, and equality lies a propensity to violence far stronger and far deeper than is known to any of us, even the most cynical. It is all but invincible, invades even the bedroom, and corrupts what we call love. We indulge in vast hypocrisies, flagrant and subtle, to conceal from ourselves this destructiveness. We are in fact largely the opposite of what we think we are. And as we deceive ourselves, we deceive also others. Self-awareness comes into being in the midst of struggles for power and is immediately put to use. One defends oneself, or seeks advantage, by misrepresenting oneself. One does not think about it; it happens instantly, automatically, inalienably. It is not possible to abstain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
One cannot be oneself. To be human is to be false. Awareness is inseparable from misrepresentation. The soul of self-awareness is deception. Somatoform disorders are often accompanied by other psychological problems. A study of over 1,000 adolescents indicated that almost half of those with a somatoform disorder also had at least one other documentable psychological disorder. Among adults with somatization disorder, 23 percent had one personality disorder, and 37 percent had two or more. The most frequently occurring personality disorder among the patients with somatization disorder in this study were avoidant, paranoid, self-defeating, obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, and antisocial. Some have estimated the rate of personality disorders to be as high as 60-70 percent among people with somatoform disorders. The pure heart, blind to its own purity, sees only outward; the reflective heart is devious. They reality to which that “truly” refers is a slippery item. “Say everything that comes to mind,” the analyst says to the analysand, “nothing must remain hidden”; but the first association scurries for cover as the second is being staged by the third, and the bottom of that barrel can never be scraped. Below the deepest uncovering one yet deeper is possible. From an interpersonal perspective, the coincidence of somatoform disorders and personality disorders is understandable. In most patients with somatoform disorders, illness behaviour is a lifestyle in which the sick role is a mode of relating to self and others…in relation to others the role provides strategies for eliciting care and exercising control. Recall that, by definition, personality disorders involve inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behaviour, with problems in the interpersonal domain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
People with personality disorders often related to other people in ways that ill suited for the situation. The same reasons for this maladaptive relating to others undoubtedly also cause the somatization. In fact, somatization could be understood as an interpersonal manifestation of a personality disorder. Instead of communicating with other directly and openly, the person with a somatoform disorder develops symptoms in an effort to convey a message (neediness, desire for attention, et cetera) to other people. It is ways to envision how somatization could be a “functional” form of communication for persons with avoidant personality disorder, who shun direct communication with others; those histrionic personality disorders, who have a taste for drama; or those with dependent personality disorder, who want to be taken care of. However, the most important thing about human life is that we come upon from within and can know only from within. Many people stage their existence and block it from view with contrived sets that they call reality, and though they know those sets to be fake, so many labour endlessly to make them look real. And they go about those actions on that stage which accord with those sets, individuals come finally to believe they are real. The backdrop being them is forgotten. Somatoform disorders involve the experience and expression of distressing physical symptoms in the absence of any medical cause. The expression of distress through physical symptoms serves a number of social functions, such as secondary gain, signaling intrapersonal and interpersonal distress, and providing a temporary solution to a systemwide problem. The unchanging backdrop, the raw nature of existence, unadorned, unmediated, overwhelming one with dread, the way things are becoming too awful and too fearful to be endured. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The set changes over the course of history, though they may seem fixed over the course of a lifetime. The set, as in a play, is the arrangement in which one lives, the scheme of things. Psychoanalysis attends to those distortions of mind that have come about as a result of mishaps and mistreatments in childhood. Not just analysts and analysands, but all of us, simply by being members of a culture permeated with the promise of psychology, share in the belief that such is possible. And as one, acting on tis belief go about the processing of analyzing the miseries visited upon us by the preceding generation, it comes insidiously to seem that all misery is of this kind, not destiny but mishap, that therefore if people generally were free of neuroses they would no longer torment themselves and their families, nor would tyrants torment their subjects (nor themselves even want to be tyrants), and that human life would then be happy and secure. Thus psychology slides into place as the modern ideology, the heir to religion. It is the scheme of things in which we live. Many people with somatoform disorders have a history of adverse childhood experiences, ranging from growing up in a family characterized by conflict, poor boundary regulation, little intimacy, excessive control, and exaggerate demands for success, to outright physical and sexual abuse. As in the case of substance use problems and eating disorders, modeling may play a role in the pathogenesis of somatoform disorders. Many such patients witnessed serious illness in their parents, and have a history of illness themselves. Two psychodynamically oriented theories of somatoform disorder postulate that insecure attachments prompt excessive care seeking in the form of physical symptom expression. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Many investigators see somatoform disorders as maladaptive attempts to communicate psychological and interpersonal distress. Research findings reveal a number of interpersonal problems that tend to covary with somatoform disorders, although some of these problems may be due to psychological distress more generally, rather than to somatoform disorders in particular. What is the minimum penalty for being a conscious and self-conscious creature living simultaneously in an eternal symbolic World of one’s own construction and in the natural World in which, looking straight ahead, one sees one’s death oncoming? Indeed, suffering that one might wish to consider as avoidable or treatable must one conclude issues, not from mistreatment, but from this condition? And, further, what portion of that mistreatment of human by human and of child by parent, all of which appears gratuitous, may prove to be the unavoidable outcome of conditions that define the human state itself? Alexithymia is a communicative phenomenon that is common among people with somatoform disorders; it entails an inability to express emotions and feelings to other people. This condition may contribute to the expression of distress through physical symptoms. At a sociological level, somatoform disorders may represent cultural idioms of distress. In many cultures, it may be more socially acceptable to have a “physical” illness than to express psychological distress. In such cultures, the expression of physical symptoms may be a proxy for conveying emotional distress to others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Somatoform disorders tend to be comorbid with personality disorders. In many cases, the somatization may be a manifestation of the maladaptive interpersonal styles that are inherent in personality disorders. However, it is still possible to set forth—with great clarity, concision, and bluntness—what one knows of the ways of power and the ways of the heart. Magic money and commerce keeps problems far away, their screams unheard. So it comes about to teach us what life is, or should be. The innocence we ascribe to the childhood of humanity is the innocence we have come to know only much later, east of Eden, the innocence possible to us within the knowledge of good and evil. Such innocence consists in following the rules that banish violence. Therefore, as one projects such obedience backward, one pictures a gentle Eden wherein the lion and the lamb lie down together. And right there we have got it dead wrong. The innocence of our prehistory, our Garden of Eden, is the innocence of our prehistory, our Garden of Eden, is the innocence of unlimited violence, of acting according to nature. There were then no taboos to set limits, hence no good and no evil. The boundary zone of our existence is a forbidden territory called the sacred. We know we are there by signs. Voices are lowered and hushed, we tread softly, look up respectfully, apprehensively. We are warned to keep away. Near the boundary itself we are taken over by fear and trembling. We are too close to God. Common sense tugs at our sleeve: Turn back! Beyond the limit is great power. Those who cross that limit are struck down. Some few, able to seize and control the thunderbolts, become gods. The sacred is a minefield barring the way back. It lies between us and the freedom we have lost, the violence we so fear and so desire, the rush, the oneness of life, the fusion, the continuity, the not-knowing. The approach is posted with taboos. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
God patrols the border ceaselessly, drive us onward, warn us not to look back. We can never go home again. Nor can we ever forget or stop longing. Before humankind was enlightened, the awful power beyond the natural limits, securely removed from the ability of humans to reach control or to manipulate, was invoked by our priests and medicine men and women to strengthen those moral and pleasures of the flesh limits that human, by one’s own will, is capable of violating. The giant lurking in the Earth who shakes our house down, one or some other giant just like him or her, we are told, patrols also the pleasures of the flesh and moral boundaries. Watch out! God is everywhere. If you transgress, He will punish you. Now we are enlightened; and enlightenment, it transpires, draws in its train strange, perhaps sinister implications. After the initial grand victories of reason come disturbing aftershocks. Natural limits have been devastated of meaning. If famine sweeps the land, that is bad luck, but it is not God punishing us or telling us something. It is but the impersonal, meaningless operation of natural forces. The awful and the terrifying beyond the natural limits, therefore, cannot be used to maintain the inviolability of moral and pleasures of the flesh limits. No longer can we lend to morality the authority of lightning, of earthquake, of tidal wave. The Enlightenment has washed us up on an alien shore: All of our limits are variables, all are withing our control. We may draw them in closer or push them out farther. With no authority beyond humanity, by what standard can we designate anything as absolutely wrong? Wrong beyond reach of reconsideration? Whatever the nature of the limit, beyond that limit lies power. And that further increment of power will increase the temptation to yet further violation for a yet further augmentation of power. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Free to choose how to live, the way we choose is meaningless; living in the certainty of meaning, we live a life that is imposed. How did we arrive at such a condition? Try to imagine it. People are so bemused by the way business and politics are carried on at present, with all their intricate relationships, that they have ceased to be able to imagine alternatives. We seem to have lost our genius for inventing changes to satisfy crying needs. However, this stupor is inevitably the baleful influence of the very kind of organizational network that we have: the system pre-empts the available means and capital; it buys up as much of the intelligence as it can and muffles the voices of dissent; and then it irrefutably proclaims that itself is the only possibility of society, for nothing else is thinkable. Let me give a couple of examples of how this works. Supposed (as is the case) that a group of radio and TV broadcasters, competing in the Pickwickian fashion of semi-monopolies, control all the stations and channels in an area, amassing the capital and variously bribing Communications Commissioners in order to get them; and the broadcasters tailor their programs to meet the requirements of their advertisers, of the censorship, of their own slick and clique tastes, and of a broad common denominator of the audience, none of whom may be offended; They will then claim not only that the public wants the drivel that they give them, but indeed that nothing else is being created. Of course it is not! not for these media; why should a serious artist bother? Or suppose again (as is not quite the case) that in a group of universities only faculties are chosen that are “safe” to business people trustees or the politically appointed regents, and these faculties give out all the degrees and licenses and union cares to the new generation of students, and only such universities can get Foundation or government money for research, and research is incestuously staffed by the same sponsors and according to the same policy, and they allow no one but those they choose, to have access to either the classroom or expensive apparatus. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
With such a limited selection being allowed, it will then be claimed that there is no other learning or professional competence; that an inspired teacher is not “solid”; that the official projects are the direction of science; that progressive education is a failure; and finally, indeed—as in Dr. James Conant’s report on the high schools—that only 15 percent of the youth are “academically talented” enough to be taught hard subjects. This pre-empting of the means and the brains by the organization, and the shutting out of those who do not conform, can go so far as to cause delusions, as when recently the president of Merck and Company had the effrontery to warn the Congress that its investigation of profiteering in drugs might hinder the quest of scientific knowledge! as if the spirit of Vesalius and Pasteur depended on the financial arrangements of Merch and Company. However, it is in these circumstances that people put up with a system because “there are no alternatives.” And when one cannot think of anything to do, soon one ceases to think at all. To my mind the worst feature of our present organized system of doing things is its indirectness, its blurring of the object. The idea of directly addressing crying objective public needs, like shelter or education, and using our immense and indeed surplus resources to satisfy them, is anathema. For in the great interlocking system of corporations people live not by attending to the job, but by status, role playing, and tenure, and they work to maximize profits, prestige, or votes regardless of utility or even public disutility—exempli gratia, the plethora of cares has now become a public disutility, but automobile companies continue to manufacture them and persuade people to buy them. The indispensable premise of city planning, according to vice president of Webb and Knapp, is to make a “modest long-term profit on the promoter’s investment.” (His exact sentence, to a meeting of young planners, was, “What we’re going to build will be built only if some developer is going to make a profit from it.”!) #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Obviously he is not directly interested in housing people or in city convenience and beauty; he is directly interested in being a good vice president of Webb and Knapp. That is his privilege, but it I not a useful goal, and an idealistic young fellow would not want to be such a man. Another example: Some earnest liberal Congress people are baffled “how to give Federal aid to education and not interfere in the curriculum and teaching.” However, when the teaching function is respected and assayed by the teacher’s peers-in-skill, no one can interfere, no one would dare (just as Harvard tossed out McCarthy). The sole function of administration is to smooth the way, but in this country we have the topsy-turvy situation that a teacher must devote oneself to satisfying the administrator and financier rather than to doing one’s job, and a universally admired teacher is fired for disobeying an administrative other that would hinder teaching. To further illustration the situation, these same Congress people are concerned “how to discourage low-level programming in private TV stations without censorship.” Their questions presupposes that in communication the prior thing is the existence of networks and channels, rather than something to communicate that needs diffusing. However, the prior thing is the program, and the only grounds for the license to the situation is its ability to transmit it. Nothing could be more uneducated than for the communications commission to give people who handle the means of broadcasting the inventing of what to broadcast, and then, disturbed at the poor quality, to worry about censorship. We live increasingly, then, in a system in which little direct attention is paid to the object, the function, the program, the task, the need; but immense attention to the role, procedure, prestige, and profit. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
We do not get the shelter and education because not enough mind is paid to those things. Naturally the system is inefficient; the overhead is high; the task is rarely done with love, style, and excitement, for such beauties emerge only from absorption in real objects; sometimes the task is not done at all; and those who could do it best become either cynical or resigned. “One human gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty,” reports Proverbs 11.24. When you center your life around yourself, not only do you miss out on God’s best, but you rob other people of the joy and blessings that God wants to give them through you. The Scripture says, “We should encourage one another daily,” reports Hebrews 3.13. It is easy to criticize and condemn, to point out everyone’s flaws and failures. However, God wants us to build people up, to be a blessing, speaking words of faith and success into their lives. It does not cost anything or take a lot of time to give somebody a compliment. What does it cost to tell your wife, “I love you. You are great. I am glad you are mind”? How long does it take to tell your employee, “You are doing a fine job. I appreciate your hard work”? Many people think those nice thoughts, but faith to verbalize them. It is not enough to think kind compliments; we need to express them. As the old saying puts it: Love is not love until you give it away.” We should get up each morning with an attitude that says: I am going to make somebody else happy today. I am going to help met somebody else’s need. Do not go through life as a taker; become a giver. Waste no time. Hop to it! Look for the grace of devotion. Alas, the search for it may take some time. Be patient and faithful. Accept the fact that there may be a waiting period. When it does return, welcome it warmly, and do not let it out of your grasp. Follow it wherever it leads. What else can you do? Except perhaps to commit to God the when’s and how’s of the Supernal Visitation. Just know that if devotion has come and gone, it will come again. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
What do you do when you feel interior devotion ebbing? Take great pains to humble yourself—that is about the only thing one can do. At the same time keep your spirits up. Why? Simple. God often gives you in one moment what He has denied you for a long time. That is to say, He sometimes waits for the end of your prayer before He gives the grace of devotion; He could just as well have given it at the beginning. Whatever, whichever, just do not get caught with a hangdog face when the Hound of Heaven comes a-calling. If grace were always sudden—that is to say, came when you prayed for it—it would catch you in your infirmity, and you would not be able to lift it off the floor. However, if it came later, when hope was green and Impatience wore Impatiens—that is when the grace of devotion seems destined to come. However, what happens when devotion does not come? What happens when it comes but then tiptoes out the back way without your noticing it? Well, if you are looking for someone to point a finger at, blame it all on yourself and your sins. What gets in the way of grace is often something quite small and manageable. However, if it is minuscule, then it should not be labeled majuscule. Except that in the matter of grace nothing is small, everything is humongous; any obstacle whether small or large, stops that flow of good. Remove it, the flow is restored, and all of the sudden, right before your eyes, is the grace of devotion you have been seeking so strenuously. What happens then? Immediately one has handed oneself over to God from the bottom of one’s heart, no longer hithering and dithering with this with this or that thing. Place yourself in His palm, and you will find yourself at home with you One True Friend. Why? That is because nothing will please or taste so well as the pleasure of the Divine Will. Who is the sort of person grace will occasionally grace? The one who pulls one’s intention up to God with a simple heart as one’s only winch and hoists oneself out of the slough of self-love. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Yes, My beloved friend, you re a vase, an empty vase, and yes, Jesus Christ sometimes parades around with an empty watering can. However, some days the can is full, and would He bother to water one with His blessings if He thought one was full? One must renounce more perfectly than the lowest and, using contempt of self as a tool, die more to oneself, if one ever wants sudden grace to come again, to flood one till one overflows, and to save one’s heart from drowning. Then one will feel enriched, and one’s eyes will wonder, and one’s heart will enlarge, as Isaiah descried the phenomenon (60.5), because the hand of God is with one—an expression from Acts (11.21), and one has placed oneself on that hand forever. Behold that this is the kind of person who is blessed because one seeks God with one’s whole heart—a thought from the Psalmist (119.2)—and “does not let one’s soul slip into vanity,” as the Psalmist described one’s own spiritual journey (24.4). This person in receiving the Holy Eucharist is promised the great grace of Divine Union. That is because one does not dote on devotion and consolation as personal gifts to oneself. All one is concerned about is the Grand Dote, that is to say, devotion and consolation only as they are applied to the glory and honour of God. Get your mind off your problems and begin to help others, you will not have to worry about your needs. God will take care of them for you. Something supernatural happens when we get our eyes off ourselves and turn to the needs of those around us. The Old Testament teaches, “When you feed the hungry, when you clothe the naked, when you encourage the oppressed, then your life is going to break forth like dawn. Then your healing is going to quickly come,” reports Isaiah 58.7-8. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
In other words, when you reach out to hurting people, that is when God ensures that your needs are supplied. When you focus on being a blessing, God make sure that you are always blessed in abundance. When you are feeling sick, refuse to dwell in that sickness. In your time of greatest need, go to church and pray for other people who are sick and in need. Sow those seeds of healing. And just as the Scripture says, as one begins to help others people in need, you light will break forth like the dawn, and your own healing will come. If they would simply turn their attention away from their own needs and problems, and start to focus on being a blessing to other people, I am convinced that may people will receive the miracle they have been praying about. All too often we spend most of our time trying to be blessed. “God, what can You do for me? God, here is my prayer list. Can I have it by next Monday?” We need to look for opportunities to share God’s love, His gifts, and His goodness with others. The truth is, the more you help other, the more God will make sure that you are helped. You can do this in many practical ways. If you have things lying around your house or in storage that you are never going to use again, why not give those things away to someone who could use them? Those extra things are not doing you any good stacked in your attic, basement, or garage. If it is not meeting a need, turn it into a seed! Our minds can conjure up all kinds of excuses when God begins unclasping them. Human nature wants to hold on to everything. However, you probably have some clothes you have not worn in years; cooking utensils still packed in boxes from your last move, books, your children’s crib, and baby clothing, and all sorts of other things that you have not used in ages! #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Most clutter experts say, “If you have not used an item within the past year, give it away!” If it is not meeting a need, turn it into a seed. Remember, we will reap what we sow. When you do good for other people, that is when God is going to make sure that His abundant blessings overtake you. If you want to live your best lie now, you must develop a lifestyle of giving: living to give instead of living to get. Have an attitude that says, Who can I bless today? Rather than Who can I get over on today? Dear Lord in Heaven, I know You have blessed me, and I want to be a blessing to others. Please help me not to be simply a consumer of Your blessings, but a person who passes blessings on to others. Other than God, the best-publicized and most powerful of the new forces is the transnational, or more commonly, the more commonly, the multinational corporation. What we have seen in the past 50 years is an extraordinary globalization of production, based not merely on the export of raw materials or finished manufactured goods from one country to another, but on the organization of production across national lines. The transnational corporation (or TNC) may do research in one country, manufacture components in another, assemble them in a third, sell the manufactured goods in a fourth, deposit its surplus funds in a fifth, and so on. It may have operating affiliates in hundreds of countries. The size, importance, and political power of this new player in the global game has skyrocketed. Unilever, McDonalds, Apple, and BMW are all examples of TNCs. Transnational Corporations are among the World’s biggest economic institutions. Some experts suggest that the 300 largest TNCs own or control at least one-quarter of the entire World’s productive assets. This is worth approximately $5 trillion USD. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Recent years have seen rapid growth in global trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in all sectors of activity. Transnational corporations from developed countries have been driving this growth, but increasingly, TNCs from developed countries have been driving this growth, but increasingly TNCs from developing countries are contributing. Between 1990 and 2003, the values of assets of foreign affiliates of the World’s TNC’s increased by a factor of five, and sales and employment have multiplied respectively by three and two. At the same time, World gross domestic product (GDP) in current prices increased by 160 percent. Today, there are an estimated 77,000 TNCs in the World, with more than 770,000 foreign affiliates. As stated above, these affiliates generated approximately $5 Trillion USD in value added, employed some 65 million workers, and exported goods and services valued at more than $4.5 trillion USD. Even those figures probably understand the role of TNCs in the global economy, both because of measurement difficulties and because firms carry out their transnational activities through a variety of non-equity arrangements—subcontracting, franchising, licensing, and the like, as well as through the formation of strategic alliances. One of the most “transnational” major TNCs is Nestle, the Swiss food giant; 91 percent of its total assets, 98 percent of its sales, and 97 percent of its workforce are foreign based. These TNCs represent a crucial new factor in the World system—and a challenge to the nation-state. TNCs have invested significantly in developing countries. During the period 1996-2006, such commitments amounted to about $246 billion, with a concentration in Latin America. That is more than the approved budget for the 2021-2022 of the United Nations, which is $6.37 billion. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Currently, General Motors annual sales revenue of $122.5 billion is higher than the Gross National Product of Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and several other countries. It was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Today the sun does set on the British Empire, but not on the scores of global corporate empires including GM, BMW, Samsung, and Maytag. Marxists tend to see national governments as handmaidens of corporate power, and therefore stress the commonality of interests between the two, yet the TNCs very often have their own interest that run counter to those of their “home” nations, and vice versa. “British” TNCs have violated British embargos. “American” TNCs have violated U.S. regulations. During the OPEC embargo the transnational oil companies rationed deliveries between countries according to their own, not national, priorities. National loyalties fade quickly when opportunities present themselves elsewhere, so tht TNCs transfer jobs from country to country to escape environmental rules, and play off host countries against one another. So it is not just because of taxes that companies are leaving the California and the United States of America. For the past few centuries, the World had been neatly divided into a set of independent, sovereign nation-states. With the emergence of literally hundred of multinational or global corporations, this organization of the World into mutually exclusive political entities is now being overlaid by a network of economic institutions. In this matrix, the power that once belonged exclusively to the nation-state when it was the only major force operating on the World scene is, at least in relative terms, sharply reduced. Indeed, transnationals have already grown so large that they have taken on some of the features of the nation-state itself-including their own corps of quasi-diplomats and their own highly effective intelligence agencies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
The multinationals intelligence needs are not much different from those of the United States of America, France, or any other country. Indeed, if it does not describe the increasingly important roles played by the apparats of Exxon, Chase Manhattan, Honda, Lockheed Phillis and others, any discussion of the intelligence battles among the CIA, KGB, and their satellite agencies will be incomplete. Sometimes cooperating with their “home” nation, sometimes exploiting it, sometimes executing its policies, sometimes using it to execute their own, the TNCs are neither all good nor all bad. However, with their ability to shunt billions back and forth instantly across national boundaries, their power to deploy technology and to move relatively quickly, they have often outflanked and outrun national governments. It is not just, or even mainly, a question of whether international companies can circumvent particular regional laws and regulations. It is that our whole framework of thought and reaction is founded in the concept of the sovereign nation state [while] international corporations are rendering this notion invalid. In terms of the global power system, the rise of the great transnationals has reduced, rather than strengthen, the role of the nation-state at precisely the time when centrifugal pressures from blow threaten to part it at the seams. And with that in mind, many are also concerned that Russia has 12,000 tankers, while the United States of America has 6,000. Looks like America needs to bulk up its defense budget, and take care of its own people to make sure they remain “The World’s Super Holy One.” Dear Lord in Heaven, I ran through the fields and gathered flowers of a thousand colours—and now I pour them out at Your feet. Their beauty and their brightness shout for joy in Your presence. You created the flowers of the fields and made each one far more lovely than all the skill of humans could design. Please accept my joy along with theirs, this field of blossoms at Your feet. Holy One, as the wind blows through these flowers till they dance in the ecstasy of creation, please send Your Spirit to blow through my being till I too bloom and dance with the fulness of Your life. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The glimpse is a precious thing but it is not enough. The human who has had it has also a new problem: how to find it again and how to turn it into an all-time state of mind, continuing through all kinds of circumstances and experiences. And how can one bring one’s everyday life into harmony with it? Please cause us, O Lord our God, to lie down in peace, and raise us up again, O our King, unto life Spread over us Thy tabernacle of peace. Direct us aright through Thine own good counsel. Save us for Thy name’s sake. Be Thou a shield about us. Remove from us every enemy, pestilence, sword, famine, and sorrow. Please help us, O Lord, to resist temptation. Please shelter us with Thy protecting love, for Thou art our guardian and deliver. Yea, Thou God and King art gracious and compassionate. Please Guard Thou our going out and our coming in unto life and peace, hence forth and forevermore. Please blessed be Thou, O Lord, who guardest Thy people of America forever. Blessed be the Lord forevermore. Amen and Amen. Blessed from America be the Lord who dwelleth in America. Praise the Lord. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of America, who alone doeth wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name forever. Let the whole Earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; let the Lord rejoice in His works. Blessed be the nae of the Lord from this time forth and forever. For the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake; for the Lord taketh delight in making you a people for Himself. And when all the people beheld the glory of the Lord, they fell on their faces and exclaimed: The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God. And the Lord shall be King over all the Earth; on that day shall the Lord be One, and His name one. May Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, for we have placed our hope in Thee. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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If Sparta and Rome Perished, What State Can Hope to Last Forever?
