Randolph Harris II International Institute

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Ours is the Only Country Deliberately Founded on a Good Idea!

ImageThe American continents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any other powers. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States of America and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any external power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. However, with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any external power, in any other lights than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United Sates of America. Still, Manifest Destiny is a religious scripture, which has declared that the United States of America is ordained—by God, to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire World through globalization, free trade, and legal immigration. Yet, each solution still gives rise to a new question as difficult as the foregoing, and leads us on to father enquires. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

ImageWhen it is asked, What is the nature of our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth,” reports 3 John 2-4. Manifest Destiny is not simply a cloak for American imperialism and justification for America’s territorial ambitions. It is biblical and firmly anchored in a long standing and deep sense of a special and unique American Destiny, the belief that in the words of historian Conrad Cherry, “America is a nation called to a special destiny by God.” The notion that there was some providential purpose to the European discovery and eventual conquest of the land masses “discovered” by Christopher Columbus was present from the beginning. Legend actually explains that spirit called him to America to spread Christianity, and there is evidence of Vikings and Africans in American prior to Columbus. Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into Covenant with God for this work, we have taken out a commission, and America seems to be a land with some special spiritual powers that God wants to harness and magnify. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

ImageIf the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, America is supposed to be a spiritual beacon of light and prosperity, and hath God ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission and will expect a strict performance of the Articles contained in it. Follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one being, we must entertain each other in humanly affection, we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others necessities. If we are faithful to our mission, we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when tens of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when God shall makes us a praise and a glory, that humans shall say of succeeding plantations: the Lord make it like New England, for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people upon us. The Great Awakening is now and it is a time that is extraordinary in the out pouring of God’s saving grace. God has chosen America for a special destiny and it is resurrected in a new form. The latter-day glory, in the new Millennium, the end times will bring the second coming of Jesus Christ to Earth and spread the King of God across the World, and this begins in America. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

ImageWhen again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, EXPERIENCE. However, if we still carry on our sifting humour, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? All providential development since, and all the existing signs of the times, lend corroboration to it. However, if it is by the march of revolution and civil liberty, that the way of the Lord is to be prepared, where shall the central energy be found, ad from what nation shall the renovating power go forth? This nation is, in the providence of God destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the World. The relation between God and the United States of America is a fusion between God’s will and the nation’s democratic character gives divine sanction to the United States of America’s bonded arrangements of liberty and democracy. At the same time, it makes the nation, itself, an instrument in the new millennium. In the Holy City of wilderness, this has been declared the gathering place for the Saints from which they will radiate influences that will turn the entire World, through the American continent acting as a conduit, into the World of God’s Kingdom. Understanding and accepting this divine right is the best and most expedient way to prevent confusion.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

ImageManifest Destiny will even help us be modest in our pretensions; and even assist us in discovering the difficulty ourselves before it is objected to us. By this means, we may a kind of merit of our very enlightened state. It must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles, on which the influence of these objects entirely depends. Our senses inform us of the colour, weigh, and consistence of bread; bit neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities, which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body. Sight or feeling conveys an idea of the actual motion of bodies; but as to that wonderful force or power, which would carry on a moving body for ever in a continued change of place, and which bodies never lose but by communicating it to others; of this we cannot form the most distant conception. However, notwithstanding this ignorance of natural powers and principles, we always presume, when we see like sensible qualities, that they have like secret powers, and expect, that effects, similar to those which we have experiences, will follow from them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

ImageIf a body of like colour and consistence with that bread, which we have formerly ear, be presented to us, we make no scruple of repeating the experiment, and foresee, with certainty, like nourishment and support. Now this is a process of the mind or thought, of which I would willingly know the foundation. It is allowed on all hands, that there is no known connexion between the sensible qualities and the secret powers; and consequently, that the mind is not led to form such a conclusion concerning their constant and regular conjunction, by anything which it knows of their nature. As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: However, why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist. The bread, which I formerly eat, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities, was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: However, does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

ImageAt least, it must be acknowledged, that there is here a consequence drawn by the mind; that there is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants to be explained. These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar will be attended with similar effects. Our analysis of the main symbols of Christianity has prescinded from the question of the historical character of the Christian faith. One could treat Christianity as a set of religious symbols with no historical content. The notion of symbols may have been actually realized in the historical situations of human beings, or again they may not. The Cross could be a suggestive symbol of self-transcendence even if Jesus the Christ had not died on a cross. A historical problem is thus raised by Christology: was the Christ a historical figure whose life is historically documented? The historical elements of Christology may also be seen from another viewpoint. Even if we avoided the questions of the historical existence of Jesus, we cannot bypass the patent fact of the World-historical importance of Christology. To define the true scope of this importance is a second problem and the Christological problem of today. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

ImageThe Christological problem of today has for us the same importance as the problem of the two natures of Christ in the fifth century. We are no more able to continue the old discussions concerning the unity of two natures or two wills in Christ, expect in transforming them into the problem of our present situation, that is the problem of interpretation of history. The question of the two natures in Christ must now be posited as concerning the human and the divine in history. Insofar as the picture of the Christ dominates history, this remains a Christological problem. The Church as a living reality must permanently mediate its eternal foundation with the demands of this historical situation. The doctrine of the Christ should not be announced in the abstract, as though formulas expressing it were understandable in all times and all places. The presentation of the message should, on the contrary, be partly moulded on the sort of questions which arises from each historical situation. Christianity is historical in the sense that its timeless good tidings are announced in time; if the content of the message does not change, the form does according to circumstances of time and place. Thus there exists a new historical problem: the influence of history on the forms of the Christian doctrine. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

ImageThe historical power of Christology changes the usual perspective of theologians. Few include an interpretation of history in their Christological treaties. They commonly restrict the historical problem of Christ to be a study of the documents of early Christianity and their reliability as historical sources. This—the first problem we have mentioned is not based on an empirical or scientific study of document. Supposing the documents were discarded, the picture of Jesus as the Christ would remain in the Christian conscience and it would still be true that this picture has dominated history for twenty-one centuries. The second is therefore the basic historical problem. To recognize this one thing; to deem it as important for our times as the question of the two natures of Christ in the patristic era is another. The universal quest for the Christ shapes the cultures of the various historical periods in different patterns. Many factors, among which fate and freedom are constantly interplaying, have influences successive cultures. Always linked, these cultures have nevertheless evolved. Like the surface of the ocean, culture is always the same and always changing. Always the same, it formulates the quest for the Christ, the longing for the eternal the search for the New Being. Always changing, it alters the stress, colour or intensity of this continuous seeking. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

ImageEvery spiritual phenomenon of a period expresses its eternal content and one of the most important characteristics of a time has been defined when we have discovered which of the various aspects of culture is most expressive of its real meaning. The main aspect of modern-day culture is that it is caught in a flux. At the end of the period of autonomy, it hesitates between a return to heteronomy and a search for theonomy. Secular culture has reached the end of its tether in the professed atheism of many modern movements. Many are not merely using the teacher as a spiritual guide, which is quite correct, but also as a material guide, leaning-post, and father-mother, which is quite wrong. They want to shunt their own responsibilities and shift their personal burdens onto the bac of a master or at least to share them with one. Such a concept of discipleships is a wrong one. Also it is an unfair one. Instead of using the master as a source of principles and inspirations to be applied by themselves in practical life, they try to exploit one, to avoid the responsibility for making their own decisions by saddling it upon one’s shoulders. The master cannot solve all their personal problems or carry all their burdens. This task rests with the disciples themselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

ImageTo seek to shift their responsibility for it onto the master’s shoulders is to demand the impossible, the unfair, and the unwise. If successful, it would defeat the very purpose of their incarnation. It would rob hem of the benefit of the experience to which they have been led by their own God. Such excessive reliance on the guide makes one more and more incapable of independent thought and judgment. However, it should be the object of a competent guide to help them develop these very things and grow in spiritual strength, as it should be the ai of a sincere one not dictatorially to rule their conduct but suggestively to elevate it. If they are to advance to higher levels, disciples must learn to rely on their own endeavours. No master can relieve them of this responsibility. It is not the work of a philosophic teacher to save students from having to make decisions for themselves. It is, on the contrary, one’s duty to encourage them to face up to rather than to flee from the responsibility and profit of working out their own solutions. The prudent master will leave them to work out for themselves how to apply philosophy to their personal situations. For one to manage their lives, settle their problems, and negotiate their difficulties might please their egos but would weaken their characters. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

ImageHence, one does not wish to interfere in their lives nor assume responsibility from forming decisions on those personal, domestic, family, employment, and business problems which they ought to arrive at for themselves. At best one can point out the general direction for travel, not supply a definite map; one can lay down the general principles of action and it is for them to find out the best way of applying these principles. The agony of coming to a right judgment is part of the educative process in developing right intuitions. Each experience looked at in this way brings out their independent creative faculty, that is, makes the truly self-reliant. The principles of such solutions are partially in their hands; practical horse-sense must be harnessed to shrewd reason and guided by ethical ideals and intuitions. It is not right for the would-be disciple to take the new relationship as an excuse for releasing oneself from all personal responsibilities, all personal decisions. One should not expect the teacher to accept such a position, to play a role consisting of father and mother and God combined into a single person toward an individual who has reached adult life. It will not help a disciple to let one evade one’s responsibilities and shirk one’s decisions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

ImageIf the atmosphere between them is surcharged with emotion alone without the restraining balances of reason and common sense, this is the kind of situation which is likely to be brought about. A wise teacher will try to meet disciples upon the proper ground between accepting such helpless dependence and rebuffing it brusquely together. Any other meeting would be unhealthy emotionally and unsound intellectually. Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to one’s house, or know one’s mother and brothers and sisters? Why be visited by one at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let one be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from one I want, but not news nor pottage. I can get politics and shat, neighbourly convenience from less expensive companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and as great as nature itself?—There words are just as applicable to the disciple. Whoever entrusts oneself to a master or one’s mind to a teaching, cannot escape one’s own personal responsibility for what one does. This is not to absolve either the guru or the author of the teaching from their own responsibility, which they also have, but it is to make clear that the followers share it too. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

ImageWhen people know the appropriate manners for a given situation and use them, everything is great, and we all move on. When they do not, that is when confusion and hurt feelings can arise. There are four simple steps that help to make people think highly of you from the moment you first greet them: Here they are: Stand up. This is always the start of a good greeting, whether you are a man or a woman. By standing up, you engage the person you are greeting on an equal level—eye to eye. Remaining seated, on the other hand, sends the signal that you think you are more important than the other person and do not need to stand—not the message you want to convey at the start of an interaction, to say the least. If you are seated in a place where getting up is awkward, make a clear attempt to rise and apologize briefly as you greet the other person: “It is a pleasure to meet you, Davey Fisher. Please excuse me—it is a little cramped in here.” If you are meeting someone who is in a wheelchair, bend down as you shake hands to get your eyes to a more even level with his or hers. Smile and make eye contact. A smile indicates warmth, openness, and a genuine interest in the person you are greeting. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

ImageMaking eye contact is also critical. Looking into a person’s eyes shows that you are focused on and interested in that person. Doing the opposite, on the other hand—looking away as you greet someone—will make you appear aloof, disinterested, or rude. State your name and repeat the other person’s name. If you are the person who is initiating the greeting, your opening should be along these lines: “Hello, my nae is Dylan O’Brien.” If you are on the receiving end of the greeting, your response should be something like: “Hi Dylan, I am Parker Gregory. I am pleased to meet you.” If there are others in your group, you might add, “This is Paris Hilton and John Lowe. Please join us. We were just talking about Manifest Destiny and Destiny’s Child.” The key is to offer or acknowledge the spoken greeting, then invite the person joining the group into the conversation. Shake hands. The handshake is symbolic of an agreement not to harm a person. It is a seminal moment in a greeting. The right handshake makes everything flow smoothly. The wrong handshake turns the focus to the error. There are three types of handshakes—only one of which is acceptable: Wrong is the bone crusher handshake. Handshaking should not be a macho contest or a means of showing superiority, and it should never leave the other person in pain or discomfort. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

ImageWrong handshake is the limp-wrist handshake for this handshake makes you feel like the person is a sly and devious and untrustworthy. It conveys neither warmth nor interest. The right handshake is the firm handshake. Grip firmly and warmly, without squeezing hard. Two or three pumps are all that is needed—so do not prolong the event by holding on longer than is necessary. When it is obvious that someone has an injured right arm or is missing a right arm or hand, it is perfectly okay to extend your left hand for a shake. Overly friendly handshakes should be reserved for very good friends. Shaking hands is one of them most time-honoured traditions we have. Not shaking clearly puts all the focus on why you chose not to shake rather than on building a relationship. One of the few times not shaking is not only appropriate but really important is when you have a cold or other communicable disease. If you say something like, “Nicky, please excuse me for not shaking, but I have a cold and do not want to give it to you. It is so nice to meet you,” people will appreciate your honesty and sincerity. Or you might have just sneezed into your hand and not had a chance to get to a washroom. Historically, men were not expected to shake hands with women. Today, as part of meeting and greeting, everyone is expected to shake hands with everybody, and remember to take your gloves off to shake a woman’s hand. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

ImageMaking introductions—there you are talking with someone cute and interesting you have just met at debutante ball, when suddenly your great-aunt Mrs. Betty approaches. Instant panic: You want to make the introduction correctly, but several problems immediately occur: Who do you introduce to whom, how do you do it, and what exactly was Cute-and-interesting’s name, again? The fist bump is very unamerican. High fives, complicated handshake rituals, and hug/shake combinations—these are alternate means of greeting. When you are with friends and people you know who appreciate these forms of greeting, they are acceptable alternatives to the traditional handshake. However, if you do not know the person well, it is a business situation, or you simply are not sure, default to the traditional handshake. Traditionally, American men do not greet each other with a hug, at least not compared to many of their international counterparts. However, that is changing. I see young men enjoying a friendly handshake-hug combo when they meet. As long as both of you are comfortable with the hug, it is okay. Go for it. However, if you sense any hesitancy, do the other guy a favour and back off. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

ImageWho Do You Introduce to Whom: Okay—let us take a deep breath and start at the beginning: Just talk to the more important person first. CORRECT: “Mr. President, I would like to introduce my boss Laurent.” INCORRECT: “Laurent, I would like to introduce the President to you.” When Aunt Betty approaches, first make the decision that she is the more important person in this encounter and say, “Aunt Betty, how nice to see you!” (Kiss, kiss on the cheeks.) “Please, let me introduce cute-and-interesting FOX News Contributor Tomi Lahren to you.” Next, turn to (Cute-and-interesting) Tomi Lahren and say, “Cute-and-interesting,” this is Mrs. Witherspoon, my great-aunt Betty. I am so pleased to introduce you.” Then turn back to Aunt Betty and continue, “Aunt Betty, we were talking about Manifest Destiny and whether Destiny’s Child was a reminder of the prophecy? You just came from Church. What are your thoughts on the subject?” And that is a great opening to start a conversation. God usually exerts that power in connection wit certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favourable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

ImageWe may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the World to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Learning to value, develop, deepen, and use your intellect in the overall process of spiritual transformation is a lot like being an auto science engineer. We have examined the serious problems in society due to an emergence of anti-intellectualism in the body of Christ. We also learned that there are solid biblical grounds for nurturing and developing our intellectual lives. However, if this were all we had, we would be like a person tied to a step-by-step set of instructions. What we need is an understanding of what the mind is and how it fits into the process of human transformation and spiritual growth. The mind is the crucial component in the spiritual journey cannot be accurately denied. One of the first duties of a spiritual guide is to correct the beginner, show where one has mistaken one’s way, and expose all one’s fallacies of thought, feeling, and conduct. A competent guide will be quick to perceive and fearless to point out these matters however unpleasant a duty it be and however unpalatable to the pupil. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

ImageIt is part of the task of a spiritual director to point out tactfully but firmly the faults and deficiencies of one’s disciples, to make them more away of what is needed in their moral self-correction. “And it came to pass that the army of the king returned, having searched in vain for the people of the Lord. And now behold, the forces of the kind were small, having been reduced, and there began to be a division among the remainder of the people. And the lesser part began to breathe out threatenings against the king, and there began to be a great contention among them. And now there was a man among them whose name was Gideon, and he being a strong man and an enemy to the king, therefore he drew his sword, and swore in his wrath that he would slay the king. And it came to pass that he fought with the king; and when the king saw that he was about to overpower him, he fled and ran and got upon the tower which was near the temple. And Gideon pursued after him and was about to get upon the tower to slay the king, and the king cast his eyes round about towards the land of Shemlon, and behold, the army of the Lamanites were within the borders of the land. And now the king cried out in the anguish of his soul, saying: Gideon, spare me, from the Lamanites are upon us, and they will destroy us: yea, they will destroy my people. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

Image“And now the king was not so much concerned about his people as he was about his own life; nevertheless Gideon did spare his life. And the king commanded the people that they should flee before the Lamanites, and he himself did go before them, and they did flee into the wilderness, with their women and their children. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did pursue them, and did overtake them, and began to slay them. Now it came to pass that the king commanded them that all the men should leave their wives and their children, and flee before the Lamanites. Now there were many that would not leave them, but had rather stay and perish with them. And the rest left their wives and their children and fled. And it came to pass that those who tarried with their wives and their children caused that their fair daughters should stand forth and plead with the Lamanites that they would not slay them. And it came to pass that the Lamanites had compassion on them, for they were charmed with the beauty of their women. Therefore the Lamanites did spare their lives, and took them captive and carried them back to the land of Nephi, and granted unto them that they might possess the land, under the conditions that they would deliver up king Noah into the hands of the Lamanites, and deliver up their property, even one half of all they possessed, one half of their gold, and their sliver, and all their precious things, and thus they should pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites from year to years. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

Image“And now there was one of the sons of the king among those that were taken captive, whose name was Limhi. And now Limhi was desirous that his father should not be destroyed; nevertheless, Limhi was not ignorant of the iniquities of his father, he himself being a just man. And it came to pass that Gideon sent humans into the wilderness secretly, to search for the king and those that were with him. And it came to pass that they met the people in the wilderness, all save the king and his priests. Now they had sworn in their hearts that they would return to the land of Nephi, and if heir wives and their children were slain, and also those that had tarried with them, that they would seek revenge, and also perish with them. And the king commanded them that they should not return; and they were angry with the king, and caused that he should suffer, even unto death by fire. And there were about to take the priests also and put them to death, and they fled before them. And it came to pass that they were about to return to the land of Nephi, and they met the men of Gideon. And the men of Gideon told them of all that had happened to their wives and their children; and that the Lamanites had granted unto them that they might possess the land by paying a tribute to the Lamanites of one half of all they possessed. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

Image“And the people told the men of Gideon that they had slain the king, and his priests had fled from them farther into the wilderness. And it came to pass that after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi, rejoicing, because their wives and their children were not slain; and they told Gideon what they had done to the king. And it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites made an oath unto them, that his people should not slay them. And also Limhi, being the son of the king, having the kingdom conferred upon him by the people, made oath unto the king of the Lamanites that his people should pay tribute unto him, even one half of all they possessed. And it came to pass that Limhi began to establish the kingdom and to establish peace among his people. And the king of the Lamanites set guards round about the land, that he might keep the people of Limhi in the land, that they might not depart into the wilderness; and he did support his guards out of the tribute which he did receive from the Nephites. And now king Limhi did have continual peace in his kingdom for the space of two years, that the Lamanites did not molest them nor seek to destroy them,” reports Mosiah 19.1-29. The illusions that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

ImageGlorious God, it is the flame of my life to worship Thee, the crown and glory of my soul to adore Thee, Heavenly pleasure to approach Thee. Give me power by Thy Spirit to help me worship now, that I a forget the World, be brought into fullness of life, be refreshed, comforted, blessed. Please give me knowledge of Thy goodness that I might not be over-awed by Thy greatness; please give me Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, that I might not be terrified, but be drawn near with filial love, with holy boldness; He is my mediator, brother, interpreter, branch, daysman, lamb; Him I glorify, in him I am set on high. Crowns to give I have none, but what Thou hast given I return, content to feel that everything is mine when it is thine, and the more full mine when I have yielded it to Thee. Please let me live wholly to my Saviour, free from distractions, from carking care, from hindrances to the pursuit of the narrow way. I am pardoned through the blood of Jesus—give me a new sense of it, continue to pardon me by it, may I come every day to the fountain, and every day be washed anew, that I may worship Thee always in spirit and truth. O God, Who desirest not the death, but the repentance of sinners, we beseech Thee, in Thy loving-kindness, to turn Thy people to Thyself; that when they devote themselves to Thee, Thou mayest remove the scourges of Thine anger; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

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ImageWe beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to drive away from Thy faithful, together with their own errors, the destructive fury of disease; that as Thou deservedly scourgest them when they go astray, Thou mayest cherish them with Thy pity when they are brought back; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

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You Do Not Love Me, You Do Not Care What Happens to Me! Give the Heaven’s Above More than Just a Passing Glance!

