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The Greatest thing in the World is to Know How to be Self-Sufficient!
I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there by any kindness I can show or any good things I can do to follow human beings, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. People do not live by bread alone. They need buttering up once in awhile. We all need it. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. Too often we underestimate the power of respect, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Hegemony, which is the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group, in any political context is indeed fragile. It requires renewal and modification through the assertion and reassertion of power. It is crucial to the concept that hegemony is not a “given” and permanent state of affairs, but it has to be actively won and secured; it can also be lost. Ideological work is the winning and securing of hegemony over time. Ideology is composed of text that are not closed, and counter-tendencies regularly appear in the seams and cracks of dominant forms. Mediated communications ranging from popular television shows to rap and rock music, even graffiti scrawled over surfaces of public spaces, all inscribe messages that challenge central political positions and cultural assumptions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Counterhegemony, which is defined as the way people develop ideas and discourses to challenge dominant assumptions, beliefs and established patterns of behaviour, and is employed to explain some of the criticism of, and mobilization against, globalization, is the intellection foundation for much of the anti-globalization movement. These tendencies are not solely inherent in texts. They are formulated in processes of communication—in the interpretations, social circulation, and uses of media content. As with the American soldiers’ use of military gas masks as inhaling devices to heighten the effect of marijuana smoke, or the homeless’s transformation of supermarket shopping carts into personal storage vehicles, ideological resistance and appropriation frequently involved reinventing institutional messages for purposes that differ greatly from their creators’ intentions. Expressions of the dominant ideology are sometimes reformulated to assert alternative, often completely resistant or contradictory messages. Furthermore, resistance to hegemony is not initiated solely by media consumers. Texts themselves are implicated. Ideology can never be stated purely and simply. Ways of thinking are always reflexive and embedded in a complex, sometimes contradictory, ideological regress. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Audience interpretations and uses of media imagery also eat away at hegemony. When dominant ideology is weaker than social resistance, hegemony fails. Gay subcultures, feminist organizations, environmental groups, radical political parties, music-based formations such as punks, B-boys, Rastafarians, hairography (which Britney Spears and Beyonce are both very famous for), metal heads all use media and their social networks to endorse counter-hegemonic values and lifestyles. Indeed, we have only just begun to examine the complex relationship between ideological representations and social action. The thought of the burden that the self-actualized has taken on oneself may seem dreadful, but one has one’s consolations even thought they are intangible. One has found unbroken peace and ultimate truth. One does not ask for more, not even the ecstatic bliss which delights the mystic, but which is necessarily intermittent. One knows that the whole creation is moving onwards to self-discovery which means it is moving onwards to find the same things one has found. The process is low and painful, but it will surely be successful. The self-actualized has conquered separativeness in one’s mind and realized the spirit of God in oneself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The logical consequences are tremendous. It follows that there is no liberation from the round of spiritual births and rebirths for the self-actualized; one has to go through it like the others. Of course, one does this with full understanding whereas they are plunged in darkness. However, if one identifies oneself with the spirit of God, then, one cannot desert but must go on to the end, working for the liberation of others in turn. This is one’s crucifixion, that being able to save others one is unable to save oneself. “And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, ‘And he (or she) was numbered with the transgressors.’” Why? Because compassion rules one, not the ego. Nobody is likely to want such a goal (until, indeed one is almost ready for it) so it is usually kept secret or symbolized. Again: “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” What is the self-actualized reaction to the cosmos? It is very different from that of the unenlightened who have never asked the question, “What am I?” The self-actualized had no sense of conflict, no inner division. One has expanded one’s notion of self until it has embraced the Universe and therefore rightly one may say “the Universe is the Spirit of God.” This means that one has expanded the understanding of one’s minds. Less enlightened individuals only say “the Universe is an idea.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