It is never too late to be what you might have been. This is the first motive for virginity and celibacy, deriving from the fact that the Kingdom has already come. Let us now go back to the foundational words of Jesus Christ to discover the second motive: it, too, is inherent in the nature of the Kingdom. We were saying that, in another sense, the Kingdom of God has “not yet” come, it is on the way. It has to come in intensity within the Church (how many areas inside ourselves are still pagan and need to be evangelized!). It must come in extension, until it reached the ends of the Earth. How many nations and entire continents are still waiting for the light of the Gospel! Now here is the motive that flows from this: since God’s Kingdom has not yet come but is on the way, we need men and women who will devote themselves full-time and wholeheartedly to the coming of that Kingdom. And this brings us to the missionary or apostolic dimension of virginity and celibacy, which flows quite obviously and without any forcing from Jesus’ words “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Today there is a great deal of talk about the “quality of life.” It is said that the most important thing is not to increase the quantity of life on our planet, but to raise its quality. By “quality” people generally means the quality of hygiene, health care or culture. However, there is also a spiritual quality of life, which is the most important, because it concerns the human soul—what remains of a person in eternity. Those who are virgins for the sake of the Kingdom are called to spend all their energies in raising this spiritual quality of life—quite apart from the fact that they are often the ones who do most, in the best and most disinterested way, to raise the other quality of life, in hygiene, health care, and culture. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
In every act of procreation there is an element of selfish desire. When a man and woman produce a child, they give a gifts, certainly, but they also “gift each other.” They fulfill themselves, but they also “fulfill each other.” They need the encounter with the other for their own fulfillment and enrichment. On the other hand, when the Trinity creates, it confers fulfillment. Since it is already perfectly happy and complete in itself, it has no need of further fulfillment. “You have created all things” says Eucharistic Prayer IV, “to fill your creatures with every blessing and lead all men to the joyful vision of your light.” Here, virginity shows its most beautiful characteristic, which is gratuity. Christian virgin men and women imitate this gratuity to some degree when they love and care for children who are not their own according to the flesh, nurse the sick people of others, care for other people’s old folk, and when they carry the weight of other people’s sins, bring them before God in intercession for the World. Celibate childlessness is tragedy but rather a sign of holiness. A number of themes emerged over the years: the virtue of virginity, or the reborn virginity of celibacy; the primacy of God’s community of believers rather than human families in society; and increasingly, the carnal, lustful, seductive nature of humans. There is no greater calamity connect with [marital] captivity than to be the victim of another’s lust. It is laws which seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication; through diversity of illicitness, not through the nature of the things itself. The body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. While you remain chaste and virgins you are equal to the angels of God. For chastity has made even angels. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
As Christianity matured, its devotees strove for lifelong celibacy in the face of intense social pressures to marry and procreate. Celibates lived the lives of angels and built around themselves another, unsecular society of believers no longer bound by the familiar blood ties of family and kinship. Moreover, because each individual had free choice about reserving one’s body for Christian celibacy or giving it to mainstream society, alternative communities eventually sprang up for those choosing the former; convents, nunneries, and a celibate upper clergy. Christianity also developed striking and satisfying rituals of participation, transformation, and promotion. Baptism, for example, delivered believers into angelhood; the Holy Eucharist transported them into an intimacy with God. Early Christianity’s ongoing theological debate about virginity sought to clarify how humans related to each other, and whether their bodies belonged to society or to themselves, to manage as they chose. Against the backdrop of their highly stratified World, even the poorest Christians were offered the virginity of their bodies as vehicles to carry them to an angelic life, with access to the holiest of holies, the one God. Faithful Christians, poor as well as rich, woman as well as men, could wrest control of their bodies from society and dedicate them to Godly celibacy, an empowering act that raised them up to the company of angels. Christianity’s obsession with chastity has blazed at meltdown intensity ever since Christ’s birth to his virgin mother. This obsession targets all Christians, and though it focuses especially on women and religious, it embraces even married believers. However, somatoform disorders are often a means of expressing psychological and/or interpersonal distress to others. The audience for these displays my well be the same individuals who were instrumental in creating the distress. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Evidence for this cause of somatoform disorders can be found in research showing that people with these disorders have obvious interpersonal distress, and the expression of these symptoms has implicit communicative value. People with hypochondriasis often exhibit symptoms of social phobia and fear of criticism from others, as well as elevated loneliness. Patients with somatic symptoms not attributable to organic causes report greater interpersonal and social problems than those with organically caused pain. In a study of over 5,000 patients there was an association between psychological distress and symptoms without a medical explanation was generally consistent across different cultural groups. Studies of specific types of somatic symptoms present an equally compelling case for distressed interpersonal relationships at their core. When people with myofascial disorders were compared to those with medically documented arthritis, the patients with arthritis indicated that they had more available family and network support than those with myofascial disorders, who also appeared to experience significantly more conflict with members of their social networks. The extent to which patients’ personal relationships were supportive rather than conflictual was significantly, and negatively, correlated with their reports of pain. A similar pattern of findings is evident in a study of elderly people, whose rated satisfaction with social interaction protected against the experience of somatic symptoms that are commonly associated with depression (exempli gratia, trouble falling asleep, diminished appetite). One can find vigorous somatization in distressed marital and other family-of-orientation relationships. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Early family studies of patients diagnosed with hysteria (somatization disorder) showed a high prevalence of separation, divorce, and sexual dysfunction. The elevated incidence of sexual problems and impairment in social roles among married patents with pain disorder lead researcher to conclude that the chronic illness or pain becomes a scapegoat towards which the couple can direct their energies rather than to the underlying material dysfunction, so affording the marriage a degree of stability. In the family context, individuals with somatization are also more likely to be married to spouses with alcoholism, to abuse or neglect their children, and to have serious marital problems. Patients who perceive high levels of criticism in their families have been known to report poorer physical health and to make more office visits to physicians than those reporting less family criticism. A unique experimental study with married couples shows that the experience of physical pain can be exacerbated by interpersonal stress. Researchers were randomly assigned patients with chronic back pain and their spouses to discuss an issue that was stressful or to simply describe some line drawings to each other. After this manipulation, subject were instructed to ride an exercise bicycle at a steady pace, assisted by feedback from their spouses, for 20 minutes or until they felt too much pain to continue. Over twice as many subjects in the stressful-interaction condition as in the nonstressful-interaction condition terminated the bicycle ride prior to the 20-minute time limit. This rare experimental investigation shows that interpersonal stress can precipitate the experience of pain and the avoidance of physically demanding activities. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
The expression of somatic symptoms and complaints tends to be synchronous with feelings of negative affect. In this longitudinal study, depression and anxiety improved and worsened in conjunction with physical symptoms. Since these symptoms often had no physiological basis, these findings suggest that the symptom expression may have been a proxy for more direct expression of psychological distress. A key assumption is that such symptoms are not mere artifacts of inner distress, but that they are interpersonally functional indicators of that distress. Somatic symptoms may be an alternative to direct communication of distress. Among children with low levels of social competence at time 1, there was a positive relationship between the experience of negative life events and somatic complaints at time 2. However, there was no such relationship for children with higher levels of social competence. Socially competent children have good communication skills and satisfactory relationships at their disposal. Presumably such individuals can cope with the experience of stress through expressing their reactions and concerns to others and through soliciting social support. However, these mechanisms are unavailable to the child lacking in social competence; hence the expression of somatic symptoms. People with somatization disorder often suffer from alexithymia. Alexithymia is a difficulty in describing emotions and feelings verbally. People with this problem tend to focus on external events rather than on inner emotions and wishes. In this context, physical symptoms may be a means of communicating some emotional distress when the person is unable to express it verbally. For example, anxiety and fear are often accompanied by a number of bodily sensations that may include stomach pain and muscle tensions. Rather than convey feelings of fear to other people, an individual with alexithymia will focus on one’s physical symptoms, complaining of muscle aches and stomach pain, instead of talking about the feeling of anxiety and what is causing that feeling. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The alexithymia hypothesis has received some empirical support. Researcher obtained 5-minute speech samples from patients at a family practice center. Those with somatization disorder used many words in the “not” category (exempli gratia, “not,” “cannot,” “never”), suggesting a preoccupation with negativism, and very few words from emotion categories (exempli gratia, “angry,” “happy”), compared to patient controls. A further analysis of this data set revealed that the patients with somatization were 4.5 times more likely to make statements that involved “I am,” such as “I am going off deep,” “I am tired,” and “I am going to fall,” than groups of patients with paranoia. These examples illustrate that equation of self with negativity in the discourse of patients with somatization disorder. The role of culture in the somatoform disorders cannot be overlooked. Somatic symptoms have been described as cultural idioms of distress. Cultures vary in their acceptance of individuals who express and experience largely “emotional” problems. In some cultures, it is more appropriate to have physical symptoms than psychological problems. Accordingly, the somatic symptoms of people in these cultures and subcultures are considered to be idioms of distress—their own unique and culturally accepted, if not prescribed, mechanisms for expressing their emotional distress. Asian cultures are often held up as examples of contexts in which depression and other psychological disorders are not tolerated to the same extent as physical problems. Consequently, a high prevalence of somatization is expected in such cultures, although this notion has been challenged. Researchers has also question the role of culture in promoting somatization, given the ubiquity of the relationship between psychological distress and somatic symptoms across the range of cultures that they have studied. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Although this is obviously a hypothesis that is indeed of more attention and evaluation, somatization may be a socially and culturally constructed mechanism for communicating psychological distress to others. “What is in it for me?” everyone wants to know nowadays. Many people are blatantly unashamedly living for themselves. They are not interested in other people. They will not take time to help others in need. They focus only on what they want, what they need, what they feel will most benefit themselves. Ironically, this selfish attitude condemns them to a living shallow, unrewarding lives. No matter how much they acquire for themselves, they are never satisfied. God, however, is a giver, if you want Him to pour out His blessings and favour in your life, then you must learn to be a giver and not a taker. Quit trying to figure out what everybody can do for you, and start trying to figure out what you can do for somebody else. We were not made to function as self-involved people, thinking only of ourselves. No, God created us to be givers. And you will never be truly fulfilled as a human being until you learn the simple secret of how to give your life away. You may not realize it, but it is extremely selfish to be dwelling on your problems, always thinking about what you want or need, and hardly noticing the many needs of others all around you. If you are having a problem, one of the best things you can do is to help solve somebody else’s problem. If you want your dreams to come to pass, help someone else fulfill one’s dreams. Start sowing some seeds so God can bring you a harvest. When we meet other people’s needs, God always meets our needs. We were created to give, not simply to please ourselves. If you miss that truth, you will miss the abundant, overflowing, joy-filled life that God has in store for you. #RnadolphHarris 8 of 20
However, when you reach out to other people in need, God will make sure that your own needs are supplied. If you are lonely or down and discouraged today, do not sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Get your mind off yourself and go help meet someone else’s need. Go visit the nursing home or children’s hospital. Call a friend and encourage that person. If you are struggling financially, go out and help somebody who has less than you have. You need to sow some seeds so God can bring you a harvest. Even giving a smile or a hug can be a meaningful task. Or mowing someone’s law, going to the grocery store for them, or writing someone an encouraging letter. Someone needs what you have to share. Somebody needs your smile. Someone needs your love. Someone needs your friendship. Someone needs your encouragement. God did not make us to function as “Lone Rangers.” He created us to be free, but He did not intend for us to be independent of each other. We really do need on another. If you want God to bless your life, start being a blessing to others. “God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son,” reports John 3.16. Your body is like a child; you can train it to obey your words. You have trained that old dog at your house to do certain things, or maybe your cat or bird. James says that you can train every beast, bird, serpent, and thing in the sea. Humankind by their natural ability can train a dog, a bird, or any beast. Once we had a parakeet that we trained to talk. We taught it by saying the same words over and over. My grandmother had one whose name was Mr. Peepers. The bird could say it as clear as anyone. It would say, “Mr. Peepers is a pretty bird,” and it would sound just like my grandmother. Parakeets do not really understand words, but they can be trained to talk. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Your dog does not understand either. It is repeating over and over of the same name until the dog comes when you say that name. You train animals with words. Now what makes you think that your body is less intelligent than a dog? What makes you think that you cannot train the human body to obey the voice of your spirit by the words of your mouth? It can be done, for the body was designed to be obedient to words. You had to train your body to pray. It had to be obedient to the spirit human. The words we speak in prayer do have a definite effect on our bodies. When we pray or continue to say the problem, the body reacts in line with our speaking prayer. Learn to use the Word of God to control your body. Paul said, “Mortify the deeds of the body.” How do you do that? You cannot take a knife to mortify the deeds of the body; you will hurt yourself. However, you can use words to put to death its deeds by training the body to react to God’s Word. You can cause your body to come into subjection to your spirit. Paul said, “I keep my body and bring it under lest while I preach the gospel I become a castaway.” In the literal Greek, Paul actually said, “I buffet my body.” Buffet means “to slap with an open hand or clenched fist.” Train your spirit man to believe what you say will come to pass by practicing tongue control. In the area of sickness, I believe we give place to the devil when we say, “Wonder what is wrong with me?” The devil can then get out his little flip chart and say, “Well, would you believe you are taking the flu?” We say, “Well, I have not been feeling too good.” Then we begin to reason, “It could be the flu. My neighbour had it last week and I went over and prayed for him. That must be where I caught it.” Satan suggested it and you reasoned yourself into it! #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Then your first desire is to tell someone that you believe you have the flu. If you will just quit thinking and talking about how you feel and say what God said (Matthew 8.17), you an stop 50 percent of it right there. Now do not misunderstand what I said. I did not say that it was all in your mind. I do not deny that the disease exists—I deny its right to exist in my body. Do not give place to the devil. Just refuse to give him any place. If you do not embrace them, many times the symptoms will go away. Your body obeys your words—positive or negative, good or bad. Some would say, “What if I make a faith confession and still get sick?” Just keep saying what God said. Do not base your faith on experience, but on God’s Word. You keep confessing God’s Word until it becomes a revelation in your spirit. It takes time to train your spirit. You may get sick several times while you are training, but do not quit just because you are not perfected yet. It is not a fad; it is a way of life. If you continue to say, “I am sick,” your words will stop your body’s resistance to that disease or virus. A few years ago, the Lord was dealing with me about the power of words and the authority they have over the body. One morning while attending a meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks, I woke up with a headache. It was just pounding. I seldom have a headache, and my first thought was, “I wonder what I am taking.” Then I said, “Wait a minute, I refuse to have it.” I decided I would act on what the Lord had been showing me about Paul brining his body int subjection. So I just slapped myself on the forehead with the palm of my hand and said, “Head, you stop that in the name of Jesus. You come into line with the Word of God.” Within two minutes, the headache was gone. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Now with other things, it has taken a longer period of time for the manifestation to come. Several years ago, I had ulcers. I received my healing by confessing God’s Word over a period of about three months. Those symptoms tried to come back from time to time, but I learned to resist them instead of receiving them. I would slap my body with my hand and say aloud, Stop that in the name of Jesus. Body, you come into agreement with the Word of God. I am healed by the stripes of Jesus. Someone said, “Why, that is silly.” Well, it was not their body that was hurting. It was mine, and it worked! They do their dog that way. They slap him and say, “Stop that,” or “Get out of the house. Get out!” They think nothing of it. However, if you slap your body and tell it what to do, they think you are strange. If your dog understands that language, you know that your body must be more intelligent than an animal. “O how great is the multitude of Your candies, sweets that the fearful know not of,” wrote the Psalmist (31.19). When I call to mind some Devouts approaching your Sacrament with great devotion and affection, O Lord, I turn a hundred shades of pink that I should even think of approaching Your altar, the table of Holy Communion so tepidly, so frigidly. The result is that I remain arid and without affection of heart, that I am not totally ascended to Your presence, my God, not so vehemently attracted and affected as many others have been. These last could not restrain themselves from crying when confronted with the desire for Communion and sensible love of the heart. However, they longed, equally with the mouth of the heart and body, for You, God, the Living Fountain, the Source of the Well. They were not able to temper, let alone to satisfy, their appetite except when they received Your Host with all spiritual eagerness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
How truly flaming is the faith of Devouts! And how truly amazing that that is not a bad proof of the existence of Your Sacred Presence! For the Apostles truly knew their Lord in the breaking of the bread, as noted by the Evangelist Luke (24.35); their hearts burned strongly in them as they walked with Jesus by the lakeside. Such great affection, such vehement love and ardour are often a long way from my reach and devotion. I know I am a pathetic case, Good Jesus, my Divine Friend, sweet and mild. Grant that I a poor pauper who has always had his hand out, may feel a little of the cordial affection of Your love as it is found in Holy Communion. May my faith convalesce more quickly, and my hope progress in Your goodness. Your charity once holocausted and Your manna once tastes, may they never fail me. Since Your mercy is powerful, O Lord, grant me the desired grace, ad in the spirit of ardour, when the Day of Your Pleasure comes, greet me like Your long lost friend. Although I do not flare up with the great desire of those special Devouts of Yours, nonetheless I do keep a steady flame with the help of Your grace, that is to say, a desire for that Great Desire, praying and desiring that I might become a participant in all such friendships of Yours and to be numbered among that Holy Company. Father, please help me to get my eyes off myself and to see the many needs in the people all around me. May I be a means of help, comfort, and encouragement to someone else today. When, through the medium of meditation exercise of the awakening by human skill or Nature’s charm of aesthetic appreciation, beginners feel a new joy or an unusual peace, they are too often carried away into extravagant exaggeration of the happening. What seems like a tremendous event may be so in its effect on their inexperienced minds, but mostly it is only a skimming of the surface. To realize its further possibilities, it ought to be used as a starting point for exploration in depth. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
When one is willing to let of the self-centered ego and the grace can manifest, there may be this union with one’s higher nature, with the Overself. It is usually not a permanent experience but the possibility of its becoming one is always there. Then then new outlook seems perfectly natural. Let one not be presumptuous. One has not attained the true goal yet despite these noteworthy experiences. For one’s present knowledge of the Overself comes to one partly through the imagination, partly through the emotions, partly through the intellect, and only partly through the Overself. It is authentic but inferior. One must learn to get it through the understanding which is also authentic, but superior. A continuous insight, present all the time, is the goal, not a passing glimpse. What one has gained is good but not enough, is mystical but not philosophically mystical. For it is not but a flash when it has yet to become constant; it is now partial when it has yet to become full. Its felt presence should be intimate and inseparable as well as clear and complete. When insight continues whatever one’s occupation of the hour may be, it can be called philosophic. The notion that the glimpse is the goal is a wrong one, usually corrected by time. A glimpse is only a beginning, and those who are willing to follow it up may be ready to study philosophy and learn why this World is only a husk. It must be penetrated, the husk removed and the kernel revealed, for a truer understanding, both of the World and oneself, to be gained. Because they come to an unprepared and unpurified person, these transient glimpses are not adequate, full, and clear. Insight, however, possesses all these qualities. Aspirants should understand that they have no right to expect a spiritual illumination to prolong its brief duration and stay forever with them, much less demand it, so long as they have not made themselves scrupulously fit for such a quest. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Just as the private will acts constantly against the general will, so the government makes a continual effort against sovereignty. The more this effort increases, the more the constitution is altered. And since there is here no other corporate will which, by resisting the will of the prince, would create an equilibrium with it, sooner or later the prince must finally oppress the sovereign and break the social treaty. That is the inherent and inevitable vice which, from the birth of the body politic, tends unceasingly to destroy it, just as old age and death destroy the human body. There are two general ways in which a government degenerates, namely, when it shrinks, or when the state dissolves. The government shrinks when it passes from a large to a small number, that is to say, from democracy to aristocracy, and from aristocracy to royalty. That is its natural inclination. If it were to go backward from a small number to a large number, it could be said to slacken, but this reverse progression is impossible. In fact, the government never changes its form except when its exhausted energy leaves it too enfeebled to be capable of preserving what belongs to it. Now if it were to become still more slack while it expanded, its force would become entirely nil; it would be still less likely to subsist. It must therefore wind up and tighten its force in proportion as it gives way; otherwise the state it sustains would fall into ruin. The dissolution of the state can come about in two way. First, when the prince no longer administers the state in accordance with the laws and usurps the sovereign power. In that case a remarkable change takes place, namely that it is not the government but the state that shrinks. I mean that the state as a whole is dissolved, and another is formed inside it, composed exclusively of the members of the government, and which is no longer anything for the rest of the populace but its master and tyrant. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
So that the instant that the government usurps sovereignty, the social compact is broke, and all ordinary citizens, on recovering by right their natural liberty, are forced but not obliged to obey. The same thing happens also when the members of the government separately usurp the power they should only exercise as a body. This is no less an infraction of the laws, and produces even greater disorder. Under these circumstances, there are, so to speak, as many princes as magistrates, and the state, no less divided than the government, perishes or changes its form. When the state dissolves, the abuse of government, whatever it is, takes the common name anarchy. To distinguish, democracy degenerates into ochlocracy, aristocracy into oligarchy. I would add that royalty degenerates into tyranny, however this latter term is equivocal and requires an explanation. In the ordinary sense a tyrant is a king who governs with violence and without regard for justice and the laws. In the strict sense, a tyrant is a private individual who arrogates to oneself royal authority without having any right to it. This is how the Greeks understood the word tyrant. They gave the name indifferently to good an bad princes whose authority was not legitimate. (For all are considered and are called tyrants who use perpetual power in a city accustomed to liberty.) Thus tyrants and usurper are two perfectly synonymous words. To give different names to different things, I call the usurper of royal authority a tyrant, and the usurper of sovereign power despots. The tyrant is someone who intrudes oneself, contrary to the laws, in order to govern according to the laws. The despot is someone who places oneself above the laws themselves. Thus the tyrant need not be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant. Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted governments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
If Sparta and Rome perished, what state can hope to last forever? If we wish to form a durable establishment, let us then not dream of making it eternal. To succeed, one must not attempt the impossible or flatter oneself with giving to the work of humans a solidity that things human do not allow. The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from the very moment of its birth, and carries within itself the causes of its destruction. However, both can have a constitution that is more or less robust and suited to preserve them for a longer or shorter time. The constitution of humans is the work of nature; the constitution of the state is the work of art. It is not within humans’ power to prolong their lives; it is within their power to prolong the life of the state as far as possible, by giving it the best constitution it can have. If no unforeseen accident brings about its premature fall, the best constituted state will come to an end, but later than another. The principle of political life is in the sovereign authority. Legislative power is the heart of the state; the executive power is the brain, which gives movement to all the parts. The brain can fall into paralysis and yet the individual may still live. A human may remain an imbecile and live. However, once the heart has ceased its functions, the animal is dead. It is not through laws that the state subsists; it is through legislative power. Yesterday’s law does not obligate today, but tacit consent is presumed from silence, and the sovereign is take to be giving incessant confirmation to the laws it does not abrogate while having the power to do so. Whatever it has once declared it wants, it always wants, unless it revokes its declaration. Why then is so much respect paid to ancient laws? For just this very reason. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
We must believe that nothing but the excellence of the ancient wills could have preserved them for so long. If the sovereign had not constantly recognized them to be salutary, it would have revoked them a thousand times. This is why, far from growing weak, the laws continually acquire new force in every well constituted state. The prejudice in favour of antiquity each day renders them more venerable. On the other hand, whatever the laws weaken as they grow old, this proves that there is no longer a legislative power, and that the state is no longer alive. Orthodox Communism is a typical nineteenth-century product. The doctrine arose out of a completely materialistic view of history. It was formulated in an age when the mechanistic conception of life had captured the thinking World. It led naturally to an ethic of hatred and violence. It excluded all consideration of the higher destiny of humans. Consequently it is emotionally unbalanced and intellectually unsatisfactory. The evil lies less in the doctrine itself, which is a confused mixture of nonsense and wisdom, of justice and crime, than in its human leaders. They are humans without a conscience and maniacs entrenched in the seats of power. They trade on this confusion of doctrine to suborn the masses who lack the capacity to understand the inner source of Communism and its inability to redeem its promises. They achieve for themselves positions of power because they mercilessly push aside and trample all who are hapless enough to stand in their way. One who thinks in terms of class hatred and class murder reveals oneself as being naturally neurotic or malignant. As such one is unfit to lead people into a better condition than before and can only lead them into a worse one. The average Communist is unfit to lead a people or govern a nation. One is an extraordinary compound of keen critical thinking and irrational obsession and class prejudices; consequently one’s thinking is distorted and unbalanced. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Communist rulers lives in a private Marxist World of one’s own, which one stupidly imagines to be a real World. However, the greatest defect in oneself and the greatest danger to others is the powerful hatred which actuates one and which has made one in fact a pathological case. One has become semi-insane because one cannot escape from it. Many Communist revolutions fail to bring a better society, a happier, healthier, and more honourable World for the underdog, because they fail to recognize that the only way this could be achieved was by leaders of disinterested character and superior quality descending to the service of the lower classes. If it comes from the mentally ungrown and ethically immature passes themselves, the reconstruction of the World’s social and economic order cannot succeed. This has been clearly demonstrated by the melancholy history and comparative failure of the brutal attentions by some nations. It could not be achieved by leaders of inferior character and merit rising from the ranks of the masses. The right way of socioeconomic progress is from the top downwards and not from the bottom upwards. The fruits of wisdom cannot come from below. However, this does not mean they come from the aristocracy of blood; they can come only from aristocracy of mind and character. The masses will be best served by the human who disdains their approbation and waves aside their applause. For intellectual awakening of a people does not begin as awakening of the masses; it begins as an awakening of the educated classes and proceeds downwards to the people. The masses must naturally follow more intelligent leaders, assimilate the ideas which are earlier embraced by their betters but which are gradually filtered down and thus rendered more acceptable. For it is not the ignorant blind toilers who can perceive the crowning principle of right reconstruction; they can perceive only their immediate needs, not their ultimate ones. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Therefore the creation of a new order must not come from below but from above. It must come from the intellectual cream, the spiritual elite of society—from those who can reflect philosophically and serve selflessly and act calmly. They stand on the mountain peak, as it were, and see clearly what ought to be done whereas the masses are herded on the plains and can only run hither or thither as their emotions drive them. Praise wet snow falling early. Praise the shadow my neighbour’s chimney casts on the tile roof even this gray December day that should, they say, have been white. Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney’s shadow. Praise God and the Angels, the unknow, that which imagined us, which stays our hand, our murderous hand, and gives us still, in the shadow of death, our daily life, and the dream still of goodwill, of peace on Earth Praise flow and change, night and the pulse of day. True and certain it is that there is one God, and there is none like unto Him. It is He who redeemed us from the might of tyrants, and executed judgment upon all our oppressors. Great are the things that God hath done; His wonders are without number. He causes us to triumph over our enemies and raise up our glory above our foes. Wondrously He visited judgment upon Pharoah, Performing signs and wonders in the land of the United States. He brought forth the child of America from slavery unto freedom. In every age the Lord hath been our hope; He rescued us from enemies who sought to destroy us. May He continue His protecting care over America, and guard all His children from disaster. When the children of America beheld the might of the Lord, they gave thanks unto Him and praised His name. They accepted His Sovereignty willingly, and sang a song unto Him. Moses and the Children of America exultingly proclaimed: Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the mighty? Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, revered in praises, doing wonders? When Thou didst rescue America at September 11, 2001, Thy children beheld Thy supreme power. This is my God! they exclaimed, and said: The Lord shall reign forever and ever. As Thou didst deliver America from a power mightier so mayest Thou redeem all Thy children from oppression. Blessed art Thou, O Lord. Redeemer of America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Cresleigh Homes
You’re home! Who would expect so much cabinet space in a home?
We would! When it comes to #Havenwood we’re not surprised anymore; honestly, we’re pretty used to the luxury. 🤷♂️ Sorry, not sorry. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/
People Who Fight Fire with Fire Usually End Up with Ashes!
Poverty has many roots, but the taproot is ignorance. There is no such thing as failure, only different outcomes. The essence of greatness is the ability to choose personal fulfillment in circumstances where others choose madness. Celibacy has paraded through history under a legion of names. It was Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I of England, Sarah Winchester, Florence Nightingale. It was the ranting disharmony of The Kreutzer Sonata, as Leo Tolstoy pounded out his message of celibacy. It was Leonardo da Vinci, fearful of a second accusation of sexual impropriety, Sir Isaac Newton mourning his lover’s defection, Lewis Carroll looking but not daring to touch a procession of young Alices in Wonderland. On today’s schools grounds and campuses, celibacy also marches under the banners of student pledged to the proposition that True Love Waits. Celibacy announces itself among the graying population of self-proclaimed reborn virgins. It peeps out through the gaunt boniness of anorexic women dedicated to mastering their bodies, and in the chaste handshakes of men who have forsworn the deadly risks of diseases and viruses haunting the World of pleasures of the flesh. Celibacy is a staggering panorama of reality, involving humanity everywhere and always. Celibacy or chastity is abstaining from pleasures of the flesh, intentionally or under duress, temporarily or for indefinite periods. However celibacy is at Christianity’s core, the story of a divine infant miraculously born to a human, virgin mother. Celibacy is also a pervasive theme in attaining a state conducive to communicating with spirits—shamans and vodoun priests and priestesses must practice short-term abstinence during their awareness and sensitivity and conciliates the gods jealous of devotees’ relationships with others, mortal or divine. The more crucial mission is the commitment to at least thirty years of virginity and performance of duties with undivided loyalty, devotion, and attention. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
The Kingdom of Heaven has not arrived, it is still to come. It is precisely in this that the prophetic dimension of virginity and celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom resides. There has been much discussion in the past about whether virginity is a more perfect state than marriage, and if so in what sense. I believe that it is not ontologically (that is, in itself) a more perfect state, but it is an eschatologically more advanced state, in the sense that it is more like the definitive state towards which we are all journeying. For married people, virginity is a reminder of the primacy of the spirit of God. It reminds them that God has made us for Himself and that therefore our hearts will always be “unsatisfied,” until they rest in Him. It is a reminder, too, that marriage and the family cannot be turned into an idol to which everything and everyone is sacrificed, a kind of absolute in life. From this prophetic character of virginity and celibacy we can understand how ambiguous and wrong is the claim that this state is against nature and prevents humans from being fully themselves, id est, men and women. We have let ourselves be influenced by all the talk raised against it in the name of psychology and psychoanalysis. Doubt weighs heavily on the soul of young people and it can be one of the main reasons why they are reluctant to respond to a vocation. We have not always remembered that this modern science has often been built upon a materialistic and atheistic view of the human person. Therefore, what it says in this field can have a certain weight for someone who does not believe in the existence of God and of a life after death, but for someone who does believe in these things it has no weight at all. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
The difference between the two positions has been thought to be negligible, whereas it is decisive. In reality, virginity makes sense precisely because eternal life and the risen state exist. It is a reality of the Spirit, and what Paul says about the things of the Spirit apply to it, namely, that “the unspiritual person is unable to accept what comes from the Spirit of God, since for one it is foolishness. One is unable to understand such matters because they can only be evaluated spiritually” reports 1 Corinthians 2.14. For a person of faith to expect the opposite from an unbeliever would be almost as great a folly as the first. We are still living with the old romantic illusion that the highest happiness, the great significance, the only romance in life, consists in our relationships with others and in the sensual satisfactions we derive from them. We forget only one thing: that the soul and the spirit are just as real and strong and demanding as the flesh—they are much more so!—and that is we allow the flesh everything it asks for, this is to the detriment of other joys, other marvellous realms, which will remain closed to us forever. We empty a glass of poor cranberry juice in a sleazy pub or saloon, and forget this virginal sea which others are contemplating under the rising sun. Psychoanalysis itself, once it has overcome the basic prejudice inherited from its founder and opens up to the spiritual and eternal dimension of the person, rediscovers the extraordinary vale of virginity as a sign. “The only way out of human conflict”—these are the words of the one of first and most famous disciples of Dr. Freud—“is full renunciation, to give one’s life as a gift to the heist powers…the true heroic validation of one’s life lies beyond sex, beyond the private religion—all these are makeshifts that pull one down or that hem one in, leaving one torn with ambiguity…And in order to get such centering, man has to look beyond the ‘thou,’ beyond the consolation of others and of the things of this World.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
However, we can reach the same conclusion by an even more certain route, that of revelation, and we can see how virginity and celibacy do not deny nature, but only fulfill it at a deeper level. Human thought, in order to find out what human beings are and what is “natural” to them, has always based itself on an analysis of human nature, understanding by nature—according to the etymological meaning of the word—what human beings are and have from birth. The Bible on the other hand (which knows nothing of any concept of nature as applied to humanity) bases itself on the concept of vocation: men and women are not only what they are by nature, but also what they are called to become by using their freedom and in obedience to God’s word. The perfect human being is the risen Jesus, the “second man,” the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15.45-47), as the Church Fathers said. The more a person approaches this model of humanity, the more truly and fully one is. If the nature were all there was, there would be no valid motive to oppose natural tendencies and impulses. However, there is also vocation. In a certain sense we could say that the most “natural” state for a person is precisely virginity, because we are not called to live in an eternal relationship as a couple, but to live in an eternal relationship with God. God, and not a human partner, is destined to be our “all” forever (1 Corinthians 15.28). In the Middle East, there are communities where men take vows of chastity, and live together in celibate communities. Celibacy can also be a healing tool for victims of sexual abuse and rape, allowing them time and space to confront the issues that sexuality evokes for them. People also adopt celibacy as a tool of physical survival, just as it was, for example, in Europe’s syphilis-riddled sixteenth sympathy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
When pleasures of the flesh suddenly presents itself as a death’s head, celibacy can seem like a guardian angel. Even vampires, whose love is bloodred, are chaste. Over the centuries, the experiments in celibacy have lost none of their fascination. Children are increasingly proud and vocal Power Virgins, card-carrying members of True-Love waits and other pro-chastity youth movements. In fact, interest in celibacy is not confined to the junior generation. Even in middle or old age, men and women are increasingly turning to celibacy as a means of achieving personal autonomy, spirituality, and connections with God, nature, and each other. Some declare themselves reborn virgins, an apparent oxymoron solemnly sanctioned two millennia ago by Christian theologians responding to contemporary pleas that the Church recognize and dignify such a status. Other people praise the richness celibacy has given their relationships, including marriages. Like chaste husbands and wives in the first centuries of Christianity, like St. Francis of Assisi and his beloved companion, St. Clare, these men and women find peace and fulfillment in nonsexual commitment that thrives free of possessiveness or jealousy. At the heart of this movement toward celibacy is the ideal choice without stigma, and each individual’s right to empower and enrich one’s own life. The new celibacy assumes new attitudes and new ways of perceiving and judging, so that alternative lifestyles are gaining mainstream recognition, men and women can cohabit chastely, and married coupledom is no longer heralded as the only acceptable form of life. After experiencing—celebrating is a better word—the sense of liberation that comes along with voluntary celibacy, many are able to reevaluate their lives, and its priorities, including the need for deep emotion connections, and chose a way of life that, to a satisfying degree, incorporates one’s personal principles at its wellspring. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The value placed on chastity does not mean one dislikes the opposite gender. Many men and women, driven by individual mission—art, literature, science—opt for celibacy to forestall relationships that would consume the time and energy they long for to direct their work. There is a valued independence and serenity chaste solitude brings, which allows one to welcome one’s freedom from the jealousy and possessiveness that characterizes the most passionate of one’s relationships, and many are immensely and perpetually relieved that someone else’s domestic demands do not dominate one’s daily agenda. In ancient Greece, premarital chastity was such an essential requirement in brides that young women were thrust into marriages just after puberty to eliminate any possibility of sexual lapse. However, among the pantheon of deities, three intense, powerful, and ambitions goddesses maintained lifelong vigilance over their virginity. Hestia personified modesty and domesticity. Athena and Artemis, however, parlayed celibacy into independent lifestyles otherwise permitted only to men. For them, celibacy was a mighty instrument that liberated them from traditional roles. It was, indeed, their only means of escape from the drudgery and subordination to husband, father, or brothers that awaited all other Greek females. Greek mythology also displayed a fascination with virgins, sometimes associated with deities, sometimes only with other mortals. One of the three mythical male virgins was Narcissus, so handsome that both men and women lusted after him. He spurned them all, until one bitter nymph appealed to either Nemesis or Artemis, who doomed Narcissus to gazing at his reflection in the water. As he stared, Narcissus fell deeper and deeper in love with himself, until his passion for himself consumed his body, and he died and became the narcissus flower. #RandolpHarris 6 of 21
These myths are remarkable for their soap opera-like ingenuity. Celibacy, therefore, becomes as empowering as it is difficult. However, in a society that does not value celibacy, it is still a small token of independence, and the kindness and goodness of their commitment makes the sacrifice worthwhile. In the ancient World, some where propelled into long-term of even perpetual celibacy as a mandatory vow. The vestal virgins were perpetual virgins. Fallen Angels, called “sons of God” in Genesis 6, would choose human virginal brides for their physical perfection and high rank. In all cases, virginity was a ritual requirement and implied no notion about ascetic ideals and corrupt flesh. Pegan religions rarely required long-term celibacy, and society frowned on it. Usually, temporary abstinence was sufficient, though rare examples of lifelong celibacy exist. Ironically, virginity could also cause the virgin’s death. In times of great crisis, a devasting flood or plague, for instance, the most dazzling offering was an undefiled maiden, ritually sacrificed to the appropriate god. Perhaps this is why the relationships of fallen angels and humans, which resulted in the a being called Nephilim were considered grotesque. Spiritual creatures are not supposed to mate with human beings. Nonetheless, it was immense prestige and low turnover that made the order of vestal virgins as desirable as it was exclusive. Novices were admitted after a complicated election process held, on average, once every five years. Eligibility was rigid: candidates had to be patrician girls between the ages of six and tend, physically perfect and mentally sound, whose mother and father were both alive. The new vestal virgin instantaneously became a new person. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