ImageFor some people it is difficult to find peace. They can forgive from their heart of hearts, but find no rest, for then the doubt awakens; they are the one who caused the problem; they are the occasion of the calamity; it was their pride that craved the unusual. Then they repent, but one will find no rest, for then the accusing thoughts acquits one of the charges: the aggressor was the one who with their cunning instilled this plan into their souls. Then the individual hates; one’s heart finds relief in curses, but one still finds no repose. Once again one reproaches oneself—reproaches oneself because one has hated, one who oneself is a sinner, reproaches oneself because regardless of how cunning the aggressor was one’s self always remains guilty. It is oppressive for the individual that someone has decided to deceive them, but still more oppressive, one is almost tempted to say, that one is no longer listens humbly to one’s voice but is able to hear the many voices at the same time. Then recollection awakens in one’s soul, and one forgets blame and guilt; able to recollect the beautiful moments, and is dazed in an unnatural exaltation. With an indescribable but cryptic, blissful, unnamable anxiety, one is able to listen to music the one’s self evoked and yet did not evoke; always there was harmony. Yet, it is terrible that one can scarcely control the anxiety that grips one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

ImageOne is carried along into that kingdom of mist, into that dreamland where one is frightened by one’s own shadow at every moment. Often, futilely trying to tear away from it; following along like an ominous shape, like an accuser who cannot speak. How strange! One has allowed someone else to spread the deepest secrecy over everything, and yet there is an even deeper secrecy, that one’s self is in on the secret and that one came to know I in an unlawful way. To forget the whole thing is not possible. Some Black women are comfortable with the many different ingredients of their identity, and they are women committed to freedom from oppression. They find themselves constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of themselves, and present that as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or deny the other parts of themselves. They do not want to isolate themselves from their White, Hispanic, or Asian counterparts, but would like the ability to be included in the discussion. The need for multiple consciousness in feminist movement—a social movement encompassing law, literature, and everything in between—has long been apparent. Since the beginning of the feminist movement in the United States of America, Black women have been discussing the fact that their experience calls into question the notion of a unitary “women’s experience.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

ImageIn the first wave of the feminist moment, Black women’s realization that White leaders of the suffrage may have not been aware of what women of colour have to suffer with, especially when they do not adhere to typical gender status. However, through conversations, publications of a diverse voice of authors, and television shows and movies, the second wave of Black women are again speaking loudly and persistently, and at many levels their voices have begun to be heard. Feminist have adopted the notion of multiple consciousness as appropriate to describe a World in which people are not oppressed only or primarily on the basis of gender, but also on the basis of race, class, sexual orientation, and other categories in inextricable webs. Moreover, multiple consciousness is implicit in the precepts of the feminism itself. Feminist method starts with the very radical act of taking women seriously, believing that what they say about themselves and their experience is important and valid, even when (or perhaps especially when) it had little or no relationship to what has been or is being said about them. In feminist legal theory, however, the move away from univocal toward multivocal theories of women’s experience and feminism has been slower than other areas. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

ImageIn feminist legal theory, the pull of the second voice, the voice of abstract categorization, is still powerfully strong: “We the People” seems in danger of being replaced by “We the women.” And in feminist legal theory, as in the dominant culture, it is mostly White, heterosexual, and socioeconomically privileged people who speak for all women. Not surprisingly, because of the cries of the unheard are becoming so strong, the story they tell about “women,” despite its claim to universality, seems to actually be becoming more inclusive. Some of the best examples have been in the film in TV industry. Little Fires Everywhere, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington examines the roles of women of different ethnic backgrounds, classes, and socioeconomic backgrounds. How to Get Away With Murder, starring Viola Davis was extremely powerful, especially final episode where she has to defend herself and her lifestyle. The Family That Prey’s Together, Good Deeds, Why Did I Get Married, Temptations: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, by Tyler Perry are also good film the help others to understand the plight of women of colour, as well as Losing Isaiah starring Halle Berry. So even if feminist theories are still catching up to modern times, art is imitating life. And White middle-class women, as well as the rest of the World are becoming more aware of what their sisters have to endure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

ImageThe notion that there is a monolithic “women’s experience” that can be described independent of other facets of experience like race, class, and sexual orientation is called gender essentialism. Gender essentialism is no longer reducing the lives of people who experience multiple forms of oppression because racism, sexism, and homophobia are being discussed and are now better understood by different people all over the World. Those who produce the “story of woman” are making sure they appear in it. They are ensuring that they are storytellers and, in a position, to decide which of all the many facts about women’s lives are going into the story, and which ought to be left out. Women want to make sure that none of their voiced are at the bottom of a hierarchy of oppression. Middle-class American women, tradition suggest, feel emotion more than men do. The definitions of “emotional” and “cogitation” in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language reflect a deeply rooted cultural idea. Yet women are also thought to command “feminine wiles,” to have the capacity to premeditate a sigh, an outburst of tears, or a flight of joy. In general, they are thought to manage expression and feeling not only better but more often than men do. How much the conscious feelings of women and men differ is an issue I leave aside here. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

ImageHowever, women are, in fac, more likely to have access to their emotions. Early in childhood boys but no girls must relinquish their primary identification with the mother. To achieve this difficult task, the boy (but not the girl) must repress feelings associated with the other in the difficult effort to establish himself as “not like mother,” as a boy. The consequence is a repression of feeling generally. The girl, on the other hand, because she enters a social and sexual category the same as that as her mother, does not have to relinquish identification with her or sacrifice her access to feelings through repression. If this interpretation is valid (and I find it plausible), we might expect women to be more in touch with their feelings, which are, as a consequence, more available for conscious management. Men may manage feelings more by subconscious repressing, women more by conscious suppressing. Therefore, the evidence seems clear that most women do more emotion managing than men. And because the well-managed feeling has an outside resemblance to spontaneous feeling, it is possible to confuse the condition of being more “easily affected by emotion” with the action of willfully managing emotion when the occasion calls for it. #Randolphharris 6 of 25

Image Especially in the American middle class, women tend to manage feeling more because in general they depend on men for a level of support, and one of the various ways of repaying their debt is to do extra emotion work—especially emotion work that affairs, enhances, and celebrates the well-being and status of others. When the emotional skills that children learn and practice at home move into the marketplace, the emotional labour of women becomes more prominent because men in general have not been trained to make their emotions a resource and are therefore less likely to develop their capacity for managing feeling. There is also a difference in the kind of emotion work that men and women tend to do. Many studies have also told us that women adapt more to the needs of others and cooperate more than men do. These studied often imply the existence of gender-specific characteristics simply exist passively in women? Or are they signs of a social work that women do—the work of affirming, enhancing, and celebrating the well-being and status of others? I believe that much of time, the adaptive, cooperative women is actively working showing difference. This deference requires her to make an outward display called the “seriously” good girl in her and to support this effort by evoking feelings that make the “nice” display seem more natural. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

ImageGirls are generally trained to be “seriously” good and to be ashamed of being bad whereas boys are asked to be good in formalistic ways but covertly invited to be ashamed of being “too” good. Oversocialization into “sugar-and-spice” demeanor produces feminine skills in delivering deference. Women who want to put their own feelings less at the service of other must still confront the idea that if they do so, they will be considered less “feminine.” What it takes to be more “adaptive” is suggested in a study of college students. Students were asked “If a boy or girl had all the other qualities you desire, would you marry this person if you were not in live with him or her?” In response, 64 percent of men, but only 24 percent of the women said No. Most of the women answered that they “did not know.” As one put it: “I do not know, if he were that good, may I could bring myself around to loving him.” Other research indicates that men have a more romantic orientation to love, women a more realistic orientation. That is, males may find cultural support for a passive construction of love, for seeing themselves as falling head over heels, or walking on air. The female is not pushed hither and yon by her romantic compulsions. On the contrary, she seems to have a greater measure of rational control over her romantic inclinations than the male. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

ImageWomen are more often than men describing themselves as “trying to make myself love,” “talking myself into not caring,” or “trying to convince myself.” A content analysis of 260 protocols showed that more women than men (33 percent versus 18 percent) spontaneously used the language of emotion work to describe their emotions. The image of women as “more emotional,” more subject to uncontrolled feelings, has also been challenged by a study of 250 students at UCLA, in which only 20 percent of the men but 45 percent of the women said that they deliberately show emotion to get their way. This pattern is also socially reinforced. When women sent direct messages (persuading by logic, reason, or an onslaught of information), they were later rated as more aggressive than men who did the same thing. As one woman put it: “I pout, frown, and say something to make the other person feel bad, such as ‘You do not love me, you do not care what happens to me.’ I am not the type to come right out with what I want; I will usually hint around. It is all hope and a lot of beating around the bush.” The emotional arts that women have cultivated are analogous to the art of feigning among those whose wishes outdistance their opportunities for class advancement. As for many others who are less affluent, it has been in the woman’s interest to be the better actor. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

Image The use of feminine wiles (including flattery) is felt to be a psychopolitical style of the subordinate; it is therefore disapproved of by women who have gained a foothold in the man’s World and can afford to disparage what they do no need to use. As the psychologist would say, the techniques of deep acting have usually high “secondary gains.” Yet these skills have long been mislabeled “natural,” a part of woman’s “being” rather than something of her own making. The intensity of devotion rather than the value of offerings must always govern the master’s response. The self-actualized has an official position, which is accompanied by appropriate duties. They include: taking a personal interest in the disciples’ inner welfare and growth; instructing them in the truth, and in the way to its attainment; inspiring them telepathically with glimpses of the higher states; encouraging them to persevere in traveling along the way; warning them against the pitfalls and obstacles. The teacher’s duty is to give direction, provide knowledge, warn against pitfalls, correct errors. It is not one’s duty to save others necessary efforts of will and thinking. The master powerfully removes the sluggishness of the intellect of one’s disciple; clarifies one’s ideas about what is eternal and what is perishable, what is real and what is unreal, what is material and what is mental; and what open to one the realm of truth slowly but unmistakably by constant appeal to one’s reason. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

ImageThe first service of the Master is to point out the way, both inwardly and outwardly, to the disciple. This shortens one’s journey by several lifetimes, which would otherwise have to be spent in wanderings, explorings, gropings, and searchings. It is to expound truth and correct errors, to place an example before the others, and to purify them by one’s company that such a teacher appears in the outer World. Another phase of one’s work is to stimulate the yearning for higher attainment where it exists, and to inculcate it where it does not. Nature, also, mourns for a lost good. “Day unto day utter speech, and night unto night show knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the World. In them has one set a tabernacle for the Sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of one’s chamber, and rejoice as a strong human to run a race,” reports Psalm 19.2-5. It is one’s work to show others what they cannot see for themselves—their own higher possibilities. One’s function is to interpret humans—and more especially spiritual humans—to themselves. One’s task is to make known to other humans their God like possibilities within themselves. One’s mission is not to being humans pleasure, but to raise them to appreciate truth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

ImageThe teacher assists one’s students to attain a degree of concentration beyond that which they are able to achieve by themselves. One detonates the higher potentialities of each disciple, breaks the closed circle of one’s senses, and leads one toward a moral and mystical regeneration. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of one who has subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travels in pain together until now,” reports Romans 9.19-22. The duty of any spiritual teacher is to lead the seeker to God, to find one’s own source of inner light and strength and thus not to lean on outside human beings. A self-actualized individual who is quite competent does help the learner: one shows the way, illuminates problems, untangles knots, dispels confusions, explains meanings, and encourages effort. Tutelage has its place. One who directs anyone’s wakening spiritual faith that person’s teacher. If one guides us to notice hitherto unobserved truths, if one lead our thought and faith away from hitherto strongly held errors, then a teacher fulfills a useful function. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

ImageA teacher’s services include the unveiling and exposing of psychic or mystic experiences which are merely self-suggested or mainly hallucinatory. One cannot do more than help them find and fulfill their own ways to the goal, but it is enough. A teacher has to be firm at some times, gentle at others. “And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth: for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away; and there was no more sea…And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations,” reports Revelations 21.1, 22.1-2. Each year when Good Friday and Easter Sunday approach us our thoughts turn toward the great drama of redemption, culminating in the pictures of the Cross and Resurrection. Who is redeemed? Some humans alone; or humankind, including all nations; or the World, everything that is created, including nature, the stars and the clouds, the winds and the oceans, the stones and the plants, the animals and our own bodies? The Bible speaks again and again of the salvation of the World, as it speaks of the creation of the World, and the subjection of the World to anti-Divine forces. And World means nature as well as humans. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

ImageSo let us ask today: what does nature mean to us? What does it mean to itself? What does it mean to the great drama of creation and salvation? A threefold answer is contained in the words of the psalmist, the apostle and the prophet: the psalmist sings of the glory of nature; the apostle shows the tragedy of nature: and the prophet pronounces the salvation of nature. The hymn of the psalmist praises the glory of God in the glory of nature; the letter of the apostle links the tragedy of nature to the tragedy of humans; and the vision of the prophet sees the salvation of nature in the salvation of the World. So let us listen once more to the words of the psalmist, about the glory of nature, in their precise meaning. “The Heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament shows the work of his hands. Day unto day pour forth the story, night unto night announces the knowledge. There is no speech, no language! Their voice cannot be heard! However, their music goes out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the World.” The 19th Psalm points to an antique belief held by the ancient World and expressed by poets and philosophers: that the Heavenly bodies, the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, produce by their movement a harmony of tines, sounding day and night from one end of the World to the other. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

ImageThese voices of the Universe are not heard by human ears; they do not speak in human language. However, they exist, and we can perceive them through the organs of our spirit. Shakespeare says: “There is not the smallest orb which thou beholds, but in his motion like an angel sings, such harmony is in immortal souls; but whilst this muddy vesture of decay does grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” The psalmist has heard it; he knows that the stars are sounding: the glory of creation and its Divine Ground. Are we able to perceive the hidden voice of nature? Does nature speak to us? Does it speak to you? Or has nature become silent to us, silent to the humans of our period? Some of you may say, “Never before in any period has nature been so open to humans as it is today. The mysteries of the past have become the knowledge of children. Through every scientific book, through every laboratory, through every machine, nature speaks to us. The technical use of nature is the revelation of its mystery.” The voice of nature has been heard by the scientific mind, and the answer is the conquest of nature. However, is this all that nature says to us? If one only arouses the human to recognition of the necessity of taking a new road, a spiritual guide’s duty to an erring human will not be fully carried out. It will not be enough to show one the path. One must also keep them steadfast on the path. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

ImageI was sitting under a tree with a great biologist. Suddenly he exclaimed, “I would like to know something about this tree!” He, of course, knew everything that science had to say about it. I asked him what he meant. And he answered, “I want to know what this tree means for itself. I want to understand the life of this tree. It is so strange, so unapproachable.” He longed for a sympathetic understanding of the life of nature. However, such an understanding is possible only by communion between human and nature. Is such communion possible in our period of history? Is nature not completely subjected to the will and willfulness of humans? This technical civilization, the pride of humankind, has brought about a tremendous devastation of original nature, of the land, of animals, of plants. It has kept genuine nature in small reservations and has occupied everything for domination and ruthless exploitation. And worse: many of us have lost the ability to live with nature. We fill it with the noise of empty talk, instead of listening to its many voices, and, through them, to the voiceless music of the Universe. Separated from the soil by a machine, we speed through nature, catching glimpses of it, but never comprehending its greatness or feelings it power. Who is still able t penetrate, meditating and contemplating, the creative ground of nature? #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

ImageA Chinese emperor asked a famous painter to paint a picture of a rooster for him. The painter assented, but said that it would take a long time. After a year the emperor reminded him of his promise. The painter replied that after a year of studying the rooster he had just begun to perceive the surface of its nature. After another year the artist asserted that he had just begun to penetrate the essence of this kind of life. And so on, year after year. Finally, after ten years of concentration on the nature of the rooster, he painted the picture—a work described as an inexhaustible revelation of the divine group of the Universe in one small part of it, a rooster. Compare the emperor’s wise patience and the painter’s saintly contemplation of an infinitely small expression of the divine life, with the exuberances of our contemporaries, who rush in their cars to some famous view and exclaim, “How lovely!”—referring, no doubt, not to the view, but to their own appreciation of beauty. What blasphemy of the glory of nature! and consequently of the divine ground, the glory of which sounds through the glory of nature. Praising the glory of nature does not mean speaking of the beauty of nature alone and forgetting its overwhelming greatness and terrible power. Nature never manifest shallow beauty or merely obvious harmony. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

ImageWe must try to conform to the humanity, intuition, sensitivity, and the intelligence needed to understand the message from the Universe. One who teachers well, learns oneself. Many of the historical statues in American are representations for hopes of a greater time. The welcoming of the second coming of Christ. Some of these monuments are universally admired and accepted by all people of all nations as the symbol of FREEDOM, and many of these relics evokes a profound veneration and strike a responsive chord from all liberty-loving people everywhere. To make these statues of these great characters and to erect in them that part of the country which gave them their early development and growth into public life is an honour. Human spirit finds its expression through a particular individual, likewise a spirit in finding its self-expression in permanent materials of bronze or stone and deserves to be focalized and located so that they may have a place and standing in our World. When life sinks to a low, these monuments constantly fed the human spirit with hope and promise. The closer the arts bring us to our souls’ ideal the more worthy are they to their exalted mission. These statues bring us in contact with the harmonies of nature, awakening responsive echoes in our innermost souls. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

ImageThis art, these wizard-like creations, revives he ashes of the past, makes us appreciate how far we have some, so we never forget our roots. If we destroy our history, we will forget our past and are doomed to recreate the same mistakes. We have a new wave of immigrants who know nothing about our culture, and these monuments serve as reminders that we must never repeat slavery, genocide, nor economic oppression. They stand for the freedom of this nation and are part of its founding. Without these markers, Americans will lose their way. For instance, no one can find reference to the Prison’s of the River in Sacramento. The only place I found it recorded was on a fading, plastic plague in Sacramento. It was a reference to the Witch Trials that took place in this city in the mid-1800s. The LaGrange served as Sacramento’s jail until November 1859 when it sank in a week-long storm, killing 449 people. There were more than 950 suspected witches and Jewish refugees on board. In February of 1986, archaeologist located what is believed to be wreckage of LaGrange, which was imprisoned by the rip-rap and must, just south of the “I” Street Bridge. Now, it would be nice to have a monument to remember these people and their sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

ImageCertain teachers develop an unhealthy lust for power, imposing their personal will on hapless disciples. The teacher whose motives get mixed up, whose desire to help and serve others twins around one’s desire to gain money, prestige, influence, or power is one who begins to teach before one is ready to do so. Both one and one’s disciples will have to pay the price for one’s premature activities. It is better to have no teacher at all than to have one who has psychologized oneself into the delusion that one has reached the God-realized state, who mistakes self-deception for self-realization. The Saints become the sons and daughters of Christ through faith—they are then called by the name of Christ—King Benjamin exhorts them to be steadfast and immovable in good works. About 124 Before Christ. “And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin has thus spoken to this people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken unto them. And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou has spoken unto us; and also, we know their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

Image“And we, ourselves, also, though the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things. And it is the faith which we have had on things which our kind has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days, that we may not bring upon ourselves a never-ending torment, as has been spoken by the Angel, that we may not drink out of the cup of the wrath of God. And now, these are the words which king Benjamin desired of them; and therefore he said unto them: Ye have spoken the words that I desired; and the covenant which ye have made is a righteous covenant. And now, because of the covenant which ye shave made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he has spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and daughters. And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

Image“There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives. And it shall come to pass that whosoever does this shall be found at the right hand of God, for one shall know he name by which one is called; for one shall be called by the name of Christ. And now it shall come to past, that whosoever shall not take upon one the name of Christ must be called by some other name; therefore, one finds oneself on the left hand of God. And I would that ye should remember also, that this is the name that I said I should give unto you that never should be blotted out, except it be through transgression; therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress, that the name be not be blotted out of your hearts. I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts, that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which God shall call you. For how knows a human the master who one has not served, and who is a stranger unto one, and is far from the thoughts and intents of one’s heart? And again, does a human take a mule which belongs to one’s neighbour, and keep him or her? #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

Image“I say unto you, Nay; one will not even suffer that one shall feed among one’s flocks, but will drive one away, and cast one out. I say unto you, that even so shall it be among you if ye know not the name by which ye are called. Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, hat you may be brought to Heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of one who created all things, in Heaven and in Earth, who is God above all. Amen,” reports Mosiah 5.1-15. Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the World who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behaviour. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do—it might be poor because you might not have very much within you to give, or to help people with, or to live your life with. However, as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

ImageO my Lord, please forgive me for serving Thee in sinful ways—by glorying in my own strength, by forcing myself to minister through necessity, by accepting the applause of others, by trusting in assumed grace and spiritual affection, by a faith that rests upon my hold on Christ, not on Him along, by having another foundation to stand upon besides Thee; for thus I make flesh my arm. Please help me to see that it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed, that faith brings a human nearer to Thee, raising  Him above mere human, that Thou does act upon the soul when thus elevated and lifted out of itself, that faith centres in Thee as God all-sufficient, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, as Go efficient, mediately, as in Thy commands and promises, immediately, in all the hidden power that faith sees and knows to be in Thee, abundantly, with omnipotent effect, in the revelation of Thy will If I have not such faith I am nothing. It is m duty to set Thee above all others in the mind and eye; but it is my sin that I place myself above Thee. Lord, it is the special evil of sin that every breach of Thy laws arises from contempt of Thy Person, from despising Thee and Thy glory, from preferring things before Thee. Please help me to abhor myself in comparison of Thee, and please keep me in a faith that words by love, and serves by grace. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

ImageI give Thee thanks, O Lord, holy Father, Almighty, everlasting God, Who hast refreshed me with the most holy Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and I pray that this Sacrament of our salvation, which I, unworthy sinner have received, may not turn to my judgment nor condemnation, according to my deserts, but to the profit of my body and soul, unto life eternal. Lord Jesus Christ, Almighty and everlasting God, please be merciful to my sins through my reception of Thy Body and Blood. For Thou has said, “He that Eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood dwells in Me, and I in One.” Therefore I humbly beseech Thee to create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me, and strength me with Thy free Spirit, and cleanse me from all vices and the crafts of the devil, that I may attain to the partaking of Heavenly joys; Who lives and reigns in God. The person who constantly tries to make other persons over into a copy of oneself, who tries to change their living habits or thinking-ways into the same as one’s own, who seeks zealously to proselytize their religious beliefs, is too often merely asserting one’s own ego and practising a subtler, more self-deceptive form of egotism. If one really felt love for them, as one often professes, one would leave their freedom to choose what suit them, not thrust oneself and one’s own beliefs aggressively upon them. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25Image

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

ImageBrighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.

ImageLocated off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.

ImageBest of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an “All-Ready” connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we will gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/home-site-79/

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Know Your Prices, Keep Smiling, Create an Alarm–There is More than One Way to Arrive at a Redemption from Phoniness!