All these sufferers come to one in their need and expect so much from one, but one must expect and ask nothing from them; one is to be content with this one-way transaction. If one wishes anything in return—even an acknowledgment of service rendered, much less a payment in any mental, emotional, or physical form—the ego has reared its head and the service is impure. If one helps them, it is out of natural good will to all humans. The self-actualized approaches them with compassion balanced by comprehension. No mother asks why she should help her child or concern herself with the well-being of her husband (or domestic partner). She identifies herself with them and takes it for granted that their interests are her own. Similarly, the illuminate takes it for granted that the interest are her or his own. Similarly, the illuminate takes it for granted that the interest of all humankind are one’s own and others are one’s family. Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity. It is part of nature. No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy. “There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh Angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets,” reports Revelations 10.7. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Situations involving persons, change in the behaviour of the persons, and the effects of different qualities of interpersonal relationships exist in almost every human undertaking. As client begin to realize how imprisoning their usual choices and responses have been and how capable they are of transcending them, they develop new ways of standing in the World and new conceptions of who they will become. They develop a sense of aha, or resonance, within themselves that clearly apprises them of their predicaments. They may say things like, “I never realized how deeply these feelings affected me and how strongly I want to experience them again in my life,” or “Now I see how so much of my life had been wasted on shame—and it is time I broke the cycle.” The ingredient that gives these realizations substance is intentionality, which precedes that which is traditionally referred to as insight. While insight is conceptual and schematic, intentionality is spontaneous and bodily and comprises one’s total orientation to the World at that time. Another precondition for insight is what is referred to as inner vision—which is a vital sense of one’s own powers in directing one’s own life. Inner vision is not to be capture in words. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Those who equate a verbal account of the inner sight with the inward vision itself make the familiar semantic error of mistaking the map for the territory. What can be said about an inner sight is always less tan the sight itself and is always relatively impotent in brining about true life changes, especially when compared with the power of one’s own liberating inward realization. It is the inward realization, them the intentionality, that give experiences meaning. The chief question, of course, is, How do we as therapists, help clients to consolidate these meanings—what tools or inspirations can we provide? The answer is, No tools or inspirations are needed other than those they have already gleaned form our being present with them and from their discovering (internalizing) the ability to be present with themselves. Yet it is of vital importance that we reinforce these developments, especially toward the close of treatment. For example, I often invite clients to explore their specific values toward the end of therapy—which values they hold dear and how they plan on implementing those values. I also find it helpful to reflect back to clients, not merely what they say, but what I hear them intending: “You seem to be excited about getting out there and doing what you felt you could not do all those years. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
“I feel exuberance when you speak about marrying your fiancée, a sense that you are deeply ready to be involved; “I sense that you no longer need to be the flashiest guy on the block, tat you can now enjoy quiet moments at home;” “I do not get the sense of you walking on eggshells anymore—you no longer downplay your power;” or “You are not going to let physical disabilities disable you mentally—this is the message that you have declared to me today.” It is important that people know that if they cannot get outer freedom, they can get inner freedom, of mind and heart. No Worldly advantage can tempt the self-actualized into desertion of one’s sacred task of serving humanity, nor can any egoism lead one into betrayal of those who trust one. The goodwill which one shows to all people is devoid of any self-seeking motive, is a natural expression of the love which one finds in the innermost chambers of one’s soul. The World play is but an illusion of the mind, but the integral vision of the self-actualized enables one to act one’s part perfectly in they very heart of the World’s tumult. The knowledge that all action is ultimately illusory does not prevent one being dynamically active Supreme calm and silence reigns in one’s center, but one’s harmony with Nature is such that one joins the World-movement spontaneously. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