One was no longer a member of their blood family, even for purposes of inheritance. One was released from one’s father’s control, granted legal independence, and given a substantial dowry. The vestal virgins had to pressure their virginity for at least thirty years. However, when many have completed her three decades—the first spent learning, the second practicing what she had learned, and the third teaching it to neophytes—she could resign as a vestal and resume the civilian life she had been plucked from in childhood. She could even marry, although in reality, after thirty years of privilege and power, few cared to relinquish their splendid lives for marriage. Most of those who did were rumored to be miserable. Before the election, the vestal’s parents had surely impressed on her the gravity of her pledge and the draconian consequences of violating it. However, at the age of six or eight, one could scarcely comprehend what this sacred celibacy actually was. The Romans prized female chastity—virginity in vestals and maidens, fidelity in matrons—with the same intensity they did fire, and they expected virtuous women to due rather than surrender it. The logical extension of this collective obsession was to demand, on pain of death, thirty chaste years from the women charged with the sacred fire. The vestal virgins’’ celibacy was the principal guarantee of their purity and incorruptibility, qualities essential in those charged with such eighty state duties. In fact, most vestals honoured their vows, and their virtue earned them universal respect and many privileges. They could testify in court without taking an oath and were entrusted with sacred relics and valuable documents. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Lictors, the official escorts of magistrates, accompanied the virgins everywhere. Jostling a vestal was a capital offense. Vestals might even pardon any criminal who changed upon them in the street. No wonder so many parents jockeyed to place their little daughters in the order. In adulthood, however, the inevitable sometimes happened. Vestal virgins fell in love, and in imprudent few succumbed to their passion and took lovers. They ran a terrible risk, for those detected were condemned to die. Theirs was a special death, designed to acknowledge their status. Too holy to execute, the unchaste vestal was dressed in a shroud, places in a closed litter, and carried like corpse through funereally silent crowds of mourners. Her destination was a small, underground room at the Camps Sceleratus, near the Colline Gate, where either starvation or asphyxiation would kill her. This death cell contained a bit of bread, water, oil, and milk so the Romans could say they had not starved the errant vestal to death. The victim descended a ladder and was sealed alone into her tomb. Elsewhere, and in a public place, her lover was beaten to death. Vestal virgins faced a far greater danger than sexual impropriety: the risk that reversals in either politics or war would be blamed on their having broken their sacred oath of celibacy. Chief Vestal Cornelia, for one, was certainly the victim of such machinations. And in 216 B.C., Roman leaders did not attribute the disastrous military defeat at Cannae to battlefield errors but to sexual misconduct among the vestal virgins. In consequence, two vestals ended their probably virginal lives in the suffocating blackness of the Campus Sceleratus. Of the ten documented cases of vestal virgins being entombed alive, most were celibate scapegoats. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
It was not unknow for powerful Romans to instigate trumped-up charges simply to create a vacancy in the Atrium Vestae for their own daughter. With only six spaces available, a convenient execution appealed to the unscrupulous as a way of speeding up openings. And in 215, the Emperor Caracalla destroyed a trio of vestals. First, he seduced one of them. Afterward, he arranged for this victim and two of her colleagues to be buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus. Despite such injustices, happily infrequent, the vestal virgins survived for centuries. Indeed, the order was so powerful, and so feared, that in 394, Christian emperor Theodosius the Great disbanded the six vestas and abolished their holy order. The power and continuity of the vestal virgins symbolize the importance of virginity in Roman society Their treatment as privileged and respected religious figures made their lives so enviable that few retired after their thirty years of service. Their celibate state brought them too many rewards to throw it over for a sexual, civilian life. The vestal virgins, it is fair to say, enjoyed supremely satisfying conditions equaled only by the acllas of the ancient Incan empire. The superior soul is trapped inside the inferior body. To release and thereby save their imprisoned souls, people had to observe taboos, in particular against the debasement of sexual intercourse. To a man eager to know when he should have pleasures of the flesh with a woman, Pythagoras replied, “When you want to lose what strength you have.” Pythagoras also stressed that any sexual activity should not begin before a man’s twentieth birthday, and he praised the stringency of the Greek rules against making love in a temple with a woman who was either someone’s sister, mother, or daughter—in other words, any woman at all. The only pleasures of the flesh he tolerated was for the express purpose of procreating children, and then only between husband and wife. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
One scholar, David Flusser, interprets certain of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the recently discovered Essene literature, as implying that an Essene man could marry, after age twenty, “when he knew what to do,” and that such marriages were strictly to propagate the race. Perhaps this was true at the beginning, but other scholars claim all the Essenes were strict celibates. Essene asceticism evolved from a maturing theology that painted a World of the Sons of Light, and the Sons of Darkness, the latter doomed to destruction, the former predetermined by God. Increasingly, the Essenes saw people as evil and flesh as the locus of that evil—hence their loathing of sexuality, even of normal bodily functions. However, unlike Plato, they did not understand man as a duality of warring mind and matter. They saw instead two kinds of humans, the corporal and the unredeemed, and elect, namely themselves. As early and new Christians set about organizing themselves, they would draw heavily on Platonic concepts of duality, on Essence experiences, procedures, and canons, and above all, on Essene-style celibacy. Here was the religious, philosophical, and social soil into which fledgling Christianity, unarguably the World’s most extensive and long-lived experiment in celibate living, would be sown and take root. Belief is the insistence in the here and now that this or that is what one values and subscribes to in terms of one’s present limited experience. However, it must be amplified by faith. Faith does not simply defend the truth as one now sees it, but faith is, an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith involves a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
This process of letting go of the old and taking hold of the new is a natural part of Christian growth. Just as the trapeze artist must have faith in order to synchronize one’s transition from one bar to the next, so the actualizing Christian must remain willing to depart from old ways in order to arrive at new ones. As the scripture says, “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” reports Hebrews 11.6. However, God is Himself faithful. There is no strength greater than that of God to help us let go of the past, and to escape from its bonds. However, what that past was in fact the strong support that God gave to help us leap forward towards him. Time and again we must plunge beyond our manipulative and character patterns into the stream of energy from the core. This reduces the significance of the defensive structures and opens up the flow of energies from the wellspring of God within our core. The core unifies the polarities and heals the inner wounds of fear, releasing a flow of power that replaces fear of life with faith in life. Thus, faith becomes an important factor in growth. It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to give up one’s Worldly attachments until one sees something more worthwhile. Consequently one’s soul gives one a foretaste, as it were, through these ecstatic moments and brief enlightenments, of its own higher values. That glimpse is one’s initiation into the spiritual life and therefore into the sacrificial life. It is but the first step in a long process wherein one will have to part with one’s lower tendencies, give up one’s ignoble passions, surrender one’s baser inclinations, and renounce egoistic views. Under the emotional thrill of a religious conversion, many people have thought themselves saved and have believed in Christ. Yet how many of them have later fallen away! They thought the conversion was enough to bring about a permanent result, whereas it was only the first step toward such a result in reality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The same situation holds with those who have undergone the emotional thrill of a mystical experience. The illumination they have achieved is not the end of the road for them but the beginning. It gives them a picture of the goal and a glimpse of the course to it. It gives them right direction and an inspirational impetus to move towards it. However, still it is only the first step, not the last one. They should beware of the personal ego’s vanity which would tell them otherwise, or of its deceitfulness, which would tell it to others. The differentiates between glimpses, are called “states,” and permanent advances on the path, are called “stations.” The former are described as being not only temporary but also fragmentary, while the latter are described as bearing results which cannot be lost. There are three main stations along the path. The first is annihilation of the ego; the second is rebirth in the Overself; and the third is fully grown union with the Overself. This final state can never be reached without the Grace of Higher Power and that is complete, lasting, and unchangeable. If illumination does not become permanent, if it does not stay with its host, that is because it does not find a proper place within one for such abiding stay. One’s heart is still too impure, one’s character still too imperfect for the consciousness of the Overself to associate constantly with one. One must finish what one has started. One must go on until the peace, the understanding, the strength, and the benevolence of these rare uplifted moods have become continuous presence within one. We cannot see the Truth and still be what we were before we saw it. That is why Truth comes in glimpses, for we cannot sustain staying away from ourselves too long, that is to say, from out egos. Many “religious” people confuse faith with clinging to certain ideas. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Growth as an actualizing Christian, it seems to us, requires death as well as rebirth—death to old ideas and beliefs. The new premium cranberry juice of the Christian’s Spirit-led life must continuously be put into fresh cranberries of new attitudes, perceptions. Faith requires an opening of ourselves to new ideas and experiences, and a willingness to et outworn and partial ideas of truth die. This is growth in the finest sense of the word. This is what is meant by the “courage to doubt”—the courage to entertain differences in the hope that one may learn new and more satisfying ways of viewing truth. Authentic Christian thought is an open thought par excellence. A real orthodoxy creates those conditions rooted in the supernatural which unfold the most spacious and unbound horizons for human knowledge and action. The actualizing Christian must have the courage to embrace insecurity and doubt. This person is the opposite of the fanatic, who attacks with disproportionate violence those who disagree. The actualizing Christian has the “courage to be” in spite of doubts, which are valued because they can help growth. We should try not to be like the neurotic, who builds a narrow castle of certitude defended with the utmost tenacity. Rather we should continue to express and to ask, so that we can receive answers in our areas of doubt—knowing that some answers do not come easily. We have faith that by “asking, seeking, and knocking,” we will eventually have the answers revealed in our life situation. As for any mental health problem, there are multiple, and often interacting, experiences in the family of origin that can give rise to somatoform disorders. Although the etiologies of these problems are not as widely understood as those of anxiety or depression, for example, there is good reason to suspect at least three sets of casual mechanism: a range of adverse childhood experiences, parental modeling, and disrupted attachment. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Exposure to adverse childhood experiences may begin with uncaring parents. Patients with somatoform disorders and somatic symptoms often have a history of insufficient parental care. Relationships with parents are often lacking in intimacy and in boundary regulation. Excessive and dysfunctional conflict in the family of origin is also evident among those with somatoform disorders. An interview study conducted in Switzerland showed that respondents with psychogenic pain problems were more likely to indicate that their parents were physically or verbally abusive toward each other, and that they tried to deflect the aggression of one parent away from the other and onto themselves. These subjects also had more concurrent problems with interpersonal relationships than did patients with organically identifiable pain or disease. The findings on deflection of aggression illustrate the systemwide problem hypothesis: As a child the patient was unable or unwilling to confront an aggressive parent, or intervene in the conflict, so one exhibited somatic symptoms that at least temporarily preoccupied the conflictual parents and calmed the family household. Studies of patients with myofascial disorders (muscular aching and tenderness in localized sites, in the absence of organic pathology) identified family-of-origin relationships that were overly involved and overly focused on success and achievement as factors discriminating such patients from medical controls. Findings such as these illustrate why some of the ingredients in the secondary gain hypothesis: When the family places an excessive emphasis on success and achievement, the somatic symptoms relieve the patient from living up to these strict standards, with minimal loss of face. In such a context, the symptoms might be viewed as a form of self-disabling. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Reports of childhood physical and sexual abuse are rampant in the literature on somatization. It was found that 55 percent of patients with somatization disorder had a history of childhood sexual abuse, compared to 16 percent of a group with mood disorders. There appears to be a fairly linear association between the degree of childhood sexual abuse and somatization. As noted earlier, childhood abuse is the tip of the iceberg in dysfunctional families. Although people with somatic symptoms often present a history of sexual abuse, they also indicate that their families were less cohesive, expressive, and sociable, and more enmeshed and conflictual. When researchers statistically controlled for these pathogenic family environment variables, the relationship between sexual abuse and psychiatric symptoms became nonsignificant, leading to the conclusion that impairment may be an effect not only of abuse but of the context in which it is embedded. Children may learn that the expression of somatic symptoms brings support and attention from others. People with somatoform disorders are particularly likely to have witnessed a history of parental illness, in addition to their own history of increased illness. These disorders may be learned from parents who teach their children to interpret minor physical ailments as signs of more serious physical illnesses. When children frequently witness their parents expressing physical symptoms, they may pick up on the style and language of these presentations, and incorporate them into descriptions of their own well-being. Should children witness positive responses to parental illness (in the form of caregiving, time off work, et cetera), they are then more likely to enact these somatizing behaviours themselves. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
To a child who has been otherwise neglected or poorly cared for, parental expression of somatic symptoms, and its attendant response from the social environment, might suggest that ultimate tool for securing much-wanted attention and social support. Aversive childhood experiences such as family conflict, neglect, and abuse interfere with the formation of secure attachments. Throughout adulthood, such people are hypothesized to engage in excessive care-seeking behaviour during times of stress, in an effort to achieve some level of comfort and security. Of course, this may often take the form of somatization, particularly when it has been previously associated with caregiving responses. Unfortunately, these care-seeking behaviours often culminate in ambivalence, frustration, and rejection from both significant others and health care professionals, due to the persistence of the complaints and lack of connection to any obvious medical problems. According to the attachment-based theory, people prone to somatization find themselves in a downward interpersonal spiral of care-seeking behaviour; this is eventually met with interpersonal frustration and rejection, which only serve to pull for more care-seeking behavior. A related interpersonal account of somatization, which is even more explicitly rooted in the psychodynamic tradition, also argues that somatization has its origins in a problematic history. Somatization results from inadequate parenting, and from patients’ inability to effectively manage and express the affective aspects of their relational challenges. Somatization signifies a disrupted relation history and impaired adult object relations. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
For some people, somatization may be specifically and temporally linked with their inability to fully tolerate either their longings for empathic connection to others, or these disappointments when those desires are not satisfied. In other words, the affective trigger for a psychosomatic eruption may have an intrinsically relational dimension. Somatization functions in several ways to help people cope with their inability to be close with others. In some cases, somatic eruptions are disguised messages of emotion that the patient is unable or unwilling to put into words. Thus somatization allows for the communication of distress without coming right out and stating it plainly to a partner. In cases where the partner might be the source of the distress, somatization may be a way of convey distress without risking harm to the relationship by directly confronting the partner with complaints. Somatization may function to bring some relatedness to other people into the patients’ lives through contact with physicians and health care providers. When a person experiences difficulty in relating to others in one’s life, somatization may serve to bring attention from people and create at least some feeling of being cared for. The problem is rooted in poorly formed early caregiving relationships that cause people to express their anxious and negative affect about subsequent relationships through the expression of somatic symptoms. At the core of these theories is a difficulty in establishing and maintaining substantial and effective interpersonal relationships. Though formal longitudinal tests of these theoretical accounts have yet to be conducted, each is consistent with existing data on early parent-child relationships and adult interpersonal dysfunction of people with somatoform disorders. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Many people have felt robbed and cheated by life because they have experienced some unfair situations in which somebody did them wrong and mistreated them. Perhaps some of you are having problems in a relationship, or in your marriage, or with your child. Or maybe you have struggled financially, and you do not see how you can ever get ahead. Life has been one setback after another. If that sounds like you, just know there is some good news! God wants to restore everything that has been stolen from you. He wants to restore you joy, peace, health, finances, and your family. And when God restores, He does not leave you as you were before bad things happened to you; God brings you out better than you were previously. For instance, in the Holy Bible, if a thief was caught stealing, one had to repay one’s victim seven times what one stole. In another place, Scripture commands that the thief repay four times as much. God Himself said through the prophet Isaiah, “I will pay you back double for all the unfair things that have happened,” reports Isaiah 61.7. When one faces trouble one someone does one wrong, instead of getting discouraged, one’s attitudes should be, “Father, I thank You, that I am not in position to receive double. I know I am going to come out stronger, healthier, and happier than I have ever been.” God does not want to bring you out of your adversities all beaten up and bedraggled; no, you are not simply a survivour, you are more than a conqueror. God wants to bring you out promoted and increased, with abundance. Beyond that, God wants to make the enemy pay for the wrongs done to you, His child. “For You will not abandon me to Sheol (the place of the dead), neither will You suffer Your holy one [Holy One] to see corruption. You will show me the path of life: in Your presence is fullness of joy, at forevermore,” reports Psalm 17.10-11. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
If you are in a tough situation today, you need to develop a restoration mentality. Mentally encourage yourself that God is going to turn your situation around. Remind yourself thou do not just defeat the enemy, you gather up all the spoils. You come out better than before, blessed to overflowing. In the Scripture we read of Job, a good man who loved God and had a heart to do what is right. Yet in a few weeks’ time, he lost his business, his flocks, and herds, his family, and his health. Things could not get any worse for Job, and I am sure he was tempted to be bitter. He could have said, “God, it is not fair. I do not understand why this is happening to me.” His own wife told him, “Job, just curse God and die.” However, no, Job knew that God is a God of restoration. He knew God could turn any situation around. And his attitude was, “Even if I die, I am going to die trusting God. I am going to die believing for the best.” When it was all said and done, God not only turned Job’s calamity around, He brought Job out with twice what he had before. He had twice as many cattle, twice as many sheep. He got his health back, and God gave him a new family. God restored double what the enemy had stolen. Amazingly, the Scripture says, “The latter part of Job’s life was more blessed than the first part,” reports Job 42.12. Maybe you need to be reminded today that God wants the rest of your life to be more blessed than the first part. Despite what you have been through, or how somebody has treated you, no matter what the medical reports says, or what your bank statement says, God is saying, “I want to make the rest of your life happier and more fulfilled than you can even imagine.” God wants to bring you out to a flourishing finish. In other words, God is saying the best is yet to come. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Praise the World to the Angel, not the unutterable World; you cannot astonish one with your glorious feelings; in the Universe, where one feels more sensitively, you are just a beginner. Therefore, show him the simple that lives near our hands and eyes as our very own. Tell him about the things. He will stand more amazed, as you stood beside the rope-maker in Rome, or the potter on the Nile. Show him how happy a thing can be, how blameless and ours; how even the lamentation of sorrow purely decides to take form, serves as a thing, or dies in a thing, and blissfully in the beyond escapes the violin. And these things that live, slipping away, understand that you praise them; transitory themselves, they trust us for rescue, us, the most transient of all. They wish us to transmute them in our invisible heart—or, infinitely into us! Whoever we are. Earth is not this what you want: invisibly to arise in us? It is not your dream to be some day invisible? Earth! Invisible! What, if not transformation, is your insistent commission? Earth, dear one, I will! Oh, believe it needs not one more of your springtime to win me over. One, just one, is already too much for my blood. From afar I am utterly determined to be yours. You were always right and your sacred revelation is the intimate death. Behold, I am alive. On what? Neither childhood nor future grows less…surplus of existence is welling up in my heart. Dear Lord in Heaven, I dare to believe that You are going to turn around unfavourable conditions in my life over which I have no control, situations in which someone has chosen to do evil against me. I know You reward those who trust You, so I will continue to believe that You are going to restore all that has been stolen from me. “I will bless the Lord, who has given me counsel; yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons,” reports Psalm 17.7. The Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of America, and bid them make fringes in the corners of their garments throughout their generations, putting upon the fringe of each corner a thread of blue. And it shall be unto you for a friend, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye go not about after your own hearts and your own eyes, after which ye use to go astray:–that ye remember to do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the Town to be your God; I am the Lord your God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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You Can Never Force Anyone to Love You!
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Virginity and celibacy are for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, virginity or celibacy, is also, though differently, a precept for everyone. In fact, besides being a freely-chosen, lifelong state, it is also a duty—or rather, an ideal and an evangelical proposal—for everyone during at least one particular phase of life, namely the one preceding the definitive choice of one’s vocation. In this sense these words are not addressed exclusively to religious or to those preparing to become priests, but to all the baptized. We shall find that the same reasons which justify virginity for the sake of the Kingdom can also sustain and motivate the efforts of young Christian men or women to preserve their physical and spiritual chastity and integrity until their wedding day. “Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met],” reports Joel 2.12. In any case, one cannot speak about virginity and celibacy without continually comparing it with marriage. Therefore to speak about them is also to speak about marriage; in fact in some aspects, comparing the two is the best way to discover the nature and goodness of the charism proper to each. Today we are witnessing a real attack by the dominant culture against this value of virginity. According to the well-known tendency to despise what one has lost or is unable to attain (as the fox in the fable said of the grapes: “They are not yet ripe”), secular culture casts suspicion and even ridicule on this traditional value which nature itself defends by surroundings—often even by the school environment which ought to help them mature—to be ashamed of their chastity, to do everything to hide it, even to boast about experiences they have not had, simply so as not to appear different from other people. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Someone has said that hypocrisy used to be the tribute paid by vice to virtue. Today it is the tribute paid by virtue to vice. The effect of this mindless assault has been indirectly felt within the Church as well. Nor could it be otherwise, since we live in the World and breathe air. Whether we go out or stay home, we are besieged and “de-evangelized” on every side and by every means. Celibacy and virginity, it is sometimes said, prevent healthy, complete personal development. They keep a man from being fully a man, and a woman from being fully a woman. One consequence of this is apparent in the way we present our vocational material. Sometimes at vocation meetings I have had the impression that the invitation to follow a call to special consecration is made with this tacit but clear implication: “Embrace our way of life despite the fact it involves celibacy or virginity; actually, you will be able to contribute to the coming of the Kingdom, help the poor, raise people’s awareness, live without being enslaved to things, and promote social justice.” I believe that we must acknowledge our lack of faith and have the courage to invite young people to embrace our consecrated life not despite the virginity and celibacy it entails, but because of them, or at least also because of them. This ideal may very well be the one that will cause young people to fall in love with the religious and priestly life and draw them to it, rather than distance them from it. It has happened before; it happened in the first ages of the Church. The fact is that virginity for the Kingdom is a splendid value which changing times and fashions cannot alter. All the forces and wisdom of this World, all the so-called human sciences may join together in protest against this form of life, calling it “an outdated abomination” and raising all kinds of suspicion against it; all the sins and infidelities of the very people who have chosen to embrace it may be added to this, and still it would remain, because it was instituted by Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
No one will ever be able to uproot that which the Son of God planted with His own hand when He came into the World. The World itself, without realizing it, pays its own tribute to this value when it uses the words “virgin” and “pure” in a very beneficial way. An unspoiled landscape is often described as “virgin,” the best wool is labelled “pure,” and so on. We need to reclaim these words and symbols which our secularized culture has borrowed from the Bible and Christian tradition and emptied completely of their religious meaning. In an age like our own, when excesses of pleasures of the flesh threaten the very sources of life and the basis of society itself, when nature protests with dire warning signals, it is a duty and a joy for believers to rediscover the radical alternative of the Gospel. This alternative does not rule out pleasures of the flesh, but brings out its human, free, rational character, preventing it from degenerating into sheer instinct and banality. The poet Tagore, expressing an evangelical insight, writes: “Chastity is a wealth that comes from abundance of love” (not from the lack of it). There are some who choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. There is an unteachable use of celibacy, virginity and voluntary continence, because they are all terms designating the same actual reality, or at least the same state of life. Personally I prefer to use the word “virginity” and “virgins” as the most comprehensive term. In fact the New Testament does not reserve this title only for unmarried women, but also uses it for unmarried men. The Book of Revelations gives the name “virgins” to those who have not been with women and who therefore follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Revelation 14.4). #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
The institution of the state is described in chapter 19 of Matthew’s Gospel: “His disciples said to Him: ‘If that is who things are between husband and wife, it is better not to marry.’ However, He replied: “Not everyone can accept what I have said, but only those to whom it is granted. For there are some who are eunuchs from their mother’s womb, and some who were made so by other men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can,” reports Matthew 19.10-12. The word “eunuch” sounds rather harsh to our modern ears and it was harsh also for people n Jesus’ day. According to some, the choice of this unusual term was due to the fact that the adversaries of Jesus had accused Him of being a eunuch, since He was unmarried, just as they accused Him on other occasions of being a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11.19). It was a highly offensive word, because for the Jewish mentality of the time it was a moral duty to get married. The opinion of a certain Rabbi Eleazar, according to which “a man with no wife is not even a man,” is well known. So here, Jesus was taking up His adversaries’ accusations and making it in some way His own, but explaining it by this revelation of an unmarried state that was new and absolutely special. There are some—says Jesus—“who do not marry” (this is the non-polemical equivalent of the term “eunuch”) because they are prevented from birth on account of some natural defect. Others do not marry because they are prevented by the wickedness of people or the circumstances of life. Finally, there are others again who do not marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. In the last case the word “eunuch” takes on a different significance, not physical but moral. Christian tradition has always interpreted it in this way except for the well-known case of Origen who, contrary to his custom of explaining everything spiritually, took this word of the Gospel literally. He castrated himself and subsequently paid a high price for his mistake. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The mention of the Kingdom of Heaven abruptly introduces an element of mystery into Jesus’ words, which is heightened by the final laconic phrase: “Let anyone accept this who can.” In other words, those who have received the gift of understanding will understand. In this way a second state of life is born into the World, and this is its “Magna Charta.” In fact, before Jesus, no state of life existed comparable to this one instituted by Him, at least in its motivation if not in fact. The Essences of Qumran also knew and practiced a form of celibacy but for them it had undertones of asceticism and ritual purity rather than eschatological connotations. If anything, it was motivated by an expectation of the Kingdom, not by its coming. In any case it could not have been otherwise. Only the presence of the Kingdom on Earth could institute this second possibility: a life of celibacy “for the sake of the Kingdom.” This possibility does not cancel out the other one, namely marriage, but makes it relative. The same sort of thing happens with the idea of the state in the political sphere: the revelation of the simultaneous presence in history of the Kingdom of God does not abolish the state, but radically relativizes it. Perfect continence stands in the face of marriage rather as the Kingdom of God stands in the face of the kingdom of Caesar: it does not eliminate it, but highlights the different positions it now has from the one it had before. It is no longer the only instance in its field. Since God’s Kingdom is in a different order of greatness from that of Caesar, the one does not need to deny the other in order to exist. In the same way, voluntary continence does not need the denial of marriage for its own validity to be recognized. In fact, it is only by simultaneously affirming marriage—especially since Jesus raised it to the dignity of a sacrament—that chastity acquires meaning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Two groups of psychosocial problems—somatoform disorders and psychogeic sexual dysfunction—are distinct types of disorders that, in the abstract, have similar manifestations. Each somatoform disorder or sexual dysfunction represents a constellation of “physical” symptoms in the absence of any identifiable physiological or medical condition to which the symptoms could be attributed. Both classes of problems are associated with patterns of friction in interpersonal relationships: Somatoform disorders are prominently linked with troublesome interactions in the family of origin, and psycho genic sexual dysfunctions are strongly tied to disturbances in family-or-orientation (id est, marital) relationships. Somatoform disorders entail the expression of some symptom or symptoms that suggest a medical problem, but are not fully explainable by a medical condition. These symptoms, such as severe back pain or chronic digestive problems, tend to cause significant distress or impairment for the individual expressing them. The experience of these physical symptoms is very real for the afflicted individual, and they are not intentional, as in the case of malingering or factitious disorder. Three of the more common types of somatoform disorders are pain disorder (the experience of pain that is severe enough to warrant clinical attention and interfere with social functioning, in the absence of any obvious medial cause), hypochondriasis (a preoccupation with fears of having a serious disease based on misinterpretation of one or more bodily signs or symptoms), and somatization disorder (a chronic pattern of pain, sexual gastrointestinal, and pseudoneurological symptoms). Somatization disorder includes what has in the past been referred to as hysteria and Briquet’s syndrome. Somatization disorder is somewhat rare, with an annual prevalence of only 0.2 percent. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
However, a more recent study of over 3,000 adolescents and young adults indicated that the risk of any specific somatoform disorder was 2.7 percent in that population, the most prevalent being pain disorder and conversion disorder. However, the use of a new and thorough diagnostic technique yielded an overall lifetime prevalence rate of 12.6 percent for any somatoform disorder. These disorders are more common in women than in men, and typically have their origin in adolescence; they are also highly comorbid, with 50-75 percent of patients also afflicted with such problems as depression, eating disorders, and substance dependence. Somatoform disorders may serve a variety of functions in the family of origin, the family of orientation, and even general personal relationships. For many people, a somatoform disorder brings a “solution” to a systemic problem within the family or marriage by shifting attention away from conflicts. It may also serve as a means of securing various types of support and attention. In research on somatoform disorders, antecedent family-of-origin experiences has received much attention. These often include low parental care (coupled with parental overinvolvement), family conflict, physical and sexual abuse, and other adverse experiences; disrupted attachment; and parental modeling of somatization. Somatoform disorders may also be understood as distorted forms of interpersonal communication: Many people express their physical symptoms as a means of indirectly communicating their distress to others. Somatoform disorders tend to be highly comorbid with personality disorders, further complicating the clinical and interpersonal picture of these disorders. Why would an individual experience and express “physical” symptoms in the absence of any precipitating medical or biological cause? Many have argued that there are social functions and perhaps even social causes underlying this phenomenon. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
In a comprehensive review of the relationship between social-psychological factors and somatic symptoms, perceptions and reports of physical health may function as non-verbal indices of social health. Numerous possible etiological explanations for somatization have been suggested. Many if not most of these explanations entail some significant issue(s) in the area of interpersonal relationships, such as primary or secondary gains; a solution to a systems problem in a family; or a means of communicating when other, more direct forms of expression are blocked (signal function). Many people with somatization disorder turn to health care professionals for social support that is otherwise lacking in their lives. The concept of secondary gain had figure prominently in the literature on somatization. When one is “sick,” he or she is freed from normal and typical obligations and is generally absolved from any responsibility for being in the sick condition. The expression of physical symptoms also brings attention, sympathy, and support from others, not to mention more instrumental types of assistance, such as disability payments. For the individual who is unable or unwilling to solicit or secure social support from others through more standard means of social interaction, assuming the sick role may be a covert mechanism for effectively achieving this interpersonal goal. In the traditional phylodynamic approach, somatization is thought to have primarily intrapsychic functions, with secondary interpersonal consequences. However, the interpersonal perspective would interpret the “secondary” interpersonal effects as primary. That is, the person exhibits, and indeed experiences, the physical symptoms primarily as a mechanism for attaining particular interpersonal outcomes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Somatoform disorders may also bring a temporary solution to a system-wide problem. For example, a child’s physical symptoms may temporarily divert attention from an otherwise contentious family conflict. As parents shift their attention toward the welfare of the child, they may actually behave in a more cooperative fashion and reduce their conflict. Just as intoxication can bring temporary stability to a household affected by alcoholism, somatoform disorders may temporarily stabilize a family setting and subdue conflict. According to the signal function hypothesis, somatic symptoms may be the nonverbal expression of an emotion and/or interpersonal problem. Somatization is communication, consciously or unconsciously coded in the language of the body. For a variety of reasons, some people may not be comfortable expressing their interpersonal or emotional distress to others; for them, the expression of physical symptoms may be a more socially acceptable means of expressing their feelings to other people and soliciting social support from them. From this perspective, a somatoform disorder can be interpreted as a sign of psychic distress in the afflicted individual. “In the World you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the World,” reports John 16.33. Adversities and hardships are opportunities for us to go higher. Consequently, God does not prevent every negative thing from coming into your life. In fact, Jesus said, “In this life you will have trouble.” “Unfair things will happen to you,” He said, but here is the key: “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the World.” Throughout the Scripture, God days if we will keep the right attitude, if we will stay full of joy and full of hope, even though He may not stop all the trouble, when we come out, we will not be the same as we were before. We will be more blessed, healthy, and prosperous, better off then we were previously. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
I think about Joseph. His brothers were so jealous of him, they sold him into slavery. Other young men his age, no doubt, were out having a good time, enjoying their lives. However, Joseph was confined, living in a foreign land, having to work all the time. It was unfair; worse yet, Joseph’s heartache and pain were caused by somebody else’s poor choices and somebody else’s bad attitude. However, God saw that injustice. God said in the book of Joel, “I will restore the years that have been stolen from you,” reports Joel 2.25. Somehow, some way, God can make up all those years. That is what He did for Joseph. Even though Joseph spent thirteen years in slavery and in prison, God made it all up to him. When he came out, he did not have to go back home and start all over. No, he came out promoted and increased. He now had a position of honour as the prime minister of all Egypt, second in command only to Pharaoh. God took the adversity and injustice, and because Joseph kept the right attitude, God brought him out much better than he was before. In other words, God made the enemy pay for brining the injustice into Joseph’s life. Friend, God is keeping the records in your life, as well. If somebody had mistreated you and done you wrong, do not sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Let hope fill your heart. Know that God will bring you out with twice what you had before. God will never waste anything that you go through. None of us enjoy tough times. However, we can stay filled with hope, knowing that God will never waste the pain. He will always use it to our advantage. Had Joseph not experienced that adversity, he would not have received the promotion that led to his powerful position. In your times of disappointment and trouble, instead of getting down and discouraged, start believing to come out better off than you were before. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Put your faith out there, and remind yourself that God wants to restore good things back to you. You simply need to stay filled with hope, and start expecting things to change. The Bible tells us in Zechariah that we should be “prisoners of hope.” So many people go around discouraged and defeated. They live with anger, resentment, and bitterness, rather than hope. They think no one knows what they have been through. No one knows how bad their marriage has been, or how deeply they are in dept. No, quit dwelling on all of that. Do not magnify your problems. Magnify your God. The bigger you make God, the smaller your problems become, and the more faith will rise in your heart. The Scripture teaches that we should not look at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are only temporary, but the things that are seen through our eyes of faith are eternal (see 2 Corinthians 4.18). One translation says, “The things that are seen are subject to change.” That means your health may not look too good today, but that is subject to change. Your finances may look pretty dismal, but they are subject to change. Nothing may be going right in your life, but it is all subject to change. When you look at your child who is not living right, instead of getting discouraged and losing your hope, look at him or her and say, “You are subject to change.” You may need to look at your checkbook and say, “This is subject to change.” Maybe your boss is not treating you right. He is being rude and disrespectful. Just smile and say, “You are subject to change.” (You probably should not say that to his face, or your job may be subject to change!) If you want God to restore what has been stolen from you, stay filled with hope. You have to get up each morning expecting things to change, expecting good things to happen. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
You need to know that in a moment of time, God could turn it all around. Suddenly you could get your miracle. Suddenly God could bring someone new into your life. Suddenly you could get that promotion. All it takes is one “suddenly.” In a split second, with one touch of God’s favour, everything can change. Our attitude should be, I am going to take back what belongs to me. I am not going to sit around mourning over what I have lost. I may have been knocked down, but I am not going to stay down. I am going to get back up again, knowing that Almighty God is on my side, and if God be for me, who dares be against me? And if you stay filled with hope, God will restore you, and like Joseph, you will come out twice as strong, twice as healthy, twice as prosperous. God will make the enemy pay double for brining that adversity into your life. Dear Lord in Heaven, please help me to believe, Father, that my circumstances are “subject to change,” not simply because of me, but because You are helping me to overcome that adversity, and You will bring me out even better than before. I will open my whole heart to You and enjoy Your company as my soul desires, and no one will despise me for it. Nor will anyone move me and give me a second look. However, we will have a good conversation, just You and me, and speak as one good friend to another, and then to a good meal! This I pray. This I desire, that I be totally at Your disposal, and that I withdraw my heart from its many Worldly commitments. What is more, through Holy Communion and frequent celebration of the Mass, I will develop a taste for the Celestials and Eternals. Ah! Lord God, when will I be totally united and absorbed with You and totally oblivious of myself? You in me, and I in You, as the Evangelist John once put it (17.21). Fast friends forever! #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
You truly are my Beloved Friend, chosen out of thousands and thousands, but how did I ever find You? That was the central question of Solomon’s song (5.10). You are the friend in whose friendship it pleases my soul to spend the rest of the days of my life. You bring peace to my life, which is not all that odd; You are the Great Peace and the True Rest, outside of whom there is nothing but grudge and grief. You truly are my hidden God, tucked away, secret; that is who the Prophet Isaiah saw it (45.15). And Your words of wisdom are not with the Impious, and Your small talk is with the Humble and Simple. “O Lord, how sweet is Your spirit,” as the Book of Wisdom has it (12.1). You are the One who, to demonstrate Your sweetness toward Your children, throughout them worth feeding with sweetest bread descending from Heaven; that is how the Deuteronomist describe the feeding of Moses and his friends for so many years (4.7). “Truly there is no other nation so grand as the one whose gods approach as closely as You, our God, have approached us.” You are present with all Your faithful, and You give them their daily bread, raising their hearts to Heaven, to eat, to enjoy. What other tribe has been so honoured as the Christians? What other creature under the Heavens has been so loved, so chosen, as the soul of a Devout in whom God has made an entrance that He may nourish him with his own glorious substance. O Ineffable Grace! O Admirable Dignation! O Immense Love bestowed on Humankind alone! However, what return do I make to the Lord for that grace, for such extravagant charity? A question frequently asked by the Psalmist (116.12). There is no better return than to present my heart on a platter to the Lord, with the hope that He would accept it as I intended. Then all my intestines will jounce for joy when my soul has been perfectly untied to God. Then He will say to me, “If you want to stay with me, I ill stay with you.” And I will respond to him. “Do please sit with me, and I willingly sit with You. This is my desire, whole and entire, that my heart be united with Yours.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