ImageThe doctrine that maintains that what I cannot have I must teach myself not to desire; that a desire eliminated or successfully resisted, is as good as a desire satisfied, seems to me a sublime form of the doctrine of sour grapes: What I cannot be sure of, I cannot truly want. Complex modern democratic societies the Second World War face the task of securing three public goods. These are legitimacy, economic welfare, and a viable sense of collective identity. These are “goods” in the sense that their attainment is considered worthy and desirable by most members of such societies; furthermore, not attaining one or a combination thereof would cause problems in the functioning of these societies such as to throw them into crises. These goods stand in a complex relation to one another: excessive realization of one such good may be in conflict with may jeopardize the realization of others. For example, economic welfare may be attained at the cost of sacrificing legitimacy by curtailing union rights, by limiting a more rigorous examination of business accounting practices, or by encouraging the unfair use of protectionist state measures. Too great an emphasis on collective identity may come at the cost of marginalized workers and dissidents whose civil and political rights may be impinged upon by a revival of a sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

ImageThus legitimacy claims and collective identity demands, particularly if they take a nationalist tone, may come into conflict. There can also be conflicts between the claims of economic welfare and the demands of collective identity, as when excessive forms of protectionism and nationalism isolate countries in the World economic context, possibly leading to declining standards of living. Conversely, too great an emphasis on economic welfare may undermine a sense of collective identity by increasing competition among social groups and by weakening the claims of political sovereignty vis-à-vis other state. In a well-functioning democratic society the demands of legitimacy, economic welfare, and collective identity ideally exist in some form of equilibrium. The present essay is concerned with one good among others which democratic societies must attain: the good of legitimacy. I am concerned to examine the philosophical foundations of the democratic legitimacy. I will argue that legitimacy in complex democratic societies must be thought to result from the free and unconstrained public deliberation of all about matter of common concern. Thus a public sphere of deliberation about matters of mutual concern is essential to the legitimacy of democratic institutions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

ImageDemocracy, in my view, is best understood as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power in the major institutions of a society on the basis of the principle that decisions affecting the well being of a collectivity can be viewed as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals considered as moral and political equals. Certainly any definition of essentially contested concepts like democracy, freedom, and justice is never a mere definition; the definition itself already articulates the normative theory that justifies the term. Such is the cause with the preceding definition. My understanding of democracy privileges a deliberative model over other kinds of normative considerations. This is not to imply that economic welfare, institutional efficiency, and cultural stability would not be relevant in judging the adequacy of a normative definition of democracy. Economic welfare claims and collective identity needs must also be satisfied for democracies to function over time. However, the normative basis of democracy as a form of organizing our collective life is neither the fulfillment of economic welfare nor the realization of a stable sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

ImageFor just as the attainment of certain levels of economic welfare may be compatible with authoritarian political rule, so too antidemocratic regimes may be more successful in assuring a sense of collective identity than democratic ones. The practical rationality embodied in democratic institutions has a culture-transcending validity claim. This form of practical reason has become the collective and anonymous property of cultures, institutions, and traditions as a result of the experiments and experiences, both ancient and modern, with democratic rule over the course of human history. The insights and perhaps illusions resulting from these experiments and experiences are sedimented in diverse constitutions, institutional arrangements, and procedural specifics. When one think through the form of practical rationality at the core of democratic rule, Hegel’s concept of “objective Spirit” (objekiver Geist) appears to me particularly appropriate. The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective—the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of this latter consists—partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing—partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

ImageWhen these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective freedom exists as the covertly and overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom—where self-conscious liberty has become nature. The consciously free substance, in which the absolute “ought” is no less an “is,” has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The abstract disruption of this spirit singles it out into persons, whose independence it, however, controls and entirely dominates from within. However, the person, as an intelligent being, feels that underlying essence to be one’s own very being—ceases when so minded to be a mere accident of it—looks upon it as one’ absolute final aim. In its actuality one sees not less an achieved present, than somewhat one brings about by one’s action—yet somewhat which without all question is. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs one’s duty as one’s own and as something which is; and in this necessity one has oneself and one’s actual freedom. It is the rationality intrinsic to these anonymous yet intelligible rules, procedures and practices that any attempt aiming at the reconstruction of the logic of democracies must focus upon. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

ImageThe more we realize what infinite harm neurotic conflicts inflict on the personality, the more stringent appears the need truly to resolve them. However, since, as we now understand, this cannot be done by rational decision nor by evasion nor by the exertion of will power, how can it be done? There is only one way: the conflicts can be resolved only by changing those conditions within the personality that brought them into being. This is a radical way, and a hard one. In view of the difficulties involved in changing anything within ourselves, it is quite understandable that we should scour the ground for short cuts. Perhaps that is why individuals—and others as well—so often ask: If one sees one’s basic conflict, is that enough? The answer is clearly, no. Even when the analyst—discerning quite early in the analysis just how the individual is divided—is able to help one recognize this split, the insight is of no immediate profit. It may bring a certain relief in that the individual begins o see a tangible reason for one’s troubles instead of simply being lost in a mysterious haze; but one cannot apply it to one’s life. A perception of how one’s divergent parts operate and interfere with one another makes one no les divided. One hears these facts as one hears a strange message; it seems plausible, but one cannot realize its implications for oneself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

ImageOne is bound to invalidate the facts by manifold unconscious mental reservations. Unconsciously one will insist that the analyst is exaggerating the magnitude of one’s conflicts; that one would be quite all right if it were not for outside circumstances; that love or success would rid one of one’s distress; that one can evade one’s conflicts by keeping away from people; that though it may be true of ordinary folk that they cannot serve two masters, one with one’s unlimited powers of will and intelligence could manage to do so. Or one may feel-again unconsciously—that the analyst is a charlatan or a well-meaning fool, feigning professional cheerfulness; that one ought to know the individual is ruined beyond repair—which means that the individual responds to the analyst’s suggestions with one’s own feelings of hopelessness. Since such mental reservations point to the fact that the individual either clings to one’s particular attempts at solution—these being much more real to one than the conflicts themselves—or that one fundamentally despairs of recovery, all the attempts and all their consequences must be worked through before the basic conflict can profitably be tackled. The search for an easier road has given rise to another questions, lent weight by Dr. Freud’s emphasis on genesis: Is it enough to relate these conflicting drives—once they have been recognized—to their origins and early manifestations in the childhood situation? #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

ImageAgain the answer is, no—and again, for the most part, the same reasons apply. Even the most detailed recollection of one’s early experiences gives the individual little beyond a more lenient, ore condoning attitude toward oneself. It in no way make one’s present conflicts any less disrupting. A comprehensive knowledge of early environmental influences and the changes they effected in the child’s personality, though it has little direct therapeutic values, does have a bearing on our inquiry into the conditions under which neurotic conflicts develop. As is generally recognized, this knowledge is also of great prophylactic value. If we know what environmental factors are helpful to a child’s development and what factors delay and limit it, a way is opened to the prevention of the rank growth of neuroses in future generations. It was, after all, the changes in one’s relations with oneself and others that originally brought about the conflicts. Briefly, a child may find oneself in a situation that threatens one’s inner freedom, one’s spontaneity, one’s feeling of security, one’s self-confidence—in short the very core of one’s psychic existence. One feels isolated and helpless, and as a result one’s first attempts to relate oneself to others are determined not by one’s real feelings but by strategic necessities. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

ImageOne cannot simply like or dislike, trust or distrust, express one’s wishes or protest against those of others, but has automatically to devise ways to cope with people and to manipulate them with minimum damage to oneself. The fundamental characteristics that evolve in this way may be summarized as an alienation from the self and others, a feeling of helplessness, a pervasive apprehensiveness, and a hostile tension in one’s human relations that ranges from general wariness to definite hatred. As long as these conditions persist, the neurotic cannot possibly dispense with any of one’s conflicting drives. On the contrary, the inner necessities from which they stem become even more stringent in the course of the neurotic development. The fact that the pseudo solutions increase the disturbance in one’s relations with others and with oneself means that real solutions become less and less attainable. The goal of therapy, therefore, can only be o change the conditions themselves. The neurotic must be helped to retrieve oneself, to become aware of one’s real feelings and wants, to evolve one’s own set of values, and to relate oneself to others on the basis of one’s feelings and convictions. If we could achieve this by some magic, the conflicts would be dispelled without their having even to be touched upon. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

ImageAs there is no magic, we must know what steps have to be taken to being about the desired change. Therapy affords insight and helps the individual grow. It helps makes one more empathic and gives theory more experiential meaning. If affords more faith in one’s understanding life. The real aristocrats among those in therapy are those who have had nervous breakdowns. Everybody else is kind of “square.” Therapy can yield a fuller awareness of the extent to which one has been inauthentic in one’s everyday existence, and some help and encouragement to dare to be genuine in one’s everyday existence. This experience can also be gotten out of a good platonic relationship, probably. There is more than one way to arrive at redemption from phoniness. Such experience can enhance one’s sensitivity to phoniness, to inauthenticity in another person; and it also gives one an opportunity to be a role model of authenticity of others. Now, if you can get this courage to be authentic in some way other than therapy, so much the better; but I suspect it is rather difficult to. There may be some wise seniors who have knocked around a lot, and who have worked in every kind of work—who have cheated, lied, stolen, and sinned. They have paid the consequences of all these things #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

ImageAfter paying the consequences for their bad behaviour, on their own, they may have realized how they shortchanged themselves. They may have arrived at the authentic way, and can be regarded as natural untrained graduates of a therapeutic program. Since they have been one, they can spot phony. They are experts. They are more expert at phoniness than the others. They can help an individual grope for a way to be more genuine and at the same tie be effective in life. They can help a person realize that one does not have to be destroyed when one is genuine, that one will not inevitably be divorced, fired, or run out of town if one presents oneself as one is In 50 or 60 years, a human may discover authenticity and have some therapeutic capacity. However, a training analysis or bout of therapy may expedite this. The corporate World has a toe and heel, and each performs a different function: one delivers a service, the other collects payment for it. When an organization seeks to create demand for a service and then deliver it, it uses the smile and the soft questioning voice. Behind this delivery display, the organization’s worker is asked to feel sympathy, trust, and good will. On the other hand, when the organization seeks to collect money for what it has sold, its workers may be asked to use a grimace and the raised voice of commands. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

ImageBehind this collection display of beneficial and comforting emotions and expressions, the worker is asked to feel distrust and sometime positive bad will. Some companies assign the function of debt collecting to outside agencies in order to preserve pleasant and morally satisfying associations with the company name. The builder’s billing department explained: “We use eight or nine collection agencies around the country. No one initiates actions in this office. We prefer that the agency be the bad guy or gal and we be he nice people.” Just over 1 percent of customers do not pay their bills. After solicitations, some 40 percent pay, and 33 percent of that goes to the collection agency. In each kind of display, the problem for the worker becomes how to create and sustain the appropriate feeling. The reason for describing the polar extremes of emotional labour, as represented by a sale agent and the bill collector, is that it can give us a better sense of the great variety of emotional task required by jobs that fall in between. It can help us see how emotional labour distributes itself up and down the social classes and how parents can train children to do the emotional labour required by different jobs. Now this is tremendously important for us today as it has been in the past. Perhaps we are in a time when it is more important that ever. The prospering of God’s cause on Earth depends upon His people thinking well. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

ImageToday we are apt to downplay or disregard the importance of good thinking to strong faith; and some, disastrously, even regard thinking as opposed to faith. They do not realize that in so doing they are not honoring God, but simply yielding to the deeply anti-intellectualist currents in the New World. They do not realize that they are operating on the same satanic principle that produced the “killing fields” of Cambodia, where those with any sign of education—even the wearing of glasses—were killed on the spot or condemned to starvation and murderous labour. We too easily forget that it is great thinkers who have given direction to the people of Christ in their great moments: Paul, John, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, to name a few. At the head of the list is Jesus Christ Himself, who was and is the most powerful thinker the World has ever known. Logical is a great design of a noble science that allows us to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy slavery and darkness; and thus, with all due submission and deference, it offers an humble assistance to divine revelation. Its chief business is to relieve the natural weakness of the mind by some better efforts of nature; it is to diffuse a light over the understanding in our inquiries after truth. And it renders its daily service to wisdom and virtue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

ImageBluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favours evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally “hell to pay.” That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of the World history. To take the “information” of the Scripture into a mind thinking straight under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, by contrast, is to place our feet solidly on the high road of spiritual formation under God. “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes,” reports Psalm 19.7-8. And “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee,” reports Psalm 119.11. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” reports Psalm 119.105. “I love Thy commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything,” reports Psalm 119.127-128. “Those who love Thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble,” reports Psalm 119.165. Worship does not just “happen.” Worship requires careful preparation on the part of minister and congregations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

ImageI have experienced both side of this, and I know Sunday morning can be the worst time of the week. It is probably true that couples, especially those with young children, have more disagreements on Sunday morning than on any other day of the week. Sometimes by the time we get to church, worship is an impossibility—unless, perhaps, the sermon is on repentance! The answer to the problem begins Saturday (on Friday night for those who attend church on Saturday) preparation. (Any men who interpret the following as women’s work are wrong. Both husband and wife should share responsibility for the practical and spiritual preparations for the Lord’s Day.) It is advisable that young families have their clothing clean and laid out of Saturday (or Friday) night, and even breakfast be decided upon. The whereabouts of Bibles and lessons should be known, and even better, ought to be collected and ready. There should be an agreed-upon time to get up which leaves plenty of time to get ready for church. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is also a good idea. Spiritually, prayer about the Lord’s Day is essential—prayer for the service, the music, the pastors, one’s family and one’s self. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

ImageThe Puritans understood this well. As one of their great preachers, George Swinnock, quaintly expressed it: Prepare to meet thy God, O Christian! Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday (of Friday) night. The oven of thine heart thus baked, as it were, overnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when thou wentest to bed, would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldst rise. If thou wouldst thus leave thy heart with God on the Saturday (or Friday) night, thou shouldst fine it with him in the Lord’s Day morning. On Sunday (or Saturday) everyone needs to get up on time, eat at a set hour, and leave plenty early, ideally after a short time of family prayer asking that God will be glorified and speak to each family member. If you do this, Sunday (or Saturday) worship will ascend to new heights. Next you ought to come expecting to uniquely meet God in corporate worship. Congregational worship makes possible an intensity of devotion which does no as readily come in individual worship. On the tragic level, a mob tends to descend to a much deeper level of cruelty than individuals by themselves. It is also understood that the appreciation and enjoyment of an informed group of music lovers at a symphony is more intense than that of a single listener at home. This holds true for worship as well, because corporate worship provides a context where passion is joyously elevated and God’s Word comes with unique power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Image“At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigour in me, but in church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through,” reports Martin Luther. We must come with great expectation—for we will experience just what we expect. Anything may be found in symbol. However, how do we know that what it points to is not itself a more abstract symbol. In order to speak of symbolic knowledge one must delimit the symbolic realm by an unsymbolic statement. Were there no limit to symbolism, there would be no knowledge either. Faith would imply an indefinite progress from symbol to further symbol, without any ultimate encounter with the Unsymbolic. That is, it would be a regress, an acknowledgement of the ultimacy of despair, of the impossibility of making sense out of the human situation, of the universal fallacy of thinking that revelatory situations truly are revelatory, or revelation without content. Some argue that the human intellect is fallen, depraved, darkened, and blinded, and therefore human reason is irrelevant or suspect when it comes to becoming or growing as a Christian. Now, even if this point is granted in the case of evangelizing unbelievers, it does not follow that Christians should not use or cultivate their intellects once they become disciples. Moreover, from the fact that reasoning alone will not bring someone to Christ, it does not follow that we should not persuade or reason with people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

ImagePreaching alone will not save people without the Spirit’s work, but will still preach and work on our messages. We should do the same thing with our use of reason in evangelism. This will is fallen and depraved too, but God still commands people to make a choice to believe. The doctrine of total depravity does not mean that the image of God is effaced, that sinners are as evil as they could possibly be, or that the intellect, emotions, and will are gone or completely useless. Rather, total depravity means that the entire person, including the intellect, has been adversely affected by the Fall and is separate from God. The sinner alone cannot extricate oneself from this condition and cannot merit God’s favour or commitment oneself to God on the basis of one’s own righteousness. Further, the entire personality is corrupt but no inoperative, and every aspect of our personality has a natural inclination to fun in ways contrary to God’s ways. However, none of this means that reason, considered itself, is bad. “Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which he spake unto this house of Israel, saying: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord. For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a human took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and became to decay. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Image“And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive three began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not. And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to its word. And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck off those branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire hat they may be burned. And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will; and it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself; wherefore, I will take these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will. Take thou branches of the wild olive tree, and graft them in, in the stead thereof; and these which I have plucked off I will cast into the fire and burn them, that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

Image“And it came to pass that the servant of the Lord of the vineyard did according to the word of the Lord of the vineyard, and grafted in the branches of the wild olive tree. And the Lord of the vineyard caused that is should be digged about, and pruned, and nourished, saying unto his servants: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, that perhaps I might preserve them unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself; for it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way, and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And it came to pass that a long time passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labour in the vineyard. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard, and also the servant, went down into the vineyard to labour. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Behold, look here; behold the tree. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard looked and beheld the tree in the which the wild olive branches had been grafted: and it had sprung forth and begun to bear fruit. And he beheld that it was good; and the fruit thereof was like unto the natural fruit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

Image“And he said unto the servant: Behold, the branches of the wild have taken hold of the moisture of the root thereof, that the root thereof hath brought forth much strength; and because of the much strength of the root thereof the wild branches have brought forth tame fruit. Now, if we had not grafted these branches, the tree therefore would have perished. And now, behold, I shall lay up much fruit, which the tree thereof I shall lay up against the season, unto mine own self. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Come, le us go to the nethermost part of the vineyard and behold if the natural branches of the tree have not brought forth much fruit also, that I make lay up of the fruit thereof against the season, unto mine own. And it came to pass that they went forth whither the master had hid the natural branches of the tree, and he said unto the servant: Behold these; and he beheld the first that it had brought forth much fruit; and he beheld also that it was good. And he said unto the servant: Take of the fruit thereof, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self; for behold, said he, this long time have I nourished it, and it hath brought for much fruit,” reports Jacob 5.1.20. O Taste and see how good the Lord is Alleluia. Bless the Lord in the Heavens, Alleluia. Bless Him in the highest, Alleluia. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

ImageBless the Lord, all ye Angels of His, Alleluia. Bless Him, all His host, Alleluia. What blessings or thanksgiving can we offer for this Sacrament? Thee only, O Jesus, do we bless, with the Father and the most Holy Spirit, now and forever. Blessed Creator, Thou hast promised Thy beloved sleep: Please give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; if dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let Thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of His holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grace, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to Thy presence. Weaken my attachment to Earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; as pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with Thee. All glory for this precious hope; for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not Thy mercies in the night season; Thy hand never weariness, Thy power needs no repose, Thine eye never sleeps. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

ImageHelp me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by person anxieties. Show Thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; Thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to Thee awake or asleep. “For, as I have often old you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on Earthly things. However, our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to being everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body, reports Philippians 3.18-21. Chris is administering the Bread of the Saints and the Cup of life for remissions of sins. Thou art Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who wast born of the Virgin Mary. While we receive this most holy Cup, please deliver us from all sin. The Spiritual dispeller of darkness, the Spiritual Father is not only holy Himself but is also an experienced teacher of the way to holiness for others. One who takes upon oneself the task of guiding disciples should possess sure-footed experience gained by years of work with the most varied kinds of apprentices. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23Image

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Humans were Born Free, and Everywhere Humans are in Chains!

ImageWhen people are regarded superficially their differences are accentuated. However, as we understand each other, differences fade and the oneness of humans emerges—the same needs, the same fears, the same struggles, the same desires. Here comes everybody! Education stands firmly as the cornerstone of our great nation. A commitment to education is a commitment to our children and their future. Our children are our most precious resource and we, as citizens and communities, must never forget that the skills and knowledge we provide our children with today will become the foundation of tomorrow. We must make certain that the opportunity for a quality education is available for all children. The dedication and tireless efforts put forth by our educators to enhance the learning process is essential to the growth and prosperity of our communities and our nation. If you lecture upon morality, or political economy, official bodies will be found to make this request to the Government: That henceforth science be taught not only with sole reference to free exchange (to liberty, property, and justice), as has been the case up to the present time, but also, and especially, with reference to the facts of legislation (contrary to liberty, property, and justice) that regulate French industry. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

ImageThat, in public lecterns salaried by the treasury, the professor abstain rigorously from endangering the slightest degree the respect duet to the laws now in force. So that is a law exists that sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or plunder, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned—for how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect that it inspires? Still further, mortality and political economy must be taught in connection with this law—that is, under the supposition that it must be just, only because it is law. Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is that it gives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in general, to politics, properly so called, an exaggerated importance. I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. However, I shall confine myself, by way of an illustration, to bringing it to bear upon a subject which has of late occupied everybody’s mind: universal suffrage. Whatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the school of Rousseau, which professes to be very far advanced, but which I consider 20 centuries behind, universal suffrage (taking the word in its strictest sense) is not one of those scared strict and rigid doctrines with respect to which examination and doubt are crimes. Serious objections may be made to it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

ImageIn the first place, the word universal conceals a gross sophism. There are, in France, 67,000,000 inhabitants. To make the right of suffrage universal, 67,000,000 electors should be reckoned. The most extended system reckons only 18,000,000. Approximately 74 percent, then, are excluded. Upon what principle is this exclusion founded? Upon the principle of incapacity. Universal suffrage, then, means: universal suffrage of those who are capable. In point of fact, who are the capable? Are age, gender, and judicial condemnation the only conditions to which incapacity is to be attached? On taking a nearer view of the subject, we may soon perceive the reason why the right of suffrage depends upon the presumption of incapacity; the most extended system differing from the most restricted in the conditions on which this incapacity depends, and which constitutes not a difference in principle, but in degree. This motive is, that the elector does not stipulate for oneself, but for everybody. If, as the republicans of the Greek and Roman tone pretend, the right of suffrage had fallen to the lot of every one at one’s birth, it would be an injustice to adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why were women in the past, and minors currently prevented from voting? Because they are presumed to be incapable. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

ImageAnd why is incapacity a reason for exclusion from voting? Because the elector does not reap alone the responsibility of one’s vote; because every vote engages and affects the community at large; because the community has a right to demand some assurances, as regards the acts upon which its well-being and its existence depend. I know what might he said in answer to this. I know what might be objected. However, this is not the place to settle a controversy of this kind. What I wish to observe is that, that this same controversy (in common with the greater part of political questions) that agitates, excites, and unsettles the nations, would lose almost all its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and all properties to be respected—if it were merely the organization of individual right and individual defense—if it were the obstacle, the check, the chastisement opposed to all oppression, to all plunder—is it likely that we should dispute much, as citizens, on the subject of the greater or lesser universality of suffrage? Is it likely that it would compromise that greatest of advantages, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would not quietly wait for their turn? Is it likely that the enfranchised classes would be very jealous of their privileges? And is it not clear, that the interest of all being one and the same, some would act without much inconvenience to others? #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

ImageHowever, if the fatal principle should come to be introduced, that, under pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to the wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the ship owners, or artist and comedians; then certainly, in this case, there is no class which may not try, and with reason, to place its hand upon the law, that would not demand with fury its right of election and eligibility, and that would overturn society rather than not obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will prove to you that they have an incontestable title to it. They will say: “We never buy wine, tobacco, or salt, without paying the tax, and a part of this tax is given by law in perquisites and gratuities to humans who are rich than we are. Others make use of the law to create an artificial rise in the price of bread, land, meat, dairy, fuel, water, iron, or cloth. Since everybody traffic in law for one’s own profit, we should like to do the same. We should like to make it produce the right to assistance, which is the less affluent human’s plunder. To effect this, we ought to be electors and legislators, that we may organize, on a large scale, alms for our own class, as you have organized, on a large scale, protection for yours. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

Image“Do not tell us that you will take cause upon yourselves, and throw to us $1,400,000 francs to keep us quiet, like giving us a bone to pick. We have other claims, and, at any rate, we wish to stipulate for ourselves, as other classes have stipulated for themselves!” How is this argument to be answered? Yes, as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate property instead of securing it, everybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to defend oneself against plunder, or to organize it for one’s own profit. The political question will always be prejudicial, predominant, and absorbing; in a word, there will be fighting around the door of the Legislative Palace. The struggle will be no less furious within it. To be convinced of this, it is hardly necessary to look at what passes in the Chambers in France and England; it is enough to know how the question stands. With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realize the general good by general plunder. The Socialists say, since the law organizes justice, why should it not organize labour, instruction, and religion? Why? Because it could not organize labour, instruction, and religion, without disorganizing justice. For remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of the law cannot properly extend beyond the domain of force. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

ImageWhen law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing upon one but a mere negation. They only oblige one to abstain from doing harm. They violate neither one’s personality, one’s liberty, nor one’s property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the property of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend the equal right of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be disputed. This is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me, to say that the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign, is to use an expression that is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, the aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is not justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The results from the absence of the other. However, when the law, through the medium of its necessary agent—force—imposes a form of labour, a method or a subject of instruction, a creed, or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts positively upon humans. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own will, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiative. They have no nee to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does all that for them. The intellect is for them a useless encumbrance; they cease to be humans; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

ImageTry to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, that is not a violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, that is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organize labour and industry without organizing injustice. When, from the seclusion of one’s office, a politician takes a view of society, one is struck with the spectacle of inequality that presents itself. One mourns over the sufferings that are the lot of so many of our brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by the contrast of luxury and wealth. One ought, perhaps, to task oneself whether such a social state has not been caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of conquests; and by plunder of more recent times, effected though the medium of the laws? One ought to ask oneself whether, granting the aspiration of all humans to well-being and improvement, the reign of justice would not suffice to realize the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility that God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice? One never gives this thought. One’s mind turns towards combinations, arrangements, legal or factitious organization. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

ImageOne seeks the remedy in perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil. For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any one of these legal arrangements that does not contain the principle of plunder? You say, “There are people who have no money,” and you apply to the law. However, the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it. If everyone draws from it only the equivalent of what one has contributed to it, your law, it is true, is no plunder, but it does nothing for people who want money—it does not promote equality. It can only be an instrument of plunder. Examine, in the light, the protection of tariffs, subsidies, right to profit, right to labour, right to assistance, free public education, progressive taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will always find at the bottom legal plunder, organized injustice. You say, “There are people who want knowledge,” and you apply to the law. However, the law is not a torch that sheds light that originates within itself. It extends over a society where there are people who have knowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and other who are disposed to teach. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