One does not fall into the error of a certain kind of ascetic who assumes a callous indifference to the sufferings of others as part of one’s plan to render oneself invulnerable. Such a person is truly a Christ-like one, inasmuch as one seeks to open the door of the kingdom of Heaven for others as well as oneself. One may or may not know in advance that one’s efforts will avail little, but if the Power bids one say what must be said, one will accept the result calmly. When there is no feeling of separateness from others, there can be no resultant feeling of doing good when helping them. What is the basis for such holistic reorientations? Perhaps it can be described as follows: The freer that people feel to experience themselves, the less panic they harbour; the less panic, the less urgency they feel to rearrange and hence dysfunctionally distort themselves. To the degree that people can draw upon this strength, the more fully they can subsist. Intuition may also be expressed in this way: human’s unconditional concern is the subjective response to the Protestant call to protest. An analysis of religion, of literature, of philosophy, of culture, of love, would reveal that people experience an unconditional concern. Whatever they believe or disbelieve, they touch a realm of in their self-awareness which escapes doubt or belief. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
If justification is an act of God, human’s unconditional concern is the acceptance by humans of their justification even in the midst of questionings and doubts. For questions belong to the intellect, but this concern lies beyond the intellect, in what we call the depths of reason. We are saved neither by merit nor by belief, but by the Unconditional. This term point to that element in every religious experience which makes it religious. It characterizes that which is our ultimate and consequently unconditional concern, whether we call if “God” or “Being as such” or “the Good as such,” or “The True as such,” or whether we give it any other name. Unconditional is a quality which we experience in encountering reality, for instance, in the unconditional character of the voice of conscience, the logical as well as the moral. This description of the Unconditional as a quality, and not a being, brings us to an important fact: “Nobody can have the ultimate, nothing conditioned can possess the Unconditional. This undercuts every attempt to identify the Unconditional directly. The Unconditional is not a God; it is not a being. It is, rather, some quality of the self which we have an indirect experience. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Were the Unconditional only a quality of the self, it would be ours, yours and mine, but as we, you and I, are conditioned and, as such, unable to possess the Unconditional, the fact that we experience total commitment, ultimate devotion, unconditional concern points to a complementary aspect of existence: that the Unconditional is both in us and beyond us. Grace is not a possession; it is only received through faith. Likewise, human’s unconditional concerns, in as far as they are truly unconditional, reach both the rock bottom of self and a transcendental element which dominates the self. Two Worlds touch at this point. Jesus Christ praises the less affluent in so far as they live in two Worlds, the present World and the World to come. And he threatens the arrogant affluent in so far as they live in one World alone. This makes for the unchanging greatness of the Psalms. For what the Psalmist expresses is that the Presence of the center of all life within the center of one’s life implies both a radical attack on one’s existence, and the ultimate meaning of one’s existence. We are known in a depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision. Nothing matters; yet everything is supremely important if it has an unconditioned means, an unconditioned depth, an unconditioned reality. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Unconditional concern implies this infinite tension between the conditions of our existence and the commitment to an unconditional element; it entails daring and risk. This is faith: Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. The principle of justification by faith alone contains more than strikes the eye. As understood, it means faith in Christ as the Saviour. The Greater Catechism reads: “I believe that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has been made my Lord, that through his blood he has liberated me from my sins, from the Devil, from death and from all misfortune.” Faith cannot be pinned down to one set of beliefs or identified with one emotional experience. These distortions of faith are corrected by the Protestant principle that nothing condition may vehicle the Unconditional. Rather, faith underlies every belief and every emotion: it is the total commitment f humans to ultimacy, the total surrender of one who accepts this claim [of ultimacy], the concern about our existence in its ultimate whence and wither. Should one ask, “What is the Ultimate?,” an answer may be sought in he fact that people have devised a multitude of faiths; they have identified the Ultimate with this God or that; they have worshipped symbols of the ultimate. Through perhaps mutually exclusive, all these tend to the same point: total commitment. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Jacob explains that the Jews will crucify their God—they will be scattered until they begin to believe in Him—American will be a land of liberty where no king will rule—reconcile yourselves to God and fain salvation through His grace. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, I Jacob, speak unto you again, my beloved brethren, concerning this righteous branch of which I have spoken. For behold, the promises which we have obtained are promises unto us according to the flesh; wherefore, as it has been shown unto me that many of our children shall perish in the flesh because of unbelief nevertheless, God will be merciful unto many; and our children shall be restored, that they may come to that which will give them the true knowledge of their Redeemer. Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must need be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the Angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the World; and they shall crucify him—for it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on Earth that would crucify their God. For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God. However, because of priestcrafts and iniquities, they at Jerusalem will stiffen their neck against him, that he be crucified. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
“Wherefore, because of their iniquities, destructions, famines, pestilences, and bloodshed shall come upon them; and they who shall not be destroyed shall be scattered among all nation. However, behold, this saith the Lord God: When the day cometh that they shall believe in me, that I am Christ, then have I covenanted with their fathers that they shall be restored in the flesh, upon the Earth, unto the lands of their inheritance. And it shall come to pass that they shall be gathered in from the isles of the sea, and from the four parts of the Earth; and the nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God, in carrying them forth to the lands of their inheritance. Yea, the kings of the Gentiles shall be nursing fathers unto them, and their queens shall become nursing mothers; wherefore, the promises of the Lord are great unto the Gentiles, for he hath spoken it, and who can dispute? However, behold, this land, said God, shall be a land of thine inheritance and Gentiles shall be blessed upon the land. And this land shall be a land of thine inheritance and the Gentiles shall be blessed upon the land. And this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall rise up unto the Gentiles. And I will fortify this land against all other nations. And one that frighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
“For one that raiseth up a kind against me shall perish, for I, the Lord, the king of Heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever, that hear my words. Wherefore, this cause, that my covenants may be fulfilled which I have made unto the children of humans, that I will do unto them while they are in the flesh, I must needs destroy the secrets works of darkness, and of murders, and of abominations. Wherefore, one that frighteth against Zion, both Jew and Gentile, both bound and free, both male and female, shall perish; for they are they who are the whore of all the Earth; for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God. For I will fulfill my promises which I have made unto the children of humans, that I will do unto them while they are in the flesh—wherefore, my beloved brethren, thus saith our God: I will afflict thy seed by the hand of the Gentiles; nevertheless, I will soften the hearts of the Gentiles, that they shall be like unto a father to them; wherefore, the Gentiles shall be blessed and numbered among the house of Israel. Wherefore, I will consecrate this land unto thy seed, and them who shall be numbered among thy seed, forever, for the land of their inheritance; for it is a choice land, saith God unto me, above all other lands, wherefore I will have all humans that well thereon that they shall worship me, saith God. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
“And now, my beloved brethren, seeing that our merciful God has given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea. However, great are the promises of the Lord unto them who are upon the isles of the sea; wherefore as it says isles, there must needs be more than this, and they are inhabited also by our brethren. For behold, the Lord God has led away from time to time from the house of Israel, according to his will and pleasure. And now behold, the Lord remembereth all them who have been broken off, wherefore he remembereth us also. Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
“Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise hm through grace divine. Amen,” 2 Nephi 1-25. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest, that I go to, than I have ever known. I question not but Your Honors d to the utmost of your powers in the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches, and would not be guilty of innocent blood for the World. But, by my own innocency, I know you are the wrong way. O God Most High, Most Glorious, the thought of thine infinite serenity cheers me, for I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed, but thou art forever at perfect peace. Thy designs cause Thee no fear or care of unfulfillment, they stand fast as the eternal hills. Thy power knows no bound, Thy goodness no suit. Thou bringest order out of confusion, and my defeats are Thy victories: The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. I come to Thee as a sinner with cares and sorrows, to leave every concern entirely to Thee, every sin calling for Christ’s precious blood; revive deep spirituality in my heart; le me live near to the great Shepherd, hear his voice, know its tones, follow its calls. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Keep me from deception by causing me to abide in the truth, from harm by helping me to walk in the power of the Spirit. Give me intenser faith in the eternal verities, burning into me by experience the things I know; let me never be ashamed of the truth of the gospel, that I may bear its reproach, vindicate it, see Jesus Christ as its essence, know in it the power of the Spirit. Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill; unbelief mars my confidence, sin makes me forget Thee. Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots; grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to Thee, that all else is trifling. Thy presence alone can make me holy, devout, strong and happy. Abide in me, gracious God. We beseech Thee, O Lord, give strength to the weary, assistance to the sufferers, comfort to the sad, help to those in tribulation. That it may please Thee to look upon and to relieve the miseries of the poor and of captives: We beseech Thee, hear us. How great is Thy mercy, O Lord, in succouring the captives, sparing the wretched, forgiving the sinners, supporting travelers, relieving the oppressed, hearing prayers, giving to the destitute what they need, converting barbarous nation to the calling upon Thy Name! Be pleased, O loving and merciful God, to hear us when we implore that mercy. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Essential to our effective petitionary prayer is a prayer list. I say this first because of my own repeated experiences. For example, I may be praying for my mother, and as I pray for her I see our old family homes at 3609 Victor Avenue. In front is parked my dad’s Arctisblau arctic metallic blue 1990 BMW 750iL. It had front and rear spoilers, tinted windows, and custom wheels. Suddenly I am a kid again, wearing my black leather jacket, sitting in the passenger seat, and heading down Shore Line Drive to Alameda Beach. I can smell the ocean and cocoa butter. So much for my “prayers for Mother!” This is why I need a prayer list. To be sure, even using a list, my mind still wanders. However, when it does, I always have my list to bring me back. And when I am especially prone to distraction I can place my index finger on her name and pray with my eyes wide open—moving from name to name in this way. Every Christian person should have a prayer list which listen among other things, the names of one’s family and, if married, spouse and children. Moreover, the list ought to be detailed, featuring personal items under the names of those closet to one. I have found that small “Post-its” placed under headings help keep my list updated. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
My daily prayer list carries the following headings, each with several details under it: Family, staff, secretaries, and custodians, ill, grieving, important events, present problems, ministries, weekly worship, never believers, missions list. In addition to my daily list, I have four other lists which I try to go through once a week. List 1 has: Ongoing ill, personal requests from others, evangelism, spiritual warfare. List 2 has: World, USA, personal life, needed personal qualities. List 3 has: Christian leaders, pastors, upcoming ministries and vision. List for has: Government leaders (federal, state, and local), the fire department and others. Quite frankly, I could not get on at all without a prayer list, not only because it tames my wandering mine, but also because it insures that I will not neglect things that are important. O God, Who are the Author of love, and the Lover of pure peace and affection, heal the diseases of all Chrisitans who are sik, and let all who are terrified by fears, afflicted by poverty, harassed by tribulation, worn down by illness, given over to punishments, and all prisoners, and wayfarers, be set free by Thine indulgent tenderness, raised up by amendment life, and cherished by Thy daily compassion. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
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Gorgeous two-story home located in the growing Cresleigh Ranch community! This sleek and modern home is an entertainer’s dream! The California Room directly off the Great Room offers an indoor/outdoor living experience while the extended kitchen island is perfect for large gatherings or busy households. A contemporary kitchen with stained recessed cabinetry, quartz counters, and single basin sink!
There is a bedroom on the first floor, located off the entry, with its own bathroom making it ideal for a guest suite or multi-generational living. The formal dining room provides ample space for entertaining and has convenient access to the kitchen via Butler’s Pantry. The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters and opens onto the spacious great room. Upstairs you’ll find the master retreat, two bedrooms, and the loft perfect for a game room or TV lounge. The master retreat is spacious and inviting with a large bedroom and spa like bathroom featuring a free-standing soaking tub, walk-in shower, dual vanities, and two walk-in closets. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/home-site-78/
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This Nation, Under God, Shall Have a New Birth of Freedom and Shall Not Perish from the Earth!