It must be remembered that the glimpse is not the goal of life. It is a happening, something which begins and ends, but something which of which is of immense value in contributing to the philosophic life, its day-to-day consciousness, its ordinary stabilized nature. Philosophic life is established continuously and permanently in the divine presence; the glimpse comes and goes within that presence. The glimpse is exceptional and exciting; but sahaja, the established state, is ordinary, normal, every day. The glimpse tends to withdraw us from activity, even if only for a few moments, whereas sahaja does not have to stop its outward activity. To the human who has come along the path of loving devotion to God and finally gained the reward of frequent, joyous, ardent, inward communion with God, equally as to the humans who has practised the way of mystical self-recollection and attained frequent awareness of the Overself’s presence, an unexpected and unpalatable change may happen little by little or suddenly. God will seem to withdraw from the devotee, the Overself from the mystic. The blisses will fade and end. Although this experience will have none of the terror or isolation and misery of the “dark night” it will be comparable to that unforgettable time. And although it will seem like a withdrawal of Grace, the hidden truth is that it is actually a farther and deeper bestowal of Grace. For the human is being led to the next stage—which is to round out, balance, and complete one’s development. This one will be taught to do by first, acquiring cosmological knowledge, and later, attaining ontological wisdom. That is, one will learn something about the World-Idea and then, this gained, pass upward to learning the nature of that Reality in whose light even the Universe is illusion. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Thus from study of the operations of the Power behind the World-Idea one passes on to pondering on the Power itself. This last involves the highest degree of concentration and is indeed the mysterious actualized Christian. When successfully followed it brings about the attainment of Insight, the final discovery that there is no other being than THAT, no second entity. The challenge of living from one’s core involves “effortless effort.” The paradox is that the harder one tries, the more one fails. It is like learning to swim: the more one struggles to stay on the surface, the faster one goes under. On the other hand, the more one relaxes, the easier it becomes to float. Living has to do with surrendering versus forcing. The key, then, is learning to live spontaneously rather than by coercion and willpower. It involves learning to live without striving. And this is contrary to what we in Western culture have been taught: that we win by trying harder. Another example is trying to make someone love you. The more you try, the less you succeed. You can never force anyone to love you. Yu can only be yourself openly, and hope that one will choose to respond to you. However, many people take the other course of trying to force or trick others into loving them through their achievements, seductions, or bag of manipulative tricks. All who perpetually strive t merit love end up exhausted and alone. Love cannot be bought or earned. It is the free gift of all who developed a relaxed and caring presence to others, and arises spontaneously out of heartfelt human encounter. In an age of technology such as ours, it may be difficult to accept that some things—such as wisdom, the capacity to love, the courage to be oneself, and the sensitivity to actualize one’s spiritual destiny—cannot be reduced to a prefabricated “instant” package. One of the paradoxical aspects of person growth is that it can never be forced. An invitation can be given, but the person must grow at one’s own pace. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
It is important to realize that one cannot force one’s own growth! Rather, one must have time, patience, and willingness for growth to occur at its own rate. The paradox of growth within the human personality is that we grow and change by accepting the way we are. We grow most when we relax. The reason for this is that relaxed awareness, coupled with desire, allows our whole being time to digest and assimilate new experiences and subsequently alter our thoughts, feelings, values, and behaviour. A wise philosopher once said that human beings are like sheep. If they truly assimilate their experiences, the gradually the grass of daily life will be transformed into the wool of wisdom. When it comes to daily surrender to God, Queen Akasha, in The Queen of the Damned, captured a key concept that corresponds with “effortless effort” in her phrase “Join me of die.” The quiet, penetrating encounter with God in the depths of our being us possible only when we let one go. When we quit boxing one in, or calling one this or that, or trying to make one do things for us—then we are filled with one’s presence. It is by beholding one’s being, and asking nothing other than to be still in one’s presence, that we surrender to God. We leave the encounter moved in our core, because we have asked nothing and received everything. This is the mystery of the holiness and the love of God. We can make one gentle step—practically effortless—and in so surrendering to God we are bountifully blessed. The quiet, daily surrender of one’s innermost being to God brings peace and a progressive work of wholeness to one’s life. For the actualizing Christian, life is a balance and synthesis between inner contemplation and outer social action, between being and doing. The times of quiet, relaxed surrender and openness in the presence of God harmonize with times of interaction with family, friends, and the World at large. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Busyness, planning, and doing also give way rhythmically to gentle meditation and prayer. This process assures that one’s day-to-day involvements are inspired and brought to fruition by the gentle flow of God’s Spirit in one’s life. The Greek word translated physical body means “slave.” The physical body should be a slave to the human spirit. Sin caused the human spirit to lose control over the body because Adam became a spiritually dead man the day he sinned. He became a body-ruled, not spirit-ruled; and he gained a sensual knowledge that caused his body to rebel against his spirit. The spirit man was dethroned that very hour; the human spirit lost its authority and ability to rule the body. Sin took control of the flesh. The body rose up and began to rule over their spirit. We can now understand what Paul said in Romans 8.6, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” To be carnally minded is to be body-ruled, and it produces spiritual death. To be spiritually minded is to be spirit-ruled, and it will produce life and peace for God designed you that way. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath mad me free from the law of sin and death,” reports Romans 8.2. God’s law that produces spirit life in Christ made your spirit free from the spiritual death caused by sin. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” reports Romans 8.3-4. The Law was given for people who were body-ruled. Body-ruled people cannot obey the laws of God because God wants one thing and their bodies want another. The flesh is weak; it is not subject to God’s laws. All men from Adam to Jesus were body-ruled; their spirits were slaves to their bodies. It was as a satanic chain that enslaved all humankind. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Then Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He looked like other men, but God was His Father and He was spirit-ruled. He broke the satanic chain of spirit slavery and condemned sin that had enthroned itself in the human body. He destroyed that satanic stronghold and made it possible for humans to walk in the spirit. “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness,” reports Romans 8.10. When Christ comes into your spirit, the bodies dies; it is dethroned. You certainly do not want something that is dead ruling over you. The body is dead, but the spirit is life because you became righteous. The spirit man received the ability to rule the body once again. The spirit human grows on the Word of God. God’s Word is filled with faith and that feeds the spirit human. As satan taught the body to rule over the spirit with words, so must the spirit. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” reports John 6.63. It takes time to train the spirit, but God’s Words are spirit life. It is a process of training the human spirit to believe what you say will come to pass. Say only the things that you believe will come to pass. Quit talking foolishness, sickness and disease. Quit saying, “That tickles me to death.” Satan has programed death into the human vocabulary. It ought not to be so, for it will sap your faith. Begin now to stop the enemy from using your vocabulary to hold you in bondage. Study the life of Christ, and you will find that He refused to confess or admit death. You remember when He went to raise Lazarus from the dead, He would not confess he was dead. He said, “He sleepeth.” Finally, He said to His disciples, “He is dead,” reports John 11.14. However, the Greek says, “died.” There is a great difference between a man that died and one that is dead. If you do not believe that, look at Jesus. He died; but thank God, He is not dead! #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Learn to control your vocabulary and never speak anything that you do not want to come to pass. Someone says, “I could never do that.” If the Word says you can (and it does), then you can; but it will takes some time to get all that old unbelief out so you can speak faith-filled words. All you big things, bless the Lord Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victorian. The Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plain, fat baobabs and shady mango trees, all eucalyptus and tamarind trees, bless the Lord. Praise and extol Him for ever and ever. All you tiny things, bless the Lord. Busy black ants and hopping fleas, wriggling tadpoles and mosquito larvae, flying locusts and water drops, pollen dust and tsetse files, millet seeds and dried dagaa, blessed the Lord. Praise and extol Him for ever and ever. It shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto My commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart, and with all your soul, that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shalt eat and be satisfied. Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and the displeasure of the Lord will be aroused against you, and He shut up the Heaven, so that there shall be no rain, and the ground shall not yield her fruit; and ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them to your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land which the Lord promised unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the Heavens above the Earth. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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A little Agitation Gives Strength to Souls–Are You Going through a Dark Time in Your Life?
Your success and happiness are within you. As we have observed, psychodynamic theorists believe that an anxiety disorder develops when children come to fear their own id impulses and use ego defense mechanism to lessen the resulting anxiety. What distinguishes obsessive-compulsive disorder from other anxiety disorders, in their view, is that here the battles between anxiety-provoking id impulses and anxiety-reducing defense mechanisms is not buried in the unconscious but is played out in explicit and dramatic thoughts and actions. The id impulses usually take the form of obsessive thoughts, and the ego defenses appear as counterthoughts or compulsive actions. A woman who keeps imagining her mother suffering from a disaster, for example, may counter those thoughts with repeated safety checks throughout the house. According to psychodynamic theorists, three ego defense mechanisms are particularly common in obsessive-compulsive disorder: isolation, undoing, and reaction formation. People who resort to isolation simply disown their undesirable and unwanted thoughts and experience them as foreign intrusions. People who engage in undoing perform acts that are mean to cancel out their undesirable impulses. Those who wash their hands repeatedly, for example, may be symbolically undoing their unacceptable id impulses. People who develop a reaction formation take on a lifestyle that directly opposes their unacceptable impulses. A person may live a life of compulsive kindness and devotion to others in order to counter unacceptably aggressive impulses. Another may lead a life of chastity to counteract obsessive impulses involving pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
If people keep performing compulsive behaviours in order to prevent bad outcomes and ensure beneficial outcomes, can they not be taught that such behaviours are not really serving purpose? In a behavioural treatment called exposure and response prevention, clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviours, but they are told to resist performing the behaviours they feel bound to perform. Because people find it very difficult to stop such behaviours, therapists often set an example. As the clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviours, but they are told to resist performing the behaviours they feel bound to perform. Because people find it very difficult to stop such behaviours, therapists put themselves in the anxiety-producing situation without performing any compulsive actions, and then they encourage the clients to do the same. Some behavioural therapists further have people carry out self-help procedures at home. That is, they assign homework in exposure and response prevention, such as these assignments given to a person with a cleaning compulsion: Do not mop the floor of your bathroom for a week. After this, clean it within three minutes, using an ordinary mop. Use this mop for other chores as well without cleaning it. Buy a fluffy mohair sweater and wear it for a week. When taking it off at night do not remove the bits of fluff. Do not clean your house for a week. You, your husband, and children all have to keep shoes on. Do not clean the house for a week. Drop a cookie on the contaminated floor, pick the cookie up and eat it. Leave the sheets and blankets on the floor and then put them on the beds. Do not change them for a week. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Eventually this person was able to set up a reasonable routine for cleaning oneself and home. Exposure and response prevention has been offered in both individual and group therapy. Between 55 and 85 percent of clients with obsessive-compulsive disorder have been found to improve considerably with this approach. They also function better at home, socially, and at work. These changes continue to be observed for years. The effectiveness of this approach suggests that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder are like the superstitious man in the old joke who keeps snapping his fingers to keep elephants away. When someone points out, “But there are not any elephants around here,” the man replies, “See? It works!” One review concludes, “With hindsight, it is possible to see that the obsessional individual has been snapping one’s fingers, and unless one stops (response prevention) and takes a look around at the same time (exposure), one is not going to learn much of value about elephants.” The same studies and statistics indicate the limitations of exposure and response prevention. Few clients who receive the treatment overcome all their symptoms, and as many as one-quarter fail to improve at all. Also, the approach is of limited help to those who have obsessions but no compulsions. After all, the treatment makes its impact on obsessions by blocking closely linked compulsive acts. Finally, the favourable findings come mainly from studies of cleaning and checking compulsions. The effectiveness of this approach with other kinds of compulsions or with multiple compulsions is unclear. Painful thoughts—like the man in George Cruikshank’s painting The Blue Devils, some people may find unwanted thoughts particularly threatening and debilitating. According to cognitive theorists, their reactions to intrusive thoughts may set the stage for obsessive-compulsive disorder. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Some individuals become more and more convinced that one’s unpleasant intrusive thoughts are dangerous. As the person’s fear of such thoughts increase, the thoughts begin to occur more frequently and they, too, become obsessions. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder experience intrusive thoughts more frequently than other people, especially in times of stress, a difference that may be due to biological predisposition; they resort to more elaborate neutralizing strategies than other people when they try to stop unwanted thoughts; and they experience reductions in anxiety after using neutralizing techniques. Although everyone sometimes had undesired thoughts, only some people develop obsessive-compulsive disorder. Why do these individuals find such normal thoughts so disturbing to begin with? Researchers have found that this population tends to be more depressed than other people; to have exceptionally high standards of conduct and morality; to believe that their intrusive negative thoughts are equivalent to actions and capable of causing harm to themselves or others and to feel responsible for eliminating the imagined danger; and generally to believe that they can and should have perfect control over all their thoughts and behaviours. There is a signal hypothesis that holds that excessive alcohol or substance use is a sign of distress. The comorbidity of other psychological problems with drug and alcohol misuse is testimony to the validity of this hypothesis. Before these are discussed, it should be noted that drug use problems are highly comorbid with alcohol use problems: About half of all those who misuse hard drugs also suffer from alcohol dependence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Rates of alcoholism and other substance use disorders are very high among those with mood disorders. A study showed that rates of mood disorders are equal for men and women in the American Amish community, where the use of alcohol is prohibited. This suggests that alcoholism may mask depression in men in the general population, since men are thought to have about half the rate of depression than women do. In fact, there are very few people who have just drinking problems. Such individuals often have a number of related problems, such as depression and anxiety. In some cases, the drinking may be a misguided attempted to “cope” with these disorders, and in other cases, these other psychosocial problems may be consequences of problem drinking. Many patients with bipolar disorder also have substance use problems. About a quarter to half of all such patients have some substance use disorder. Substance use disorders are also highly comorbid with personality disorders. Almost 60 percent of all people with substance use disorders have comorbid personality disorder. The pattern of comorbidity with alcoholism and other substance use disorders reveals close associations with other disorders that have strong links to interpersonal relationship problems. One plausible account of this comorbidity may be that the substance use is secondary to the primary psychological problem, initiated in an effort to regulate and cope with a deteriorating interpersonal environment. Problems such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders can rapidly decay interpersonal relationships. The feelings of loneliness, damaged self-esteem, and lack of direction that often accompany and follow the deterioration of interpersonal relationships may prompt some people to turn to substance use. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In such instances, the substance use may be an attempt to regulate interpersonal interaction (exempli gratia, taking cocaine in effort to go out in public and have a good time) or to cope with feelings of emptiness and rejection (exempli gratia, drinking alcohol to “escape” dysphoric feelings). In other cases, substance use disorders may precede other psychological problems that stem from destroyed interpersonal relationships. Once substance use is initiated, some people continue and escalate it because of chemical addiction. However, it is virtually a foregone conclusion that as the substance use becomes more pervasive, interpersonal relationships are damaged and ultimately destroyed. This effect happens partly because excessive drug and alcohol use interferes with competent interpersonal behaviour; it focuses individuals almost exclusively on substance ingestion, at the expense of maintaining mutually rewarding relationships with other people. When this focus is taken to extremes, a person may steal from others to get money to buy drugs, lie, and become excessively abrasive. These behaviours reliably damage interpersonal relationships, and problems such as depression and anxiety may follow—not necessarily because of the substance use disorder per se, but because of the interpersonal consequences of the substance use. Consequently, much of the comorbidity between substance use disorders and other psychosocial problems may be explained by aversive interpersonal experiences. These are the experiences with the power and impact to link problems. At least a quarter of the population will experience significant problems with substance abuse or dependence in their lifetimes. This class of problems generally has its origins in adolescence, and substance use is currently on the rise in this cohort. Within the substance use disorders, alcoholism has received a great deal of interpersonally oriented research attention. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
People who are dependent on alcohol exhibit problems with some social skills, such as negative assertion and refusal of alcohol from others. However, these interpersonal skills deficits are not broad-based, and may be due to low motivation to use the skills than to not possessing them. Alcoholism has complex associations with family interactions. In some cases, alcoholism can bring positivity and stability to family troubles. Scientists are learning that alcoholism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, and that persons with certain subtypes of it are more inclined than others to have more severe family problems. In particular, those with episodic (vs. steady), high-antisociality (vs. low-antisociality), and stable-wet (vs. stable-dry or transitional alcoholism tend to have the most disrupted family environments and interactions. As in the family more generally, the marital relationship can influence and is influenced by spousal alcoholism. Alcoholics may harbour feelings of hostility and competitiveness toward their spouse. At the same time, drinking can in some cases activate positivity and problem solving in marital interaction. The marriages of those who drink at home tend to see more positive consequences of drinking than the marriages of those who drink outside the home. A great deal of attention has been paid to COAs (children of alcoholics) in both the scientific and lay press. Problems for COAs are thought to represent the interpersonally destructive consequences of parental alcoholism. Although they are clearly at risk for developing problem drinking themselves, COAs are not easily distinguished from non-COAs. When they are, a more general negative family environment mechanism may explain their troubles better than the specific effects of parental alcoholism do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The architecture for adult substance abuse or dependence is often intact by the end of adolescence, and is largely established through interpersonal interaction. Young people learn to use drugs and alcohol by observing their friends and family members perform the behaviours; this process is known as modeling. High levels of family-of-origin discord and interpersonal maltreatment may predispose young people to get involved with and continue to use drugs and alcohol. Undoubtedly, many such youths are self-medicating and seeking an escape from interpersonally inflicted trauma and drama. Although adolescents who are involved in substance use and misuse have some interpersonal problems of their own, these problems are in some cases the consequences of substance use. Some evidence also suggests that codependent interpersonal relationships can even maintain substance misuse. All those with habitual substance use, abuse, or dependence seek to alter their consciousness, and often to escape a negative mood state. No one is born with the knowledge or behavioural ability to use drugs and alcohol for these or other purposes. Rather, this knowledge and behaviour comes from interpersonal interaction. Drug and alcohol use is socially learned. The path from substance use to substance abuse and/or dependence is often strewn with the wreckage of destructive interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as conflict and hostility in families or origin and orientation, rejection by peers, sexual abuse, and marital discord. Alcohol and other substance abuse and dependence are both causes and consequences of interpersonal distress. However, to live your best life now, one must act on one’s will, not simply one’s emotions. Sometimes that means one has to take steps of faith even when one is hurting, grieving, or still reeling from some attack of the enemy. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Some people are sitting around waiting for God to change their circumstances. Then they are going to be happy; then they are going to have a good attitude; than they are going to give God praise. However, God is waiting on one to get up on the inside. To be an actualizing Christian. When one does one’s part, God will begin to change the things and work supernaturally in one’s life. Are you going through a dark time in your life? Perhaps someone deceived you, took advantage of you, or mistreated you, and now you are tempted to sit around acting foolish and ghoulish, mouring over what you have lost, thinking about how unfair it was, and how your life will never be the same. You need to change your attitude. You have to feel the success and happiness on the inside. Develop the mentality of a successful person and watch what God will begin to do. When you face adversity, do not be a crybaby. Do not be a complainer. Do not wallow in self-pity. Instead, have the attitude of a successful Christian. Jesus Christ is a lover of purity and the Giver of All Sanctity. A pure heart is the sort of thing He seeks. And in a place like that He likes to take His rest; a Chatsworth, as it were; that was Luke’s sentiment in Acts (7.49). Prepare of Jesus a dining room with some suitable furniture—that is how the Evangelist Mark recorded it (14.15), and He will make Passover with His Disciples and invite you to come. Jesus will be glad and come to you and remain for the celebration of the feast, but first you will have to scour the leaven from the room—Paul reminded the Corinthians to do just that in his First Letter (5.7)—and sweep out the inner room of one’s heart. Get rid of everything secular. Banish the sounds of the noisy vices outside. Then sit as solitary sparrow on a roof tile, as the Psalmist once put it (102.7), and stew about your regrets in—as the Prophet Isaiah described it so well (38.15)—the vinaigrettes of your soul. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Every loving Devout has already done this, prepared a Chatsworth; that is to say, the best, most beautiful spot for one’s own beloved Friend. Why? To show what great affections would greet the arrival of one’s Best Friend. Mark you, no preparation is ever perfect. Try though you do, there are still foreign particles about, and even if you were to spend a year doing it, there would still be dust in the air. taking into consideration Jesus Christ’s piety and grace, one would be permitted to approach His table. One would have to do it, though, as an indigent to a rich man, with nothing in one’s pockets and no way to repay the kindness other than to eat humble pie and give humble thanks. Just do what one can do and do it diligently, not out of habit or necessity, but with fear and reverence. With affection receive the Body of you Beloved Lord and God, who thought you were a worthy enough chap to receive a visit. Jesus is the One who called you, the One who ordered it to happen, who cleaned you up so nicely. Come and receive Jesus. If perchance Jesus should shed some grace of devotion on you, give thank to Him, your God. Not because you are worthy of it, but because He looks down with mercy on one’s pathetic state. If one does not have grace, but feels increasingly arid, insist on prayer, groan and beat your best, saying “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”; the Evangelist Matthew said something similar (7.7). And do not stop until you receive a morsel of medicinal grace. Without Jesus you are poor—not the other way around. One does not come to bless Christ, and make Christ feel good—it is the other way around. One comes to be sanctified by Christ and to be joined to Jesus Christ in friendship, and to be encouraged once again to do better; First Timothy yet again (4.14). Do not overlook this grace. Rather, prepare one’s heart with all diligence. Then bid one’s Beloved Friend to enter. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
It is important to note here that one should not only prepare oneself for devotion before Communion, but also save oneself solicitously after Communion. The recollection after should not be less than the preparation before, for the post-Communion glow is the best preparation for attaining major grace. Whoever flees from Communion back to the World for fear of missing some Worldly consolations loses what spiritual consolations have already been detailed to one. Beware of lengthy conversations. Remain by yourself in the church or chapel, and enjoy your special time with God, for you have Him whom the whole World cannot wrest from you. Jesus Christ is the One to whom you ought to give your complete self. That so that you may live not in yourself, but in Him—do that, and you can kiss care good-bye. You may be weary, and tired, worn down, and ready to give up. You may be saying, “I am never going to break this addiction. I have had it for so long. I would not even know how to function without it.” Or, “My income is so low, and my debts are so high; I do not see how my financial situation will ever get better.” Or, “I have been praying for years, but it does not look as though my children want to serve God.” “I have had about as much as I can take.” Do not allow yourself to wave the white flag of surrender. You must get out of that defeated mentality and start thinking and believing positively. Your attitude should be: I am coming out this situation successfully! I may have been sick for a long time, but I know this sickness did not come to stay. It came to pass. I may have struggled with this addiction for years, but I know my day of deliverance is coming. My children may not be doing right, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
You must show the enemy that you are more determined than he is. Make it known, “Even if I have to stand my whole lifetime, I am going to stand in faith! I am going to keep standing up on the inside, no matter how long it takes.” God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner. There is no reason for you to be perpetually living “under the circumstances,” always down, always discouraged. No matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting back up. God sees your resolve. He seems your determination. And when you do everything you can do, that is when God will step in and do what you cannot do. Dear Lord in Heaven, I choose to rule my emotions, rather than allowing them to dominate me. Please help me to act on what I know is right and true according to Your Word, rather than on outward appearances, feelings, or discouraging information. With Your help, I will be successful! Many pray for good health and strength, but if they sneeze once, they say, “I believe I am taking the flu,” or “I must be taking a cold.” They have set a scriptural law in motion and it cancelled their prayer. Let me share a little secret with you that will stop 50 percent of your cold is you will do it consistently. Every time you sneeze say, “Thank God, I am taking healing. I have a choice; so I am taking healing.” “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life,” reports Deuteronomy 30.19. No one will snicker or laugh when you say, “I am taking the flu.” They will just reply, “Oh, poor thing.” However, when you say, “I am taking healing,” they will often say, “What has gotten into you?” Just reply, “The Word of God!” James says if you can control the tongue, that the body can be controlled. Your body is like a child—it will do anything you let it do. If you let it, it will be sick. The spirit of man on the inside is the one that should dominate the body. Christ redeemed you from the curse of poverty, sickness, and sin. (Galatians 3.13.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Some would reason that if we were redeemed from the curse of the Law, then everyone would be healed and no one would be sick; but that is not true. We are redeemed from sin; but not everyone is saved. They could be, but they have not acted on God’s Word to be delivered from sin. If you want to, you can still sin. According to the Word of Galatians 3.13, we have no more right to allow sickness and disease in our bodies than we do sin. It all comes from Satan! When the question arises which one is absolutely the best government, an insoluble question is being raised because it is indeterminate. Or, if you wish, it has as many good answers as there are possible combinations in the absolute and relative positions of the people. However, if asked by what sign it is possible to know that a given people is well or poorly governed, this is another matter, and the question of fact could be resolved. However, nothing is answered, since each wants to answer it in one’s own way. The subjects praised public tranquillity; the citizens praise the liberty of private individuals. The former prefers the security of possessions; the latter that of persons. The former has it that the best government is the one that is most severe; the latter maintains that the best government is the one that is mildest. This one wants crimes to be punished, and that one wants them prevented. The former think it a good thing to be feared by their neighbours; the latter prefer to be ignored by them. The one is content so long as money circulates; the other demands that the people have bread. Even if agreement were had on these similar points, would we be any closer to an answer? Since moral quantities do not allow of precise measurements, even if there were agreement regarding the sign, how could there by agreement regarding the evaluation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
For my part, I am always astonished that such a simple sign is overlooked or that people are of such bad faith as not to agree on it. What is the goal of the political association? It is the preservation and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign that they are preserved and prospering? It is their number and their population. Therefore do not go looking elsewhere for this much disputed sigh. All other things being equal, the government under which, without external means, without naturalizations, without colonies, the citizens become populous and multiply the most, is infallibly the best government. That government under which a populace diminishes and dies out is the worst. Calculators, it is not up to you. Count, measure, compare. We should judge on this same principle the centuries that merit preference with respect to the prosperity of the human race. Those in which letters and arts are known to have flourished have been admired too much, without penetrating the secret object of their cultivation, and without considering its devastating effect, and this was called by the inexperienced, when it was a part of servitude. Will we never see int eh maxims of books the crude interest that causes the authors to speak? No. Whatever they may say, when a country is depopulated, it is not true, despite its brilliance, that all goes well; and the fact that a poet has an income of hundred thousand livres is not sufficient to make his century the best of all. The apparent calm and tranquillity of the leader ought to be less of an object of consideration than the well-being of whole nations and especially of the most populous states. A hailstorm may devastate a few cantons, but it rarely causes famine. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Riots and civil ways may greatly disturb the leaders, but they are not the true misfortunes of the people, who may even have a reprieve while people argue over who will tyrannize them. It is their permanent condition that causes real periods of prosperity or calamity. It is when everything remains crushed under the yoke that everything decays. It is then that the leaders destroy them at will, where they bring about solitude they call it peace. When the quarrels of the great disturbed the kingdom of France, and the Coadjutor of Paris brought with one to the Parliament a knife in his pocket, this did not keep the French people from living happily and in great numbers in a free and decent ease. Long ago, Greece flourished in the midst of the cruelest wars. Blood flowed in waves, and the whole country was covered with men. It seemed, says Machiavelli, that in the midst of murders, proscriptions, and civil wars, our republic became more powerful; the virtue of its citizens, their mores, and their independence did more to reinforce it than all its dissension did to weaken it. A little agitation gives strength to souls, and what truly brings about prosperity for the species is not so much peace as liberty. At the same time, we see equally powerful fingers clawing at the nation-state from above. The Third Wave has brought new problems, a new structure of communications, and new actors on the World stage—all of which drastically shrink the power of the individual nation-state. Just as many problems are too small or localized for national governments to handle effectively, new owns are fast arising that are too large for any nation to cope with alone. “The nation state, which regards itself as absolutely sovereign, is obviously too small to play a real role at the global level,” writes the French political thinker, Denis de Rougement. “No one of our 28 European states can any longer by itself assure its military defense and its prosperity, its technological resources, the prevention of nuclear wars and of ecological catastrophes.” Now can the United States of American, Russia or Japan. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Tightened economic linkages between nations make it virtually impossible for any individual national government today to manage its own economy independently or to quarantine inflation. The ever-swelling bubble of Euromoney, for example, as suggested earlier, is beyond the power of any individual nation to regulate. National politicians who claim their domestic policies can “halt inflation” or “wipe out unemployment” are either naïve or lying, since most economic infections are now communicable across national boundaries. The economic shell of the nation-state is now increasingly permeable. Furthermore, national borders that can no longer contain economic flows are even less defensible against environmental forces. If Swiss chemical plants dump wastes into the Rhine, the pollution flows through Germany, though Holland, and ultimately into the North Sea. Neither Holland nor Germany can, by itself, guarantee the quality of its own waterways. Oil tanker spills, air pollution, inadvertent weather modification, the destruction of forests, and other activities often involve side effects that sweep across national borders. Frontiers are now porous. The new global communications system further opens each nation to penetration from the outside. Canadians have long resented the fact that some 90 United States of American television stations along the border telecast programs to Canadian audiences. However, this Second Wave form of cultural penetration is minor compared with that made possible by Third Wave communications systems based on satellites, computers, teleprinters, interactive cable systems, and dirt-cheap ground stations. “One way to ‘attack’ a nation,” writes United States Senator George S. McGovern, “is to restrain the flow of information—cutting off contact between the headquarters and overseas branches of a multinational firm…building information walls around a nation…A new phase is entering the international lexicon—‘information sovereignty.’” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Yet it is questionable how effectively nation borders can be sealed off—or for how long. For the shift of the Third Wave’s industrial base has required the development of a highly ramified, sensitive, wide open “neural network” or information system, and attempts by individual nations to dam up data flows may interfere with rather, than accelerate, their own economic development. Moreover, each technological breakthrough provides yet another way to penetrate the nation’s outer shell. All such developments—the new economic problems, the new environmental problems, and the new communications technologies—are converging to undermine the position of the nation-state in the global scheme of things. What is more, they come together at precisely the moment when potent new actors appear on the World scene to challenge national power. Those who feel that economic reform is the most urgent duty facing humanity have usually opposed the mystical movement. They have done so on the grounds that it diverts attention from the real (that is, the economic) issues, that it enfeebles the urge towards social improvement and individual ambition, and that it leads to sleepy, dreamy complacency. Karl Marx’s criticism of religion, that it had become a mere appendix of bourgeois thought, had some truth in it for his own times. However, today, many religious leaders have been aroused to the danger and are sincerely striving to bring the social order into line with religious ethics. They are no longer falsifying religious ethics by striving to bring them into line with the social order. Yet the solution Communists offer is philosophically unsatisfactory for it is born out of crude materialism, based on venomous class hatred, and stiffened by bureaucratic tyranny. Their ultimate aim, however, is a good one only insofar as it is the elimination of capitalism’s defects, such as avoidable unemployment, extreme poverty, and social injustices, but their means and methods are very bad. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
There is only one real capitalist—Nature—one real proprietor of the Earth and all that therein is, and consequently all the children of the Earth are its rightful heirs. We usually forget that we have no ethical right to possess what we have not toiled for. This is overlooked by society as a whole and we, as individuals, take shelter beneath the common sin. For sin it is, albeit only one of omission. Those, however, who have cast aside the conventional view can see it for what it is. That which this Earth produces is for all. Every human has one’s birthright in what it stores or gives forth, although not an equal birthright to every other human. This, surely, is Nature’s view, although humans in their ignorance have developed other ideas upon the matter and so brought great misery upon their fellows and great nemesis upon themselves. The World is for our temporary use and does not constitute our eternal property. Whoever thinks outside—whether it be a single individual or a community of individuals called a “nation”—and excludes all others from consideration, whoever thinks one has a full right to eat whilst others have a full right to starve, whoever cannot identify oneself with the suffering people of one’s own or another country, will be tutored by pain and instructed by loss. We are all stewards, not proprietors, and own nothing in reality. This was pithily expressed by a highly advanced Jesus Christ. Many people, who are rich landlords, complain of being robed of some jewels, money, and other property, and perhaps Nature regards them also as thieves. If the true Master made His claim, how would they think on, with what shame, all that fierce talk of thine and mine, the World He fashioned so divine. What could they answer did He says, “When did I give my World away?” However, there is great distance from such abstract reflections to the concrete realities of contemporary social and economic life. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The whole structure of laws and rights is based on these realities. And this is as it should be, for humanity, as its present stage of evolution, can best express itself and serve itself in that way. The anarchist would ignore them because he is one-sided and the Communist would violate them because he is unscrupulous. Philosophy does not object to anu effort to remold society for the common welfare, but welcomes it. No amount of academic sophistry can justify a system which permits the few to have more food than they can eat and forces the many to have less food than they need to eat. No amount of legal enactment can justify the ownership of a hundred thousand acres of land merely because five hundred year earlier some ancestor seized it. These ancient wrongs must be redressed. Both altruistic sentiment and political strategy—no less Universal Law adjustment—demand such a revision, although the attempt to do so by violent means would introduce far worse wrongs. In this momentous task, we have to prepare a blueprint—not of the ideal State which we would like to see arise, but of the actual State which can arise under the given circumstances. This means that we must follow a middle path. Any other way will be either too realistic or too idealistic and will lead to failure. For we must find not only what is theoretically right but also what is practically possible. We cannot and we ought not do away wildly, abruptly, and violently with our social environment. Without it we would be savages. Those vanished humans of the past had to learn arduously how to live on earth, how to adapt themselves to it. Think of what it would mean to be born into a World where no houses existed, no land was cultivated, no roads had been made, no machines invented, no knowledge known! All these and infinitely more exist today and constitute our surroundings, our civilization; but they did not spring up in a single night. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Civilization, advancement and technology are the inheritance which we own to long trailing of African, Egyptian, Asiatic, and European ancestors living and working and dying for countless centuries. They are our own racial past. We cannot dismiss this legacy without descending anew to the most barbarous existence. There are grave defects in this environment, it is true, but the young rebel who wishes to tear everything down in order to remove these defects, will also remove treasures bought at a price which will take the toil of millions through centuries to pay again. The past efforts of humans appear in our present environment. Let us use it, but use it wisely. It is here to serve us. We need not be afraid to improve and alter it. Unbalanced hot-heads who say that such improvement and such alteration is only possible through compete destruction of what is the present order so that what may be shall rise on its ruins, have misread history. However, there is a right as well as a wrong way of doing this. The only proper way is by persuasion, by the persuasion and education of social conscience and by the uplift of social morality to loftier standards. Such reforms can be brought about only in an atmosphere of goodwill and calmness, not in an atmosphere of hatred and brutality. Humans must choose which God one will serve, the God of hatred or the God of love, for one cannot serve both. One must effect these changes not by brutality or by blood, but by the gentler persuasions of reason and goodwill, slower though they necessarily are. Wisdom prefers to see needed reforms and overdue changes brought by peaceful and not violent means, by the acknowledgement of their ethical need rather than by submission to materialistic values. During the Glimpse of God, one feels that one has travelled close to one’s journey’s end, to the fulfilment of one’s highest purpose. The quest has suddenly become easy and pleasant. However, alas! after the rainbow fades and vanishes, one is forced to recognize that one had far yet to go, that what one experienced was only a passing glimpse and not the final goal. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
If one cannot keep this higher consciousness, it is because one’s lower and Earthly nature is strong enough to raise again and block the way. When the purification lessons are learned it will then be possible for one, by self-effort and self-development, to regain this experience—at first temporarily and occasionally, but if one works correctly and Grace sanctions, permanently. In each of these glimpses, one’s quest attains a minor climax, for each is a step toward full illumination. It is a kind of pre-vision in which one sees, as Moses saw the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land toward which one journeys. It is a mistake to regard it as final illumination when it is in fact only one of many stages toward final illumination, and that should remind us that this society can better than it is, but we have to want to be better. We have to want to reform. We have to want to be kind. We have to want to help, not exploit others. It calls for a renovation of the human mind and soul, not the human home. Your home can be laced with gold and diamonds, but what does it matter if your soul is condemned to rot in Hell for all eternity? Glory be to God for dappled things—for skies of couple-colour as brinded cow; for rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; fresh-firecoal chestnuts falls; finches’ wings; landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; and all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) with swift, slow; sweat; sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him. Hear, O America: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thy house and upon thy gates. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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The Only Absolute Rule is: Never Lose Control of the Show!