ImageThe law can only do one of two things; either allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, id est, let this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else preempt the will of the people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay professors commissioned to instruct others for free. However, in this second case, there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and property—legal plunder. You say, “Here are people who are wanting in mortality or religion,” and you apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a violent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters? As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compliancy, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. However, what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

ImageIn any encounter of humans with humans, power is active, the power of the personal radiation, expressed in language and gestures, in the glance of the eye and the sound of the voice, in face and figure and movement, expressed in what one is personally and what one represents socially. Every encounter, whether friendly or hostile, whether benevolent or indifferent, is in some way, unconsciously or consciously, a struggle of power with power. In this struggle decisions are made continuously about the relative power of being, actualized in all those who are involved in the struggle. Creative justice does not deny these encounters and the conflicts implicit in them. For this is the price which must be paid for the creativity of life. Such struggles start in the life of an individual in the moment of one’s conception and go on up to the moment of one’s last breath. They permeate one’s relations to everything and everybody one encounters. Justice is the form in which these struggles lead to ever-changing decision about the power of being in each of the struggling beings. The impression given by this picture, the truth of which can hardly be denied, is the complete dependence of justice in personal encounters on the power of relation between person and person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

ImageHowever, this impression is false because it does not take into consideration that every being which enters the struggle of power with power has already a definite power of being. It is a plant and not a stone, a beast and not a tree, a man and not a dog, a female and not a male. These and innumerable other qualities are given before the struggle in the personal encounter starts and they are the basis for the intrinsic claim for justice, which every being has. However, this claim has a large margin of indefiniteness, rooted in the dynamic side of every power of a being. And it is this undefined element in the power of a being about which new decision are always me. This of course is also the source of all injustice. If the new decision destroy the essential claim of a being, they are unjust. It is not unjust that in the struggle between power and power one of the beings involved shows a superior power of being. The manifestation of this fact is not unjust but creative. However, injustice occurs if in this struggle the superior power uses its power for the reduction or destruction of the inferior power. This can happen in all forms of personal encounters. Most frequent are those forms in which the personal encounter occurs within the frame of an institutional structure and the preservation and growth of the institution gives the pretext for unjust compulsion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

ImageThere is unjust psychological compulsion in family relations, in educational relations and in all other authority relations. It often happens that parents who look at a young child with an especially severe or angry expression become responsible for a life-long abnormal anxiety of the child. It feels rejected and loses any self-assurance concerning the power and justice of its own being. Its just claims are repressed or transformed into unjust ones, exempli gratia unconscious destructiveness against itself or against others. This, on the other hand, gives the parents a feeling of being resisted or avoided by the child. Their intrinsic claim as parents is not fulfilled either. Authority can, besides its external compulsory power, exercise a psychological compulsion which conflicts with the justice of person-to-person encounters. Here the large problem arises as to whether there is a type of authority which is, by its very nature, unjust, and another one which is by its very nature just. This seems to be the case: there is “authority in principle” and there is “authority in fact.” Authority in principle means that a person has authority by the place one occupies and that one is beyond criticism because of the place. So—to give the most famous example—the Pope as Pope is ultimate authority for every Catholic believer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

ImageThus, the Bible as Bible is ultimate authority for every orthodox Protestant. Thus, the dictator as dictator is ultimate authority in a totalitarian system. Thus, parents are authority for infants and try to remain in this place for ever. So teacher become authorities for pupils without trying to liberate the pupils from their authority. All this “authority in principle” is unjust authority. It disregards the intrinsic claim of group, or, as it is called if it has a manifest center, a social organism. An organism is the more developed and has a greater power of being, the more different elements are united around an acting center. Therefore, humans produce the richest, most universal and most powerful social organisms. However, the individuals who constitute this organism are each independent centers for themselves, and so they can resist the unity of the social organism to which they belong. And there the limits of the analogy between biological and social organism becomes visible. In a biological organism the parts are nothing without the whole to which they belong. This is not the case in social organisms. They destiny of an individual who is separated from the group to which one belongs may be miserable but the separation is not necessarily fatal. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

ImageThe fate of a limb which is cut off from the living organism to which it belongs is in decay. In this sense no human group is an organism in the biological sense. Neither is the family the cell of a quasi-biological organism, nor is the nation something like a biological organism. This statement is politically significant. Those who like to speak of social organisms do it usually with a reactionary tendency. They want to keep dissenting groups in conformity and they use for this purpose biological metaphors in a literal sense. Prussian conservatism and Roman Catholic family glorification agree at this point. However, the individual person is not a limb of a body; one is an ultimate, independent reality, with both personal and social functions. The individual human is a social being, but the society does not create the individual. They are interdependent. Another moral problem is the inability to take a definite stand and the undependability that goes with it. The neurotic rarely takes a stand in accordance with the objective merits of a person, idea, or cause but rather on the basis of one’s own emotional needs. Since these, however, are contradictory, one position can easily be exchanged for another. Hence many neurotics are readily swayed—unconsciously bribed, as it were—by the lure of greater affection, greater prestige, recognition, power, or “freedom.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

ImageThis applies to all their personal relationships, whether individual or as part of a group. They often cannot commit themselves to a feeling or opinion about another person. Some unsubstantiated gossip may alter their opinion. Some disappointment or sight, or what is felt as such, may be reason enough to drop a “very good friend.” Some difficulty encountered may turn their enthusiasm into listlessness. They may change their religious, political, or scientific views because of some personal attachment or resentment. They may take a stand in a private conversation but give way under the slightest pressure by some authority or group—often without knowing why they changed their opinion or even that they have do so at all. A neurotic may unconsciously avoid obvious wavering by not making up one’s mind in the first place, but “sitting on the fence,” leaving every alternative open. One may rationalize such an attitude by pointing to the actual intricacies of the situation, or one may be determined by a compulsive “fairness.” Unquestionably a genuine striving to be fair is valuable. It is true also that a conscientious wish to be fair makes it harder to take a definite stand in many situations. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

ImageHowever, fairness can be a compulsory part of the idealized image, and its function then is to make taking a stand unnecessary, while at the same time allowing the person to feel “anointed” for being above prejudiced struggle. In this case there is a tendency to be indiscriminate in believing that two viewpoints are really not so contradictory, or that in a dispute between two persons there is right on both sides. It is a pseudo objectivity which prevents a person from recognizing the essential issues in any matter. Earlier I mentioned our various list of “do’s and do not’s.” We have looked at some typical “do not’s”: do not go to the beach, do not play pool, do not eat peanut butter. If this list seems humorous to you, you are wondering how anyone could have such unusual notions, consider that your own list could look just as foolish to someone else. However, foolish or not is not the issues. The issue is that God has not appointed any of us to be the Thought Police or other believer. However, what about the “do’s.” By the “do’s” I am thinking particularly of activities I call spiritual disciplines: having regular private devotions, studying the Bible, memorizing Scripture, meeting with a group Bible study, or faithfully attending a weekly prayer meeting. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

ImageSpiritual disciplines are provided for our good, not for our bondage. “Spiritual disciplines were made for human, not humans for spiritual disciplines,” reports Mark 2.27. We can become just as legalistic about our “do’s” as we can about the “do nots.” In fact, newer believers coming into our fellowship from totally unchristian backgrounds usually do not have many cultural “do nots.” However, the spiritual disciplines are fertile ground for legalistic thinking. They can easily become a performance measurement by which we gauge whether to expect God’s blessing or not. If I have been doing pretty well, having a regular quiet time, studying my Bible, and so on, then I am hopeful about God’s blessing. However, if I have not been doing so well—have not “been faithful” as we say—then, I might as well go back to bed. We get more legalistic about spiritual disciplines with others. We try subtly (or maybe not so subtle) coercion by communicating ever so slightly that a person who is not practicing the same disciplines we are is not “committed.” Or we do not allow a person into our “in” group if he or she is not doing what we do. Again we think God should lead everyone else in spiritual growth as He does us. I do not think we should actively promote spiritual disciplines. They are absolutely necessary for growth in our Christian lives. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

ImageAnd since ours is a largely undisciplined age, many believers are losing out on the benefits of those disciplines that could help them grow to maturity in Christ. However, we should promote them as benefits, not as duties. Perhaps we should stop talking about being “faithful” to have a quiet time with God each day, as if we were doing something to earn a reward. It would be better to talk about the privilege of spending time with the God of the Universe and the importance for our own sake of being consistent in the practice. If we are involved in a one-to-one discipling relationship, we must remember Paul’s attitude when he wrote, “Not that we Lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm,” reports 2 Corinthians 1.24. In a one-to-one discipling relationship, we are there to serve, not to Lord it over the other person. We should encourage the use of spiritual disciplines and do all we can to help the person succeed in them, but we should never require them as a condition of acceptance—either by God or by us. We must remember that the methods of spiritual disciplines are a means to the end, not the ends themselves. We need to teach grace before commitment, because, as we saw, grace understood and embrace will always lead to commitment. However, commitment required will always lead to legalism. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

ImageChrist will minister to the Nephites—Nephi foresees the destruction of his people—they will speak from the dust—the Gentiles will build up false churches and secret combinations—the Lord forbids humans to practice priestcrafts. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And after Christ shall have risen from the dead he shall show himself unto you, my children, and my beloved brethren; and the words which he shall speak unto you shall be the law which ye shall do. For behold, I say unto you that I have beheld that many generations shall pass away, and there shall be great wards and contentions among my people. And after the Messiah shall come there shall be signs given unto my people of his birth, and also of his death and resurrection; and great and terrible shall that say be unto the wicked, for they shall perish; and they perish because they cast out the prophets, and the saints, and stone them, and slay them; wherefore the cry of the blood of the saints shall ascend up to God from the ground against them. Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the Earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

Image“And they shall be visited with thunderings, and listenings, and Earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: They ways are just. However, behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they which shall not perish. However, the Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. And when thee things have passed away a speedy destruction cometh unto my people; for, notwithstanding the pains of my soul, I have seen it; wherefore, I know that it shall come to pass; and they sell themselves for naught; for, the reward of their pride and their foolishness they shall reap destruction; for because they yield unto the devil and choose works of darkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to hell. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

Image“For the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with a human. And when the Spirit ceaseth to strive with a human then cometh speedy destruction, and this grieveth my soul. And as I spake concerning the convincing of the Jews, that Jesus is the very Christ, it must needs be that the Gentiles be convinced also that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God. And that he manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles the children of humans according to their faith. However, behold, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days; concerning the days when the Lord God shall bring these things forth unto the children of humans. After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayer of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten,” reports 2 Nephi 26.1-15. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

ImageWe beseech Thee, O Lord, please let the earnest desire of Thine obedient people move Thy pity, and let their faithful supplication obtain Thy mercy; that what they cannot claim by merits they may receive by the abundance of Thy pardon; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Great God, in public and private, in sanctuary and home, may my life be steeped in prayer, filled with the spirit of grace and supplication, each prayer perfumed with the incense of atoning blood. Please help me, please defend me, until from praying ground I pass to the realm of unceasing praise. Urged by my need, invited by Thy promises, called by Thy Spirit, I enter Thy presence, worshipping Thee with Godly fear, awed by Thy majesty, greatness, glory, but encourage by Thy love. I am all poverty as well as all guilt, having nothing of my own with which to repay Thee, but I bring Jesus to Thee in the arms of faith, pleading his righteousness to offset my iniquities, rejoicing that he will weigh down the scales for me, and satisfy Thy justice. I bless Thee that great sin draws out great grace, that, although the least sin deserves infinite punishment because done against an infinite God, yet there is mercy for me, for where guilty is most terrible, there Thy mercy in Christ is most free and deep. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

ImagePlease bless me by revealing to me more of his saving merits, by causing Thy goodness to pass before me, by speaking peace to my contrite heart; strengthen me to give Thee no rest until Christ shall reign supreme within me, in every thought, word, and deed, in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the World, works by love, fastens me to Thee, and ever clings to the cross. O God of Heavenly powers, Who givest more than we ask or deserve; please grant, we beseech Thee, that what we cannot have by reliance on our own deserts may be granted to us by Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. May Thy perpetual gifts, O Lord, be confirmed to Thy faithful servants, that in receiving them they may seek Thee, and in seeking Thee may endlessly receive them; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless, O Lord, Thy family in Heavenly places, and fill them with Thy spiritual gifts; grant them love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, hope, faith, chastity; that being replenished with all Thy gifts, they may attain their desires of coming safe unto Thee; through our Lord. Take away from us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, all our iniquities, and the spirit of pride and arrogance, which Thou resistest, and fill us with the spirit of fear, and give us a contrite and humbled heart, which Thou dost not despise,–that we may be enabled with pure minds to enter into the Holy of Holies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24Image

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God Bless the Inventor of Sleep, the Cloak that Covers All People’s thoughts, the Food that Cures All Hunger!

ImageThe rewards of educating comes from a teachers’ innate belief that every day they have the opportunity to enrich the lives of their students by igniting the human spirit, dignifying the human experience, and inspiring human excellence. You know the old saying, “If you plan ahead God goes with you.” Commerce is everything, but everybody goes about consulting astrologers, talking about magic, and trying to drive out evil spirits. People have families, eat, drink, and try to achieve success in every way possible, yet carry on all the time about luck. Now Americans do not talk about demons, no, but they rattle on about “negative thinking,” and “self-destructive ideas” and “bad self-image.” It is a lot the same, Babylon and America. The law has become perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation—the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law has become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens. We hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life—physical, intellectual, and more life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

ImageHowever, life cannot support itself. One who has bestowed it, has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It is by the application of our faculties to these elements that the phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle that has been assigned to it are realized. Existence, faculties, assimilation—in other words, personality, liberty, property—this is human. It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation. It is not because humans have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist before hand, that humans make laws. What, then, is law? Law is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend one’s person, one’s liberty, and one’s property, since these are three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? And what is property, but an extension of our faculties? #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

ImageIf every person has the right of defending, even by force, one’s person, one’s liberty, and one’s property, a number of humans have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense. Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual—for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individual classes. For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces? It is not for one to work for humanity by only helping particular persons and by alleviating isolated distresses. One’s form of service must be stretch over wider areas, must affect a multitude of persons. However, this is possible only if one works in deeper ground and through secret unobtrusive ways. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

ImageThe World being what it is, human nature what it has long been, and human affairs all-too-repetitious, one will not waste time and energy attempting to re-arrange the by surface efforts.  One may do nothing more than put one’s mite of cheering truth and softening goodness into the grim World around one, but this will be enough. One cannot contribute more than one has. The ultimate result of this contribution may be little, but one has tried to do God’s will on Earth. Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the  substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all. Just the fact that one is here, on this planet and at this time, makes its own contribution to humanity’s welfare. This is still true even though one may not try to manage other people’s lives on the plea of serving them. One’s service may not be immediately, or locally, apparent; it may need time to come up from the subconscious levels that are the deeper layers of mind and spirit, but it will be nevertheless real. Although it is not one’s direct purpose, one’s existence will lessen humanity’s suffering, and increase its hope and goodwill through obeying and enforcing law and order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

ImageAnd if people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to me that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their ideas. It seems to me that such people would have the most simple, the most economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the most restrained, the most just, and, consequently, the most stable Government that could be imagined, whatever its political form might be. For under such an administration, everyone would feel that one possessed all the fullness, as well as all the responsibility of one’s existence. So long as personal safety was ensured, so long as labour was free, and the fruits of labour secured against all unjust attacks, no one would have any difficulties to content with in the State. When prosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank the State for our success; but when unfortunate, we should no more think of taxing it with our disasters than our less affluents think of attributing to it the arrival of hail or of frost. We should know it only by the inestimable blessing of Safety. Those who cross this path may feel like it is only a once in a lifetime experience, and they will receive instruction, even though they are not outwardly being taught. America is under God’s divine blessing and God’s grace has bestowed us with Manifest Destiny, which has influenced kings and rulers and leaders of humans and culture. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

ImageManifest Destiny has guaranteed America with the birth rite to expand its boarders from sea to shining sea. The poem of the Statue of Liberty is a prophecy that one day, America will be One World, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I mean, really, who would not like to move around the World and be protected by the laws, rights, and justice that Americans are granted on their beautiful island? Americans have emerged into public view in order to quicken the pace of evolution by active external work, but some do not have their spiritual identity and as a result their efforts where not always successful because they had to deal with frail stubborn human nature. Knowing this convinces us better than printed arguments of the eternal Spiritual truths. It may further be affirmed, that, thanks to the non-intervention of the State in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in their natural order. We should not see less affluent families seeking for literary instruction before they were supplied with bread. We should not see those great displacements of capital, of labour, and population, that legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge to such an extent the responsibility of Governments. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

ImageUnhappily, law is by no means confirmed to its own sphere. Nor is it merely in some ambiguous and debatable views that it has left it proper sphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which it was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it. How has this perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted from it? The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes—naked greed and misconceived philanthropy. Let us speak of the former. Self-preservation and development is the common aspiration of all human, in such a way that if every one enjoyed the free exercise of one’s faculties and the free disposition of their fruits, social progress would be incessant, uninterrupted, inevitable. However, there is also another disposition which is common to them. This is to live and to develop, when they can, at the expense of another. This is no rash imputation, emanating from a gloomy, uncharitable spirit. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

ImageHistory bears witness to the truth of it, by the incessant wars, the migrations of races, sectarian oppressions, the universality of slavery, the frauds in trade, and the monopolies with which it annals universal, and invincible sentiment that urges it towards its well-being, and makes it seek to escape pain. Humans can only derive life and enjoy from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of one’s faculties to objects, or from labour. This is the origin of property. However, also one may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of one’s fellow humans. This is the origin of plunder. Now, labour being in itself a pain, and humans being naturally inclined to avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that whatever plunder is less burdensome than labour, it prevails; and neither religion nor morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing. When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes more burdensome and more dangerous than labour. It is very evident that the proper aim of law is to oppose the fatal tendency to plunder with the powerful obstacle of collective force; that all its measures should be in favour of property, and against plunder. However, law is made, generally, by one human, or by one class of humans. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

ImageAnd as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of preponderant force, it must finally place this force in the hands of those who legislate. This inevitable phenomenon, combined with the fatal tendency that, we have said, exists in the heart of humans, explains the almost universal perversions of law. It is easy to conceive that, instead of being a check upon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument. It is easy to conceive that, according to the power of the legislator, it destroys for its own profit, and in different degrees amongst the rest of the community, personal independence by slavery, liberty by oppression, and property by plunder. It is in the nature of humans to rise against the injustice of which they are the victims. When, therefore, plunder is organized by law, for the profit of those who perpetrate it, all the plundered classes tend, either by peaceful or revolutionary means, to enter in some way into the manufacturing of laws. These classes, according to the degree of enlightenment at which they have arrived, may propose to themselves two very different ends, when they thus attempt the attainment of their political rights; either they may wish to put an end to lawful plunder, or they may desire to take part in it. Woe to the nation where this latter thought prevails amongst the masses, at the moment when they, in their turn, seize upon the legislative power! #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

ImageUp to that time, lawful plunder has been exercised by the few upon the many, as is the case in the case in countries where the right of legislating is confined to a few hands. However, now it has become universal, and the equilibrium is sought in universal plunder. The injustice that society contains, instead of being rooted out of it, is generalized. As soon as the injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first thought is not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess enlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organize against the other classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals—as if it was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should undergo a cruel retribution—some for their iniquity and some for their ignorance. It would be the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. We must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking. In the first place, it would efface from everybody’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen find oneself in the cruel alternative of either losing one’s moral sense, or of losing one’s respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

ImageIt is so much in the nature of law to support justice that in the minds of the masses they are one and the same. There is in all of us a strong disposition to regard what is lawful as legitimate, so much so that many falsely derive all justice from law. It is sufficient, then, for the law to order and sanction plunder, that it may appear to many consciences just and sacred. Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them. If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly—“You are dangerous experimenter, a utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws; your would shake the basis upon which society rests.” The imagination is responsible for imagery of all kinds. It is the representation of an individual thought. The imagination reproduces images made originally by the senses or held in memory and creates images either in cooperation with reason or in its own right. These functions are in turn revealed in three kinds of imagination, the first joined with belief of that which is to come; the second joined with memory of that which is past; and the third is of things present, or as if they were presented; imaginations are feigned and at pleasure; as if one should imagine such a person to be in the vestments of a Pope, or to have wings. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

ImageExamination of the three kind of imagination, the first joined with the memory of that which is to come; the second joined with memory of that which is past; and the third is of things present, as if they were present, discloses the reproductive and creative roles of imagination, and about the force of imagery qua imagery, exempli gratia, imagination intensive. What is the representation of an individual thought? At the level of understanding and reason, thought could be so abstract as to be impalpable. Imagination has the power of rendering abstract thought tangible. The tangible manifestation appeared most widely as words in speech and writing, for the words were the images of thought, the images of cogitations. Thinking can occur in the absence of imagery, but if it were to be available to sense, it has to appear as auditory and verbal imagery. Thought images serve as if they were the contents of perception, but thinking does not take place at all without some kind of an image. The mind can frame a purely mental proposition without the use of words. So from the point of view of the mind that makes them, the imagery of speech and language is the concrete analogue of abstract thought. The imagination thus gives body to thought. A thought occurred, an image followed upon it. Imagery is in this sense a re-presenting of thought. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

ImageThe objectification of thought as verbal imagery is strikingly perceived when one contemplates the context within which we locate speech and writing along with the communication, or transmission, of ideas among the rational or intellectual arts. We distinguish four intellectual or logical activities, and these give their names to corresponding arts. Reason is the discursive movement of the understanding, and logic is a term applied to the study of its modes of discursion as they appear in discourse. There is invention—the finding and discovering of ideas; there is judging—the evaluation and criticism of the results of invention; there is memory—the retention of what is judged acceptable; and there is the transmission and communication of ideas. The first three of these activities are mental, or as more properly, psychological, processes. They were unavailable to our sense directly. To the extent that they became available as discourse, rather than through spirit (human or divine) or in other nondiscursive, immediate ways, they must appear as material and form. So we place under the transmission of ideas three other features of intellectual discursiveness; the organ of discourse, the method of discourse, and the illustration of discourse. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

ImageThe organ of discourse deals with the smallest physical elements, and the smallest number of them, that can be used alone or in combination to depict thought and its process. In ordinary languages these are speech and writing, though other kinds of characters have been used, such as hieroglyphics. Abstractly considered, the organ of discourse is grammar; concretely considered, the organ of discourse is speech and writing. The organ is so designated precisely because reason in its discursiveness needs and organ. On the other hand, the understanding as such, or pure reason, does not require an organ. In brief, the sound images of voice and speech and the visual images of language written are the simplest and most pervasive products of imagination. They are somehow bound in with thought. Imagine and thought are two facets of a unitary whole. The whole may be a modulation of the spirit. As to miracle, it is the sign-event which has occasioned or provoked the ecstatic awareness of revelation. It does not require special supernatural interference in natural process. The structure of natural causality is not broken. What happens is that certain natural events, when encountered in a special turn of mind, point to the mystery of being and non-being, and induce the beholder to commit oneself unconditionally to this revelation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