The dream begins, most of the time, with believing in yourself, by loving yourself, pushing yourself, and allowing God to lead you on to the next level, sometimes enlightening you along the way with truth. God posses in penetrating insight into His children’s needs. We have already seen that external stimuli are not necessary for central processes to be active. As networks of assemblies and phase-cycles are activated and continue their process in semi-independence of further incoming information, we get something like “looking ahead.” The pattern of impulses formed within the structure of connexions will function as an apparatus of orientation by representing both the actual state of the environment and the changes to be expected by that environment. Here we are back to the process of “expectancy.” Our expectations of what will happen are already on the map. Either a similar sequence of events has happened in the past and for that reason may be expected again in the future; or higher-order processes have formed an image of what can happen, on the basis of whatever information is available about what has happened in the past. Thus behavior now is guided and directed by an expectation, just concept t (for “triangle”) could direct and guide the eye to look for angles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The representation or model of the environment will thus constantly tend to run ahead of the actual situation. This representation of the possible results following from the existing position will of course be constantly checked and corrected by the newly arriving sensory signals which record actual developments in the environment. The representations of the external environment which will guide behaviour will thus be not only representations of the actually existing environment, but also representations of the changes to be expected in that environment. We must therefore conceive of the model as constantly trying out possible developments and determining action in the light of the consequences which, from the representations of such actions, would appear to follow from it. On the map are good places, and paths to good places—goals, we might say, and steps to those goals. The model is the active part of the map which shows at any moment where we are in relation to the good places on our maps (and in relation to painful places as well). The map enables us to look ahead to some extent, that is to have expectations of what can happen next. What can happen next may lead to good places eventually or to painful places. Expectations can turn into preferred or dreaded outcomes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The image on the map which already has good feelings attached to it may be kept in mind by the processes of reverberation. It is thereby likely to steer the organism to respond selectively to further information, according to the messages congruity with a good path. The parts of the map associated with good feelings, which hold our preferences, can thus act as gyroscopes, bringing the organism back on course towards good things when it has deviated. Part of the map associated with bad feelings may of course operate in a similar way. The data on fight and flight as defense reactions makes the instinctive theory of aggression appear in a peculiar light. The impulse to flee plays—neurophysiologically and behaviourally—the same if not a larger role in animal behaviour than the impulse to fight. Neurophysiologically, both impulses are integrated in the same way; there is no basis for saying that aggression is more “natural” than flight. Why, then, do instinctivists talk about the intensity of the innate impulses of aggression, rather than about the innate impulse for flight? #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
If one were to translate the reasoning of the instinctivist regarding the impulse for fight to that of flight one would arrive at the this kind of statement: “Humans are drive by an innate impulse to flee; one may try to control this impulse by one’s reason, yet this control will prove to be relatively inefficient, even though some means can be found that may serve to curb the power of the ‘flight instinct.’” Considering the emphasis that has been given to innate human aggression as one of the gravest problems of social life, from religious positions down to the scientific work, a theory centered around human’s “uncontrollable flight instinct” may sound funny, but it is neurophysiologically as sound as that of “uncontrolled aggression.” In fact, from a biological standpoint it would seem that flight serves self-reservation better than fight. To political or military leaders it may, in fact, not sound funny, but rather sensible. They know from experience that human’s nature does not seem to incline toward heroism and that many measures have to be taken to motivate humans to fight and to prevent them from running away in order to save one’s life. The student of history may rise the question whether the instinct for flight has not proven to be at least as powerful a factor as that for fight. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
One may come to the conclusion that history has been determined not so much by instinctive aggression as by the attempt to suppress human’s “flight instinct.” One may speculate that a large part of human’s social arrangements and ideological efforts have been devoted to this aim. Humans had to be threatened with death to instill in them a feeling of awe for the superior wisdom of their leaders, to make them believe in the value of honour. One tried to terrorize one with the fear of being called a coward or a traitor, or one simply got him or her drunk with liquor or wit the hope of booty and women. Historical analysis might show that the repression of the flight impulse and the apparent dominance of the fight impulse is largely due to the cultural rather than to biological factors. These speculations are only intended to point to the ethological bias in favour of the concept of Homo aggressivus; the fundamental facts remains, that the brain of animals and humans has built-in neuronal mechanisms which mobilize aggressive behaviour (or flight) in response to threats to the survival of the individual or the species, and that this type of aggression is biologically adaptive and serves life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