Energy is beauty—a Ferrari with an empty tank does not run. Most people find it comforting to follow set routines when they carry out every day activities, and, in fact, 40 percent become irritated if they are forced to depart from their routines. Obsessions are not the same as pervasive worries about real problems, and compulsions are not repetitive actions that feel voluntary and seem harmless to the people who perform them. Obsessions are thoughts that feel both intrusive (“ego dystonic”) and foreign (“ego alien”) to the people who experience them. Attempts to ignore or resist these thoughts may arouse even more anxiety, and before long they come back more strongly than ever. People with obsessions are quite aware that their thoughts are excessive and inappropriate. Many experience them as repugnant and painful. Obsessions often take the form of obsessive wishes (for example, repeated wishes that one’s spouse would die), impulses (repeated urges to yell out obscenities at work or in church), images (fleeting visions of forbidden scenes involving pleasures of the flesh), ideas (notions that germs are lurking everywhere), or doubts (concerns that one had made or will make a wrong decisions). Certain basic themes run through the thoughts of most people troubled by obsessive thinking. According to surveys, almost half of adults double back after leaving home to make sure they have turned off an appliance. Other common ones are violence and aggression, orderliness, religion, and pleasures of the flesh. Although compulsive behaviours are technically under voluntary control, the people who feel they must do them have little sense of choice in the matter. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Most of these individuals recognize that their behaviour is unreasonable, but they believe at the same time something terrible will happen if they do not perform the compulsions. Beethoven is said to have habitually dipped his head in cold water before trying to compose music. After performing a compulsive act, people usually feel less anxious for a short while. Some people develop the act into a detailed and often elaborate compulsive ritual. They must go through the ritual in exactly the same way every time, according to certain rules. Like obsessions, compulsions take various forms. Cleaning compulsions are very common. People with these compulsions feel compelled to keep cleaning themselves, their clothing, or their homes. The cleaning may follow ritualist rules and be repeated dozens or hundreds of times a day. People with checking compulsions check the same items over and over—doors lock, gaps taps, ashtrays, important papers—to make sure that all is as it should be. Another common compulsion is the constant striving for symmetry, order, or balance in one’s actions and surroundings. People with this compulsion must place certain items (clothing, books, food) in perfect order in accordance with strict rules. Ted is a 13-year-old referred to a Midwestern inpatient psychiatric research ward because of senseless rituals and attention to minutiae.” He can spend 3 hours centering the toilet paper roll on its holder or rearranging his bed and other objects in his room. When placing objects down, such as books or shoelaces after trying them, he picks them up and replaces them several times until they seem “straight.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Although usually placid, Ted becomes abusive with family members who try to enter his room for fear they will move or break his objects. When he is at school, he worries that people may disturb his room. Ted sometimes has to be forced to interrupt his routine to attend meals. Last year he hid pieces of his clothing around the house because they would not lie straight in his draws. Moreover, Ted often repeats to himself, “This is perfect; you are perfect.” Touching, verbal, and counting compulsions are also common. People with touching compulsions repeatedly touch or avoid touching certain items whenever they see them. Individuals with verbal rituals feel compelled to repeat expressions, phrases, or chants. And those with counting compulsions constantly count things. Although some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder experience obsession only or compulsions only, most of them experience both. In fact, compulsive acts are often a response to obsessive thoughts. One investigation found that in most cases, compulsions seemed to represent a yielding to obsessive doubts, ideas, or urges. A woman who keeps doubting that her house is secure may yield to that obsessive doubt by repeatedly checking locks and gas jets. Or a man who obsessively fears contamination may yield to that fear by performing cleaning rituals. The investigation also found that compulsions sometimes serve to help control obsessions. However, and obsession changed the World. The experiments that led Louis Pasteur to the pasteurization process may have been driven in part by his obsession with contamination and infection. Apparently he would not shake hands and regularly wiped his glass and plate before dining. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
People who try to avoid all contamination and rid themselves and their World of all germs are fighting a losing battle. While talking, the average person sprays 300 microscopic saliva droplets per minute, or 2.5 per word. Many people with obsessive-compulsive disorder worry that they will act out their obsessions. A man with obsessive images of wounded loved ones may worry that he is but a step away from committing a heinous crime; or a woman with obsessive urges to yell out in church may worry that she will one day give in to them and embarrass herself. Most such concerns are unfounded. Although many obsessions lead to compulsive acts—particularly to cleaning and checking compulsions—they do not usually lead to violence or immoral conduct. Obsessive-compulsive disorder was once among the least understood of the psychological disorders. In recent years, however, researchers have begun to learn more about it. That most influential explanations and treatments come from the psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive, and biological modes. There is a tendency to think of young people who are involved in drug and alcohol use as poorly socialized, interpersonally disconnected, and behaviourally lethargic. Is this an accurate characterization? The answer is not entirely straightforward. The multiple interpersonal factors that lead to and maintain substance use/misuse per se may also affect the social/interpersonal development of the individual. Among adolescents, substance use is associated with aggressiveness, low assertiveness, and poor social skills. Deficits in social skills create a sense of low self-efficacy, which in turn promotes involvement in substance use. When the social skills for coping with stress are not available, substance use is more likely to occur as a means of reducing stress. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
In addition, people with poor social skills do not have a strong sense of self-efficacy for the ability to control or resist drug and alcohol use. Therefore, social skills deficits may be said to have an indirect effect on adolescent substance use, through diminished self-efficacy. Although adolescents who use drugs may present some interpersonal problems, the extent to which these substances are causal agents deserves careful attention and consideration. Substance use can cause a deterioration of social skills and competence over time. At least some of the interpersonal problems that may be evident among adolescents experienced in drug use may be the result of drug use. At the same time, social maladjustment generally predates drug use in young people. In a 15-year longitudinal study, index cases of heavy drug use can at age 18 could be traced back to a profile alienation, emotional distress, failure to develop close relationships, and an inability to get along with friends as early as age 7. Consequently, it was concluded that problem drug use is a symptom, not a cause, of personal and social maladjustment. The relationship between interpersonal deficiencies and drug use is complex: Such deficiencies predispose young people to get involved with drugs, but at the same time, heavy drug use has deleterious effects on interpersonal competencies. As if to complicate matters further, the relationship between social maladjustment and drug use is not linear. In the longitudinal study, compared were three groups referred to as “abstainers,” “experimenters,” and “frequent users.” In terms of the quality of the interpersonal relations, experimenters scored highest, followed by abstainers and then frequent users. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Visually, the pattern of association between drug use and quality of interpersonal relations in this sample as a whole took the form on an inverted U. Looking back to their childhood, eventual abstainers appeared unresponsive to humour, shy, reserved, obedient and compliant, nontalkative, and dependent on adults for direction. Many of these interpersonal qualities preserved through their late teens. This study shows that while the frequent use of drugs in adolescence is associated with poor social competence, so too is complete abstinence from drugs, although to a lesser extent. Why do those who abstain from drugs have lower-quality interpersonal relations than those who experiment with them? First, those in the former group may be globally overcautious. The same anxious cognitions and emotions that may keep an adolescent from every trying drugs may also prevent one from approaching classmates who are relative strangers and attempting to develop interpersonal relationships with them, or from asking people out on dates. These interpersonal processes require a certain degree of adventurousness and risk taking; the adolescent who abstains from drugs is ordinarily a social phenomenon; adolescent will often engage in the behaviour at the urging of, or with the assistance of demonstrations by, peers. People with interpersonal skill deficits may simply be less likely to find themselves in such contexts, and therefore may be less likely to experiment with drugs, since the social facilitation is generally lacking in their lives. Interpersonal problems are widely recognized as risk factors for initiation of adolescent substance use. It is equally well accepted that once a pattern of drug use/misuse is underway, the biological and psychological characteristics of addition may be largely responsible for its maintenance. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
For this reason there has been very little research attention paid to interpersonal mechanisms that might perpetuate substance misuse, despite the fact that systems oriented therapists who teat alcohol and drug dependence routinely address the interpersonal milieu surrounding the problem behaviour. Recently, a theory was developed and tested for substance misuse and maintenance, based on the notion of inconsistent nurturing. In short, the inconsistent-nurturing-as-control theory predicts that the significant others of those who misuse substance may actually play a role in maintaining the substance abusing behaviour. Significant others tend to oscillate between punishing their partners for drug-related behaviour (exempli gratia, conflict, fights, withdrawal), and rewarding them for it (exempli gratia, cleaning up after them, taking care of them). The rewarding behaviour allows a significant other to feel needed and included in such a relationship. However, this same behaviour is what perpetuates the substance misuse of the partner. According to this theory, the competing goals of nurturing the partner and controlling the drug-misusing behaviour result in a schedule of intermittent reward and punishment, which has the paradoxical effect of strengthening the drug abusing behaviour. Empirical tests of inconsistent-nurturing-as-control theory have yielded generally supportive results. Research indicates that the course of substance misuse may be influenced by the nature of interactions with significant others. Individuals who misuse substances, and who find themselves in relationships with partners who have the codependent tendency to nurture and control them, may inadvertently and paradoxically be reinforced for their drug-misusing behaviour. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
This theory is a departure from traditional models of substance misuse maintenance, which are sharply focused on biological and psychological factors. Our circumstances in life may occasionally knock us down or force us to sit down for a while, but we must not stay down. Even when we are down on the outside, we must see ourselves as getting up on the inside. One may have received a bad report from the doctor. Maybe one lost one’s largest client at work. Perhaps one just found out that one’s child is in trouble. One may be facing some other serious setback, and one feels as though life have caved in on top of one, knocking one off one’s feet and pushing one into the pits. However, the good news is, one does not have to stay down. Even if one cannot get up on the outside, get up on the inside! In other words, have that successful attitude and mentality. Stay in an attitude of faith. Do not allow oneself to lapse into negative thinking, complaining, or blaming God. Say, “Dear Lord in Heave, I may not understand this, but I know You are still in control. And You said all things would work together for my good. You said You would take this evil and turn it around and use it to my advantage. So Father, I thank You that You are going to bring me through this!” No matter what one is facing in life, if one knows how to get up on the inside, no adversity can keep one down. The Scripture says, “When one has done everything one knows how to do, just keep on standing firm,” reports Ephesians 6.13. One may be in a situation today where one has done one’s best. One has prayed and believed. One has placed one’s faith firmly on the truth of God’s Word. However, it just does not look like anything good is happening. Now one is tempted to say, “What is the use? It is never going to change.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
However, do not give up! Keep standing. Keep praying; keep believing; keep hoping in faith. “Do not cast away your confidence,” the Bible teaches, “for payday is coming,” reports Hebrews 10.35. Devout, if one will keep standing up on the inside, God will reward one. One may be in the hospital or lying flat on one’s back at home. However, even if one cannot stand up physically, nothing can keep one from standing up on the inside. That sickness may have one down physically, but one does not have to be down spiritually or emotionally. One can keep on getting up in one’s heart, mind, and will. Maybe one works or lives around people who are always putting one down, mistreating one, trying to make one feel badly about oneself. Let that trash go in one ear and out the other. They may try to knock one down on the outside, but they cannot knock one down on the inside. Do not let those people steal one’s joy. Do not let that problem or adversity cause one to become discouraged or depressed. Just keep standing up on the inside. I talked to a man who had recently lost his job. He had been making a good salary working in a prestigious position, but then was suddenly let go. When he first told me what had happened, I was certain that he was going to be distraught. However, when he came to see me, he had a big smile on his face and said, “I just lost my job, but I cannot wait to see what God has in store for me next!” He had been knocked down by circumstances outside of his control, but he was still standing up on the inside. He had a successful mentality. His attitude was: “This thing is not going to defeat me. This thing is not going to steal my joy. I know I am successful and not the victim. I know when one door closes, God will open up a larger and better door.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Today, one can say, “Even if the enemy hits me with one’s best shot, one’s best will never be good enough. One may knock me down, but one cannot knock me out. When it is all said and done, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, I am still going to be standing strong.” The Bible says no human can take your joy. That means no person can make one live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force one to live in despair. No matter what one is going through or how difficult it may seem, you can stay standing up on the inside. It will take courage; it will definitely take determination, but one can do it as long as one sets one’s heart and mind to it. Dear Lord in Heaven, I will refuse to stay down for long. I may get knocked down, or I may fall down, but I will get back up and keep trusting You for a great future. “The LORD sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down,” reports Psalm 145.14. The Author of Purity has passed through this way so many times already that many have learned how clean their hands ought to be, how pure their moths, how holy their bodies, and how immaculate their hearts! From the mouth of so many is nothing but the Holy Word, nothing but the honest and useful word, and it comes forth because that very mouth has so often itself received the Sacramento of Life. One’s eyes should be simple and modest, for they are accustomed to loo into the Eyes of Christ. One’s hands should be pure and raised in prayer—that was First Timothy’s prescription (2.8)—for they are accustomed to handle the Creator of Heaven and Earth. There is this saying about self-actualized Christians in Leviticus (19.2), “By holy because I am holy; I, Your Lord and God.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
A priestly prayer. Omnipotent God, may Your grace help us to undertake the sacerdotal office, and may we serve You worthily and devotedly in all purity and in good conscience; First Timothy again (1.5). And if we cannot carry on in such innocence of life as we ought, then grant that we may weep worthily over the bad deeds we have done, and in the spirit of humility and with the resolve to do good, serve You more fervently in the future. There are many in the Church as well as out of it who need to learn that Christianity is neither a creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitally connected with a loving Christ. We believe that the primary teaching of Jesus Christ was not a fear-motivated message. Rather, Jesus moved people when He spoke of love, gentleness, and blessedness. We feel that the alternative to fear-oriented religion is a religion based on free will and love. Emphasis on love stresses that Christ must be freely chosen. Too often, Christ is presented in the context of damnation and hell, and the convert becomes the object of fearful coercion. Psychology has shown time and again that fear is not a permanent motivator. The example of Adolph Hitler and of other dictators has shown that people are temporarily motivated by fear, but in the long run, motivation based on love is much more trustworthy and permanent. Furthermore, the constriction that fear causes keeps us from living freely in the here and now. All expression of the polarities is reduced and constricted when one stays in fear at the center of one’s being. When fear is diminished or absent, one can contact a pure place within, where one can truly experience the love of Christ. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
As Paul wrote, “There is therefore now on condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” reports Romans 8.1. We described this pure place as the core, and this our emphasis on the importance of learning to contact it. One who seeks entry into the divine presence may possibly succeed in doing so. For a while one’s state is completely changed, transcended, heightened. However, after all one is not God; one is human still and one falls back to the old awareness. The glimpse goes: one is once again what one was, yet with a difference. The experience can be, is, remembered, and may even possibly return. Moreover some kind of residue is left behind, subtle, not easy to measure or describe, yet appearing in briefly felt and beautifully scented moments. Is this glimpse the highest anyone may dare to hope for? Let it be said that frankly in one’s present condition and situation a greater attainment for the human being is uncommon—yet it happens. Neither deep meditation nor the experience can give more than a temporary glimpse. The full and permanent enlightenment, which is to stay with a human and never leave one, can only come after one has clear insight into the nature of Overself. It is not only possible to attain these brief glimpses of the Overself, but also to attain a durable lasting consciousness of it. No change of this state can then happen. The adept discovers that its future is no different from but quite the same as its past. This is the sacred Eternal Now. Only by this abiding light is it possible to see how mixed and imperfect are all earlier and transient experiences. These flashes of light, peace, bliss, and understanding are brief but they have the intended effect. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
The short glimpses encourage the aspirant to continue one’s quest and they implant in one a deep yearning to gain entry into the World to which they belong. They will be brief because the ordinary condition of thought and feeling is still far below the exalted condition revealed during these flashes. In other words, one has still to toil away at self-improvement so as to deserve the treasures which have been momentarily shown one. Between the seeker and the Overself, between one’s mind and Truth, there is a thick layer of desires, egoisms, passions, opinions, and imaginings. Until one cuts through it—which means until one denies and resists oneself in these matters—one mat not expect more than Glimpses which fade away. The belief that one can do nothing to hold this glimpse or keep this mood settles on one through repeated experience. However, it is not quite correct. Philosophy points out that one can thin down or remove altogether the causes of such evanescence. If it is to be a continuous light that stays with one and not a fitful flash, one will need first, to cast all negative tendencies, thoughts, and feelings entirely out of one’s character; second, to make good the insufficiencies in one’s development; third, to achieve a state of balance between one’s faculties. The glimpse comes spontaneously and outside of one’s control, but to the master it comes at will and by command. We Christians see the journey as marked by two phases: first, the initial decision, and then the long journey that lasts the rest of one’s life. The initial experience does not make one perfect. It is just the beginning. As someone has said, “We have to walk the walk, but simply talk the talk.” The rest of one’s life becomes a process by which one becomes more and more perfectly loving as Christ Himself is loving. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
One becomes an actualizing Christian by living within the guidelines of Christ’s perfect love and not by fearfully trying to please God or others. The dove is one of the biblical symbols for the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit reveals His wisdom and love through gentleness like that of the dove. If we approach growth in a tense, legalistic, and tight-jawed way, it does not facilitate the quiet and gradual work of the Spirit in our lives. The psychological equivalent of this is introspectionism. When an integration of principles of psychology is attempted for a fuller understanding of religious life, the temptation is to make the psychology a new law, a new burden to be borne by the Christian. The point of the Christian life is to live fully and joyfully, not to dwell in a self-absorbed and overcritical way on our perceived faults or virtues. As Irenaeus said in the second century, “The Glory of God is a huma being who is fully alive!” The power of the gospel is that Christ has come and the kingdom of God had burst un upon us. The powers of the kingdom of God are being released from the core depths of our being. Even now, the Spirit is at work within our core, guiding us in daily transformation to ever greater approximations of Christlikeness. It remains a work of grace, not a reflection of strife and effort on our part. We are empty vessels to be filled by the Lord. To be filled with the life of Jesus in accordance with who we deeply are is the Christian definition of self-fulfillment. We will see in eternal gratefulness how the inner spring of grace made our deepest self similar to Jesus Christ. We will see how the spring inside us leaps with dazzling splendour for all eternity. The Bible calls the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives an earnest, or pledge or down payment, on the full unrestrained Presence of God that we will eventually know. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
In Ephesians, Paul speaks of this earnest: “You…were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory,” 1.13-14. Substantial fruit will be born from our consistent rust in the Holy Spirit in this life. And in Galatians, Paul develops a description of the fruit of the Spirit that can be seen emerging from fertile union of the believer with Christ: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law,” 5.22-23. So the actualizing Christian is saved from the heavy burdens of both fear and self-conscious introspection by the large context in which one understands life. One feels grounded in God’s unshakeable and enduring love. We know that our faults, sins, and rigidities do not make us less acceptable to God, who only wants us to shed the things that would oppress us and take up the things that will bless us. Many people have lost contact with the spiritual core of their being. They no longer trust the inspired impulses from within. Instead, the take orders from their surroundings—from the media, from the authority figures, from peers, from economic pressures, from fads, or from gurus. There are instances, of course, when tradition, authority, society, or an enlightened teacher can assist the individual in beneficial ways. However, following the mentality of the crowd and the ways of the World often leads to spiritual deadness and deterioration of the personality. In coming home to the core, one gives up one’s defensive style of living, which has been based on fear, manipulation, and pretenses. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
One adopts instead a growth-oriented life style based on love, trust, and genuineness. Perfect love replaces fear as the motivating dynamic of one’s life. As we have already pointed out, this process is often slow and gradual, for fear is a tenacious gust who is reluctant to be ousted. However, given time, even in harsh conditions, the God-inspired personality will still bring forth its blood in due season. This is a tribute to both the resourcefulness of God and the openness of the person. The challenge of genuine religious commitment in the Hebrew-Christian sense is to be transformed to be made whole, to “tase and see that the Lord is good,” reports Psalm 34.8. The process of being moved toward wholeness and authenticity by the inner power of the Holy Spirit is a lifelong adventure. Actualizing, for both the devoted Christian and the modern secular person, involves learning to rediscover, affirm, and trust the sacred ground of Being within. It is a coming home to one’s Origin. It is slipping into the tailor-made clothing of one’s original spiritual calling. In our words, it is accepting God’s gracious invitation to actualize one’s full potential. Praise the Lord in your infinite variety all creatures, minute and enormous in your verity whose particular and unique features are the context of His glory and His fecundity Praise the Lord nebulae like grains of dust silhouetted and fixed on photographic plates. Sirius, that dog star and his confederates Arcturus, Antares, Aldebaran, the red bull God’s cup brimming over and ever full, thank the Lord. Praise the Lord you His meteorites and comets in your elliptical orbits and made planets. Praise the Lord atoms and molecules, protons and electrons, and all the stars the minute protozoa, in their liquid, the Radiolaria. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Praise the Lord cetaceans and atomic submarines for you are of God’s mind in your particulars. Birds, the eagle and wren, the aeroplanes and prisms in emerald copper sulphate in the electronic microscope infinite; coloured flowers blooming at the bottom of the sea, diatoms and the diadems of the Antilles like a rose of diamonds, let all these and the unended maritime fauna praise the Lord. And the Tropic of Cancer, storms of the North Atlantic and the Humboldt current, the dark, sweating forests of the Amazon, the shining island jewels of the South Ocean, volcanoes and lagoons, and the Caribbean behind the silhouettes of the infinite palm, democratic republics, the United Nations, praise the Lord as even for police is appropriate. The students, the young, the beautiful, His glory surpasses the Heavens, it is bountiful. Telescope and microscope seeing nearing and far, it is He who has made the people plentiful, who would not yield to the Lord the word hosanna? Blessed be the Lord who is to be praised. Praised be the Lord who is blessed for all eternity. Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who with Thy word bringest on the evening twilight, and with Thy wisdom openest the gates of the Heavens. With understanding Thou does order the cycles of time and variest the seasons, setting the stars in their courses in the sky, according to Thy will. Thou creates day and night, rolling away the light before the darkness and the darkness before the light. By Thy will the day passes into night; the Lord of Heavenly hosts is Thy name. O ever living God, mayest Thou rule over us forever. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who bringest on ethe evening twilight. With everlasting love hast Thou loved the house of America, teaching us Thy Torah and commandments, Thy statutes and judgments. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up, we will meditate on Thy teachings and rejoice forever in the words of Thy Torah and in its commandments, for they are our life and the length of our days. Day and night will mediate upon them. O may Thy love never depart from us. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who lovest Thy people America. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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Evil Spirits are Able to Exert a Great Deal of Influence Upon Humans!