ImageThe sign-events in which the mystery be being gives itself consist in special constellations of elements of reality in correlation with special constellations of elements of the mind. Miracle occasions ecstasy; yet the event in question has become a miracle only through ecstasy. The subjective and the objective condition one another. Taking these revelatory elements together, one can say that ecstasy is the miracle of the mind and that miracle is the ecstasy of reality. By definition, religion originates in a correlation of miracle and ecstasy. The basic problem of all religions, however, is that literally anything may be a medium of revelation. Any event may be a miracle. Nature, history, groups, individuals and the word may be, and have been, mediums of revelation. The multiplicity of revelatory situations is at the origin of many different symbols of ultimate concern which have been developed by religions. Faith is unique. However, its symbols are manifold. Could there be only one symbol, there would be only one concrete content of faith, and therefore one religion. This naturally raises the problem of a final revelation: is there one revelatory event that transcends and underlies all others? The problem of Christianity and of its universal claim is thus posited. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

ImageNo discussion of Christianity is meaningful if we leave out the sight of conception of a revelatory experience: a final revelation, if there is one, is first of all a constellation of revelatory character. The discipline of petitionary prayer: The practice of prayer—the list, the quiet, the place, the time, the posture, preparation, and the length—all suggest one thing—discipline. Work—candidly, prayer is work, not a sport. It is not something that you do if you like it, or devote your spare time to, or do only if you are good at it. Prayer is the proper work of the soul which loves Christ (Ephesians 6.18): And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alter and always keep on praying for all the saints. This is a call to work! We must never wait until we feel like praying—otherwise we may never pray, unless, perhaps, we fall headfirst into an open wall. The context of Paul’s charge in Ephesians 6 is spiritual warfare—and that is what prayer is! Christian people face the World in prayer. Work and war, war and work—these are the words we must keep before us if we are to become humans of prayer. “Now I, Nephi, do speak somewhat concerning the words which I have written, which have written, which have been spoken by the mouth of Isaiah. For Behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

Image“For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations. Wherefore, I write unto my people, unto all those that shall receive hereafter these things which I write, that they may know the judgments of God, that they come upon all nations, according to the word which he hath spoken. Wherefore, hearken, O my people, which are of the house of Israel, and give ear unto my words; for because the words of Isaiah are not plain unto you, nevertheless they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy. However, I give unto you a prophecy, accord to the spirit which is in me; wherefore I shall prophesy according to the plainness which hath been with me from the time that I came out from Jerusalem with my father; for behold, my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn. Yea, and my soul delighteth in the words of Isaiah, for I came out from Jerusalem, and mine eyes hath beheld the things of the Jews, and I know that the Jews do understand the things of the prophets, and there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

Image“But behold, I, Nephi, have not taught my children after the manner of the Jews; but behold, I, of myself, have dwelt at Jerusalem, wherefore I know concerning the regions round about; and I have made mention unto my children concerning the judgments of God, which hath come to pass among the Jews, unto my children, according to al that which Isaiah hath spoken, and I do not write them. However, behold, I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness; in the which I know that no person can err; nevertheless, in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfilled people shall know of a surety, at the times when they shall come to pass. Wherefore, they are of worth unto the children of humans, and one that supposeth that they are not, unto them will I speak particularly, and confine the words unto mine own people; for I know that they shall be of great worth unto them in the last days; for in that day shall they understand them; wherefore, for their good have I written them. And as one generation hath been destroyed among the Jews because of iniquity, even so have they been destroyed from generation to generation to generation according to their iniquities; and never hath any of the been destroyed save it were foretold them by the prophets of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

Image“Wherefore, it hath been told them concerning the destruction which should come upon them, immediately after my father left Jerusalem; nevertheless, they hardened their hearts; and according to my prophecy they have been destroyed, save it be those which are carried away captive into Babylon. And now this I speak because of the spirit which is in me. And notwithstanding they have been carried away they shall have return again, and possess the land of Jerusalem; wherefore, they shall be restored again to the land of their inheritance. However, behold, they shall have wars, and rumors of wars; and when that day cometh that the Only Begotten of the Father, yea, even the Father of Heaven and of Earth, shall manifest himself unto them in the flesh, behold, they will reject him, because of their iniquities, and the hardness of their hearts, and the stiffness of their necks. Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulcher for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

Image“And behold it shall come to pass that after the Messiah hath risen from the dead, and hath manifested himself unto his people, unto as many as will believe on his name, behold, Jerusalem shall be destroyed again; for wo unto them that fight against God and the people of his church. Wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered among all nations; yea, and also Babylon shall be destroyed; wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered by other nations. And after they have been scattered, and the Lord God hath scourged them by other nations for the space of many generations, yea, even down from generation to generation until they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all humankind—and when that say shall come that they shall believe in Christ, and worship the Father in his name, with pure hearts and clean hands, and look not forward any more for another Messiah, then, at that time, the day will come that it must needs be expedient that they should believe these things. And the Lord will set his hand again the second time to restore his people from their lost and fallen state. Wherefore, one will proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder among the children of humans. Wherefore, he shall bring forth his words unto them, which words shall judge them at the last day, for they shall be given them for the purpose of convincing them of the true Messiah, who was rejected by them. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

Image“And unto the convincing of them that they need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets, and that Messiah is one who should be rejected of the Jews. For according to the words of the prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the words of the prophets, and also the word of the Angel of God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And now, my brethren, I have spoken plainly that ye cannot err. And as the Lord God liveth that brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and have unto Moses power that he should heal nations after they have been bitten by the poisonous serpents, if they would cast their eyes unto the serpent which he did raise up before them, and also gave him power that he should smite the rock and the water should come forth; yea, behold I say unto you, that as these things are true, and as the Lord God liveth, there is none other name given under Heaven save it be this Jesus Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby humans can be saved. Wherefore, for this cause hath the Lord God promised unto me that these things which I write shall be kept and preserved, and handed down unto my seed, from generation to generation, that the promise may be fulfilled unto Joseph, that his seed should never perish as long as the Earth should stand. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

Image“Wherefore, these things shall go from generation to generation as long as the Earth shall stand; and they shall go according to the will and pleasure of God; and the nations who shall possess them shall be judged of them according to the words which are written. For we labour diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. And, notwithstanding we believe in Christ, we keep the law of Moses, and look forward with the steadfastness unto Christ, until the law shall be fulfilled. For, for this end was the law given; wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith; yet we keep the law because of the commandments. And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. Wherefore, we speak concerning the law that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they, by knowing the deadness of the law, may look forward unto that life which is in Christ, and know for what end the law is given. And after the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him when the law ought to be done away. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

Image“And now behold, my people, ye, are a stiffnecked people; wherefore, I have spoken plainly unto you, that ye cannot misunderstand. And the words which I have spoken shall stand as a testimony against you; for they are sufficient to teach any human the right way; for the right way is to believe in Christ and deny him not; for by denying him ye also deny the prophets and the law. And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before hum, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowsie be cast out. And, inasmuch as it shall be expedient, ye must keep the performances and ordinances of God until the law shall be fulfilled which was given uno Moses. O LORD God, Who hast taught us to pray all together, and hast promised to hear the united voices of two or three invoking Thy Name; hear now, O Lord, the prayers of Thy servants unto their salvation, and give us in this World knowledge of Thy truth, and in the World to come life everlasting. Living by prayer—O God of the open ear, please teach me to live by prayer as well as by providence, for myself, soul, body, children, family, church; please give me a heart frameable to Thy will; so might I live in prayer, and honour Thee, being kept from evil, known and unknown. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

ImagePlease help me to see the sin that accompanies all I do, and the good I can distil from everything. Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring my will to thine, and that without this it is folly to pray; when I try to bring Thy will to mine it is to command Christ, to be above him, and wiser than he: this is my sin and pride. I can only succeed when I pray according to Thy precept and promise, and to be done with as it pleases Thee, according to Thy sovereign will. When Thou commandest me to pray for pardon, peace, brokenness, it is because Thou wilt give me the thing promised, for Thy glory, as well as for my good. Help me not only to desire small things but holy boldness to desire great things for Thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show Thy glory. Teach me that it is wisdom for me to pray for all I have, out of love, willingly, not of necessity; that I may come to Thee at any time, to lay open my need acceptably to Thee; that my great sin lies in my not keeping the savour of Thy ways; that the remembrance of this truth is one way to the sense of Thy presence; that there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lusts for my own ends. Regard, O Lord, the prayers of Thy family, and please grant Thine assistance to their humble supplications; that, by means of the assistance which they require, they may persevere in the confession of Thy Name: through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24Image

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!

4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 2,757 square feet

ImageBrighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.

ImageLocated off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://youtu.be/yQTnZ0oO2OEhttps://youtu.be/yQTnZ0oO2OE

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Truth Shall March–We Shall Not, I Believe, be Obliged to Alter Our Policy of Watchful Waiting!

ImageI do not divine the World into the weak and the strong, or the success and the failures, those who make it and those who do not. I divine the World into learners and non-learners. We live under a government of humans and morning newspapers. However, one, on God’s side is a majority. The gulf that exists between partners may be due to old hurts. Pierce Thorndyke III and Bianca Dupree-Thorndyke have been married for fifteen years, have worked out many difficulties due to differing religious and cultural backgrounds, and their relationship now seems quite stable. Yet in an interview she reveals that she has held back much of her affection, and is not now freely giving toward him, because of an old resentment. During the early years of marriage, Bianca felt she did 90 percent of the giving, Pierce 10 percent. She has never talked out her resentment, and has carried evidence of this old scar into her present relationship with him. Both of them are now sad that she did not express her feelings much earlier—the partnership might have been much improved. Another effect is that communication becomes more open, more real, with more mutual listening. One can sometimes see the exact moment in which this process is taking place. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

ImageIn a couples group a husband and wife were constantly attacking each other. The group tried to help them to listen more, to express their own feelings, not their judgments. The husband seemed to absorb something of this, and took the risk of stating, rather poignantly, the trap he felt he was in. The moment he ceased speaking, his wife took off in her attack on his motives and his behaviour toward her. The facilitator interrupted her, “Did you hear what your husband was trying to tell you?” “Of course I did.” The facilitator said, “Would you just tell him the essence of what he said, so that he know you heard him?” She fell silent, obviously searching her memory. She began to look very embarrassed. Finally she said to her husband, in the softest voice she had used since the group began, “What did you say?” It was the beginning of more listening. In the climate of a person-centered approach the partners come to recognize the value of separateness. Larke and Radley, a wealthy couple with a seemingly happy marriage, had all the external trappings imaginable. Both were well educated. Eighteen years earlier, Radley, a student at Harvard Law School, meets Larke Tanner at an auction in Nantucket, were they bid on the same antique. Radley Rose chats Larke up and they become friends. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

Image When Larke misses her ferry home, the two end up spending the night together. Things went well for them. Eventually the two marry and have two children and settle an opulent suburban home, in Cresleigh Ranch, and own impressive new Ultimate Driving Machine. They did everything together, and over the years, the Roses grow richer. Everyone regarded theirs as a very successful marriage. Inwardly they both found the marriage uninteresting and frustrating. They were disillusioned and angry—at each other, but especially at life. They attended a couples group, and began to realize that they had stopped growing when they married, and more important, that they were not communicating. Finally Radley risked revealing himself and told Larke of the affairs he had been having Empress, Fifi, Jett, Jillian, Nikki Darling, and Tara Belle. Larke was frightened and jealous. She had assumed that there was security in her World, and now that World had collapsed. Her marriage was out of control, and she was very threatened. However, even in her fright there was a dawning realization, “If he can separate, perhaps I can too.” She became much more open in the group, and hence was seen as more lovable. Yet, to see that she was lovable in the eye of the group members was scary to Radley. He in his turn felt threatened and hurt. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

ImageHowever, his courage in being open about his affairs led Larke to be more courageous. Soon they were talking all night, each discovering new and interesting facets of the other. More and more each became aware of their separateness. They now can permit each other to date and pursue other relationships. Larke especially has dropped her “nice” image and become more of a real self, a self in which she feels much more confidence. For Larke and Radley both, a growth-promoting climate has meant a complete alteration in the politics of their marriage. No longer are they controlled by society’s expectations—that they must do everything together, must follow a conventional pattern, must submerge their lives in each other. They are becoming unique and separate persons, pursuing differing paths, and bound together by communication and mutual love, not by some imagined conventional pattern from outside. Another result such a climate is that the woman’s growing independence is recognized as valuable in the relationship. This is another example of the separateness we have just been noting, but it is such an important part of modern partnership that it deserves special mention. Troy Jeffries recently experienced what he called a “blockbuster” in his marriage. He has been preoccupied with his work. Bianca has carried the difficult task of raising their son, not without buried resentment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

ImageAs Bianca’s time became more free with the passing years, she returned to the university for further education, being exposed to several person-centered influences. She decided that she wanted to take a professional position in the town where they had formerly lived. She told Troy, but he simply could not take it seriously. When it did hit home that she meant it and that he would either have to give her up or change jobs himself, it was, as he says, a “blockbuster.” The family discussions were heated, and Bianca fortunately talked out some of her resentment, becoming more willing to make accommodation. However, the family is moving, Troy is changing jobs, and the dynamics of their relationship has altered dramatically. Troy has more respect for his wife; he seems more clearly the role he has played of being married to his job; and the ability of each of them to share their feelings has been markedly increased. Even in regard to their relationship in the pleasures of the flesh, which have never been ideal, there is more communication and hope. Part of the problem is that successful intimacy in pleasures of the flesh has been difficult when Bianca has been harbouring a buried resentment toward her husband. The problem of where to live, when both husband and wife are working and have attractive opportunities in different communities, is an increasing one. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

ImageSolving marital differences demands the utmost of shared feelings, exploration of all the options, and willingness to reach a solution that may not be ideal for either. Such problems are certain to occur more frequently as marriage is seen as an equalitarian partnership, with each spouse being respected as able to make important choices. However, negotiation implies that something negative is happening to both side in order to reach a mutual agreement that also accommodates the demands of both parties. This new trend is often especially threatening to the husband of the developing professional woman. Her increased independence makes him feel unneeded as a provider, his old role. There is always the possibility that she may earn more than he. Where both are in the same or similar professions, competition becomes implicit in their relationship. As a consequence the quality of their pleasures of the flesh, the degree to which each is growing, the extent to which they are developing mutual interests—all of these become far more important than in conventional marriages. Inevitably, in person-centered situation, there is increasing recognition of the importance of feelings, as well as reason, of emotions as well as intellect. A feeling is an emotionally tinged experience, together with its personal meaning. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

ImageThus, a feeling includes the emotion but also the cognitive content of the meaning of that emotion in its experiential context. [They are] experienced inseparably in the moment. Including as it does both emotion and meaning, feeling is the broader term. The stress that recent centuries have placed upon reason, thinking, and rationality is the attempt to divorce the two actually inseparable components of experience, to the detriment of our humanity. This divorce of reason from feeling is one of the first myths to disappear in a person-centered approach. Individuals find themselves communicating with their whole beings, expressing their experiences, not some desiccated intellectual representation of them. This is one of the major reason why a person-centered approach has been so valuable to married couples and those living together in relationships. “Pure” reason and “objective” evaluation are not a basis on which two human beings can effectively live together. It means that they are attempting to exclude half of their experience (and perhaps the most important half) from their communication. Through intensive groups, student-centered classes, books, couples groups, and other sources more and more persons are learning the folly of such pseudo-communicate themselves as they are. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

Image I will not attempt to deal here with the ways in which such real communication can be thwarted by jargon or by an encounter-group ritual. “I want to know what you really feel,” can be as much a pseudo-communication as any other, if it is not based on what the speaker is experiencing at the moment. Our American culture has been so corrupted by the fictional TV News media that anything can be turned into a “gimmick.” There is no doubt that this has often happened in the encounter groups and in the training of parents to be “real.” These false notes do not, however, change the importance of true communication, which is also on the increase. Exposure to a person-centered approach means that there is a thrust toward the experiencing of greater mutual trust, personal growth, and shared interests. The partners tend to develop more trust in each other as they are more real with each other. Being more real, they take more risks in being open, and thus enhance their growth as persons. As they communicate more deeply, they are likely to discover, and to wish to develop, more interest that they do or can share. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

ImageExperience in a person-centered psychological atmosphere has another result. Roles, and role expectations, tend to drop away and are replaced by the person, choosing her own way of behaving.  Here are the expected roles of the male in the partnership. The man is head of the family. He is the sole provider. He is the stronger, the superior individual in the pair (and most women let their husbands believe this because they want a happy marriage and a confident man), though helped by “the little woman.” His life is governed by intellect, not by emotion. He alone may occasionally have need of an “affair.” He takes the lead in pleasures of the flesh. He is the stern disciplinarian of his children. All these roles and expectations collapse in a person-centered experience. The focus becomes the man as an individual person—human, fluctuating, behaving in the light of his immediate feelings and his long-range goals. The expectations for the woman are likewise open to challenge. The wife is submissive to her husband. She finds complete satisfaction in her home and children. She doe all the task of making and keeping a home happy, healthy, clean and fresh. She is the nest-builder. In comparison with her husband she is physically not as strong and usually allows him to act as ultimate authority. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

ImageThe woman of the house plays an important role, she is capable of feelings, but usually what the husband says is the rule of law. She subordinates her interest to those of her spouse. Her pleasures of the flesh are usually subdued. She is not to engage in extramarital pleasures of the flesh. Again, the behaviour that is expected in playing these roles collapses in an encounter group or in person-centered therapy or in women’s consciousness-raising group. The individual woman emerges, with a sharply defined personality that is hers alone, behaving in the way that suits her needs and her choices. The sociological role loses its force in a person-centered experience. The male and female roles are rarely put forward so bluntly in today’s culture. They have already been weakened by social forces. However, we find them implicit in our social structure. Why are men paid more than women for the same job? Why are women permitted to weep when hurt, but not men? These roles are still very much alive and functioning, even though weakened. However, they lose their force completely in a person-centered encounter group. Here we find a man weeping, and a woman with the strength to help him find his way out of sorrow. Here we find a man who feels secure only in his present nest, with an adventurous wife to takes steps to a new life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

ImageWe find all of the usual role expectations being contradicted in the experience of men and women struggling to be their own experiencing. This leads to behaviour that is sometimes in line with role expectations, and sometimes not, but at no time is the behaviour governed by the role the person is expected to play. There is a more realistic appraisal of the needs each can meet in the other. When a man is thinking of his partner as a person, it becomes apparent that it is most unlikely that he can meet all of her needs—social, in pleasures of the flesh, emotional, intellectual. With equal force it strikes the woman that she cannot be everything to this man. When we are thinking not just of today but of years of being together, these statements become especially true. So it become only realistic to recognize that each partner will need to grant the other more living space for outside interests, outside relationships, time alone—all of the elements that enrich life. This in no way contradicts the continuing search for a wider and deeper mutual life. It simply means that, as Pierce and Bianca learned, they do not have to do everything together. Experiencing that greater freedom leads them to a more rewarding life together. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

ImageA general disturbance is symptomatic and relevant here and is known as inertia. Patients suffering from it sometimes accuse themselves of being lazy, but actually they cannot be lazy and enjoy it. They may have a conscious aversion to effort of any kind, and may rationalize it by saying tat it is up to others to carry out the “details”—that is, do the work. The aversion to effort may also appear as a fear that effort would be injurious to them. This fear is understandable in view of the fact that they know they tire easily; and it may be enhanced by the advice of physicians who take the exhaustion at its face value. Neurotic inertia is a paralysis of initiative action. Generally speaking, it is the result of a strong alienation from self and a lack of goal-direction. Long experience of strained and unsatisfactory effort leaves the neurotic with a fairly pervasive listlessness—although periods of hectic activity sometimes intervene. Of the single contributing factors the most influential are the idealized image and sadistic trends. The very fact of having to make a consistent effort may be felt by the neurotic as humiliating evidence that he is not his idealized image, while the prospect of doing something that might be only mediocre is so deterring that he prefers not to do it at all but perform magnificently in fantasy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

ImageThe gnawing self-contempt that invariably follows from the image robs him of the assurance that he can do anything worth while, thereby burying as in quicks all incentive and joy in activity. Sadistic trends, particularly in their repressed form (inverted sadism), make a person lean over backward from anything resembling aggression, with the result that a more or less complete psychic paralysis may ensure. Since it covers not only action but feelings as well, general inertia is of particular significance. The amount of energy that is wasted in consequence of unresolved neurotic conflicts is unfathomably great. Since neuroses are ultimately a product of the particular civilization, such a thwarting of human gifts and qualities stands as a serious indictment of the culture in question. Living with unresolved conflicts entails not only a diffusion of energies but also a split in matters of a moral nature—that is, in moral principles and all the feelings, attitudes, and behaviour that bear upon one’s relations with others and affect one’s own development. And as in the case of energies division leads to waste, so in moral question it leads to a loss of moral wholeheartedness, or in other words to an impairment of moral integrity. Such impairment is brought about by the contradictory positions assumed as well as by the attempts to conceal their contradictory nature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

ImageIncompatible sets of moral values appear in the basic conflict. Despite all attempts to harmonize them, all of them keep operating. This means, however, that none is or can be taken seriously. The idealized image, for all that it includes elements of true ideals, is essentially a counterfeit, and as difficult for the person oneself or for the untrained observer to distinguish from the real thing as a counterfeit bank note from a valid one. The neurotic, as we have seen, may believe—in good faith—that one follows ideals, may castigate oneself for every apparent lapse, thus giving an impression of over conscientiousness in pursuit of one’s standards; or one may intoxicate oneself with thinking and talking about values and ideals. My assertion that one nevertheless does not take one’s ideals seriously means that they do not have obligating power for one’s life. One applies them when it is easy or useful for one to do so, while at other times one conveniently blots them out. We have seen instances of this in our discussion of blind spots and compartmentalizing—instances that would be inconceivable in the case of persons who took their ideals seriously. Nor if the ideals were genuine could they be thrown overboard as easily as they are—for instance in a person who, again in good faith, claims ardent devotion to a cause, but when exposed to temptation turns a traitor like the mutineers from Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

ImageClosely associated with governing ideas are images that occupy our minds. Images are always concrete or specific, as opposed to the abstractness of ideas, and are heavily laden with feeling. They frequently present themselves with the force of perception and have a powerful emotional and sensuous linkage to governing idea systems. They mediate the power of those idea systems into the real situations of ordinary life. Every idea system is present among us as a life force through a small number of powerful images. In recent American and European history, hair (long, short, skinhead; green, blue, yellow, orange, purple) undershirts (or the absence of burning thereof) flags (and their desecration) rock music, and hipster clothes have provided powerful images and symbols of conflicting idea systems and the attached ways of life. Images sustaining traditional cultural authority—“The Establishment” it was called—have, by contrast, lost power. In many Christian churches today the services have divided into “traditional” and “contemporary,” primarily over imagery and the explosive feelings attached thereto. The guitar and pipe organ are no longer just musical instruments, they are powerful symbols. This is not to say that such divisions are either unimportant or sinful. However, in order to act responsibly in relation to them, one does have to understand what drives such divisions. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

ImageJesus Christ of course understood the great significance of images and has, indeed, become one Himself. Intentionally. He also carefully selected an image that brilliantly conveys Himself and His message; the cross. The cross presents the lostness of a person as well as the sacrifice of God and the abandonment to God that brings redemption. No doubt it is the all-time most powerful image and symbol of human history. Need we say he knew what he was doing in selecting it? He planned it all and is also the Master of images. For their own benefit, his followers need to keep the image of the cross vividly present in their mind. However, ideas and images are also a primary stronghold of evil in the human self and in society. They determine how we “take” the things and events of ordinary life. They control the meanings we assign to what we deal with, and they can even blind us to what lies plainly before us. Again, this is seen over and over in biblical and in Christian history, and in human life generally. Their power for evil cannot be overestimated and is constantly at play in most human governments and media organizations. Ideas and images are, accordingly, the primary focus of Satan’s effort to defeat God’s purposes with and for humankind. When we are subject to his chosen ideas and images, he can take nap or holiday. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