The Christian Bible teaches us that acceptance of this World system which is dominated by erroneous principles, selfish desires, improper motives, and unworthy standards of value that draws humans away from God and makes them “measure of all things,” is influenced so strongly by Satan and his army of evil spirits, which caused humans to adopt attitudes and to perform deeds which hinder God’s work and harm His people is done with every trace of wickedness (depravity, malignity) and all deceit and insincerity (pretense, hypocrisy) and grudges (envy, jealousy), and slander of every kind and evil speaking of every kind. This should make us crave like newborn babies the pure spiritual milk that by it one may be nurtured and grow unto salvation. Society in every age is characterized by such iniquities as selfishness, pride, immorality, and dishonesty, in spite of the efforts of sincere people to make it a better World. Twenty-first century humans, with more technical skills and knowledge than any previous generation, is unable to solve the problems of poverty, crime, racial hatred, and war. An increasing number of people go to bed hungry every night, crime is on the rise, racial hatred has never been more intense, and wars continue to be fought all over the World. Why? Because humankind has accepted a self-centered philosophy of life, and Earth’s citizens in general are motivated by the three evils of which John speaks in his first epistle—“the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” reports 1 John 2.16. The “lust of the flesh” is the desire for possession. It is the gratification of self by participation. Careful study of the word “flesh” indicates that this evil propensity of humankind involves more than just sins of impurity. The term, as used by John in this passage, does not have reference to the body but to the sinful Adamic nature. The individual sinner is born with a nature that is selfish, and one is part of a social structure which operates on grasping, egocentric, and selfish principles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
A vast majority of men and women are materialistic, live to gratify the senses, and are self-centered even in the good things they do. Nations, too, seek only what is best for themselves. Leaders in industry, education, and even religion are primarily concerned about their own welfare, often neglecting the needs of those they serve. The “lust of the flesh” drives humans to desire and obtain material possessions, and to satisfy their physical appetites and passions at the expense of spiritual values. This basic selfishness and craving for the Earthly tangible pleasures of life leads people to misuse the physical and material blessings God has given all humans to enjoy. On a Worldwide scope, it has brought about a situation in which thousands live in unparalleled luxury while millions starve. When we stop to think about it, much of the World’s unrest and unhappiness today can be traced to the “lust of the flesh.” The “lust of the eyes,” the second characteristic of this World system, is sometimes defined as “gratification by contemplation.” The use of our eyes has vast potential for either great blessing of for degradation. For example, we are able to look upon the endless beauty of creation and sing praises to the Lord. Reading God’s Word, we can meditate upon the riches of glory in joyous expectation. However, Satan and his evil partners have perverted the use of the eye, inducing wicked humans to display scenes by which lustful thoughts are incited. They capitalize upon humans’ sinfulness and natural tendency to immorality. Down through the ages, immodest dress, impure books and pictures, and unholy theatrical productions have been used to degrade and degenerate both young and old. In addition, the eye affords an opportunity to enjoy by contemplation certain evils which one cannot or dare not actually perform. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Therefore, people from all classes of society and every age bracket are influenced by the allurement that comes through the gift of sight. Discerning people who glance at the newsstands, read the advertisements in the theater page of the newspaper, or watch the programs and commercials presented on television, know full well that “lust of the eyes” has been exploited by the powers of evil. The evidence certainly indicates that Satan and his followers are truly the “leaders of the darkness of this World.” The “pride of life,” the third characteristic of this World system, refers to vanity and ostentation. Men and women put great stock in “being somebody.” To make a name for themselves they throw impressive parties, purchase expensive automobiles, and live in luxurious homes. Their only measure of success is by these standards. Others may acquire academic degrees to display their intellectual prowess, while athletes may exert maximum effort, not principally out of team spirit, but for money and applause. The struggle for power, prestige, and even glory is at the heart of almost every human endeavour. However, through all of this, humankind has been unable to discover true happiness and satisfaction. Most people confess they are not finding pleasures they expected, but nonetheless continue on their way, ever pursuing new baubles. The invisible forces of Satan so blind humans that they do not see true values, nor recognize the folly of their vain quest for this elusive will-o’-the wisp, “the pride of life.” According to the Bible the whole social structure of this World is controlled by a pervading principle of life that is foreign to God and leads humans away from Him. True every human is a sinner by nature and alienated from God, but this inherent human selfishness, under the direction of intelligent and powerful wicked spirits, compounds this basic sinfulness by brining out the very worst in humans. Evil spirits cruelly blind and deceive fallen humanity through the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
These fallen creatures actively try to manipulate the political rulers of the World. Satan’s organized army operates quietly and invisibly in the minds and the wills of Earthly sovereigns to achieve their evil purposes. The Bible indicates the nature and course of their activity in several references. Daniel 10 teaches that specific evil spirits are assigned the task of influencing human rulers. The chapter opens with a picture of Daniel in earnest prayer. He entreats the Lord for a period of three weeks, seeking God’s favour upon the Jewish people who have returned to Jerusalem from captivity. He learned that they were experiencing difficulty in rebuilding the temple. Ezra 4, which gives the history of these former exiles, indicates that the work of restoration was interrupted by adversaries almost immediately after the foundation of the temple had been laid. Finally, three weeks after Daniel began to pray, God sent him a most amazing experience. An angel came to Daniel and said, “Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia,” reports Daniel 10.12-13. The angel declared that he had left Heaven immediately after Daniel’s first prayer, but that on his way to Earth he had encountered opposition from “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” The Heavenly messenger went on to say that it was not until Michael came to help him that he was able to overcome this opposing “prince.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The struggle was obviously between angelic beings, for the one speaking to Daniel was an angel, and Michael is well known as the angelic protector of Israel. (See Daniel 10.21; 12.1; Jude 9; Revelation 12.7). This “prince of the kingdom of Persia” was obviously a wicked spirit of high rank. He had been delegated by the arch-enemy of God, the devil himself, for the task of influencing the Persian government to obstruct the Israelites in their rebuilding program. Thus success of this evil spirit’s attempt was apparent upon Earth. Even while the battle between the angelic beings was taking place in the air, the rulers of Persia were hindering the Jews in the task of rebuilding their temple. The people in Jerusalem could see only the treachery of their human enemies, not knowing that invisible spirits had been exerting pressure against them behind the scenes. The leaders of Persia were not aware that their decision to oppose Israel was the result of the working of evil spirits in their minds. These human rulers were actually mere puppets, carrying out the wishes of the invisible powers who were manipulating them. Even today humans who hold high political office may be the unwitting tools of evil spirits. Many humans lust for power. National groups vie for supremacy in the economic World. In this prevailing atmosphere of selfishness, evil spirits are able to exert a great deal of influence upon humans. Opportunistic politicians become ideal underlines of these evil spirits. In addition, the followers of Satan, in dominating the godless World rulers, are able to incite beastly behaviour in them. Many living today have witnessed the indescribable brutality of Nazism and theistic Communism. Highly civilized people find great pleasure in the development of more effective weapons with which to kills members of other nations. Humans tell lies, oppress others, and commit mass murders with no hint of shame or remorse. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
In fact, it is amazing that this modern age of civilization and refinement has been characterized by an inhumanity far worse than that of the ancient barbaric times. We believe this pathological condition can be traced to the fact that many highly educated humans of influence and power have rejected God. In so doing, they have opened themselves to the activity of evil spirits. Therefore, we have a confirmation of Paul’s declaration that the real World rulers of this darkness (Ephesians 6.12) are not the humans who have positions of leadership, but the evil spirits who rule their hearts and influence their thoughts and decisions. From the commencement of the seventeenth century to the Restoration of Charles II, be barren of witchcraft proper, it must at least be admitted that it is prodigal in regard to the marvellous under various shapes and forms, from which the hysterical state of the public mind can be fairly accurately gauged. During 1642, O’Daly in his History of the Geraldines relates that during the siege of Limerick three portents appeared. The first was a luminous globe, brighter than the moon and little inferior to the sun, which for two leagues and a half shed a vertical light on the city, and then faded into darkness over the enemy’s camp; the second was the apparition of the Virgin, accompanied by several of the Saints; and the third was a lusus nature of the Saimese-twins type: all three of which O’Daly interprets to his own satisfaction. The first of these was some from of the northern lights, and is also recorded in the diary of certain Puritan officers. That learned, but somewhat too credulous English antiquary, John Aubrey, relates in his Miscellanies that before the last battle between the contending parties “a woman of uncommon Statue all in white appearing to the Bishop [Heber McMahon, who Aubrey terms Veneras] admonished him not to cross the River first to assault the Enemy, but suffer them to do it, whereby he should obtain the Victory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“That if the Irish took the water first to move towards the English they should be put to a total Rout, which came to pass. Ocahan and Sir Henry O’Neal, who were both killed there, saw severally the same apparition, and dissuaded the Bishop from giving him the first onset, but could not prevail upon him.” N instance of an Irishman suffering from the effects of witchcraft outside Ireland is afforded us in a pathetic petition sent up to the English Parliament between the years 1649 and 1653. The petitioner, John Campbell, stated that twelve years since he lost his sight in Co. Antrim, where he was born, by which he was reduced to such extremity that he was forced to come over to England to seek some means of livelihood for himself in craving the charity of well-disposed people, but contrary to his expectation he has been often troubled there with dreams and fearful visions in his sleep, and has been twice bewitched, insomuch that he can find no quietness or rest here, and so prays for a pass to return to Ireland. The saintly James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, was a Prelate who, if he had happed to live at an earlier period would certainly have been numbered amongst those whose wide and profound learning won for themselves the title of magician—as it was, he was popularly credited with prophetical powers. Most of the prophecies attributed to him may be found in a little pamphlet of eight pages, entitled “Strange and Remarkable Prophecies and Predictions of the Holy, Learned, and Excellent James Usher, &c…Written by the person who heard it from this Excellent person’s own Mouth,” and apparently published in 1656. According to it, he foretold the rebellion of 1641 in a sermon on Ezekiel iv. 6, preached in Dublin in 1601. “And of this Sermon the Bishop reserved the Notes, and put a note thereof in the Margent of his Bible, and for twenty years before he still lived in the expectation of the fulfilling thereof, and the nearer the time was the more confident he was that it was nearer accomplishment, though there was no visible appearance of any such thing.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
He also foretold the death of Charles I, and his own coming poverty and loss of property, which last he actually experienced for many years before his death. The Rev. William Turner in his Compleat History of Remarkable Providences (London, 1697) gives a premonition of approaching death that the Archbishop received. A lady who was dead appeared to him in his sleep, and invited him to sup (eat supper) with her the next night. He accepted the invitation, and died the following afternoon, 21st March 1656. There is another story from Glanvill’s Relations. One Mr. John Browne of Durley in Ireland was made by this neighbour, John Mallett of Enmore, trustee for his children in minority. In 1654 Mr. Browne lay a-dying: at the foot of his bed stood a great iron chest fitted with three locks, in which were the trustees’ papers. Some of his people and friends were sitting by him, when to their horror they suddenly saw the locked chest begin to open, lock by lock, without the assistance of any visible hand, until at length the lid stood upright. The dying man, who had not spoken for twenty-four hours, sat up in the bed, looked at the chest, and said: “You say true, you say true, you are in the right (a favourite expression of his), I’ll be with you by and by,” and then lay down again, and never spoke after. The chest slowly locked itself in exactly the same manner as it had opened, and shortly after this Mr. Browne died. In the mid-1880s, during a Connecticut thunder storm, Mrs. Winchester’s husband and baby lost their lives in a tragic fire. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and yogis in Europe and India. Fortelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and atone for such mass murder. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Mrs. Winchester was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction, she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. The head of a celebrated firm of Victorian restorers and decorators took a keen interest in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. She constructed it for 38 years until she passed away in 1922. It is currently, approximately 24,000 square feet, and four stories tall, but at one time reached a height of 9 stories and may have been more than 50,000 square feet, but the 9-story tower and much of the 4th floor was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. Back then, two thirds of Mrs. Winchester’s estate was dark, unbroke forests, through whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind groaned and shrieked and howled with weird noises and unaccountable clamors. The aged told their stories to the young—tales of early life; tales of war and adventure, of forest days, of Indian captives and escapes, of bears and wildcats and panthers, of rattlesnakes, of witches and wizards, and strange and wonderful dreams and appearances and providences at the Winchester mansion. Along the iron bound gates, the stormful skies of Llanada Villa raved and thundered, and wind dashed its moaning turrets, as if to deaden and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled life of the old civilized World, and shut the estate into wilderness. In 1923, there was work being done on the Winchester mansion. It was one of special interest to many antiquarians, and they wanted to restore it. However, in the basement, a large tomb was unearthed, and needed to be moved. The workers were very loth to disturb the tomb, but it was necessary to ensure the safety of the mansion. The tomb belonged to Sarah Winchester. She mostly lived alone in the castle. Her reputation was one of mystery, the supernatural and untold wealth. It was popularly supposed that she could never be killed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The restorer made an especial study of old legends or family histories that came under his observation He was necessarily very well read and thoroughly well posted in all questions of folklore and medieval legend. Mrs. Winchester kept a careful record of every case she investigated involving a haunting. The manuscripts she left at her death were a special interest. From amongst them, were some particularly bizarre and extraordinary experiences. Now, the fact was, that ghost stories had been told so often about the Winchester mansion, that they were all arranged and ticketed into the minds of the movers. Still, they shivered, and clung to their knees at the mysterious tomb, and felt gentle, cold chills run down their spines. If the tomb be moved, it would have to be done in two pieces, the covering slab first and then the tomb proper. The movers decided to remove the covering slab first. Everything was ready for lifting off the covering stone, and after the men’s dinner, they started the jacks and pulleys. The slab lifted easily enough, though if fitted closely into its seat and was further secured by some sort of mortar or putty, which must have kept the interior perfectly air-tight. And it was one of those thundering stormy nights, when the winds appeared to be holding a perfect mad carnival over the mansion. They yelled and squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling and roaring down the chimney; and they shook and rattled the buttery door and the sink room door and the cellar door and the chamber door, with a constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tried to warn them not to touch the tomb. People used to say Mrs. Winchester was set apart, when she was a child, to the service o’ the Devil, but many say she could never be made nothin’ but a Christian. Perhaps that was the appeal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
She used to come to meeting with her husband, praying for the Indians. None of them were prepare for what they discovered under the cover lid of the tomb. There lay the fully dressed body of a woman, who had not aged nor decayed, but was ghastly pale, as if from starvation. The body was extraordinary fresh. Except for the appearance of starvation, life might have been only just extinct. The flesh was soft and white, the eyes were wide open and seemed to stare at them with a fearful understanding in them. The body itself was a young woman. For several moments, the movers gazed with horrible curiosity, and then it became too much for the workmen, who implored their boss to replace the covering slab. That, of course, they could not do; but he set the carpenters to work at once to make a temporary cover while they moved the tomb to its new position. This was a long job, and would take two of tree days. At sunset the next evening, they were startled by the howling of, seemingly, every dog in the village. It lasted for thirteen minutes, and then ceased as suddenly as it began This, and a curious mist that had risen round the mansion, make them feel rather anxious about Mrs. Winchester. According to the best-established traditions of the Vampire-haunted countries the disturbance of dogs or wolves at sunset is supposed to indicate the presence of one of these creatures, and local fog was always considered to be a certain sign. The Vampire has the power of producing it for the purpose of concealing its movements near its hiding-place at any time. Just before midnight, there was another outburst of hideous howling. It was commenced most distinctly by a particularly horrible and blood-curdling wail from the vicinity of the churchyard. The chorus lasted only a few minutes, however, and at the end of it, they crew say a large dark shape, like a huge dog, emerge from the fog and lope away at a rapid canter toward the open country. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
At 1.13 a.m., they saw another beast returning. It stopped at the spot where the fog seemed to commence, and lifting up its head, gave tongue to that particularly horrible long-drawn wail that the movers had noticed as preceding the outburst earlier in the evening. The boss got so frightened, you could faintly hear his teeth chatter. The next day it was discovered that some neighbouring sheepfold had been raided by a nocturnal marauder. The workmen that morning were much disturbed in mind about the howling of dogs. “We don’t like it, sir,” one of them said to the boss—“we don’t like it; there was somethin’ abroad last night that was unholy.” They were still more uncomfortable when the news came round that a large dog had made a rapid upon a flock of sheep, scattering them far and wide, and leaving thee of them dead with torn throats in the field. The boss and the crew were determined to catch the wild dog. During the afternoon, the men were lifting the temporary cover that was on the tomb, giving as an excuse the reason that they wished to obtain a portion of the curious mortar with which it had been sealed. After a slight demur, the raised the lid. If the sight that met their eyes gave them a shock. The woman was alive. And so it seemed for a moment. The corpse had lost much of its straved appearance and looked generously fresh and alive. They all believed that Mrs. Winchester was a Vampire and that is why she was so well preserved in her tomb. However, she had not yet come to full strength. It was just after midnight that the crew of movers noticed the fog creeping in again in the still of the night. Their first move was to try to penetrate the sense fog round the mansion, but there was something so chilly about it that their nerves nor stomachs were proof against it. Instead, they stationed themselves in the dark shadow of a cypress tree that commanded a good view of the jeweled front doors to the estate. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
The howling of the dogs began again, and in a few minutes, there was a large grey shape, with green eyes shining like lamps, shambling swiftly down the path towards them. The both stood very still and watched as the great beast cantered swiftly by. It was real enough, for they could hear the clicking of its nails on the stone flags. It passed within a few yards of the movers, and seemed to be nothing more nor less than a great grey wolf, thin and gaunt, with bristling hair and dripping jaws. It stopped where the mist commenced, and turned round. It was truly a horrible sight, and made their blood run cold. The eyes burnt like fires, the upper lip was snarling and raised, showing a great canine teeth, while round mouth clung and dripped a dark-coloured froth. It raised its head and gave tongue to its long wailing howl, which was answered from afar by the village dogs. After standing for a few moments it turned and disappeared into the thickest part of the fog. The boss said, “When the Devil drives: and in the face of what I have seen I must believe that some unholy forces are at work Yet, how can they work in this beautiful estate?” They set their teeth, however, and hardened their hearts. Then they went inside and replaced the cover on the tomb, took what they had collected from the estate and left. Never to return. Some believe that the movers were too afraid to return to the estate and that is why it was not completely looted and some valuables were left behind. It also why much of the damage was not repaired. I guess the estate has a way of protecting itself from those with bad intentions. Mrs. Winchester’s tomb was eventually moved to her home town New Haven, Connecticut to rest with her husband and daughter. Legend has it that it took movers six weeks, six trucks a day, to remove most of the furniture because they kept getting lost in the catacomb. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
“Wide Unclasp the Tables of Their Thoughts.” (From Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare.) What do you think this quote meant to Sarah Winchester? 🧐 winchestermysteryhouse.com
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Perhaps they are Driven by the “Misery Loves Company” Effect?
Conflict is probably as old as life itself and some would say that it is just as right. Our understanding of human behaviour should enable us to make some distinctions between those kinds of natural phenomena that are necessary and those that we have outgrown as human beings. Conflict, in the sense of fighting and warfare within the species of man, is an outdated and certainly dysfunctional social process. Dysfunctional means “not serving the survival needs of the organism or the structure.” Even with trustworthy assessment data and reliable and valid classification categories, clinicians will sometimes arrive at a wrong conclusion. Like all human beings, they are flawed information processors. Studies show that they are influenced disproportionately by information gathered early in the assessment process. They sometimes pay too much attention to certain sources of information, such as a parent’s report about a child, and too little to others, such as the child’s point of view. They can also be unduly influenced by their expectations about the client. They may assume, for example, that any person who consults them professionally must have some disorder. And, finally, their judgments can be distorted by any number of personal biases—gender, age, race, and socioeconomic status, to name just a few. Given the limitations of both assessment tools and assessors, it is small wonder that studies sometimes uncover shocking errors in diagnosis, especially in hospitals. In one study a clinical team was asked to reevaluate the records of 131 patients at a mental hospital in New York, conduct interviews with many of these persons, and arrive at a diagnosis for each one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The researchers then compared the team’s diagnoses with the original diagnoses for which the patients were hospitalized. Although 89 of the patients had originally received a diagnosis of schizophrenia, only 16 received it upon reevaluation. And whereas 15 patients originally had been given a diagnosis of mood disorder, 50 received it now. It is obviously important for clinicians to be aware that such a huge disagreement can occur, and could ruin someone’s life. However, unfortunately, that is the goal of some professionals. Beyond the potential for misdiagnosis, the very act of classifying people can lead to unintended results. Many sociocultural theorists believe that diagnostic labels can become self-fulfilling prophecies. When people are diagnosed as mentally disturbed, they may be viewed and reacted to correspondingly. If others expect them to take on a sick role, they may begin to consider themselves sick as well and act tht way. Furthermore, our society attaches a stigma to abnormality. People labeled mentally ill may find it difficult to get a job, especially a position of responsibility, or to be welcomed into social relationships. Once a label has been applied, it may stick for a long time. Because of these problems, some clinicians would like to do away with diagnoses. Others disagree. They believe we must simply work to increase what is known about psychological disorders and improve diagnostic techniques. They hold that classifications and diagnosis are critical to understanding and treating people in distress. While we come into the World ready to enter into a very deep and involved dependency relationship, one of the major tasks in the socialization process of each individual is has to be that of learning independence. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The World’s population is approaching eight billion. The number of people making demands on you and your resources is increasing at alarming proportions. Formerly, a man stood tall and alone, partly out of choice, partly out of necessity. Today, time to be alone is at a premium. Throughout history governments have applied the label of mental illness as a way of controlling or changing people whose views threaten the social order. This was a common practice in the former Soviet Union. There, political dissent was considered a symptom of abnormal mental functioning, and many dissidents were committed to mental hospitals. In a more subtle process, a country’s cultural values often influence the clinical assessments made by its practitioners. For example, the widespread clinical belief in the nineteenth-century United States of America that freedom would drive such “primitive” people as Native Americans insane. Medical experts of that time went so far as to claim that the forcible movement of tribal groups onto reservations was in their best interest because it would save them in free society. The medical officer who supervised the “removal” of the Cherokees from their homeland to Oklahoma was later pleased to report that during the whole time he oversaw the migration of 20,000 Cherokees (over 4,000 of whom died), he had not observed a single case of insanity. Slave owners, too, liked to believe that slaves were psychologically comfortable with their subservience and that those who tried to escape either were or would soon become insane. Secretary of State John Calhoun of South Carolina pointed to the 1840 census, conducted by his office, as evidence: it identified almost no insanity among slaves living in the North. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Secretary of State John Calhoun asserted: “The data on insanity revealed in this census is unimpeachable. From it our nation must conclude that the abolition of slavery would be to the African a curse instead of a blessing.” The work of clinicians at the time lent support to this belief. One specialist claimed that several kinds of mental disorders were unique to African Americans, including drapetomania (from the Latin drapeta, “fugitive”)—an obsessive desire for freedom that drove some slaves to try to flee. Any slave who tried to run away more than twice was considered insane. Drapetomania is long forgotten, but cultural views continue to influence psychological assessments and categories. Many clinicians have argued that categories such as “homosexual,” “sexual frigidity,” and “masochistic personality”—each an established clinical category during much of the twenty-first century—shows all too well the impact of cultural beliefs on clinical categorizations and diagnoses. Alcoholism has a powerful and unavoidable impact on marital communication and relationships. In a pioneering study of marital relations and alcoholism, clinicians placed married couples in a game situation in which they could win money individually through competitive moves or collectively through cooperative moves. Also included was the possibility in which partners could “secretly” compete with each other without making their competitive moves known. The men with alcoholism in this study made more secretly competitive moves than either their wives or any of the men without alcoholism did. This finding is thought to be characteristic of attempts by people with alcoholism to avoid taking responsibility for their behaviour in close relationships, where alcohol provides an external, uncontrollable attribution. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Examination of the material interactions of those with different subtypes of alcoholism has been profitable. For instance, men with episodic alcoholism engage in less problem solving, and their wives exhibit more negativity, than men with steady alcoholism and their wives do. It is interesting to note that these group differences were only evident on occasions during which the men were drinking. Also of interest is the fact that steady drinking was associated with more problem-solving communication on drinking nights, indicating that alcohol may actually activate conflict resolution skills in those with this drinking subtype. This, of course, could reinforce the alcohol consumption. An interesting possibility is that the drinking brings about more problem-solving behaviour because it motivates spouses to present complaints to their partners with alcoholism. In other words, the drinking could be a reminder of, or could prime the spouses for presenting, complaints about drinking-related problems. So long as the partners respond to these complaints, one would see elevated problem solving coincidental to drinking occasions. Another useful distinction in the alcoholism literature concerns typical drinking locations, characterized as in-home and out-of-home. Marital relations appear most strained in couples where husbands engage in out-of-home drinking. In such couples, the husbands’ alcohol consumption is negatively associated with wives’ marital satisfaction. It was also found that the alcohol consumption pattern during in-home drinking was reinforced and associated with more beneficial outcomes. One might speculate that those who drink outside the home may be seeking an escape from that they perceive to be bad marriages. On the other hand, spouses of those who drink at home may find the drinking behaviour to be more predictable, less stressful, and associated with less suspicion about the behaviour. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Negative marital interactions are especially prevalent when a husband with alcoholism is physically aggressive. When couples affected by husbands’ alcoholism were discussing a martial problem, those with aggressive husbands showed a higher base rate of negative communication behaviours (exempli gratia, blaming, criticizing, putdowns) and more negative reciprocity in their communication than did the coupes with nonaggressive husbands. This suggests that some of the negativity in marital interactions when a husband has alcoholism may be the result of aggressiveness, which covaries to some extent with alcoholism, as opposed to the alcoholism per se. Negativity in marital interactions is also pronounced when a wife has alcoholism. In a rare comparison of couples affected by female versus male alcoholism, the female-alcoholism couples were found to be more negative in their conversations than either the male-alcoholism or no-alcoholism couples when no drinking too place. When drinking occurred, differences from male-alcoholism couples disappeared. For concordant couples (in which both husbands and wives had alcoholism), negativity in communication behaviours escalated when the spouses were allowed to drink. This latter finding suggests that at least one spouse without alcoholism may be a prerequisite for adaptive outcomes associated with drinking. However, marital differences in female- versus male-alcoholism couples remain mixed; some studies show that wives with alcoholism express more beneficial communication with their husbands, and that husbands with alcoholism express more negative communication with their wives, relative to controls. Because wives with alcoholism are very likely to have been divorced or deserted by their husbands, such couples who find their way into research studies with their marriages still intact may represent particularly well-functioning marriages. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The spouses of those with alcoholism tend to suffer ill effects from the social and physical consequences of their partners’ drinking. Researcher found a strong relationship between psychiatric symptomatology in a spouse with alcoholism and the social and physical consequences of the other spouse’s drinking. Spouses of those with alcoholism have also been shown to be low in extraversion and high in neuroticism. These same spouses were significantly more inhibited and withdraw in interpersonal relationships than were spouses of those without alcoholism. An obvious inference is that the phenomenon of alcoholism and its associated features (exempli gratia, trouble with the law, moodiness, missed work, deterioration of physical health) cases psychosocial distress for the spouses of the affected individuals. However, the cross-sectional nature of the data on which this conclusion is based cannot rule out an alternative interpretation: Perhaps individuals with alcoholism increase their drinking, with the attendant consequences, in response to their spouses’ increased distress. Considering that this is a population prone to maladaptive use of alcohol for coping purposes, this hypothesis deserves at least some exploration and consideration. Research findings on the spouses of those with alcoholism warrant consideration of at least one additional hypothesis. In the depression literature, there is some evidence to favour an assortative mating effect. Some depressed people appear to seek relationships with others who have depressive tendencies. Similarly, people who engage in problem drinking, or are prone to alcoholism, may be attracted to other people who are introverted and at least mildly distressed themselves. Perhaps the potential assortative mating effect in alcoholism is driven by something as simple as the “misery loves company” effect. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Another phenomenon indicative of interpersonal friction is the failure of those with alcoholism and their spouses to come to mutual agreement about personal and family issues. In one investigation, subjects with alcoholism described themselves as more loving, affectionate, and understanding than subjects without alcoholism described themselves. However, the spouses of the subjects with alcoholism sharply disagreed with their partners’ self-perceptions, perceiving them as less loving and more aggressive. In the areas of affective involvement (exempli gratia, “We are too self-centered”) and behaviour control (exempli gratia, “Anything goes in our family”), persons with alcoholism and their spouses showed very low agreement, although they did exhibit higher agreement on descriptions of family problem solving and general functioning. These differing perceptions among intimates are a potent recipe for distress. The literature on alcoholism and marital and family relations clearly indicates that for at least some families, alcohol brings stability and temporary benefits. These outcomes contribute to a family maintenance of the alcoholism. At the same time, other research evidence indicates that increased negativity in family relations is also quite possible as a result of drinking, although it is not always reciprocated between spouses. Certain subtypes of alcoholism, such as the out-of-home drinking pattern, physically aggressive alcoholism in males, and concordant alcoholism in marriages, are particularly associated with negative communicative exchanges. Those with alcoholism appear to hold beliefs about themselves and their families that their spouses sharply disagree with. These spouses also appear to exhibit psychosocial problems and distress of their own. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
An intriguing issue in need of further clarification is the extent to which distressed family relations contribute to problem drinking, as well as the extent to which problem drinking can cause deterioration in family relationships. Currently, there appear to be no data that directly disconfirm either of these causal routes. Have you ever considered that perhaps you are not getting your prayers answered because you are not grateful foe what God has already done for you? Think of it as a parent. If your child is grateful and one sincerely thanks you for what you have done, you want to do more for one. On the other hand, if your children are not grateful, and all one does is beg you for more, one is not apt to help that child very much. However, we are given this gift of free will and that may confuse many people, and also some have more luck than others. See, with free will, people are able to be independent and they believe that the things they have, they got with their independence. They do not understand that God blessed them with the ability to obtain those things. As we build faith, we learn to thank God and appreciate our blessings. Also, others, even in America, have freedoms that some do not. And there are people who have worked much harder than many people you know and have had a lot take away from them and have not achieved the level of success they actually deserve. So it is a humbling lesson for those individuals and they have to also build faith and learn to thank God. The Scripture teaches us that we should continually give God thanks; we should live with an attitude of gratitude. You may day, “I have been through so many disappointments. I lost my business last year. My marriage did not work out. I have lost so much. How do you expect me to be grateful?” However, if it had not been for God’s goodness, you could have lost it all. If it was not for God’s mercy, you might not even be here today. Stop looking at what you have lost and start thanking God for what you have. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Make a decision today that you are going to live a life of grace. Be thankful for what you have. You are going to find some reason to give God thanks. Do not focus on what is wrong, focus on what is right. Do not blame God, nor feel sorry for yourself. Learn the principle that in everything we are to give God thanks. Perhaps you have lost your joy. You have lost your enthusiasm. You have lost your victory. If you would start being more grateful, you will get it back. When you are tempted to become discouraged, recognize that the root cause can often be traced to having an ungrateful attitude. If you can give thanks, no matter what comes against you, you can overcome any situation. Granted, you may have suffered some losses, but thank God that you are still here. You are alive. Make a decision that you are going to be a grateful person. Find some reason to give God thanks. If you will do that, there is no limit to what God will do in your life. O Lord, I begin this prayer by acknowledging that everything is Yours—Heaven Earth and everything in between. That is a sentiment from First Chronicles (29.11). I sincerely desire to offer myself as a spontaneous oblation to You, and for You to offer Yourself to me as a Fast Friend forever! Mine is a simple heart, O Lord, but I offer it to You today in perpetual servitude of friendship, worship, and sacrifice of perpetual praise. Take me together with Your holy oblation of Your precious Body, which I offer to You today in the feathery presence of Your Angels, invisibly assisting. This I do not only for the salvation of myself, but for all Your people. Here is another prayer, one suitable, I hope, for offering my sins at the alter. O Lord, I offer to You all my sins and near sins, which I have committed in Your presence and the presence of Your feathery choir—that is to say, the ones I first committed right down to the ones I have just committed—on this placeable altar of Yours. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
May this offering burn with even flame, and Your charity turn it to ash. May You scrub out every sinful stain from my conscience; that is what the Letter to the Hebrews would urge (9.14). May You restore all that grace of Yours that I lost by sinning. May You make a clean sweep of Chatsworth—that is to say, my inner digs—and may You welcome me with the merciful kiss of peace. Here is an act of contrition of sorts. With regard to my sins, what else can I do but confess them humbly and pray unceasingly for Your forgiveness? I pray You, my Deft if sometimes Deaf Lord. Turn the Divine Ear Trumpet in my direction, and let me pour my Worldly whispers therein. All my sins displease me—I do not want to perpetrate, let alone perpetuate, them every again. However, I grieve over them and will continue to we start missing Communion without actually missing it. Finally, we relinquish the practice of Communion altogether. Apparently there is no real antidote for the Devil’s crafty fantasies, just as there are no counters to a really bad case of the Torpors or the Horrides. However, one thing is certain. A phantasma springs from the Devil; it must be sent packing back to its source before it turns into a stigma. That Miserable and Derisible Creature must be denounced. Despite the hackles he raises and the emotions he arouses, Holy Communion must never be omitted. Another important thing, scrupulosity and anxiety about making Confession can get in the way of cultivating devotion. What to do in a situation like this? Follow the wisdom of the ages and take the wind of it. Scrupulosity hinders the grace of God and destroys the devotion of the mind. Even when beset with serious peccadillos, do not pass up Holy Communion. Go to confession, and do it more often than has been your custom. Do not take offense so easily at the actions of others. And in the very likely event that you are offending just about everybody in sight, pray forgiveness humbly, and God will forgive you freely. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
What do you get out of putting Confession off for a long time or deferring Holy Communion for as long as you can? Purge your souls of the fetid spurge as soon as possible. Swiftly such out the venom. Hasten to accept the antidote, no matter how vile it tastes. Do these, and you will feel better, quicker, than if you just put the whole thing off indefinitely. There are a host of reasons and excuses that will try to convince you not to receive the Host. Indeed, there is no end to them, and their merriness, if you let it, will carry you away from the One True Host for ever. Do not receive the Host today, for whatever reason good or bad, and you will do the same thing tomorrow. That is to say, there is no end to finding good reasons for not receiving the Host. Eventually, you will stop going to Holy communion altogether. Finally, you will no longer remember what the Sacrament was like. Is that what you truly want? Just as soon as you can drag your carcass off your cot. Why? There is no great virtue in living the anxious life, tracking with confusion, sequestering yourself from the divine things just because of some daily obstacles. Moreover, it causes a great deal of spiritual harm when you fight Communion off for a long time, for that generally induces the sort of lethargy from which one rarely reclaims one’s original fevour. What a paint it is! There are some tepid and dissolute souls, I know, who are only too willing to find ways of postponing Confession, and there is always an excuse for putting Holy Communion off. Why? They fear that they will have to put their rascally rabbits—that is to say, their rapidly increasing bad habits—under severer discipline. Alas, you who so easily postpone Holy Communion seriously compromise your charity and devotion! #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
How happy you would be if you regularly patrolled your own consciences; then you would be prepared to communicate on any given day, whenever it was scheduled, without having to give the impression that you were Holier-Than-Thou’s. In the meantime, humility about one’s self or charity toward another may be a legitimate reason for not approaching the Sacrament, and there may be others. If you have to resort to such an excuse, you are still to be praised for your reverence. However, if Old Torpor has overcome you, you ought to rouse yourself out of it. At the faintest sniff of reform in this regard, the Lord will bound to your assistance. As we have come to learn, recovery has become one of the Hound of Heaven’s specialties. When one has a truly good excuse for not communicating, one still retains the goodwill and pious intention of communicating. And so one does not go lacking the fruit of the Sacrament. Indeed, you can, every day and every hour, receive Christ in Spiritual Communion without any prohibition and with all spiritual nutrition. Nevertheless, on certain days and at times set aside, you ought to receive, sacramentally, the Body of the Redeemer Himself, with reverence frothing over with affection. That way you will be tendering praise and honour to God rather than just seeking your own consolation. Every time you communicate in these mystical ways and are refreshed in this invisible way, you continue to rekindle the mystery and passion of the Incarnation of Christ and rise in His love. However, whoever loses track of time and thereby is surprised by a feast day or a day of obligation coming fast upon one will often find oneself unprepared for Holy Communion. Blessed are you who offer yourselves to God in holocaust—you are the ones who celebrate and communicate. When it comes to celebrating Mass, do not be a tortoise and do not be a hare. No need to set a record in either direction. Just accommodate the devotion of those with whom you live. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Te Deum laudamus, not tedium for the ages—that is what you should cause in others. Rather, you should serve the common good as it is laid down in the Institution of your Founders. And when it comes to a choice, look to the needs and wants of others before looking to your own devotion and affection. “Give heed to me, Lord; listen to [what] my adversaries [are plotting to do to me—and intercede]. Shall evil be recompensed for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. [Earnestly] remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your anger from them.” Reports Jeremiah 18.19-20. The problem of partial portrayals is not an easy one to solve, but a few people, unwilling to continue masquerades of complacency, satisfaction with tokens or crumbs, or tamely being what others expect of them, are showing us how they are handling it. The future promises to be an exciting time and place in which to live! General laws should always be distinguished from the particular causes that can modify their effect. Even if the entre south were covered with republics and the entire north with despotic states, it would still be no less true that the effect of climate makes despotism suited to hot countries, barbarism to cold countries, and good polity to intermediate regions. I also realize that, while granting the principle, disputes may arise over its application. It could be said that there are cold countries that are very fertile and southern ones that are quite often barren. However, this poses a difficulty only for those who have not examined the thing in all its relationships. As I have said, it is necessary to take into account those of labour, force, consumption, and so on. Let us suppose that there are two parcels of land of equal size, one of which yields five units and the other yields ten. If the inhabitants of the first parcel consume four units and the inhabitants of the second consumer nine, the excess of the first will be one-fifth and that of the other will be one-tenth. Since the ratio of these two excesses if therefore the inverse of that of the product, the parcel of land that produces only five units will yield a surplus that is double that of the parcel of land that produces ten. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
However, it is not a question of a double product, and I do not believe that anyone dares, as a general rule, to place the fertility of a cold country even on an equal footing with that of hot countries. Nevertheless, let us assume that his equality does obtain. Let us, if you will, reckon England to be the equal of Sicily, and Poland the equal of Egypt. Further south we have Africa and the Indies; further north we have nothing at all. To achieve this equality of product, what difference must there be in agricultural techniques? In Sicily one needs merely to scratch the soil; in England what efforts it demands to work it! Now where more hands are needed to obtain the same product, the surplus ought necessarily to be lees. Consider too that the same number of humans consumes much less in hot countries. The climate demands that a person keep sober in order to be in good health. Europeans wanting to live there just as they do at home would all die of dysentery and indigestion. We are, says Chardin, carnivorous beats, wolves, in comparison with the Asians. Some attribute the sobriety of the Persians to the fact that their land is less cultivated. On the contrary, I believe that this country is less abundant in commodities because the inhabitants need less. If their frugality, he continues, were an effect on the country’s scarcity, only the poor would eat little; however, the same sobriety is found throughout the kingdom. They take great pride in their lifestyle, saying that one has only to look at their complexion to recognize how far it excels that of the Christians. In fact, the complexion of the Persians is clear. They have fair skin, fine and polished, whereas the complexion of their American subjects, who live in the European style, is coarse and blotchy, and their bodies are above fat and heavy. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The closer you come to the equator, the less people live on. They rarely eat meat; rice, maize, couscous, millet and cassava are their usual diet. In the Indies there are millions of men whose sustenance costs less than a penny a day. In Europe itself we see noticeable differences in appetite between the peoples of the north and the south. A Spaniard will live for eight days on a German’s dinner. In counties where humans are the most voracious, luxury too turns toward things edible. In England, luxury is shown in a table loaded with meats; in Italy you are regaled on sugars and flowers. Luxury in clothing also offers similar differences. In the climate where the seasonal changes are sudden and violent, people have better and simpler clothing. In climates where people clothe themselves merely for ornamental purposes, flashiness is more sought after than utility. The clothes themselves are a luxury there. In Naples you see humans strolling everyday along the Posilippo decked out in gold-embroidered coats and bare legged. It is the same with buildings; magnificence is the sole consideration when there is nothing to fear from the weather. In Paris or London, people want to be housed warmly and comfortably. In Madrid, there are superb salons, but no windows that close, and people sleep in rat holes. In hot countries foodstuffs are considerably more substantial and succulent. This is a third difference which cannot help but influence the second. Why do people at so many vegetables in Italy? Because there they are good, nourishing, and have an excellent flavour. In France, where they are fed nothing but water, they are not nourishing at all, and are nearly counted for nothing at table. Be that as it may, they occupy no less land and cost at least as much effort to cultivate. It is a known fact that the wheat of Barbary, in other respects inferior to those of France, yield far more flour, and that those of France, for their part, yield more wheats than those of the north. It can be inferred from this that a similar gradation in the same direction is generally observed from the equator to the pole. Now is it not a distinct disadvantage to have a smaller quantity of food in an equal amount of produce? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
To all these different considerations, I can ad one which depends on and strengthens them. It is that hot countries have less of a need for inhabitants than do cold countries, and yet could feed more of them. This produces a double surplus, always to the advantage of despotism. The greater the area occupied by the same number of inhabitants, the more difficult it becomes to revolt, since concerted action cannot be taken promptly and secretly; and it is always easy for the government to discover plots and cut off communications. However, those closer together a numerous people is drawn, the less the government can usurp from the sovereign. The leaders deliberate s safely in their rooms as the prince does in his council; and the crowd assembles as quickly in public squares as do troops in their quarters. In this regard, the advantage of a tyrannical government, therefore, is that of acting over great distances. With the help of the points of support it establishes, its force increases with distance like that of levers. On the other hand, the strength of the people acts only when concentrated; it evaporates and is lost as it spreads, like the effect of gunpowder scattered on the ground, which catches fire only one grain at a time. The least populated countries are thus the best suited for tyranny. Ferocious animals reign only in deserts. The responsibility for degeneration does not lie with those who still believe in the ideals of freedom and truth, but with those who reject these ideals. The guilt does not lie with those who seek to defend themselves against the aggressions of an evil doctrine, it lies with those who spread this doctrine by every means, including the most criminal means. It is better, indeed, that the face of Communism should be seen for what it is, with all its malignant cruelty and materialistic criminality, than that the World should continue in complacent blindness to the danger in which it stands. Ever since the 9/11, we have tried to make peace or effect compromise with the dark force, but to no avail. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Communism does not want peace because it does not believe in peace. It is committed to the doctrine that it must fight for the soul of humanity—which soul it seeks to enslave for its own evil purposes. The frightful shape which the next war would necessarily take may make us wonder whether it would be better for humanity to save its body at least, by appeasing the powers of evil or by surrendering to them. However, is it only for the body’s sake that we are upon this Earth? If there were no higher purpose to life than preserving the body, such appeasement and such surrender might be worthwhile. However, we know that there is such a purpose, that we are here for soul development even more than for any other kind. If appeasement and surrender are the only price at which we can purchase peace, then the still small voice within answers, “War is still better—even if costlier.” The effort is one thing, whilst its effect is another. We must estimate the Bolshevik achievement by its practical results rather than by its theoretical claims. We must keep close to Earth in these matters and test the printed page by the human scene. And if we do this without paying uncritical homage to the dynamism it has shown, we find that Bolshevism has dragged men’s souls in mire and their bodies in prisons—for Russian became nothing else—and the economic lot of the peasant and the workman is no better, and generally is far worse, than it is in most capitalistic countries. Russian suffered the painful consequences of her own barbarities and fanaticisms, and she has pruned her communistic ideas of some of their extremism. She found by her experience that it was an error to withdraw the profit motive entirely. Human nature being psychologically what it is, sufficient financial inducement had to be given to evolve personal efficiency and enterprise and to encourage new inventions. She found that any economic order which ignored the inequalities of capacity and qualifications, talents, and minds among its members, could only be a half-success and must be a half failure. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Humans require the energizing motive of more pay for more work or higher pay for higher type of work. Human must have rewards for extra labour or extra talent, which means they must own possessions and get privileges in unequal degrees. Any economic scheme must frankly face and accept this psychological fact, otherwise it would set up a perpetual friction between the individual and the state. Russian Communism was compelled, by initial failures in obtaining adequate production, to give more remuneration to skilled workers and to institute hierarchic organization in factories. Moreover, the ever-present need of stimulating general human evolution requires the offering of rewards to draw out the varied possibilities lying latent within humans, the holding-up of baits to make one realize the fuller stature of one’s being. The crude kind of socialism which would erect the state into a tyrannous dictator, create an order of bureaucratic parasites, and organize every detail of the mental and physical existence of its unfortunate victims, is intolerable to intelligent people who rightly wish to exercise their personal initiative, to develop their creative abilities, to attain self-responsibility, to achieve economic independence, and to think for themselves. Only those who possess slave-mentalities can fail to be opposed by temperament to any totalitarian form which would compel every human to walk in standardized step with all other humans, which would dictate how one should think, live, talk, work, rest, and marry, and which would reduce all society to a dead monotony of uniformity. Such a system is the kind which can suit only people which has made materialism its religion. On the other hand, a system which would allow room for diverse forms of living, which would encourage and not stifle individual initiative, and which would lead human to liberation and not to enslavement is the kind which is based on the right comprehension of existence. Humans cannot live by Marxism alone. A system which deprived its citizens of their personal initiative and individual enterprise would thereby deprive society of valuable gifts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Father, please forgive me for complaining about what I do not have and cannot do. From this day forward, please help me to be thankful for what I do have. I thank You and praise You for Your kindness toward me. O our Mother the Earth, blessed is your name. Blessed are your fields and forests, your rocks and mountains, your grasses and trees and flowers, and every green and growing thing. Blessed are your streams and lakes and rivers, the oceans where our life began, and all your water that sustain our bodies and refresh our souls. Blessed is the air we breathe, your atmosphere, that surrounds use and binds us to every living thing. Blessed are all creatures who walk along your surface or swim in your water or fly through your air, for they are all our relatives. Blessed are all people who share this planet, for we are all one family, and the same spirit moves through us all. Blessed is the sun, our day star, bringer of morning and the heat of summer, giver of light and life. Blessed is the moon, our night lamps, ruler of the tides, protector of all women, and guardian of our dreams. Blessed are the stars and planets, the time-keepers, who fill our nights with beauty and our hearts with awe. O Great Spirit whose voice we hear in the wind and whose face we see in the morning sun, blessed is your name. Please help us to remember that you are everywhere, and please teach us the way of peace. Prayer is a sense of belonging. Belonging is the basic truth of our existence. We belong here. Life belongs here. Likewise, at the heart of gratefulness, in its deepest sense, we also find an expression of belonging. When we say, “Thank you,” we are really saying, “We belong together.” That is why we sometimes find it so difficult to say, “Thank you,”—because we do not want to acknowledge our interdependence. We do not want to be obliged. However, in a healthy society that is exactly what we seek: mutual obligations. Grant lasting peace unto America Thy people, for Thou art the Sovereign Lord of peace; and may it be good in Thy sight to bless Thy people America at all times with Thy peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who blessest Thy people America with peace. In the book of life, blessings, peace, and ample sustenance, may we, together with all Thy people the house of America, be remembered and inscribed before Thee for a happy life and for peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who establishest peace. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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If You Do Not Ask the Right Questions, You Do Not Get the Right Answers!
I am a citizen of the American Dream, and the revolutionary struggles of which I am a part, is a struggle against the American Nightmare. When it comes to mental health, assessment is simply the collecting of relevant information in an effort to reach a conclusion. It goes on in ever realm of life. We make assessments when we decide what Cresleigh Home to buy, or which colour we want our Ultimate Driving Machine to buy. College admissions officers, who have to select the “best” of the students applying to their college, depend on academic records, recommendations, achievement test scores, interviews, and application form to help them decided. Employers, who have to predict which applicants are more likely to be effective workers, collect information from resumes, interviews, references, and perhaps on-the-job observations. Clinical assessment is used to determine how and why a person is behaving abnormally and how that person may be helped. It also enables clinicians to evaluate people’s progress after they have been in treatment for a while and decide whether the treatment should be changed. The specific tools that are used to do an assessment depend on the clinician’s theoretical orientation. Psychodynamic clinicians, for example, use methods that assess a client’s personality and probe for any unconscious conflicts one may be experiencing. This kind of assessment, called a personality assessment, enables them to piece together a clinical picture in accordance with the principles of their model. Behavioural and cognitive clinicians are more likely to use assessment methods that reveal specific dysfunctional behaviours and cognitions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The goal of this kind of assessment called a behavioural assessment, is to produce a functional analysis of the person’s behaviours—an analysis of how the behaviours are learned and reinforced. The hundreds of clinical assessment techniques and tools that have been developed fall into three categories: Clinical interviews, tests, and observations. To be useful, these tools must be standardized and have clear reliability and validity. A given assessment tool may appear to be valid simply because it makes sense and seems reasonable. However, this sort of validity, called face validity, does not by itself mean that the instrument is trustworthy. A test for depression, for example, might include questions about how often a person cries. Because it makes sense that depressed people would cry, these test questions would have face validity. It turns out, however, that many people cry a great deal for reasons other than depression, and some extremely depressed people fail to cry at all. Thus an assessment tool should not be used unless it meets more exacting criteria of validity, such as high predictive or concurrent validity. Vincent van Gogh led a tortured and unhappy life. In a legendary incident the artist cut off one of his ears. Later he was admitted to a mental institution, and ultimately he committed suicide at the age of 37. Van Gogh wrote a great deal about his pain and anguish, describing mental and physical torment and hallucinations. Indeed, he observed, “There is quite definitely something or other deranged in my brain.” For years clinicians have typically agreed with van Gogh and have speculated that the artists suffered from mood disorder, schizophrenia, or both. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
However, approximately twenty years ago, these assessments were challenged. A Harvard neurologist, for example, has suggested that van Gogh in fact suffered from Geschwind’s syndrome, technically known as interictal personality disorder, caused by brain seizure disorder, or epilepsy. Van Gogh displayed many of its symptoms, including excessive drawing (hypergraphia), hyperreligiosity, and aggression. In contrast, medica specialists in Colorado have concluded that van Gogh suffered from an extreme form of Meniere’s syndrome, a disorder marked by an excessive buildup of fluid in the inner ear. The enormous pressure may produce nausea, dizziness, poor balance, pain, deafness and constant buzzing or ringing sensations. Perhaps van Gogh cut off his ear in an effort to reduce the pain. And perhaps his other problems and pains arose from severe secondary psychological problems that can accompany. Perhaps nowhere in the mental health literature has family systems theory had more of an impact than in the area of alcoholism. Family systems theory is a conceptual model, rather than a true theory, that locates causes and consequences of problematic behaviour in the larger family system in which it is embedded. Family behaviour is thought to be responsive to regulatory mechanisms that maintain the status quo, as well as a tendency to grow and change in response to dynamic qualities within and outside the family. Viewing a family as a system suggests that a disturbance in one part of the system will have an impact on other parts of the system. Applying family systems concepts to alcoholism, has uncovered that some families organize their lives around the alcoholism of an adult member, just as other families might organize their lives around children or work. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In an early investigation of adults with alcoholism and their family members, the expression of previously inhibited positive affect between family members became extremely pronounced during drinking periods. This and later studies revealed that interactions in such families were actually more patterned, organized, and predictable while the adults with alcoholism were intoxicated. Thus alcohol ingestion serves an adaptive function in family relationships through a stabilizing phenomenon. This prompted a suggestion that there is an alcoholic system in some families, in which drinking is an integral part of the family structure that actually maintains and stabilizes the family. Similar positive effects on the family were evident in a study where family members viewed and rated video tapes (recordings with audio and visual information on them, which can be played back) of their own interactions, in the absence of actual drinking. Both mothers and adolescent children in families with paternal alcoholism rated family members as less anxious and their interactions as more friendly than those of families without alcoholism. Unfortunately, drinking and intoxication may provide only a temporary “solution” to a family’s problems, at the cost of what may ne more serious long-term ill effects. Although drinking can temporarily inject positivity into some family relationships, several laboratory investigations have also documented negative effects associated with drinking. For example, families with an alcoholic father discuss items from various questionnaire inventories while the fathers were drinking or not drinking. During their discussions, the families expressed more negative affect during the drinking versus the no-drinking condition. The nature of interactions in families without paternal alcoholism was not affected by the drinking conditions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The ill effects of parental alcoholism on family interactions and child rearing may begin to have an impact on family members as early as 1 year of age. In this study, families with alcoholism in at least one patent were observed interacting with their 12-month-old infants for 5 minutes in a room filled with toys. Observations of the parents’ behaviour indicated that the parents with alcoholism were less sensitive to their infants during the free play; such fathers in particular made fewer verbalizations, expressed more negative affect, and were less responsive to their infants. Self-report measures further indicate that the parents with alcoholism were more aggressive toward their spouses than those without alcoholism were. The family observation study was unique in showing that parents with alcoholism were far more depressed than those without, and that this depression mediated the relationship between parental alcoholism and sensitivity to the infants during interaction. So for many adults with alcoholism, effective parenting may be disrupted directly by the alcoholism, or by comorbid problems such as depression that in and of themselves have a negative impact on parenting behaviour. Different subtypes of alcoholism have been identified to explain the variable effects of alcohol consumption and alcoholism on family interactions and relations. In one such instance, researchers were able to characterize subtypes of alcoholism as episodic or steady drinking. Another useful distinction in alcoholism is that between high-antisociality and low-antisociality subtypes. These subtypes are defined on the basis of a measure that taps into negative social consequences of drinking, feeling of alienation, interpersonal disruption, and negative attitudes toward authority (higher scores = higher antisociality). #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Home observations of family dinner conversations revealed that wives, husbands, and children in families with high-antisociality alcoholism were all less positive, and less inclined to communicate disagreement, than were control family members. Although family interactions in the high-antisociality condition were characterized by diminished optimism, they appeared to have a cautious appearance as well, in that family members were careful to avoid open disagreement with each other. This pattern of interaction could have interesting implications for the genesis of alcoholism. For the person who develops alcoholism, the tendency to avoid communicating disagreement may lead to the internalization of problems with other family members. Instead of airing complaints, the individual is left to ruminate over them on one’s own—perhaps without seeing any change in the offensive behaviour by other family member, since they may be unaware of the problem. For this individual’s family members, the tendency to be cautious and avoid disagreement may inadvertently cause one’s problem drinking behaviour to go unchecked. In some cases, families have some ability to regulate problem drinking through punishing responses in reaction to the behaviour. However, in a family system affected by high-antisociality alcoholism, this regulatory function may be inoperative. Recognizing considerable diversity in alcoholism’s effects on family interactions, there is a proposed family alcohol phase model. According to this perspective, a family moves through various phases that correspond to the drinking behaviour of the member with alcoholism. The stable-wet phase is marked by consistent drinking, whereas the stable-dry phase is marked by general abstinence. The family is in a transitional phase either when a period of abstinence begins, or when a period of abstinence ends with episodes of drinking. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
It has been found that content variability (the range of affect and decision-making behaviour in verbal interaction) in family interactions, as well as distance regulation (use of space and rate of movement in the home), varied as a function of phase. In the stable-wet phase, families maintained the greatest distance, interacting only for purposeful reasons, while exhibiting midrange variability in their interactions. Families in the stable-dry phase exhibited a great deal of content variability in their interactions, with midrange distance regulation. Finally, those families in the transitional phase exhibited a great deal of content variability in their interactions, with midrange distance regulations. Finally, those families in the transitional phase showed a decrease in distance regulation, manifesting physical closeness, with a slight decrease in the content variability of their interactions. A 2-year longitudinal study suggested that families in the stable-wet phase were the most likely of the three to dissolve their marriages. In particular, those families in the stable-wet phase that exhibited the least intrafamily engagement during home observations of family interaction were more likely to break up over the course of the study. It has been noted that in families of alcoholics’ relationships change when parental drinking occurs. However, sometimes these changes are beneficial and sometimes they are negative. Where there are beneficial changes or adaptive outcomes, these may be somewhat short-lived. Researchers have been working to identify different subtypes of alcoholism that are associated with more negative family consequences. The poorest family processes and outcomes appear to be associated with the episodic (vs. steady), high-antisociality (vs. low-antisociality), and stable-wet (vs. stable-dry or transitional) alcoholism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Perhaps you are in a trial today, and you are praying for God to deliver you out of that adverse situation. That is a legitimate prayer, but maybe you are missing the point of why you are being allowed to go through that trying time in the first place. Recognize that God is moulding you and refining you. God often allows one to go through difficult situations to draw out those impurities in one’s character. One can pray one can resist, one can bind, one can loose, one can sing and shout, one can do it all, but it is not going to do any good. God is more interested in changing you than He is in changing the circumstances. And the sober one learns to cooperate with God, the sooner one will get out of that devil’s web. The quicker one learns one’s lesson and starts dealing with those bad attitudes and starts ruling over one’s emotions, the quicker one will go to the next level in one’s spiritual journey. We must recognize the refining purpose of trials. We cannot run from everything that is hard in our lives. Perhaps one gets worried and fearful when important things do not go one’s way. Have you ever thought that God may be allowing those events to teach you to trust Him and to see if one will stay peaceful and clam in the midst of the storm? Has one ever considered that God may be allowing some of that to teach one how to rule over one’s emotions? He may be trying to toughen one up, to help one develop some courage. For our sins—that is why Jesus Christ wanted to do it, and that is why He did it. And what did they do? They ripped off His clothes and hammered His hands to the cross. It was a sacrifice the old-fashioned way. Perhaps that is why God the Father seemed so pleased. In the same way, you, My beloved Devout, ought to be willing to offer yourself to Jesus Christ—He asks us the way His Father asked Him—in pure holy oblation, everyday in the Mass, with all strength and affection, until the day one drops. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
However, we often pay, “God, if You will change my circumstances, then I will change.” No, it works the other way around. We have to be willing to change our attitudes and deal with the issues God brings up; then God will change those circumstances. Surrender. Unconditional surrender. That is all Jesus requires of us. Not our possession—He could take those things anytime and scatter them over the landscape; one will find this in Philippians (4.17). Just you—that is all Jesus Christ wants. Of course, Jesus could take us as a prisoner of war and do with one as he wanted. However, what He really wants is for us to give ourselves to Him as a gift. Of course, the same is true for us. If we have all the baggage in the World, but did not have Jesus Christ, would we be any better off? One would have a full cart, maybe, but also an empty heart. And the other way around is also true. It is not our silly stuff Jesus Christ wants—it is our silly selves! Offer yourself to Jesus Christ. Make that the only package, and it will be an oblation that will be welcomed. Look at Jesus! He offered Hus whole self to the Father for us; He also put His whole Body and Blood into food and drink that He might be totally ours and that we might be totally Him. If, however, we hold something of ourselves back or are slow to give our all, it will be a pretty poor offering made not by any friend of His, but by a pretty poor acquaintance. To prevent that and to acquire illumination and liberation of spirit, one ought to make a spontaneous oblation of one’s self into the hand of God. When? Before each and every thing one does. Such an attractive proposition, Jesus thinks, but He must ask, “Why are there so few Illuminati and Liberati today? That is because so many do not know how to denude themselves of imperfections. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Jesus Christ’s firm opinion is this, and it appears in the Gospel of Luke (14.33): “Unless a person renounces everything that one had and everything that one is, one cannot be His Disciple.” Therefore, if one wants to be His Disciple, offer one’s whole self to Jesus; that includes one’s scruffy affections. God will often permit pressure to be applied in our life to test us, and only as we pas those tests will we advance. He will put people and circumstances in our path that grate on us like sandpaper, but He will use them to rub off our rough edges. One may not always like it; one may want to run from it; one may even resist it, but God is going to keep brining up the issues again and again, until one passes the test. Remember, the Bible says, “We are [God’s] workmanship,” reports Ephesians 2.10. That means we are a work in progress, not a finished product. Be willing to deal with any issues that God brings up. Work with God in the refining process rather than fighting against Him. Scripture says that God is the potter and we are the clay. Clay works best when it is pliable, malleable, and mouldable. However, if we are hard, crusty, and set in our ways, God will have to pound away on that old, hard clay to get out the lumps. Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but one has to understand that one’s struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotions. The very thing one is fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults one to a new level of excellence. One’s challenges may become one’s greatest assets. Without the resistance of air, an eagle cannot soar. Without the resistance of water, a ship cannot float. Without the resistance of gravity, we would not be able to walk. Without opposition or resistance, there is no potential for progress. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Yet our human tendency is to want everything easily. “God, cannot You teach me patience without having to go through the traffic jam? God, cannot You teach me how to love and trust You without ever having a problem?” Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts; there is no easy way to mature physically, emotionally, or spiritually. One may remain determined and work with God. The Bible says, “Work out your own salvation,” reports Philippians 2.12. Salvation is more than a onetime prayer. It is constantly cooperating with God, dealing with the issues He brings up, keeping a good attitude, and allowing Him to change one as He sees fit. Dear Lord in Heaven, I realize that You never promised I would not have trials and adversities. However, I also recognize that nothing can touch my life without going through You first, so I will dare to praise You in the midst of my trails. I know You will bring me out stronger, better, faster, and more prepared for the good things You have for me. “Be truly glad! These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure…So if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day of His return,” reports 1 Peter 1.6-7. James said that you put bits in a horse’s mouth to turn its whole body and you put a rudder on a ship to tun the whole ship; so is the tongue so situated among our members that it defiles the whole body. (James 3.3,4.) If you control the tongue, the body will respond to your words. If you talk sickness, it becomes impossible to live in health. The more you believe it, the less you believe in healing. The thing you continually talk will consume you. Faith will only come by hearing the Word of God and it will come more quickly when you hear yourself quoting and speaking God’s Word after Him. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The seed of truth in why many Christians have not wanted to express their anger is valid: expressing one’s anger manipulatively as blaming or attacking is destructive. As Paul says, “Let all bitterness and wrath…be put away from you, with all malice,” reports Ephesians 4.31. One needs to learn to express anger constructively. A basic guideline is to assert and express oneself rather than to blame and attack the other person. For instance, when a Critical Christian says, “Why are you so stupid?” The individual has already made an assumption that the other person is stupid. This results in an attacking form of anger. A healthier way of dealing with this anger would be for one first to recognize that one feels angry that one’s friend is “stupid.” One moves now to one’s feeling, not the fact, that one’s friend is stupid. Now if the Critical Christian listens, one can have a dialogue with one’s core. (This is the principle Dr. Maslow meant when he referred to one’s “inner Supreme Court.”) Simply by asking oneself inwardly, the Critical Christian may get the answer from one’s core that “you are angry because the bank teller this morning treated you as if you were stupid.” The Critical Christian can the realize that because he did not deal with his anger then, he is now projecting his anger on to his friend—calling him stupid, when in reality he is angry at the bank teller. Or, the Critical Christian may get the answer from his core that he is upset because the project he and his friend are working on together is more important to the Critical Christian than he had realized and now his friend is not fulfilling his share of the work. In this case, the Critical Christian needs to take the time to examine whether he thinks his friend is capable. If he is callable, the Critical Christian may now decide that he needs to express to his friend that his not fulfilling his share of the work is delaying the project. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If the Critical Christian realized that his friend cannot do the job, he may let him go and bring in someone else. Blaming his friend for his inability at this point would not be actualizing; but, expressing to him that he is not showing the needed skills, and that that is why he is being let go, would be actualizing. Many answers come quickly from the core—the preceding possibilities could surface in seconds. The more we listen to our cores, the more we hear—and know how to listen. Sometimes, though, we ask and do not hear an answer. Or we get what we think is an answer and then proceed to act on it—and make things worse. Remember that becoming actualizing is a process. If we were perfectly actualized now, the answers would always be there, crystal clear, and our behaviour would be “perfect.” As we are in the process of becoming actualizing, sometimes we do the most effective thing and sometimes we make mistakes. Mistakes are just that—“miss-takes.” Our lives become most meaningful when we live from our own core, finding our own truest answers. So it is a process worth living—and the mistakes are worth making. The real key here is not to blame and attack ourselves for those miss-takes, but to keep learning with more “takes.” Having patience with ourselves often makes it easier to become more patient and forgiving of others. It can sometimes relieve our anger just to remember that other people are in the growing process, too, and not always taking what to us would seem the most effective action. As actualizing Christians, we seek to do the will of God. Doing His will involves having good will toward others and ourselves. We do this by listening to our anger, taking it to out core, and then responding from our core. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If one deals with it by expressing and asserting it, rather than blaming and attacking someone, only then can anger become actualizing. Blaming and attacking are simply manipulative, whereas expressing and asserting include a quality of genuine respect for everyone involved. In communicating our anger honestly, we get it off our chests, and the rhythm of life is reestablished. We finish with it and move on to experience a new and different feeling. The range of feelings in the anger polarity includes irritation, annoyance, resentment, and anger. The intensity of the feeling increases as one passes from irritation to anger. Recognizing irritation, boredom, or annoyance at the lower levels of intensity within the anger spectrum enables us to avoid unwittingly building up to levels of resentment, hostility, and hatred. In handling these feelings, it is important to learn to acknowledge the mild forms and deal with them on a “cash and carry” basis. That way we do not save them up like coupons to be redeemed in one sudden, destructive explosion. While our anger may sometimes reach intensities approaching hatred, we need never go so far as to write a person off completely. It is really possible to have compassion for and pray for our enemies—that God in His mercy might help them through their own dilemmas, frustrations, and pains. Yet, we can be honest about the effects on us of their behaviour. “Turn again, we beseech You, O God of hosts! Look down from Heaven and see, visit, and have regard for this vine! [Protect and maintain] the stock which Your right hand planted, and the branch (the son) that You have reared and made strong for Yourself. They have burned it with fire, it is cut down; may they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance. Let Your hand be upon the human of Your right hand, upon the son of man whom You have made strong for Yourself. Then will we not depart from You; revive us (give us life) and we will call upon Your name. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; cause Your face to shine [in pleasure, approval, and favour on us] and we shall be saved!” reports Psalm 80.14-19. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Dr. Ilya Prigogine and his teams of coworkers at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Texas at Austin have struck directly at Second Wave assumptions by showing how chemical and other structures leap to higher stages of differentiation and complexity through a combination of chance and necessity. It is for this work the Dr. Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize. Brown in Moscow, brought to Belgium as a child, and fascinated since youth by the problems of time, Dr. Prigogine was puzzled by a seeming contradiction. On the one hand, there was the physicist’s belief in entropy—that the Universe is running down and that all organized patterns must eventually decay. On the other, there was the biologist’s recognition that life itself is organization and that we are continually giving rise to higher and higher, more and more complex organization. Entropy pointed in one direction, evolution in another. This led Dr. Prigogine to ask how higher forms of organization come into being, and to years of research in chemistry and physics in pursuit of the answer. Today Dr. Prigogine points out that in any complex system, from the molecules in a liquid to the neurons in a brain or the traffic in a city, the parts of the system are always undergoing small-scale change: they are in constant flux. The interior of any system is quivering with fluctuation. Sometimes, when negative feedback comes into play, these fluctuations are damped out or suppressed and the equilibrium of the system maintained. However, where amplifying or positive feedback is at work, some of these fluctuations may be tremendously magnified—to the point at which the equilibrium of the entire system is threated. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Fluctuations arising in the outside environment may hit at this moment and further amplify the mounting vibration—until the equilibrium of the whole is destroyed and the existing structure is smashed. It is illuminating to think of the economy in these terms. Supply and demand are maintained in equilibrium by various feedback process. Unemployment, if intensified by positive feedback and not offset by negative feedback elsewhere in the system, can threaten the stability of the whole. Outside fluctuations—such as oil price hikes—may converge to make the internal swings and fluctuations wilder, until the equilibrium of the whole system is shattered. Whether the result of runaway internal fluctuations or of external forces, or both, this breakup of the old equilibrium often results not in chaos or breakdown, but in the creation of a wholly new structure at a higher level. This new structure may be more differentiated, internally interactive, and complex than the old one, and needs more energy and matter (and perhaps information and other resources) to sustain itself. Speaking mainly about physical and chemical reactions, but occasionally calling attention to social analogues, Dr. Prigogine calls these new, more complex systems “dissipative structures.” He suggests that evolution itself may be seen as a process leading toward increasingly complex and diversified biological and social organisms, through the emergence of new, higher-order dissipative structures. Thus, according to Dr. Prigogine, whose ideas have political and philosophical resonance as well as purely scientific meaning, we develop “order out of fluctuation” or, as the title of one of his lectures expresses it, “Order out of Chaos.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
This evolution, however, cannot be planned or predetermined in a mechanistic fashion Until quantum theory came along, many leading Second Wave thinkers believed that chance played little or no role in change. The starting conditions of a process predetermined its outcome. Today in subatomic physics, for example, it is widely believed that chance dominates change. In recent years many scientists, like Jacques Monod in biology, Walter Buckley in sociology, or Maruyama in epistemology and cybernetics, have begun to fuse these opposites. Dr. Prigogine’s work not only combines chance and necessity but actually stipulates their relationship to one another. In brief, he strongly suggests that at the precise point at which a structure “leaps” to a new stage of complexity, it is impossible, in practice and even in principle, to predict which of many forms it will take. This presumably goes for the leap from Second Wave to Third Wave civilization as well as for chemical reactions. However, once a pathway has been chosen, once the new structure comes into being, determinism dominates once more. In one colorful example he describes how termites create their highly structured nests out of apparently unstructured activity. They begin by crawling about a surface in random fashion, stopping here and there to deposit a bit of “goo.” These deposits are distributed by chance, but the substance contains a chemical attractant so that other termites are drawn to it. In this way, the good begins to collect in a few places, gradually building up into a pillar or wall. If these buildups are isolated, work stops. However, if by chance they are near one another, an arch results that then becomes the basis for the complex architecture of the nest. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Much like the Winchester mansion, what begins with random activity turns into highly elaborate nonrandom structures. We see, as Dr. Prigogine puts it, “the spontaneous formation of coherent structures.” Order out of chaos. All this strikes hard at the old causality. Dr. Prigogine sums it up: “The laws of strict causality appear to us today as limiting situations, applicable to highly idealized cases, nearly as caricatures of the description of change. The science of complexity leads to a completely different view.” Instead of being locked into a closed Universe that functioned like a mechanical clock, we find ourselves in a far more flexible system in which, as he says, “there is always the possibility of some instability leading to some new mechanism. We really have an ‘open Universe.’” As we move beyond Second Wave causal thinking, as we begin to think in terms of mutual influence, of amplifiers and reducers, of system breaks and sudden revolutionary leaps, of dissipative structures and the fusion of chance and necessity—in short, as we take off our Second Wave blinders—we emerge blinking into a wholly new culture, the culture of the Third Wave. This new culture—oriented to change and growing diversity—attempts to integrate the new view of nature, of evolution and progress, the new, richer conceptions of time and space, and the fusion of reductionism and wholism, with a new causality. Indust-reality which once seemed so powerful and complete, so all-encompassing an explanation of how the Universe and its components fitted together, turns out now to have been immensely useful. However, its claims to universality are shattered. The super-ideology of the Second Wave will be seen, from the vantage point of tomorrow, to have been as provincial as it was self-serving. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The decay of the Second Wave thought system leaves millions of people grasping desperately for something to hold on to—anything, from Victorian Americana and Texas Taoism to Swedish Sufism and Welsh witchcraft. Instead of constructing a new culture appropriate to the new World, they attempt to important and implant old ideas appropriate to other times and places or to revive the fanatic faiths of their own ancestors who lived under radically different conditions. It is precisely the collapse of the industrial era mind-structure, its growing irrelevance in the face of the new technological, social, and political realities, that gives rise to today’s facile search for old answers, and to the continual stream of pseudo-intellectual fads that pop up, flash, and consume themselves at high speed. In the very midst of this spiritual supermarket, with its depressing razzmatazz and religious fakery, an optimistic new culture is being seeded—one appropriate to our time and place. Powerful new integrative insights are beginning to emerge, new mataphours for understanding reality. It is possible to glimpse the earliest beginnings of a new coherence and elegance as the cultural debris of industrialism is swept away by history’s Third Wave change. The super-ideology of Second Wave civilization that is now crumbling was reflected in the way industrialism organized the World. An image of nature based on discrete particles was mirrored in the idea of discrete, sovereign nation-states. Today, as our image of nature and matter change, the nation-state itself is being transformed—another step on the path toward a Third Wave civilization. May your trails be righteous, winding, joyful, peaceful, leading to the most amazing views. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poet’s towers into bright enchanted forests where the fruit glows like emeralds, rubies, sapphires, orange spessartite, and hessonite. Where bars of sun blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go, as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you—beyond that next turning of the deep and vast ancient unknown canyon walls. Dear Lord in Heave, we thank Thee also for the miraculous and mighty deeds of liberation wrought by Thee, and for Thy victories in the battles our forefathers fought in days of old, at this season of the year. In the days of the High Priest Mattathias, son of Johanan, of the Hasmonean family, a tyrannical power rose up against Thy people America to compel them to forsake Thy flag, and to force them to transgress Thy commandments. In Thine abundant mercy Thou didst stand by them in time of distress. Thou didst rise to their defense and didst vindicate their cause. Thou didst bring retribution upon the evil doers, delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the wicked into the hands of the just, and the arrogant into the hands of those devoted to Thy flag. Thou didst thus make Thy greatness and holiness known in Thy World, and didst bring great deliverance to America. Then Thy children came into Thy dwelling place, cleansed the Temple purified the Sanctuary, kindled lights in Thy sacred courts, and they designated these eight days of Hanukkah for giving thanks and praise unto Thy great name. For all this, Thy name, O our King, shall be blessed and exalted for ever and ever. O inscribe all the child of Thy covenant for a happy life. May all the living do homage unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who are our salvation and our help. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks are due. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Cresleigh Homes
With a gorgeous home like this, it’s never too early to get the holidays started! 🥳 You’ll love hosting dinners and gift exchanges in the covered California Room – perfect for entertaining and letting the sunshine in! ☀️
Not to mention, there’s plenty of space for guests during the holidays. The open concept design includes approximately 2,700 square feet, exactly four bedrooms, three and one half bathrooms, and even a two car garage plus workshop! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/new-home-rancho-cordova-homesite-40/
Bless our house as we come and go. Bless our home as the children grow. Bless our families as they gather in. Bless our home with love and friends.