ImageThus Satan undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did not hit her with a stick, but with an idea. It was with the idea that God could not be trusted and that she must act on her own to secure her own well-being. This is the basic idea back of all temptation: God is presented as depriving us by his commands of what is good, so we think we must take matters into our own hands and act contrary to wat he has said. This image of God leads to our pushing him our of our thoughts, as discussed in previous lectures, and putting ourselves on the throne of the Universe. The condition of the ruined soul and World naturally results. The single most important thing in our mind is our idea of God and the associated images. That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with out actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God. A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

ImageIt is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God. The destruction of Assyria is a type of the destruction of the wicked at the Second Coming—few people will be left after the Lord comes again—the remnant of Jacob will return in that day—compare Isaiah 10. About 559-545 Before Christ. “Wo unto them that decree unrighteous degrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn away the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And that will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is their indignation. I will send him against a hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like mire of the streets. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

Image“Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but in his heart it is to destroy and cut off nations not a few. For he saith: Are not my princes altogether kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath founded the kingdoms f the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so to do to Jerusalem and to her idols? Wherefore it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith: By the strength of my hand and by my wisdom I have done these things; for I am prudent; and I have moved the borders of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man; and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people; and as one gathereth eggs that are left have I gathered all the Earth; and there was none that moved the wings, or opened the mouth, or peeped. Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? As if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up itself as if it were not wood! #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

Image“Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones, leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and shall burn and shall devour his thorns and his briers in one day; and shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth. And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them, but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, yea, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return; the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of Hosts shall make a consumption, even determined in all the land. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Hosts: O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian; he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

Image“And the Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and as his rod was upon the sea so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages. They are gone over the passage; they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramath is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Lift up the voice, O daughter of Gallim; cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth. Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. As yet shall he remain at Nob that day; he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts shall lop the bough with terror; and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down; and the haughty shall be humbled. And he shall cut down the thickets of the forests with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a might one,” reports 2 Nephi 20.1-34. Holy, Most High, Awful, Who dwellest in the holy place, make us holy, and bring us near to Thee, and cleanse us from all defilement, that we may perform the worship of our fathers in Thy fear; for Thou art He that blesses and hallow all things. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

ImageThou Maker and Sustainer of All Things, day and night are tine, Heaven and Earth declare Thy glory; but I, a creature of Thy power and bounty, have sinned against Thee by resisting the dictates of conscience, the demands of Thy law, the calls of Thy gospel; yet I live under the dispensation of a given hope. Deliver me from Worldly dispositions, for I am born from above and bound for glory. May I view and long after holiness as the beauty and dignity of the soul. Let me never slumber, never lose my assurance, never fail to wear armour when passing through the enemy land. Fit me for every scene and circumstances; stay my mind upon Thee and turn my trials to blessings, that they may draw out my gratitude and praise as I see their design and effects. Render my obedience to Thy will holy, natural, and delightful. Rectify all my principles by clear, consistent, and influential views of divine truth. Let me never undervalue or neglect any part of Thy revealed will. May I duly regard the doctrine and practice of the gospel, prizing its commands as well as its promises. Sanctify me in every relation, office, transaction and condition of life, that if I prosper I may not be unduly exalted, if I suffer I may not be over-sorrowful. Please balance my mind in all varying circumstances and help me to cultivate a disposition that renders every duty a spiritual privilege. Thus may I be content, be a glory to Thee and an example to others. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22Image

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The best part of a Cresleigh home is making it your own! This #MillsStation Residence 2 floor plan comes with an upstairs loft that’s perfect for a play area, study space, or even just a spot to relax. That couch does look pretty inviting.

ImageGo on a virtual walkthrough of this plan on our website. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-61/

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The Health of Nations is More Important than the Wealth of Nations!

Capture25The people’s judgment is not always true; the most may err a grossly as the few. The primary purpose of goal setting is to pull change in the direction you have chosen—one which fits your expertise and overall plan. Governance is more than just the structure and administration of a nation’s government. It is the rules and rulers, the law, and the bureaucracy embedded in the system of that government, it is about the relationship between the state and the individual. The various theories of justice, including the polity, law, structure, communication, and administration of governance are rooted in democracy as a governance system that emphasizes the “rule by the people” and citizenship, participation, and communication. A republic is a governance system in which the constitution is seen as an essential document organizing the collective will and rule of law. Governance systems of anarchy promote the idea that humankind should have the individual liberty to act in accordance to their own will and absent of constraint. Communism and theocracy are both governance ideas which emphasize a government that is “absolute” in rule and regulation in order to maintain a stronger communal liberty. Equality in the United States of American is supposed to be so great in both fortune and intellect that the strength of democracy will spread throughout the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Image Within this democratic republic are core theories of justice, such as contractarianism and egalitarianism. This view holds that a social contract is assembled by the collective will of the people, along with guiding principles of equality and joint responsibility. Integration of differing theories of justice intersect and work in agreement toward a stronger and fairer governance structure of democratic republic, and this self-governance is the goal of justice. However, at times, the law can be guilty of the very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! All people have a right of defending, even by force, one’s person, one’s liberty, and one’s property. However, much like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate, but to win one’s friendship and understanding.” Systems of justice within governance must reflect the goal of equality of basic conditions for everyone. One cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. The tools may allow us temporarily to beat one at one’s own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageTo consider the consequences of unresolved conflicts is to enter a seemingly limitless territory and one that has been little explored. We could, perhaps, approach it by embarking on a discussion of certain symptomatic disorders like depression, alcoholism, epilepsy, or schizophrenia, hoping thereby to gain a better understanding of particular disturbances. I prefer, however, to examine it from a more general vantage point and to pose the question: What do unresolved conflicts do to our energies, our integrity, and our happiness? I adopt this approach because it is my conviction that we cannot grasp the significance of any symptomatic disorder without an understanding of its fundamental human basis. The tendency in modern psychiatry to reach for a handy theoretical formulation to account for existing syndromes is not unnatural in view of the need of the clinician whose job it is to deal with them. However, to do so is as little feasible, let alone scientific, as for a construction engineer to build the top floors of a building before laying the foundation. Some of the elements that enter into our question have already been mentioned and need only be elaborated here. Others are implicit in our previous discussions; still other will have to be added. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageOur aim is to leave the reader not with some vague notion that unresolved conflicts are injurious but to convey a fairly clear and comprehensive picture of the havoc they inflict on the personality. Living with unresolved conflicts involves primarily a devastating waste of human energies, occasioned not only be the conflicts themselves but by all the devious attempts to remove them. When a person is basically divided one can never put one’s energies wholeheartedly into anything but wants always to pursue two or more incompatible goals. This means that one will either scatter one’s energies or actively frustrate one’s efforts. The former is true of persons whose idealized image, like Peer Gynt’s, lures them into believing that they can excel in everything. A woman, in this case, want to be an ideal mother, a perfect cook and hostess, dress well, play a prominent social and political role, be a devoted wife, have affairs outside marriage and do productive work of her own to boot. Needless to say, this cannot be done; she will be bound to fail in all these pursuits, and her energies—no matter how potentially gifted she is—will be wasted. Of more general relevance is the frustration of a single pursuit where incompatible motivations block each other. A man may want to be a good friend but be so domineering and demanding that his potentialities in this direction are never realized. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageAnother wants his children to get on in the World, but his drive for personal power and his insistent rightness interfere. Someone want to write a book but get a splitting headache or is seized with a deadly fatigue whenever he cannot immediately formulate what he wants to say. In this instance it is again the idealized image that is responsible: since he is the mastermind, why should not brilliant thoughts flow from his pen like rabbits from a magician’s hat? And when they do not, he bursts with rage at himself. Someone else may have an idea of real value that he wants to present at a meeting. However, one wishes not only to express it in a way that will be impressive and put others in the shade; one also wants to be liked and to avoid antagonizing, and at the same time anticipates ridicule because of this externalization of one’s self-contempt. The result is that he cannot think at all and the pertinent thought he might have produced never reaches fruition. Still another could be a good organizer but by reason of one’s sadistic trends antagonizes everyone around one. If we look at ourselves and those about us, it is hardly necessary to give further examples because all of us can find plenty of them. There is an apparent exception to this lack of clear direction. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageSometimes neurotic persons show a curious single-mindedness of purpose: men many sacrifice everything including their own dignity to their ambition; women may want nothing of life but love; parents may devote their entire interest to their children. Such persons give the impression of wholeheartedness. However, as we have shown, they are actually pursuing a mirage which appears to offer a solution of their conflicts. The apparent wholeheartedness is one of desperation rather than of integration. It is not the conflicting needs and impulses alone that consume and dissipate energies. Other factors in the protective structure have the same effect. There is the eclipse of whole areas of the personality due to the suppression of parts of the basic conflict. The parts eclipsed are still sufficiently active to interfere, but they cannot be put to constructive use. The process thus constitutes a loss of energy that might otherwise be used for self-assertion, for co-operation, or for establishing good human relationships. There is, to mention only one other factor, the alienation from self that robs a person of one’s motor force. One can still be a good worker, one may even be able to make a considerable effort when put under external pressure, but he collapses when left to his own resources. This does not only mean that he cannot do anything constructive or enjoyable with his free time; it means nothing less than that all his creative forces may go to waste. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageFor the most part, a variety of factors combine to create large areas of diffuse inhibition. In order to understand and eventually remove a single inhibition, we usually have to come back to it again and again, tackling it from all the angles we have discussed. Waste or misdirection of energy can stem from three major disturbances, all symptomatic of unresolved conflicts. One of these is a general indecisiveness. It may be prevalent in everything, from trifles to matters of greatest personal importance. There may be an endless wavering whether to eat this dish or that, whether to buy this or that suitcase, whether to go to the movies or listen to the radio. It may be impossible to decide on a career or on any step within a career; to decide between two women; to decide whether or not to get a divorce; whether to die or to live. A decision that must be made and that would be irrevocable is a real ordeal and may leave a person panic-stricken and exhausted. Though their indecisiveness may be marked, people are often unaware of it because they unconsciously exert every effort to avoid decision. They procrastinate; they allow themselves to be swayed by chance or else leave the decision to someone else. They may also becloud issues to a degree that leaves no basis upon which to make a decision. The aimlessness that follows from all this is likewise not usually apparent to the person oneself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageThe many unconscious devices employed to cover up pervasive indecision account for the comparative rarity with which analysts hear complaints about what is actually a common disorder. Another typical manifestation of divided energies is a general ineffectualness. I do not have in mind here an inaptitude in a particular field, which might be due to lack of training or interest in the subject. Nor is it a question of untapped energies such as William James describes in a most interesting paper pointing to the fact that a reservoir of energy becomes available when one does not succumb to the first sigh of fatigue, or under pressure of external circumstances. In effectualness in this context is that which results from a person’s incapacity to exert one’s best efforts by reason of one’s inner crosscurrents. It is as if one were driving a care with the brakes on; inevitably the car is slowed down. Sometimes this is literally applicable. Everything a person attempts may be done much more slowly than either one’s abilities or the inherent difficult of the task would warrant. Not that one makes insufficient effort; on the contrary, one must put in an inordinate amount of effort into anything one does. It may take one hours, for instance, to write a simple reports r master a simple mechanical device. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageWhat exactly impedes one suffering from ineffectualness of course varies. One may unconsciously rebel against what one feels as coercion; one may be driven to perfect every minute detail; one may be furious at oneself—as in an example above—for not acquitting oneself superbly at the first attempt. The ineffectualness does not only manifest itself in slowness; I may also appear in awkwardness or forgetfulness. If one secretly feels it is unfair, gifted as one is, a domestic worker or a housewife will not do one’s work well because it is beneath one to do such menial work. And one’s ineffectualness will usually not be confined to this particular activity but will pervade all one’s endeavours. From the subjective standpoint this means working under strain, with the inevitable consequences of becoming easily exhausted and needing much sleep. Any kind of work under these conditions is bound to take more out of a person, just as if a car is drive with locked brakes, it will suffer. The inner strain—and the ineffectualness as well—is present not only in work but also to a very marked degree in dealing with people. If someone wants to be friendly but at the same time resent the idea because one feels it to be ingratiating, one will be stilted; if one wants to ask for something but also feels one should command it, one will be ungracious; if one wants to assert oneself but also to comply, one will be hesitant. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageSimilarly, if one wants to make contact people but anticipate rejection, one will be sky; if one wants to have pleasures of the flesh but also wants to frustrate the partner, one will be frigid—and so on. The more pervasive he countercurrents, the greater the strain of living. Some persons are aware of such inner strain; more often they become aware of it only if under special conditions it is increased; sometimes it strikes them only by contrast with the few occasion when they can relax, feel at ease, and be spontaneous. For the resulting fatigue they usually hold other factors responsible—a weak constitution, an overdose of work, a lack of sleep. Any of these, it is true, may play a role, but a much less significant one than is ordinarily believed. In contrast, a self-actualized person’s state will not be easily discernible to others, unless they happen to be the few who are themselves sufficiently advanced and sufficiently sensitive to appreciate it. Yet it is one’s duty to announce the glorious news of its discovery, to publish the titanic fact of its existence. However, one will do so in one’s own way, according to one’s own charactertistics and circumstances. One will not need to announce it in a speech, or print in it a book; one will not publish the fact in daily newspapers or shout it from the housetops. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImageOne’s whole life will be the best announcement, the grandest publication. Without oneself being a priest, one performs the true priestly office. The strange and sweet spell flung forever over sensitive, ripe, and ready minds by the self-actualized, when one uses one’s wisdom and goodness, is like a caduceus to enchant them into becoming seekers after truth. One is a prophet without a church, a teacher without a school, a reformer without an institution. The adept can do much more through the prestige of true ideas set down in writing than through the mechanical efforts of any formal organization, more by helping individuals than by creating a collective body which would one day exploit them. One is the abstract, far-off ideal, but embodied visibly for our benefit and put near us for our inspiration. Can one person transfer spiritual grace to another? If by grace if meant here can one give a glimpse of God to another, the answer is Yes!—if the other is worthy, sensitive, and above al karmically ready. Ne can if the other person is capable of absorbing the stimulus radiated to one. In the case of those who are ready for it or who have affinity with one, a master may be able to bring about a temporary illuminating glimpse through one’s inner contact with the other person by the power of one’s spiritual force. This force can be expressed through the Master’s spoken words or in silent meditation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageTraditional subjective faith results from a divine light which is freely accepted. It formally constitutes the saving element of faith. However, this subjective faith cannot be analysed alone, for it never exists without an object. This object, as we have said, comes from the Church: we are told what the Church believes and, enlightened by God, we believe it too. In scholastic terms, subjective and objective faith are likened to form and matter; and as philosophers know, there is neither form without matter, nor matter without form. The Reformation, with its dislike of scholasticism, avoided these terms; but it maintained their purpose: subjective faith was essentially correlative to objective belief. Where a distinction existed, one sees a separation. Admittedly, faith always has a concrete content. The content matters infinitely for the life of the believer, but does not matter for the formal definition of faith. We thus face a strange paradox: what matters infinitely for the believer does not concern the nature of one’s faith. How can this be, if faith is infinite concern? Subjective faith could stand by itself, without a concrete content. There is nothing in faith but faith itself: what is called absolute faith is the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts. Those who are always hoping to receive full enlightenment from a master, exaggerate the service one can render. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageThe most that a master can give is a glimpse, and that not to everyone. Those who penetrate into the holy of holies bless the World when they bring forth the treasures they find therein. What they achieve and accomplish mentally in the period of prayer, they will later express automatically in action during the days that follow. Theirs is the balanced life which is true sanity, so lacking in modern existence. Neither the Unconditioned nor something unconditional is meant as a being, not even the highest being, not even God. Yet faith cannot exist without a person believing something, without a subject and an object. Unless one is bidden from the higher power (and one is sure of the source) to become an apostle, one will not take on the task of making available to others in such a public fashion, truths which most are not ready enough to recognize, which would create bewilderment or scorn in their minds. Nor, again, will one communicate privately without the inner command and thus become a leader to others. The awareness that one existed on this planet made its grievous and troubled life more bearable, gave a little meaning to what seemed otherwise quite chaotic. For one’s own higher development reminded, nay assured, us that there was some sort of an evolution going on, that there was a goal and a purpose behind it all.  Thus, merely to know that this being was alive, even though we might never again meet one and could never hope to become intimate with one, sustained our faith in Life itself and helped us to live. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

ImageThe prayers of such a being are not lightly uttered nor egotistically born. Therefore they are always heard and generally answered. One can communicate to others something of one’s mystical enlightenment through words and something of one’s mystical serenity through silence. One carries with one a perpetual blessing, although it is seldom possible for those who identify themselves with their fleshly bodies to receive this unheralded gift with their conscious minds. Faith is the true reading of human’s existential estrangement as a relating estrangement, as a healing wound. This means that one has given faith a preliminary content distinct from its concrete content. Thus faith appears on three levels: as subjective it is ultimate concern; as content of this concern, it is reunion in estrangement, forgiveness in guilt, ground of being in separation from this ground; as objective, related to a concrete content, it is still a third phenomenon. The Fall of Man is the existential condition that inspired human’s desire for salvation—the quest for Christ. The Christian document of original sin is a theological explanation of estrangement. As such it belongs to Christology: Christ, by hypothesis, will bring salvation from this basic anguish of existence. It belongs a fortiori to a theology of faith. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

ImageIf faith implies awareness of estrangement and courage to endorse and bear estrangement, it also implies knows of “original sin” and rests on the experience of the fall of man. What the legend of the Fall tells humankind in general, faith discovers in each person: that existence is tragic this tragic element, if accepted, becomes a way to holiness and peace. In such a perspective, faith experiences the Fall. Christ will be as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense—seek the Lord, not peeing wizards—turn to the law and to the testimony for guidance—compare Isaiah 8. About 559-545 Before Christ. “Moreover, the word of the Lord said to me: Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a human’s pen, concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zecharish the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me: Call his name, Maher-salal-has-baz. For behold, the child shall not have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, before the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king Assyria. The Lord spake also unto me again, saying: Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; Now therefore, behold the Lord bringeth upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his banks. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Image“And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear all ye of far countries; grid yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand; for God is with us. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying: Say ye not, A confederacy, to all whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let hum be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I am the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Image“And when they shall say unto you: Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter—should not a people seek unto their God for the living to hear from the dead? To the law and to the testimony; and if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry; and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the Earth and behold trouble, and darkness, dimness of anguish, and shall be driven to darkness,” reports 2 Nephi 18.1-22. We sinners do beseech Thee, please hear us. That it may please Thee to defend and exalt Thy Church; we beseech Thee, Lord Jesus, to please hear us. That is may please Thee to grant to Thy Church the tranquility of peace; that it may please Thee to put down the enemies of God’s Holy Church; that it may please Thee to defend us from dangerous enemies; that it may please Thee to preserve the people, and our pastor and chief, and the flock committed to him; that it may please Thee to preserve the Queen in perpetual prosperity; that it may please Thee to preserve all orders of the Church, the clergy and laity, and the whole people; that it may please Thee to make us persevere in good works. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

ImageFurthermore, that it may please Thee to give us celestial armour against the devil; that Thy mercy and pity may keep us safe; that Thou wouldest give us the will and the power to repent in earnest; that it may please Thee to give us pardon of all sins; that it may please Thee to give us right faith, firm hope in Thy goodness, and perfect live, and constant fear of Thee; that it may please Thee to remove evil thoughts from us; that it may please Thee to pour in our souls the grace of the Holy Spirit; that it may please Thee to give us perpetual light; that it may please Thee to give us a happy end; that it may please Thee to bring us to everlasting joys; that it may please Thee to hear us; Son of God; O Lamb of God, please give us pardon. O Lamb of God, please hear us. Please give perfection to beginners, give intelligence to the little ones, give us assistance to those who are running their course. Please give compunction to the negligent, give fervour of spirit to the lukewarm, give to the perfect a good consummation. O Lover of the loveless, it is Thy will that I should love Thee with heart, soul, mind, strength, and neighbour as myself. However, I am not sufficient for these things. There is by nature no pure love in my soul; every affection in me is turned from Thee; I am bound, as slave to lust, I cannot love Thee, lovely as Thou art, until Thou dost set me free. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageBy grace I am Thy freeperson and would serve Thee, for I believe Thou art my God in Jesus, and that through Him I am redeemed, and my sins are forgiven. With this freedom I would always obey Thee, but I cannot walk in liberty, anymore than I could first attain it, of myself. May Thy Spirit draw me nearer to Thee and Thy ways, please. Thou art the end of all mean, for if they lead me not to Thee, I go away empty. Please order all my ways by Thy holy word and please make Thy commandments the joy of my heart, that by them I may have happy converse with Thee. May I grow in Thy love and manifest it to humankind. Spirit of love, make me like the loving Jesus; please give me His benevolent temper, His beneficent actions, that I may shine before people to Thy glory. The more Thou doest in love in me and by me, please humble me the more; keep me meek, lowely, and always ready to give Thee honour. May hope spring eternal in the human heart; people never is, but always to be blessed. To err is human, to forgive is divine. If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love’s sake only. God’s gifts put humans best gifts to shame. Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave. My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace. The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one; yet the light of the bright World dies with the dying Sun. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

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A Fear of a Different Order is Generated—the Fear that Something May Jeopardize these Treasures!