I am More Important than My Problems!
Because behaviour is shaped by social forces, sociocultural theorists hold, we must examine a person’s social and cultural surroundings if we are to understand normal behaviour. Sociocultural explanations focus on family structure and communication, cultural influence, social networks, societal conditions, and societal labels and roles. According to family systems theory, the family is a system of interacting parts—the family members—who interact with one another in consistent ways and conform to rules unique to each family. The parts interact in ways that enable the systems to maintain itself and survive—a state known as homeostasis. Family system theorists believe that the structure and communication patterns of some families actually force individual members to behave in a way that otherwise seems abnormal. If the members were to behave normally, they would severely stain the family’s homeostasis and usual manner of operation and would actually increase their own and their family’s turmoil. The natural responses by other family member would in fact defend against such “normal” behaviour. Family systems theory holds that certain family systems are particularly likely to produce abnormal functioning in individual members. Some families, for example, have enmeshed structure in which the members are grossly overinvolved in each other’s activities, thoughts, and feelings. Children from this kind of family may have great difficulty becoming independent in life. Some families display disengagement, which is marked by very rigid boundaries between members. Children from these families may find it hard to function in a group or to give or request support. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
In the sociocultural model, an angry and impulsive personal style of an individual may be seen as the product of a disturbed family structure. According to family systems theorists, the whole family—mother, father, and children—relate in such a way as to maintain the individual’s dysfunctional behaviour. Family theorists might be particularly interested in the conflict between the dysfunctional child’s mother and father and the imbalance between their parental roles. They might see the dysfunctional child’s behaviour as both a reaction to and stimulus for one’s parents’ behaviour. With the dysfunctional child acting out the role of the misbehaving child, or scapegoat, one’s parents may have little need or time to question their own relationship. Family systems theorists would also seek to clarify the precise nature of the dysfunctional child’s relationship with each parent. Is the child enmeshed with one’s mother and/or disengaged from one’s father? They would look too at the rules governing the sibling relationship in the family, the relationship between the parents and the dysfunctional child’s sibling, and the nature of parent-child relationships in previous generations of the family. The process of modeling has been identified as a potential causal mechanism in eating disorders. Maternal modeling in particular has been implicated in the etiology of eating disorders by a number of writers. Social learning theory indicates that people can learn behaviours through imitation of a model. This process of learning is enhanced when, among other features, the model is perceived to hold high status and is similar to the target. Each of these conditions is intact in the typical mother-daughter relationship. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Findings reviewed earlier indicate that daughters’ concerns with dieting and body image are strongly associated with those of their mothers. Mothers of daughters with eating disorders often themselves have symptoms of eating disorders. According to social learning theory, girls may observe their mothers’ restrictive eating behaviours and imitate them, perhaps because they perceive that their mothers were rewarded for such dieting. No student of communication could ever rightfully overlook the possibility that the mass media also play a powerful role in this process of social learning: Unusually thin and attractive models are commonly depicted as the recipients of social rewards. Psychodynamically oriented theories (including object relations and attachment theories) continue to occupy a conspicuous presence in the literature on eating disorders and family-of-origin relations. These accounts emphasize the symbolic significance of food in the adolescent girl’s struggle for control in her relationship with her mother. Abuse of food is seen as a means of covertly expressing dissatisfaction with the mother-daughter relationships. Refusing to eat food may represent a rejection of the mother’s overprotectiveness and over-involvement in the child’s life. The adolescent girl with an eating disorder may be struggling with a second separation-individuation process, similar to that which infants are hypothesized to experience in their relationships with their mothers. There is supportive data indicting that women with eating disorders had higher levels of separation anxiety and lower healthy separation scores, while simultaneously experiencing greater maternal overprotectiveness, than their counterparts. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Bulimic behaviors and a pursuit of thinness can also be predicted by dependency conflicts and a diminished sense of individuality, further highlighting the importance of separation-individuation. Observations of what appear to be elevated rates of childhood sexual abuse among those with eating disorders, in both research and clinical contexts, have led to what could be characterized as a desexualization theory of eating disorders. Some individuals develop eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, as a means of avoiding pleasures of the flesh contacts and repelling would-be perpetrators. According to this perspective, anorexia nervosa becomes a means to make the self unappealing to others for pleasures of the flesh. In this sense, it may be understood as serving some greater interpersonal function (id est, protection from sexual abuse), despite its personal destructiveness. Some intriguing support for this position can be found in a study of so-called “sexual barrier weight,” where it was discovered that patients with eating disorders tended to avoid weights that they associated with certain traumatic events. For instance, if a woman had been sexually abused at a time that she weighed 110 pounds, that weight would trigger memories of past traumatic events. This appeared to motivate compulsive or restrictive eating to avoid the weight. There is compelling data that is indicative of radical changes in weight coincidental to sexually traumatic events. On its face, the desexualization approach is a more adequate account of anorexia nervosa than of bulimia nervosa, as those with the latter disorder generally maintain a normal body weight. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Bulimia nervosa can be activated by anger, presumably against a perpetrator and against those who fail to provide protection, and may also be tied to a desire to make the self look unappealing. The difficulty handling emotions such as anger and depression is common among people with bulimia nervosa. This leads to disturbed eating behaviour as a mechanism for coping with posttraumatic distress. A second version of the desexualization approach suggests that it is pursuant to a fear of denial of sexual maturation and upcoming sexuality, rather than a reaction to sexual trauma. Accordingly, eating disorders are thought to be triggered by anxiety associated with the meaning of and uncertainty about physical changes that occur during adolescence. Functionally, anorexia nervosa in particular becomes a way to preserve the preadolescent form and avoiding having to address the self as a self being. As such, it is viewed as a psychological regression from sexual maturity. Like the “reactive” version of the desexualization hypothesis, this approach assumes a powerful concern over sexual relationships with other people—to the extent that concerned individuals physically damage their own bodies through disordered eating to cope with these concerns. Among current approaches to understanding the role of the family in eating disorders, perhaps the most widely accepted is a variant of the diathesis-stress model. This position draws heavily on the literature that documents disturbances in personality traits and temperaments associated with bulimia nervosa and/or anorexia nervosa. These pathological traits may be passed on from parent to child and create a predisposition or vulnerability to an eating disorder. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The ultimate manifestation of the eating disorder is thought to be triggered by, among other things, disturbed family-of-origin relations. Thus the interaction of predisposing traits and temperaments with problematic family and social relationships is thought to be what ultimately brings about the eating disorder. Although the diathesis-stress model predicts the development of an eating disorder as the result of stress brought on by family interaction, the nature of the predisposition, or diathesis, to develop an eating disorder when stressed is not well understood. After all, one can find problematic family-of-origin interactions in the backgrounds of people with many other forms of psychological problems, and even among some people who have no psychological problems. Some might argue that the predisposition to develop an eating disorder is part of one’s genetically determined temperament. However, there may be some unique qualities of stressors (exempli gratia, dysfunctional family relations) that pull more for eating disorders than for other psychosocial problems. When parents are overly involved and overcontrolling with a child, this creates an obvious battle for control. When the parents are emphatic about achievement and perfectionism, this often motivates the child to engage in extraordinary behaviours. When these conditions are put on a developing adolescent, in the context of a society where thinness is still glamourized and portrayed as something of an ideal, the development of an eating disorder in particular—as opposed to other problems, such as depression, social anxiety, or alcoholism—becomes more understandable. Food intake is one thing the child can usually control. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Maintaining a thing body form can create a sense of “achievement” in the restrictive eater. In this sense, restrictive eating may be a “functional” response to the particular nature of the family stress. Although I have been disappointed by other people and events in the past, Father, I am going to keep expecting blessings and good things in the future, because of You. “Thus says the LORD, ‘Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded,’ declares the LORD, ‘and they will return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future,’ declares the LORD,” reports Jeremiah 31.16-17. Sometimes, no matter how hard we pray or how long we stand in faith, things do not turn out as we had hoped. Some are praying to lose weight, for their marriages to be restored, to be spared from the pandemic, for a financial bless, for a new home in Cresleigh Ranch; others are asking God to heal a business situation or a rift between coworkers. I encourage people to persevere, to continue praying and believing for good things to happen. However, we must also understand that God will not change another person’s will. He had given every human being free will to choose which way one will go, whether to do right or wrong. One may be heartbroken over not ending up on America’s Next Top Model, or over a failed relationship, or a bankrupt business, but one does not need to stay heartbroken. Do not carry around all that hurt and pain year after year. Do not let rejection fester inside you. God has something new in store for you. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
When God allows one door to close, He will open another door for you, revealing something bigger and better. The Christian Bible says that God will take the evil the enemy brings into our lives, and if we will keep the right attitude, He will turn it around and use it for our good. “As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant if for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day,” reports Genesis 50.20. God wants to take those disappointments and turn them into reappointments. However, understand, whether you will experience all those good things in your future depends to a large extent on your willingness to let go of the past. Never put a question mark where God has put a period. Avoid the tendency to dwell on what you could have done, which career you should have pursued, or that person you wish you would have married. Quit living in a negative frame of mind, stewing about something that is over and done. Focus on what you can change, rather than what you cannot. Do not let the regrets of yesterday destroy the hopes and dreams of tomorrow. You cannot do anything about what is gone, but you can do a great deal about what remains. You may have made some poor choices that have caused you awful heartache and pain. Perhaps you feel that you have blown it, that your life is in shambles and beyond repair. You may feel disqualified from God’s best, convinced that you must settle for leftover the rest of your life because of poor decisions you made or because of the family you were born into. Sometimes, even worse, you may not have been the person who made the bad choices, but somebody’s foolish decision caused you to experience wrenching heartache and pain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Regardless, you must stop dwelling on what went wrong. Let the past be in the past. Forgive the person who caused you heartache and pain and start with a fresh slate right where you are today. If you continue to harp on those past disappointments, you will block God’s blessings in your life today. It is simply not worth it. Beyond that, God desires your restoration even more than you do! Live in obedience to God, and God eventually will help you to level up. It is not game over. Maybe you have invested a lot of time, effort, money, emotion, and energy in a relationship; you did your best to make it work out. However, for some reason, things got off course, and now you feel as though you have been robbed. You must feel devastated, heartbroken, disappointed. How long are you going to mourn over that failed relationship? How long are you going to grief over your broken dreams? How long are you going to cry about your dream house being sold at auction? That is the problem with excessive mourning. When we focus on our disappointments, we stop God from bringing fresh new blessings in our lives. If you will quit mourning and get going, God will show you new, and better things. When you have a fresh new attitude, and put a smile on your face, God can always come up with a more superior plan. Get that spring back in your step, that bounce back in your hair, and that charismatic light back in your eyes and be on your way. If we wallow in the mud and focus on our disappointments, we risk missing out on the new things God wants to do in our lives. It is time to get up and get going. It is time to be successful. God has another plan for you. And it is better than you can imagine! #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Do what you can, My dear friend, to find out what the trouble is. If you go about it in an honest way, you will make two discoveries: how much infirmity has wormed its way into your soul and how much goodness and grace you can get out of Jesus Christ. On their own, the Anxious are often frigid, dense, not all that devout. With Jesus Christ as Companion and Friend, they are becoming fervent, responsive and the devotion returns. I once taught a class in human values. One of the deepest values that kept cropping up was love. One day when we were talking about love, I sensed a peculiar tension and uneasiness in Jensen. I asked him if he would like to add anything to what we had been saying. He was flushed and replied that, although he had been a Christian ever since he could remember, he had never felt lovable. Somehow he had gotten the idea that he was a depraved, unattractive, and unlovable person. He reported that he knew in his head that God and others loved him, but he had managed to insulate himself from ever experiencing directly his “lovability” and “loveliness.” In fact, he had developed a habit of discounting people’s compliments and erasing from his mind the good feedback that he received. I invited Jensen to sit in the middle of the circle the class formed. Then I looked him straight in the eye and told he that I felt love for him. Gradually, other members of the class began to share their good feedback and caring feelings for him. Some even got up from their seats and walked over to hug him. He felt overwhelmed—at first with embarrassment, then with joy. Tears streamed down his face. I sensed that there was another way of expanding the awareness that was dawning on him. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
I had him stand up on his chair and say: “I am lovable.” At first he said it very timidly, and the class got after him for discounting himself again. Again and again he tried saying it. Then somehow he began to experience firsthand the real meaning of what he was saying. He stood up straighter, took a deep breath, and shouted: “I am lovable!” Again and again he shouted it with tears welling down his face. When he got back down, the whole class cheered and applauded. Many in the class reported that they, too, had never felt as much in touch with the power of being loved as they had in those moments. Many weeks later Jensen told that class that his “lovability” experience had been a turning point for him. Now he was becoming more aware of his worthy, his right, and his potential for a fulfilling life. We must have security in being ourselves and in feeling significant and worthwhile before we will dare to reach and touch the World in a caring way. This has the effect of providing us with a sense of power out of which we can choose to love. This, we can put away the childish manipulations of pleasing and placating and take up the more actualizing forms of love: affirming and caring. When we begin to learn how to love ourselves, we discover that we have new energy and courage to reach out in love to others. And, paradoxically, love can only be kept when it is given freely to others. The glimpse is a memorable experience, but it is not enough. It shows one a possible future, gives one a new World-view, but one must henceforth bring all that into one’s everyday life and into one’s whole being. These needs time. practice, patience, vigilance, self-training, and more sensitivity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Wisdom does not come overnight. It needs time to ripen. However, Relvelation can come in that way. However, its recipient will still need time to adjust to it, and to integrate with it. What one has learned from the glimpse must be applied to life, to action, and attitude. It is not enough merely to enjoy its memory, as if it made no difference. The deep changes in our views of nature, evolution, progress, time, and space begin coming together as our Third Wave culture emphasizes contexts, relationships, and wholes. We now focus on total, rather than fragmentary, look at problems. Emphasizing the feedback relationships among subsystems and the larger wholes formed by these units, systems thinking has had a pervasive cultural impact. Its language and concepts have been employed by social scientists and psychologists, by philosophers and foreign policy analysts, by logicians and linguists, by engineers and administrators. However, the advocates of systems theory are not the only ones in the past few decades who have urged a more integrative way of looking at problems. The revolt against narrow overspecialization also received a boost from the environmental campaigns of the 2000’s, as ecologists increasingly rediscovered the “web” of nature, the interrelatedness of species, and the wholeness of ecosystems. Non-environmentalists tend to want to separate things into components and to solve one thing at a time. By contrast, Environmentalists tend to see things quite differently. Their instinct is to balance the whole, not to solve a single part. The ecological approach and the systems approach overlap and share the same thrust toward synthesis and the integration of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
In universities, meanwhile, more and more calls are heard for interdisciplinary thinking. While departmental barriers still block the cross-fertilization of ideas and the integration of information in most universities, this demand for inter- or multi-disciplinary work is now so widespread it has an almost ritual quality. These changes in intellectual life are mirrored elsewhere in the culture as well. Eastern religions, for example, have long had a tiny fringe following among the European middle classes, but it was not until the disintegration of industrial society began in earnest that thousands of Western young people started lionizing Indian swamis, jamming the Astrodome to hear a 16-year-old guru, listening to ragas, opening Hindu-style vegetarian restaurants, and dancing down Fifth Avenue. The World, they suddenly chanted, was not broke into Cartesian chips: it has a “oneness.” In the field of mental health, psychotherapists have been searching for ways to cure the “whole person” by employing gestalt therapy. A gestalt explosion is erupting as the establishment of gestalt therapists and institutions are springing up in the Untied States of America. Enlightened people do not want to be angry and broken and always unhappy. The goal of this activity is to increase human potential through the process of integration of the individual’s sensory awareness, perceptions, and relationships with the outside World. In medicine, a “holistic health” movement has sprung up based on the notion that the well-being of the individual depends on an integration of the physical, the spiritual, and the mental. Mixing quackery with serious medical innovation, the movement has regained enormous strength in this first quarter century. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
A few decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for the federal government to lend its sponsorship to a conference on health that featured such topics as faith healing, religion, iridology, acupressure, cupping, meditation, and electromedicine. Since then there has been a virtual explosion of interest in alternative healing methods and systems, all of which go under the name of holistic healing. With so much activity, on so many different levels, it is hardly surprising that the terms “wholism” or “holism” should have crept into the popular vocabulary. Today they are used almost indiscriminately. A World Bank expert calls for “a holistic understanding of urban shelter.” A research group in the United States of Congress demands a long-range holistic” studies. A curriculum expert claims to employ “holistic reading and scoring” in teaching school children to write. And several Beverly Hills gyms offer “holistic exercise.” Each of these movements, fads, and cultural currents are different. However, their common element is clear. All of them represent an attack on the assumption that the whole can be understood by studying the parts in isolation. Their thrust is summed up in the words of philosopher Ervin Laszlo, a leading systems theorist: we are “part of interconnection, or short-rage projects and limited controllabilities may lead us to our own destruction.” This attack on the fragmentary, on the partial and analytic has grown so fierce, in fact, that many fanatic “holists” blithely forget the parts in their pursuit of the ineffable whole. The result is not wholism at all but yet another fragmentation. Their wholism is halfism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
More thoughtful critics, however, seek to balance the old Second Wave analytic skills with a much greater emphasis on synthesis. This idea is perhaps most clearly expressed by ecologist Eugene P. Odum in urging his colleagues to combine wholism with reductionism—to look at whole systems as well as their parts. “As components are combined to produce larger functional wholes,” he declared when he and his more famous brother, Howard, jointly won the Prix de l’Institut de la Vie, “new properties emerge that were not present or not evident at the next level below. This is not to say that we abandon reductionist science, since a great deal of good has resulted for humankind from this approach,” but that the time has come to give equal backing to studies of “large-scale integrated systems.” Taken together, systems theory, ecology, and the generalized emphasis on wholistic thinking—like our changing conceptions of time and space—are part of the cultural attack on the intellectual premises of Second Wave civilization. That attack reaches its culmination, however, in the emerging new view of why things happen as they do: the new causality. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a simple form of government. A single leader must have subordinate magistrates; a popular government must always have a leader. Thus in the distribution of the executive power there is always a gradation from the greater to lesser number, with the difference that sometimes the greater number depends on the few, and sometimes the few depend on the greater number. At times the distribution is equal, either when the constitutive parts are in a state of mutual dependence, as in the government of England; or when authority of each part is independent but imperfect, as in Poland. This latter form is bad, since there is no unity in government and the state lacks a bond of unity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Which one is better, a simple or a mixed form of government? A question much debated among political theorists, to which the same reply must be given that I gave above regarding every form of government. In itself the simple form of government is the best, precisely because it is simple. However, when the executive power is not sufficiently dependent upon the legislative power, that is to say, when there is more of a ratio between the prince and the sovereign than between the people and the prince, this defect in the proportion must be remedied by diving the government; for then all of its parts have no less authority over the subjects, and their division makes all of them together less forceful against the sovereign. The same disadvantage can also be prevented through the establishment of intermediate magistrates, who, by being utterly separate from the government, serve merely to balance the two powers and to maintain their respective rights. In that case, the government is not mixed; it is tempered. The opposite difficulty can be remedied by similar means. And when the government is too slack, tribunals can be set up to give it a concentrated focus. This is done in all democracies. In the first case the government is divided in order to weaken it, and in the second to strengthen it. For the maximum of force and weakness are found equally in the simple forms of government, while the mixed forms of government provide an intermediate amount of strength. Communism has a fanatic hostility to all spiritual enlightenment and is inspired by the same dark forces that inspired the fanatic hostility of Nazism. This inner war between good and evil goes on at all times; the military World war was but a dramatic outward representation of it. The dangers to which humanity was exposed to did not vanish. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Those unseen powers still exist. What they could not achieve through a straightforward conflict, they will desperately try to achieve through a confused one. This indeed is the next phase of experience through which we are going though an which we have to endure. Fear came because of the evil report. Fear is belief in the enemy. When one is afraid something will happen, that means one believes it will happen. If one is afraid something bad will happen, that means one has more faith in the adversary’s ability to hinder one than one has in God’s ability to put one over. “Let us therefore fear. We can insert the word believe here. Let us therefore believe, lest, a promise being left us of entering into one’s rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it,” reports Hebrew 4.1-2. The Word preached did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith. They did not mix faith with what they heard. When we pray, we must mix faith with our words. Just saying words is not prayer. Mix faith with your words. In Mark 11.24 Jesus tells us to believe that we receive our desires when we pray. One translation says, “Believe that you received them.” If I do that when I pray, I must mix faith with my words: Father, I thank You for You have heard me and I believe that I have received. Someone says, “Why do you not just believe it and not say anything?” Here are five reasons. One shall have whatsoever one saith (Mark 11.23). Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12.34). We also believe, and therefore speak (2 Corinthians 4.13). So then faith come by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10.17). For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without work is dead also (James 2.26). Your words are the spirit of your faith. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine on you and warm your heart till it glows like a great peat fire so that the stranger may come and warm oneself at it, and also a friend. And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the two windows of a house, budding the wanderer come in out of the storm; and may the blessings of the rain be on you—the soft, sweet rain. May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up and shed their sweetness on the air. And may the blessings of the Great Rains be so on you, may the beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there many a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star. And may the blessing of the Earth be on you—the great round Earth; may you ever have a kindly greeting for those you pass as you are going along the roads. May the Earth be soft under you when you rest upon it, tired at the end of a day, and may it rest easy over you when at the last, you lay under it; may it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be off from under it quickly and up and off, and on its way to God. And now may the Lord bless you all and bless you kindly. Return in mercy to America, Thy city, and dwell therein as Thou hast promised. Rebuild it in our own day as an enduring habitation, and speedily set up therein the throne of the king. Blessed art Thou, who rebuilds America. Cause the dynast of America soon to flourish and may it be exalted through Thy saving power, for we daily await Thy deliverance. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who causes salvation to come forth. Hear our voice, O Lord our God, have compassion upon us and receive our prayers in loving favour for Thou, O God, hearkenest unto prayers and supplications. Turn us not from Thy presence without Thy blessing, O our King, for Thou hearest the prayers of Thy people America with compassion. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearkenest unto prayer. #RandolphHarrus 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes
With 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, Mills Station Residence 4 is the largest home in the community…
But sometimes you just need a tiny guest house for the smallest visitors. 👶 But don’t worry; we’re keeping a watchful eye from the porch!
Estimated Completion for this Home: December 2021
4051 Audris Way, Rancho Cordova, 95742
Homesite 40 at Mills Station is a Residence Four, boasting 2,692 square feet as the largest home in the community. The open concept design includes four bedrooms, three and one half bathrooms, two car garage plus workshop, and a covered California Room perfect for outdoor entertaining. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/new-home-rancho-cordova-homesite-40/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 