ImageSometimes it takes falling into an open well to discover what we need. All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents. As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. In its crucial features the ideal speech situation is strictly formal. To arrive at it we abstract from all social circumstances and institutions, as well as particular technical economic, political and cultural circumstances. The ideal speech situation abstracts out any interests speakers might have other than an interest in discursive consensus, and assumes for the speakers that all their experience and feeling is communicable. It also abstracts from the speaking situation those real material factors that require us to cut discussion short (such as having to eat, sleep, and so forth) and to acquire the means for doing so. Only this complete formality of the ideal speech situation permits it to have a universal character. Given the correctness of the theory of communication in which it is embedded, the ideal speech situation implicitly underlies any act of speaking which aims at understanding, as a quasi-transcendental condition for that speaking. This universality provides a theory of justice with a grounding that makes it less arbitrary than some other starting points. It also can provide a critical theory of justice with its needed capacity to distance itself from any and all actual social circumstances. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageThere is a price for this universalizing distance, however. Because the ideal speech situation is formal and abstract, it cannot itself serve as a standard or goal of justice. The ideal speech situation offers the vision of social relations free from domination, the ideal of pure democracy and social reciprocity. It offers this as a mere vision, however; it is no more than an unreal projection that interests thought. It is too abstract to serve as a means of evaluating particular social circumstances. Nor can principles of the evaluation of a society be derived from the ideal speech situation directly. As we have already seen, it is illegitimate to derive substantive normative principles from a purely formal beginning. To use the ideal speech situation for developing a conception of justice applicable to the evaluation of actual societies, we must introduce material premises derived from actual social circumstances. Habermas suggests a method for the introduction of such material content into the ideal speech situation. Utilization of the ideal speech situation, on the other hand, entails incorporating specific knowledge of the particular society one seeks to evaluate. The participants in the discussion know at least the following things about their society: They know the basic natural constraints of their location, such as climate, topography, the character and general amount of land and material resources to which they have access, and so on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImagePeople involved in the discussion also have basic demographic knowledge such as how much relative space they have and how much food can be produced relative to the given and projected population. They know the sort of problems their technology can solve and the general level of productive capacity they have at their disposal. All the above say in concrete terms that the persons here know approximately at what point their society lies on the scale between social scarcity and social abundance. As I interpret this model, moreover, the members of the discussion also know much about the culture and traditions of their particular society. They have a notion of the tastes of their artistic and decorative traditions of their particular society. They have a notion of the tastes of their artistic and decorative tradition and a set of shared symbols and stores. They know their language, the games they play, their educational practices, and so on. In principle, if they were in a situation of equality and reciprocity in this model of reasoning about justice, the only things abstracted from real society are those conditions of domination which prevent people in real society from pressing interests that all would agree to as legitimate. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageThis model of reasoning must be purely hypothetical, of course, since in reality material conditions and relations of domination are inextricably linked. Imagining persons with these material constraints as standing in the ideal speech situation—even though no such persons could exist—provides a means of locating the sources of domination. Given discussion unconstrained by domination, the model has individuals choose first principles of social organization that best serve what they judge as their collective needs and legitimate individual interests, given the material constraints under which they operate. They choose, that is, the basic rules of interaction, authority relations, and forms of decision making within and among institutions. Among the principles and rules chosen, of course, are those relating to the distribution of the benefits of social cooperation. Such principles of distribution, however, would be dependent on prior determination of institutional forms, conditions and relations of production and authority relations, as well as on the level of material abundance of which the society is capable. For without the prior knowledge of the forms of social organization, we do not know what sort of social benefits are to be distributed, nor what sort of social positions and interest groups there are to decide among in distributing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageThe conception and principles of justice which emerge in this way from the application for the formal conditions of the ideal speech situation to the material situation of a particular society are thus quite particular. Unlike most theories of justice, this model of reasoning about justice does not call for the construction of an idea of the just society in general. Rather, the model allows for, even requires, a multitude of conceptions of justice, each derived from the particular conditions of the society and applicable only to them. The model thus satisfies the condition developed in the previous section, that a theory of justice recognize the historical specific of conceptions of justice. It grants that it is not in fact possible to articulate a substantive conception of justice that applies to the evaluation of all or many societies. This form of reasoning about justice in effect measures a society against itself rather tan measuring the society directly against an ahistorical set of principles. The conception of justice resulting from application of the ideal speech situation to particular social conditions, expresses the interests of all insofar as they are compatible. It thus shows that latent possibilities of the society given its historical and material conditions with the systemic sources of its conflicts of interest removed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageThis process of reasoning about justice serves two purposes. Its main function is to identify sources of domination in the social arrangements of a particular society. The thought experiment discovers relations of domination in the process of setting up its starting point of reasoning. For every social relation whose justice one wishes to examine one asks whether there are aspects of it that tend to create asymmetries in the situation of discussion. The hypothetical models abstracts from them, but not from the material conditions and constraints. The second function served by the model is to project a vision of an alternative organization of that society which is free from domination. Therefore, utilization of the ideal speech situation in a model of reasoning about justice that applies it to the particular material and cultural situation of given society satisfies both the requirements for a theory of justice which have been raised in this essay. First, since the ideal speech situation focuses on relations of interaction and its application reveals the sources of domination, a theory of justice that uses it focuses primarily on forms of social organization. Secondly, the method of applying the ideal speech situation to particular material and cultural conditions points to a theory of justice that contains an a priori universal aspect without producing a conception of justice which claims transhistorical application. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageTranshistorical is the quality of holding throughout human history, not merely within the frame of reference of a particular form of society at a particular stage of historical development; it is eternal. In searching for the deeper meaning of any neurotic problem we can easily lose our bearings in a maze of intricacies. Since we cannot hope to understand neurosis without facing its complexity, this is not unnatural. It is helpful, though, to stand aside from time to time in order to regain our perspective. We have followed the development of the protective structure step by step. We have seen how one defense after another is built up until a comparatively static organization is established. And the element that impresses us most deeply in all this is the infinite labour that has gone into the process, a labour so tremendous that we are led again to wonder what it is that drives a person along so arduous a path and one so fraught with cost to oneself. We ask ourselves what are the forces that make the structure so rigid and so difficult to change. Is the motive power of the whole process simply the fear of the disruptive potency of the basic conflict? An analogy may clear a way to the answer. Like any analogy it is not a precise parallel and so can only be applied in the broadest terms. Let us assume that a man with a shady past has found his way into a community by false present. He will, of course, live in dread of his former state’s being disclosed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageIn the course of tie his situation advances; he makes friends, secures a job, founds a family. Cherishing his new position, he is best with a new fear, the fear of losing these goods. His pride in his respectability alienates him from his unsavory past. He gives large sums to charity and even to his old associates in order to wipe out his old life. Meanwhile the changes that have been taking place in his personality proceed to involve him in new conflicts, with the results that in the end his having commenced his present life on false premises becomes merely an undercurrent in his disturbance. So in the organization the neurotic has established, the basic conflict remains but is transmuted. Tempered in some respect, it is enhanced in others. Due, however, to the vicious circle inherent in the process, the ensuing conflict become more urgent. What sharpens them most is the fact that every fresh defensive position further impairs one’s relations with oneself and others—the soil, as we have seen, out of which conflicts grow. Moreover, as new elements, however wrapped in illusion—love or success, an achieved detachment or an established image—come to play an important part in one’s life, a fear of a different order is generated, the fear that something may jeopardize these treasures. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageAnd all the while, one’s increased alienation from oneself deprives one more and more of the capacity to work on oneself and so get rid of one’s difficulties. Inertia sets in, taking the place of a directed growth. The protective structure, for all its rigidity, is highly brittle and itself gives rise to new fears. One of these is a fear that its equilibrium will be disturbed. While the structure lends a sense of balance, it is a balance that is easily upset. The person oneself is not consciously aware of this threat, but one cannot help feeling it in a variety of ways. Experience has taught one that one can be thrown out of gear for no apparent reason, that one becomes infuriated, elated, depressed, fatigued, inhibited when one least desires it. The sum total of such experiences gives one a feeling of uncertainty, a feeling that one cannot rely on oneself. It is as if one were skating on thin ice. One’s imbalance may also be expressed in gait or posture, or in lack of skill in anything requiring physical balance. The most concrete expression of this fear is a fear of insanity. When that is present in a marked degree it can be the paramount symptom that drives a person to seek psychiatric help. In such instance the fear is also determined by repressed impulses to do all sorts of “crazy” things, mostly of a destructive nature, without feeling responsible for them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageThe fear of insanity, however, is not to be construed as an indication that the person may actually go insane. Usually it is transitory and emerges only under conditions of acute distress. Its most poignant provocations are a sudden threat to the idealized image, or a mounting tension—most commonly due to unconscious rage—that puts excessive self-control in jeopardy. A woman, for example, who believed herself to be both even-tempered and courageous had an onset of panic when, in a difficult situation, she was struck with a feeling of helplessness, apprehension, and violent anger. Her idealized image, which had held her together as with a band of steel, suddenly burst and left her with a fear of going to pieces. We have already spoken of the panic hat may seize a detached person when one is pulled from one’s shelter and brought into close proximity to others—when, for instance, one has to join the army or live with relatives. This terror, too, may be expressed as a fear of insanity; and in this instance psychotic episodes may actually occur. In analysis a like fear will emerge when a patient who has gone to great lengths to create an artificial harmony suddenly recognizes that one is divided. That fear of insanity is most frequently precipitated by unconscious rage is demonstrated in analysis, when, this fear having subsided, its residues take the form of an apprehension that one may insult, beat or even kill people under conditions where self-control is impossible. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImageThe commission of an act of violence in sleep or under the influence of drink, anesthesia, or excitement involving pleasures of the flesh will then be feared. The rage itself may be conscious or it may appear in consciousness as an obsessive impulse toward violence, unconnected with any affect. On the other hand, it may be entirely unconscious; in that case all the person feels are sudden spells of vague panic, accompanied perhaps by perspiration, dizziness, or a fear of fainting—signifying an underlying fear that the violent impulses might get out of control. Where the unconscious rage is externalized, the person may have a terror of thunderstorms, ghosts, burglars, snakes, and so on—that is, of any potentially destructive force outside oneself. However, after all, fear of insanity is comparatively rare. It is simply the most conspicuous expression of the fear of losing equilibrium. Ordinarily that fear operates in more hidden ways. It appears then in vague, indefinite forms and can be precipitated by any change in life’s routine. Persons subject to it may feel profoundly disturbed at the prospect of making a journey or of moving or changing jobs or employing a new maid or whatever. Wherever possible they try to avoid such changes. Its threat to stability may be a factor in deterring patients from being analyzed, particularly if they have found a way of living that permits them to function fairly well. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageWhen they discuss they advisability of analysis they will be concerned about questions that at first glance seem reasonable enough: Will analysis uproot their marriage? Will it temporarily incapacitate them for work? Will it make them irritable? Will it interfere with their religion? As we shall see, such questions are in part determined by the patient’s hopelessness; one does not think it worth while to take any risks. However, there is also a real apprehension behind one’s concern: one needs to be reassured that analysis will not upset one’s equilibrium. In such cases we can safely assume that the equilibrium is particularly shaky and that the analysis will be a difficult one. Can the analyst give the patient the assurance one wants? No, one cannot. Every analysis is bound to create temporary upsets. What the analyst can do, however, is to go to the root of such questions, to explain to the patient what one really is afraid of, and tell one that while analysis will upset one’s present balance it will give one an opportunity to attain an equilibrium more solidly grounded. Faith is not distinctly Christian phenomenon. All philosophers have tried to reach the bottom of human’s self-awareness. They have attempted to overcome the distinction between subject and object. That all this has been done since philosophy began is not surprising: for this effort is none other than that of making ourselves like God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageUnity with God is a natural desire which is at least implicit in the heart of humans. Humans may or may not be able to give a name to God. At any rate, they tend to God as the goal of their fulfilment. They seek him in the dark along the winding roads of their anxieties, through the ups and downs of their fevers. And there is a sense in which they words that Pascal places on the lips of the Lord are true: “You would not seek for me, had you not already found me.” Other descriptions of faith, like Paul Tillich’s, when it describes human’s seeking and inclining towards God, is extremely valuable. Yet as we have seen, human’s search for God remains essentially ambiguous. The coincidence of guilt and forgiveness may be understood in two ways: either guilt I subsumed in forgiveness, or guilt already is forgiveness. An option between these two interpretations completely changes the meaning of guilt. Or, take faith as the acceptance of being accepted. If we are accepted, we are accepted, whether we accept it or not. What does our acceptance add to our being accepted? Strictly nothing. The conscious element of faith (our acceptance) is tacked on to a more basic element (our being accepted). If Paul Tillich thinks he is being radical in seeing this acceptance as faith, his radicalism can be outdone: faith is our being accepted. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

ImageEverything is accepted; all is love; all is forgiveness. It is better, for our own peace, to know this experientially; but at bottom it makes no difference. We are accepted in any case. Faith is no longer a free act of human’s entire personality. It is the stuff of all human life. Tillich comes dangerously near to saying this when he underlines the universality of faith: “Every religious and cultural group and, to a certain extent, every individual is the bearer of a special experience and content of faith.” “There is no human being without an ultimate concern and, in this sense, without faith.” If every person cannot help having faith, what is unique in the Christian faith? Between classical theology, Catholic or Protestant, and Tillich something has intervened. What has happened is that Tillich has ontologized the concept of faith. Catholicism, followed by the Reformation, sees faith as a freely accepted act. Humans can reject faith. It is also an act of God: God enlightens the soul; and the soul, accepting or rejecting this light, believes or disbelieves. With Tillich, faith underlies everything. Doubt itself stems from underlying faith. Only faith can attempt to refute faith. “Our ultimate concern can destroy us as it can heal us…But we never can be without it.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

ImageSome people are distinguished from others, not in that they freely accept God’s light and believe, but rather in that they suddenly, ecstatically, realize what is common to all, though hidden, namely, that estrangement is also reunion, that life has an ultimate meaning. Personally, with this understand, I take worship of the Lord serious, and I also try to give my best time to prayer—which for me is never the time just before going to bed. One’s last waking moments should never be given to powerful intercessory prayer (except, perhaps, for students who have a final exam in the morning). Here Jesus’ habit is instructive: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed,” reports Mark 1.35. The early birds get the prime time. The real question for you is, when is your best time? For some it may be at lunch or before dinner. A certain person could not find the right posture for prayer. One tried praying on one’s knees, but that was not comfortable; besides, it wrinkled one’s slacks. One tried praying standing, but soon one’s legs got tired. One tried praying seated, but that did not seem reverent. Then one day as one was walking though a field, one fell headfirst into an open well. And did one ever pray! #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

ImageSeriously, one’s prayer posture can make a difference. While the Scriptures mention numerous postures for prayer, none is prescribed. What is important is that your posture enhance reverent attention. Sometimes I kneel, sometimes I walk about the house, often I sit at my desk with list in hand. There are times when I lift my hands, and other time I have been on my face. Heart attitude is the key factor. As to preparation for prayer, honest practicality is of greatest importance. Sometimes a person needs a shower and to get other grooming hygiene matters taken care of. If you are into coffee like I am, a good cup of coffee is a divine cordial. Again, it is not the physical details that are of prime importance but the condition and stance of the heart. Whatever helps you focus on the Lord. Often the best prayers are short and passionate. Luther himself said: “Look to it that you do not try to do all of it, do not try to do too much, lest your spirit grow weary. Besides, a good prayer must not be too long. Do not draw it out. Prayer ought to be frequent and fervent.” A legalistic commitment to duration can kill one’s prayer life because it takes a lot of energy and you make look at it as a big, exhausting obstacle. So the best thing to do is just to get into and be honest and pour out your heart. It may surprise you where you go. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

ImageIf you go long enough without a bath even the fleas will let you alone. Isaiah see the Lord—Isaiah’s sins are forgiven—he is called to prophesy—he prophesies of the rejection by the Jews of Christ’s teachings—a remnant will return—Compare Isaiah 6. About 559-545 Before Christ. “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I: Wo is unto me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Host. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said: Lo, this has touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said; Here am I; send me. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Image“And he said: Go and tell this people—Hear ye indeed, but they understood not; and see ye indeed, but they perceived not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed. Then said I: Lord, how long? And he said: Until the cities he wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate; and the Lord have removed people far away, for there shall be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. However, yet there shall be a tenth, and they shall return, and shall be eaten, as a teil tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof,” reports 2 Nephi 16.1-13. O God Who art rich in mercy to all, O Father of glory, Who madest Thy Son to be a Light to the Gentiles, to proclaim redemption to the captives and sight to the blind; do Thou, Who by Christ art bounteous in compassion, grant them remission of sins, and a portion among the Saints through faith. Lord of immortality, before whom Angels bow and Archangels veil their faces, enable me to serve Thee with reverence and Godly fear. Thou who art Spirit and requirest truth in the inward parts, help me to worship Thee in spirit and in truth. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageThou who art righteous, please let me not harbour sin in my heart, or indulge a Worldly temper, or seek satisfaction in things that perish. I hasten towards an hour when Earthly pursuits and possessions will appear vain, when it will be indifferent whether I have been rich or poor, successful or disappointed, admired or despised. However, it will be of eternal moment that I have mourned for sin, hungered and thirsted after righteousness, loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity, gloried in His cross. May these objects engross my chief solicitude! Produce in me those principles and dispositions that make Thy service perfect freedom. Expel from my mind all sinful fear and shame, so tat with firmness and courage I may confess the redeemer before humans, go forth with one bearing one’s reproach, be zealous with one’s knowledge, be filled with one’s wisdom, walk with one’s circumspection, ask counsel of one in all things, repair to the Scriptures for one’s orders, stay mind on one’s peace, knowing that nothing can befall me without one’s permission, appointment and administration. The notion of infinity implies that it cannot be extended, and whoever understands this will not look in this World for anything which contradicts the implication. The tremendous monumentality of the World-Idea, the staggering breadth of its scope and variety are a mere hint of the divine wisdom behind both. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

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ImageThe essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different—to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possess. Philosophers generally stipulate that a conception of justice should be held independently of particular social or historical circumstances, or practices, as a necessary condition for objectivity. In the effort to achieve this universality and objectivity, most modern philosophical accounts seek correct normative principles of social life by adopting a strategy of deriving such principles from a hypothetical starting point. Whether called the state of nature, the original position, the moral point of view, the ideal observer, and so on, this hypothetical starting point purportedly escapes the specificity of actual historical circumstances. The starting point aims to remove all natural and social contingency from human life, leaving only its formal and universal elements. Then political theorists can claim to derive the correct conception of the just social order from this universal and formal starting point. As we have seen, however, each account smuggles into the starting point substantive premises derived more or less directly from the theorist’s social circumstances. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageThe theory of the just social order which emerges, then, merely reflects in idealized and systematized form the actual structure of the society in which the theorist dwells. Thus, many writers argue that classic liberalism makes substantive assumptions about human nature (for example, that human beings are essentially acquisitive) which reflect the particular needs of an emergent bourgeois and capitalist social order. This presents us with a dilemma. If one cannot derive a substantive conception of justice from a formal starting point alone, then it appears inevitable that substantive theories must have substantive premises derived from particular social circumstances. Theories do not err in introducing substantive premises into the starting point, since this is logically necessary if they are to arrive at substantive conclusions. Rather, the error lies in presenting these substantive premises as ahistorical and thus claiming that the substantive conception applies across different social and historical circumstances. Most contemporary social theorists conclude from this that the philosophical ideal of a rationally grounded conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances is an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme, and a dangerous one at that. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageMany Marxists, for example, argue that the search for correct, rationally grounded, universal principles of justice is illusory. Each social formation has its own normative principles which arise from and serve to reproduce the particular social relations of that society. Juridical forms, and the principles of justice that govern them, are specific to modes of production. There is, moreover, no transhistocial conception of justice by which these social practices can be judged unjust. There can be no “justice in itself” independent of the particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular conceptions and principles of justice. It follows that any claim to have a universal and objective theory of justice is necessarily ideological; it makes as disinterested truth what really expresses the interests and values of the dominant class. Similarly, many contemporary non-Marxist social scientists regard with scepticism the possibility of arriving at a normative conception of justice that is not a mere reflection of norms actually operative in a society. For much contemporary social science norms exist only as facts: One can give an account of the norms people actually adhere to and follow in a society. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageOne can show their social origins and give a functional account of how they contribute to the maintenance of social integration. No basis exists, however, for saying that some norms are right while others are not. Given the logical problem outlined above, the traditional philosophical search for a rationally grounded theory of justice appears to be illusory. Yet this conclusion leads to undesirable consequences. The thesis of the impossibility of a rationally grounded conception of justice that is more than a mere reflection of actual social circumstances implies the impossibility of rational social criticism. To criticize a set of social circumstances, and to judge them unjust, one should be able to take a sufficient distance from them that they no longer appear normal or inevitable. This seems to imply that one needs some means of transhistocial evaluation. Herbert Marcuse, was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. He argued that the traditional appeal to normative universals like truth, beauty, freedom and justice serves just its critical function. The projection of universalistic ideas of what ought to be opens up possibilities for thinking, which otherwise would be conditioned by what actually exists. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageThe absence of such philosophical ideals creates the one-dimensional thinking characteristic of contemporary culture. Yet the appeal to universals is necessarily abstract. In the classical philosophical tradition while the motive for the development of an ideal conception of justice may have been critical, the outcome more often than not has been ineffectual. Reflection on the philosophic ideal of just society has most often served as a means of turning one’s back on the real social circumstances and retreating into rarified contemplation. A theory of justice is thus presented with a dilemma. It must provide a means of distancing social criticism from the concrete social conditions under evaluation. The tradition of philosophical criticism has found such a means of distancing only in a priori formal ideal. For a conception of justice to have any substance, however, it must be anchored in the particular social circumstances in which it exists and which it purports to evaluate, and hence be limited in application only to them. So the project of a properly critical theory of justice appears to be contradictory. It must develop a conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances, and yet at the same time derive from particular circumstances and be applicable only to them. I suggest that utilization of the ideal speech situation in what Habermas calls the “model of the suppression of generalizable interests” does just this. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageRationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning. The common idea that it s primarily used to justify oneself or to bring one’s motives and actions into accord with accepted ideologies is only valid up to a point; the implication there would be that persons living in the same civilization all rationalize along the same lines, whereas actually there is a wide range of individual differences in what is rationalized as well as in the methods employed. That this should be so is only natural if we view rationalization as one way of supporting neurotic attempts to create artificial harmony. In each of the planks of the defensive scaffolding built around the basic conflict, the process can be seen at work. The predominant attitude is strengthened by reasoning—factors that would bring the conflict into sight are either minimized or so remodeled as to fit in with it. How this self-deceptive reasoning assists the streamlining of the personality shows up when one contrasts the complaint type with the aggressive. The former ascribes one’s desire to be helpful to one’s sympathetic feelings, even though strong tendencies to dominate are present; and if these are too conspicuous one rationalizes them as solicitousness. The latter, when one is helpful, firmly denies any feeling of sympathy and lays one’s action entirely to expediency. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageThe idealized image always requires a good deal of rationalization for support: discrepancies between the actual self and the image must be reasoned out of existence. In externalizing, it is brought to bear to prove the relevance of outside circumstances or to show that the traits unacceptable to the individual oneself are merely a “natural” reaction to the behaviour of others. The tendency towards excessive selfcontrol can be so strong that I at one tie counted it among the original neurotic trends. Its function is to serve as a dam against being flooded by contradictory emotions. Though in the beginning it is often an act of conscious will power, in time it usually becomes more or less automatic. Persons who exert such control will not allow themselves to be carried away, whether by enthusiasm, excitement in pleasures of the flesh, self-pity, or rage. In analysis they have the greatest difficulty in associating freely; they will not permit alcohol to lift their spirits and frequently prefer to endure pain rather than undergo anesthesia. In short, they seek to check all spontaneity. This trait is most strongly developed in individuals whose conflicts are fairly out in the open, those who have not taken either of the steps that ordinarily help to submerge the conflicts; clear predominance has not been given to one of the conflicting sets of attitudes, nor has sufficient detachment been developed to put the conflicts out of operations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageSuch persons are held together merely by their idealized image; and apparently its binding power is insufficient when unaided by one or the other of the primary attempts at establishing inner unity. The image is particularly inadequate when it takes the form of a composite of contradictory elements. The exertion of will power then, consciously or unconsciously, is needed to keep the conflicting impulses under control. Since the most disruptive impulses are those of violence prompted by rage, the greatest degree of energy is directed toward the control of rage. Here a vicious circle is set in motion; the rage, by reason of being suppressed, attains explosive strength, which in turn requires still more self-control is brought to one’s attention one will defend it by pointing to the virtue and necessity of self-control for any civilized individual. What one overlooks is the compulsive nature of one’s control. One cannot help exerting it in he most rigid way and is seized by panic if for any reason it fails to function. The panic may appear as a fear of insanity, which clearly indicates that the function of the control is to ward off the danger of being split apart. Arbitrary rightness has the twofold function of eliminating doubt from within and influence from without. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageDoubt and indecision are invariable concomitants of unresolved conflicts and can reach an intensity powerful enough to paralyze all action. In such a paralyzing state of doubt, a person is naturally susceptible to influence. When we have genuine convictions we will not be readily swayed; but if all out lives we stand at a crossroad, undecided whether to go in this direction or that, outside agencies can easily be the determining factors, if only temporarily. Moreover, indecision applies not only to possible courses of action but also includes doubts about one-self, one’s rights, one’s worth. All these uncertainties detract from our ability to cope with life. Apparently, however, they are not equally intolerable to everyone. The more a person sees life as a merciless battle, the more will one regard doubt as a dangerous weakness. The more isolated one is and insistent upon independence, the more will susceptibility to foreign influence be a source of irritation. All my observation points to the fact that a combination of predominant aggressive trends and detachment is the most fertile soil for the development of rigid rightness; and the nearer to the surface the aggression, the more militant the rightness. It constitutes an attempt to settle conflicts once and for all by declaring arbitrarily and stick and rigidly that one is invariably right. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageIn a system so governed by rationality, emotions are traitors from within and must be checked by unswerving control. Peace may be attained but it is the peace of the grave. As would be expected, such persona loathe the idea of analysis because it threatens to disarrange the tidy picture. Almost polar to rigid rightness, but likewise an effective defense against it the recognition of conflicts, is elusiveness. Patients inclined toward this kind of defense often resemble those characters in fairy tales who when pursued turn into fish (The Little Mermaid); if not safe in this guise, they turn into deer (Bambi); if the hunter catches up with them, they fly away as birds (Icarus). You can never pin them down to any statement; like Mitt Romney, they always deny having said it or assure you they did not mean it that way. Much like Bernie Sanders, they have a bewildering capacity to becloud issues. These people are also very similar to Hilary Clinton, in the sense that it is often impossible for them to give a concrete report of any incident; should they try to do so the listener is uncertain in the end just what really did happen. The same confusion reigns in their lives. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar (who is similar to Fallon on Dynasty) they are vicious one moment, sympathetic the next; at times overconsiderate, ruthlessly inconsiderate at others; domineering in some respects, self-effacing in others. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImagePeople who suffer from arbitrary rightness also reach out for a dominating partner, like we have seen Andrew Cuomo do with his relationship with the federal government, only to change to a “doormat,” then back to the former variety. After treating someone badly, they will be overcome by remorse, attempt to make amends, then feel like a “sucker” and turn to being abusive all over again. Nothing is quite real to them. The analyst may well find oneself confused, and, discouraged, feel there is no substance to work with. There one is mistaken. These are simply patients who have not succeeded in adopting the customary unifying procedures: they have not only failed to repress parts of their conflict, but they have established no definite idealized image. In a way they may be said to demonstrate the value of these attempts. For no matter how troublesome the consequences, persons who have so proceeded are better organized and not nearly so lost as the elusive type. On the other hand, the analyst would be equally mistaken were one to count on an easy job by virtue of the fact that the conflicts are visible and need not therefore be dragged out of hiding. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageNevertheless one will find oneself up against the patient’s aversion to any transparency, and this will tend to defeat one unless one oneself understands that this is the patient’s way of warding off any real insight. A final defense against the recognition of conflicts is cynicism, the denying and deriding of moral values. A deep-seated uncertainty in respect to moral values is bound to be present in every neurosis, no matter how strict and rigidly the person adheres to the particular aspects of one’s standards that are acceptable to one. While the genesis of cynicism varies, its function invariably is to deny the existence of moral values, thereby relieving the neurotic of the necessity of making clear to oneself what it is one actually believes in. Cynicism can be conscious, and then become a principle in the Machiavellian tradition and be so defended. All that counts is appearance. You can do as you please as long as you do not get caught. Everyone is a hypocrite who is not fundamentally stupid. This kind of patient may be as sensitive to the analyst’s using the term moral, regardless of the context, as those of Dr. Freud’s time were to the mention of pleasures of the flesh. However, cynicism may also remain unconscious and be concealed by lip service to the prevalent ideologies. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageUnaware though one may be of the hold one’s cynicism has upon one, the way one lives and the way one talks about one’s life will reveal that one acts upon its principles. Or one may involve oneself unwittingly in contradictions, like the patient who was sure one believed in honesty and decency yet was envious of anyone who indulged in crooked maneuvers and resented the fact that one oneself never “got away” with that kind of thing. In therapy it is important to being the patient’s cynicism to full awareness at the proper time and help one to understand it. It may also be necessary to explain why it is desirable for one to establish one’s own set of moral values. The foregoing, then, are the defenses built around the nucleus of the basic conflict. For simplicity I shall refer to the whole system of defenses as the protective structure. A combination of defenses is developed in every neurosis; often all of them are present, though in varying degrees of activity. To change governing ideas, whether the individual or the group, is one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. Genuine “conversation” is a wrenching experience. It rarely happens to the individual or group expect in the form of divine intervention, revolution, or something very like a mental breakdown. It can cause deep and permanent damage to the most intimate of relationships, as Jesus forewarned. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Image“Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No, I will you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law,” reports Luke 12.51-53. In fact, we are now undergoing an ever more profound change than in the sixties, though it is less noisy, with the emergence of mass “spirituality” at the end of the twentieth century. This change is the equivalent of a “soul Earthquake” that leaves nothing unshaken and many individuals hurt or destroyed. From one essential perspective, of course, Jesus himself confronted and undermined an idea system and its culture, which in turn killed him. He proved himself greater than any idea system or culture, however, and lives on. He is continuing the process of a Worldwide idea shift that is crucial to his perpetual revolution, in which we each are assigned a part. The Lord’s vineyard (Israel) will become desolate, and His people will be scattered-woes will come upon them in their apostate and scattered state—the Lord will lift an ensign and gather Israel—Compare Isaiah 5. About 559-545 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Image“And then will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes it brought forth wild grapes. And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard—I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, and behold, oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry. Wo unto them that join house to house, till there can be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the Earth! #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Image“In mine ears, said the Lord of Hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, and great and fair cities without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephan. Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, and wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, either consider the operation of one’s hands. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable people are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore, hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and one that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. And the mean person shall be brought down, and the mighty person shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. However, the Lord of Hosts shall be exalted in judgement, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manners, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. We unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; that say: Let one make speed, hasten one’s work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Image“We unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo unto the wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight! Wo unto the mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; who justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from one! Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, their root shall be rottenness, and their blossoms shall go up as dust; because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Thereofre, is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them; and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the Earth; and behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them. None shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows shall be sharp, and all their bows bent, and their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind, their roaring like a lion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Image“They shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry away safe, and none shall deliver. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea; and if they look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the Heavens thereof,” reports 2 Nephi 15.1-30. I intreat Thee, O Lord, holy Father, everlasting God, command the way of Thy truth and of the knowledge of Thee to be shown to Thy servants who wander in doubt and uncertainty amid the darkness of this World; that the eyes of their souls may be opened, and they may acknowledge Thee, the One God, the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit, and enjoy the fruit of this confession, both here and in the World to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. One seeks no power over others, no claim to rulership over their lives, no disciples of one’s own, no train of followers clinging to one’s coat-tails. Yet one will not refrain from helping where such help is imperative, nor from giving counsel where the young, the inexperienced, the bewildered seekers have desperate need of it. However, the moment after one will appear to have forgotten what one has done, so gracious is one’s delicacy, so strong one’s desires to leave others quite free and unobligated. I pray Heaven to bestow the best blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise people rule under this roof. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Image O Lord, whose power is infinite and wisdom infallible, other things that they may neither hinder, nor discourage me, nor prove obstacles to the progress of Thy cause; stand between me and all strife, that no evil befall, no sin corrupt my gifts, zeal, attainments; may I follow duty and not any foolish device of my own; permit me not to labour at work which thou wilt not bless, that I may serve Thee without disgrace or debt; let me dwell in Thy most secret place under Thy shadow, where is safe impenetrable protection from the arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, the strife of tongues, the malice of ill-will, the hurt of unkind talk, the snares of company, the perils of youth, the temptations of middle life, the mournings of old ages, the fear of death. I am entirely dependent upon Thee for support, counsel, consolation. Uphold me by Thy free Spirit, and may I not think it enough to be preserved from falling, but may I always go forward, always abounding in the work Thou givest me to do. Strengthen me by Thy Spirit in my inner self for every purpose of my Christian life. All my jewels I give to the shadow of the safety that is in Thee—my name anew in Christ, my body, soul talents, character, my success, wife, children, friends, work, my present, my future, my end. Take them, they are thine, and I am thine, now and forever. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

 

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Brunch, anyone? We keep it light and breezy at #BrightonStation. 🤗 The Residence 1 floor plan has a spacious kitchen in an open floor plan to connect the heart of the home with the great room. 💙
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Make the move to #RanchoCordova’s newest home community. Lot 84 has this same floor plan and is ready for immediate move-in! We are now offering a $30,000 incentive to move in, with up to $5,000 extra when using a preferred lender! Video walkthroughs and virtual tours on our website. 🙌 Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/move-in-ready-home-site-84/
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Faith and the World: Oh, Earth, You are too Wonderful for Anybody to Realize You!

ImageAn aim in life is the only fortune worth finding. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. Drugs make people susceptible to ideas, and that is why propaganda is so effective. Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic used to gain power, and it works too well. In order to gain more power, gaslighting makes a victim question their reality by putting them through situation that are prohibited by law and thought to not be practiced in modern society. Gaslighters tell blatant lies, and they deny they said something even though one may have blatant proof that they did. These aggressors often use what is near and dear to one as ammunition to upset you. They may assault you, steal vandalize your property, break and enter into your home, cyberstalk you and spy on you. The goal is to try and wear a person down over time, usually by a variation of a violation of your rights and physical and mental attacks. Gaslighters often use law enforcement as tools to act as intimidators. Often times people who use these tactics display actions that do not match their words, and sometimes what they say means nothing when the real issue is their actions. Another tactic is they try to make a person schizophrenic by praising them and then cutting them down so an individual is always questing their own thought process and self-value. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

ImagePeople who try to use mind control also project their own problems and insecurities onto a victim, as gaslighters are masters at manipulation. They will often tell people you are crazy because dismissing your credibility is one of the main ways to make sure no one believes what one is saying. Legal subordination between members of the same gender or opposite gender is wrong in itself, and now is one of the chief hindrances to human improvements; and it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a prepondering weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper grounds, which the arguments to not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

ImageAnd there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply rooted of all those which gather round and protect old institutions and customs, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the rest by the progress of the great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose that the barbarism to which people cling longest must be less barbarism than those which they shake off. The study of objected image that preconscious perception grew out of the observation that subjects dreamed about parts of a projected image that were not immediately recalled. In fact, people seem to record subconsciously a lot more than they consciously relate. Further, what they record subconsciously does not lie passive but works actively on the mind. Subliminal projection uses this phenomenon by planting sensations in minds that are not aware of the process. Although no conclusive evidence exists to confirm the effectiveness of subliminal projection in practical situations such as buying popcorn, the possibility itself is suggestive. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

ImageEducation is a foundation of facts and values, and the aim of education is to make people free. The biological principle upon which humanistic education rests is that humans are all different. Unfortunately for humankind, the opinion in favour of the present system, which entirely subordinates women as a weaker gender to men, who are viewed as the stronger gender, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other; so that experience, in the sense in which it is vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict. And in the second place, the adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply from the fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every women (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage to some man. Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognising the relations they find already existing between individuals. They convert what was a mere physical fact into a legal right, give it the sanction of society, and principally aim at the substitution of public and organized means of asserting and protecting the sights, instead of the irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

ImageTo avoid the tyranny that seems inevitable, education is the great equalizers for the masses and will greatly contribute to the freedom of humanity. This program should include environmental studies, the facts of individual diversity and genetic uniqueness and the values of freedom, tolerance and mutual charity. The forces of evil propaganda must be combatted by a critical study of language, which should include a full study of the devices that are used against freedom. Those who have already been compelled to obedience by the masses have become in this manner legally bound to it. Slavery, from being a mere affair of force between the master and the slave, become regularized and a matter of compact among the masters, who, bind themselves to one another for common protection guaranteed by their collective strength the private possessions of each, including the people they enslave mentally and/or physically. In early times, the great majority of the male gender were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of the ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness and absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the others. We must find a willing to help society and yet make them aware of the wiles of mind-manipulators. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

ImageAbove all, values need to be taught—individual freedom, charity and compassion, and intelligence. With these values, humans should be able to pierce through the veil of propaganda, and they would be able to remain free. Those who wish to control humankind want to believe that all people are easily categorized and easily manipulated, that all are essentially the same, and that individuals are not very important in the historical process. We do not want to see demagogues and charlatans abusing humankind, the environment, nor animals or other living being—animate or inanimate. We must refrain from creating a nation of Mary’s sheep. It is important that value is placed on genetic differences and on environmental differences, and people are taught respect for human differences. At the same time, respect for the integrity of the social order, which allows freedom to be exercised has to be preserved, without making it a dictatorship masquerading as a free society. Less than two hundred and fifty-four years ago, people might still by law hold human beings in bondage as saleable property; within the present century they might kidnap them and carry them off, and work them literally to death. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

ImageThis absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others, presents features the most revolting to the feelings of all who look at it from an impartial position, is the law of civilized and the Christian World within the memory of persons now living: and not only in the past did slavery exist, but the slave trade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but it was also considered the customer abuse of force: for its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised; and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence. The possessor of the undue power, the person directly interested in it, only one person, while those who are subject to it and suffer form it is literally all the ret. The yoke is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons, expect the one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who expects to succeed to it. How different are these cases from that of the power of men over women! I am not now prejudging the question of its justifiableness. I am showing how vastly more permanent it could not but be, even if not justifiable, than those other dominations which have nevertheless lasted down to our own time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

ImageWhatever gratification of pride there is in the possession of power, and whatever person interest in its exercise, is in this case not confined to a limited class, but common to the whole male gender. Instead of being, to most of its supporters, a thing desirable chiefly in the abstract, or, like the political ends usually contended for by factions, of little private importance to any but the leaders, it comes home to the person and hearth of every male head of family, and of every one who looks forward to being so. The clodhoppers exercise, or is to exercise, one’s share of the power equally with the highest noble person. And the case is that in which the desire of power is the strongest: for everyone who desires power, desires it most over those who are nearest to one with whom one’s life is passed, with whom one has most concerns in common, and it who any independence of one’s authority is oftenest likely to interfere with one’s individual preferences. If, in the other cases specified, power manifestly grounded only on force, and having so much less to support them, are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of, much more must it be so with this, even if it rests on no better foundation than those. We must consider, too, that the possessors of the power have facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to prevent any uprising against it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

ImageIn struggles for political emancipation, everybody knows how often its champions are bought off by bribes, or daunted by terrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject-class is in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined. In setting up the standard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of the followers, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the pleasures of the alleviations of their own individual lt. If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had it yoke tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has. All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. People do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All me, expect the brutish, desire to have in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

ImageThe masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are bought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to the of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have—those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible bond between them and a man. When we put together three things—first, the natural attraction between opposite genders; secondly, the wife’s entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sough or obtained by her only through him, it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

ImageAnd, this great avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of attractiveness in pleasures of the flesh. Can it be doubted that any other yokes which humankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been as sedulously used to bow down their minds to it? If it had been made the object of the life of every young plebeian to find with one, and a share of one’s personal affection, had been held out as the prize which they all should look out for, the most gifted and aspiring being able to reckon on the most desirable prizes; and if, when this prize had been obtained, they had been shut out by a wall of brass from all interests not centering in him, all feelings and desires but those which he shared or inculcated; would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at the day as men and women are? And would not all but a thinker here and there, have believed the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature? #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

ImageTo deal with overpopulation, the birth rate must be reduced so that it does not exceed the death rate, and natural resources managed to increase food and fuel. In the absence of a Pill for birth control, some way must be found to reduce the birth rate—and problems of all sorts are involved here. And how soon can the industrial and social potential of underdeveloped nations be enhanced? Both food and raw materials will be in short supply by the end of the century. Does humankind really want to solve the problems they have? The urge towards freedom diminishes as long as people are well fed, but if conditions change, they will rise up in their chains. If youth does not value freedom, the future will surely be slavery. And not only do the young fail to see the value of freedom, they also wish for some form of benign totalitarian control. Overpopulation and overorganization may be inevitable even if people rise to the banner of freedom now, but the freedom fighters are few and time is short. The dodo, now extinct, is what humankind will become if we do not think about freedom now. We will no longer be able to fly, through we may wish to fly to escape our captor later. Humans will sacrifice their wings of freedom to become flightless like the dodo, and regret the act latter, when the game is up. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

ImageSometimes when people finally achieve the social status they desire, they will no longer mock or hold disdain for people they could not stand when they were not able to achieve the social status they wanted. Nonetheless, personal liberty is absolutely essential to human dignity and happiness. When people kill, they kill the Bible: those who senselessly kill, kill God’s image; but one who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Realizing that suffer and frustration are necessary for creation, some accept voluntary exile in preference to stability and conformity. The World structure has changed, human nature has not improved: people are still petty, hypocritical, malicious, dishonest, emotionally sterile and quite capable of revenging themselves on others for their own lapses of accepted “good taste.” For, what is the peculiar character of the modern World—the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lost which may appear to them most desirable. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

ImageHuman society of one was constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a fixed social position, were mostly kept in it by law, or interdicted from any means by which they could emerge from it. Nobody things it necessary, still, to this day, to throw each operation into the hands of those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks in necessary to make a law that only a strong-armed person shall be a blacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to make blacksmiths strong0armed people, because the weak-armed can earn more by engaging in occupations for which they are more fit. In consonance with this doctrine, it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds of authority fit beforehand, on some general presumption, that certain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is now thoroughly known and admitted that is some such presumptions exist, no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very likely not to be, there will be a minority of exceptional cases in which it does not hold; and in those it is both an injustice to the individuals, and a detriment to society, to place barriers in the way of their using their faculties for their own benefit and for that of others. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

ImageIn the cases, on the other hand, in which the unfitness is real, the ordinary motives of human conduct will on the whole suffice to prevent the incompetent person from making, or from persisting in, the attempt. Nephi is commanded to build a ship—his brethren oppose him—e exhorts them by recounting this history of God’s dealings with Israel—Nephi is filled with the power of God—his brethren are forbidden to touch him lest they wither as a dried reed. About 591-591 Before Christ. “And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness and our women did bear children in the wilderness. And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like uno the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings. And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of humans keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the things which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Image“And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yes, even eight years in the wilderness. And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord hat we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which being interpreted, is many waters. And it cam to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of is much fruit. And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord. And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters. And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me? And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Image“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make a bellows wherewith to blow the fire, of the skins of beast; and after I had made a bellows, that I might have wherewith to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire. For the Lord had not hitherto suffered that we should make much fire, as we journeyed in the wilderness; for he said: I will make thy food become sweet, that ye cook it not; and I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led. Yea, and the Lord said also that: After ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know that I, the Lord, did deliver you from destruction: yea, that I did bring you out of the land of Jerusalem. Wherefore, I, Nephi, did strive to keep the commandments of the Lord, and I did exhort my brethren to faithfulness and diligence. And it came to pass that I did make tools of the ore which I did molten out of the rock. And when my brethren aw that I was about to build a ship, they began to murmur against me, saying: Our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship; yea, and he also thinketh that he can cross these great waters. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Image“And thus my brethren did complain against me, and were desirous that they might not labour, for the did not believe that I could build a ship; neither would they believe that I was instructed of the Lord. And now it came to pass that I, Nephi, was exceedingly sorrowful because of the hardness of their hearts; and now when they saw that I began to be sorrowful they were glad in their hearts, insomuch that they did rejoice over me saying: We knew that ye could not construct a ship, for we knew that ye were lacking in judgment; wherefore, thou canst not accomplish so great work. And thou art like unto our father, ed away by the foolish imaginations of his heart; yea, he hath led us out of the land of Jerusalem, and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years; and our women have toiled, being big with child; and they have borne children in the wilderness and suffered all things, save it were death; and it would have been better that they had died before they came out of Jerusalem than to have suffered these afflictions. Behold, these may years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Image“And we know that the people who ere in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they have kept that statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people; and our father hath judged them, and hath led us away because we would hearken unto his words; yea, and our brother is like unto him. And after this manner of language did my brethren murmur and complain against us. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, spake unto them, saying: Do ye believe that our fathers, who the children of Israel, would have been led away out of the hands of the Egyptians if they had not hearkened unto the words of the Lord? Yea, do you suppose that they would have been led out of bondage, if the Lord hand not commanded Moses the he should lead them out of bondage? Now ye know that the children of Israel were in bondage; and ye know that they were laden with tasks, which were grievous to be borne; wherefore, ye know that it must need be a good thing for them, that they should be brought out of bondage. Now ye know that Moses was commanded of the Lord to do that great work; and ye know that by his word the waters of the Red Sea were divided hither and thither, and hey passed through on dry grounds. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Image“But ye know that the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, who were the armies of Pharaoh. And ye also know that they were fed with manna in the wilderness. Yea, and ye also know that Moses, by his word according to the power of God which was in him smote the rock, and there came forth water, that the children of Israel might quench their thirst. And notwithstanding they being led, the Lord their God, their Redeemer, going before them, leading them by day and giving them light unto them by night, and doing all things for them which were expedient for humans to receive, they hardened their hears and blinded their minds, and reviled against Moses and against the true and living God,” reports 1 Nephi 17.1-30. I urge that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone. Varied prayer grows out of what we have learned about continual prayer, because it we pray continually, the various situation we encounter will demand a variety of prayers. Think of the variety of appropriate to life’s situations—prayer to resist temptation, prayer for wisdom, for power, for self-restraint, for protection of others, for growth, for conviction. On all occasion with all kinds of prayer request will we learn to survive. I always pray before I drive. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

ImageWe must have a vibrant inner spiritual reality which emanates with all kinds of prayer requests. Grant Thy servants whom Thou hast united to us by the intimacy of holy affection, or by the bonds of blood, or hast associated with us in the unity of faith, to be subject to Thee with their whole heart; that being filled with the Spirit of Thy love, they may be cleansed from Earthly desires, and be made worthy, by Thy grace, of Heavenly blessedness. O Lord, the World is artful to entrap, approaches in fascinating guise, extends many a gilded bait, presents many a charming face. Let my faith scan every painted babuble, and escape every bewitching snare in a victory that overcomes all things. In my duties give me firmness, energy, zeal, devotion to Thy cause, courage in Thy name, love as a working grace, and all commensurate with my trust. Let faith stride forth in giant power, and love respond with energy in every act. I often mourn the absence of my beloved Lord whose smile makes Earth a paradise, whose voice is sweetest music, whose presence gives all graces strength. However, by unbelief I often keep Him outside my door. Let faith give entrance that he may abide with me forever. Thy word is full of promises, flowers of sweet fragrance, fruit of refreshing flavour when culled by faith. May I be made rich in its riches, be strong in its power, be happy in its joy, abide in its sweetness, feast on its preciousness, draw vigour from its manna. Lord, please increase my faith. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21Image

 

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The secret to a perfect great room? #MillsStation Residence 2 has it on lock: huge, vaulted ceilings let in plenty of natural light to brighten it up. ☀️ If you’re interested in this residence, make sure to check out the video walkthrough we have on our website! 👌 https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-61/virtual-tour/

ImageO God, Who bestowest Thy mercy at all times on them that love Thee, and in no place art distant from those that serve Thee; direct the way of Thy Children in Thy will, that having Thee for their Protector and Guide, they may walk without stumbling in the paths of righteousness; through Jesus Christ our Lord!

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