In our own Anglo-American culture there seems to be two common-sense models according to which we formulate our conceptions of behaviour: the real, sincere, or honest performance; and the false one that thorough fabricators assemble us, whether meant to be taken unseriously, as in the work of stage actors, or seriously, as in the work of confidence people. We tend to see real performances as something not purposely put together at all, being unintentional product of the individual’s unselfish conscious response to the facts in one’s situation. And contrived performances we tend to see as something painstakingly pasted together, one false item on another, since there is no reality to which the items of behaviour could be a direct response. It will be necessary to see now that these dichotomous conceptions are by way of being the ideology of honest performers, providing strength to the show they put on, but a poor analysis of it. First, let it be said that there are many individuals who sincerely believe that the definition of the situation they habitually project is the real reality. In this report I do not mean to question their proportion in the population but rather the structural relation of their sincerity to the performances they offer. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
If a performance is to come off, the witnesses by and large must be able to believe that the performers are sincere. This is the structural place of sincerity in the drama of events. Performers may be sincere—or be insincere but sincerely convinced of their own sincerity—but this kind of affection for one’s part is not necessary for its convincing performances. There are not many French cooks who are really Russian spies, and perhaps there are not many women who want to play the part of wife to one man and mistress to another but these duplicities do occur, often being sustained successfully for long periods of time. This suggests that while persons usually are what they appear to be, such appearances could still have been managed. There is, then, a statistical relation between appearances and reality, not an intrinsic or necessary one. In fact, given the unanticipated threats that play upon a performance, and given the need (later to be discussed) to maintain solidarity with one’s fellow performers and some distance from the witnesses, we find that a rigid incapacity to depart from one’s inward view of reality may at times endanger one’s performance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Some performances are carried off successfully with complete dishonesty, other with complete honesty; but for performances in general neither of these extremes is essential and neither, perhaps, is dramaturgically advisable. The implication here is that an honest, sincere, serious performance is less firmly connected with the solid World than one might assume. And this implication will be strengthened if we look again at the distance usually placed between quite honest performances and quite contrived ones. In this connection take, for example, the remarkable phenomenon of stage acting. It does take deep skill, long training, and psychological capacity to become a good stage actor. However, this fact should not blind us to another one: that almost anyone can quickly learn a script well enough to give a charitable audience some sense of realness in what is being contrived before them. And it seems this is so because ordinary social intercourse is itself put together as a scene is put together, by the exchange of dramatically inflated actions, counteractions, and terminating replies. Scripts even in the hands of unpracticed players can come to life because life itself is a dramatically enacted thing. All the World is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it is not are not easy to specify. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The recent use of “psychodrama” as a therapeutic technique illustrates a further point in this regard. In these psychiatrically staged scenes patients not only act out parts with some effectiveness, but employ no script in doing so. Their own past is available to them in a form which allows them to stage a recapitulation of it. Apparently a part once played honestly and in earnest leave the performer in a position to contrive a showing of it later. Further, the parts that significant others play to one to switch from being the person that one was to being the persons that others were for one. This capacity to switch enacted roles when obliged to do so could have been predicted; everyone apparently can do it. For in learning to perform our parts in real life we guide our own productions by not too consciously maintaining an incipient familiarity with the routine of those to whom we will address ourselves. And when we come to be able properly to manage a real routine we are able to do this in part because of “anticipatory socialization,” having already been schooled in the reality that is just coming to be real for us. When the individual does move into a new position in society and obtains a new part to perform, one is not likely to be told in full detail how to conduct oneself, nor will the facts of one’s new situation press sufficiently to one from the start to determine one’s conduct without one’s further giving thought to it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Ordinarily one will be given only a few cues, hints, and stage directions, and it will be assumed that one already has in one’s repertoire a large number of bits and pieces of performances that will be required in the new setting. The individual will already have a fair idea of what modesty, deference, or righteous indignation looks like, and can make a pass at playing these bits when necessary. One may even be able to play out the part of hypnotic subject or commit a “compulsive” crime on the basis of models for these activities that one is already familiar with. A theatrical performance or a staged confidence game requires a thorough scripting of the spoken content of the routine; but the vast part involving “expression given off” is often determined by meager stage directions. It is expected that the performer of illusions will already know a good deal about how to manage one’s voice, one’s face, and one’s body, although one—as well as any person who directs one—may find it difficult indeed to provide a detailed verbal statement of this kind of knowledge. And in this, of course, we approach the situation of the straightforward person in the street. Socialization may not so much involve a learning of the many specific details of a single concrete part—often there could not be enough time or energy for this. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
What does seem to be required of the individual is that one learn enough pieces of expression to be able to “fill in” and manage, more or less, any part that one is likely to be given. The legitimate performances of everyday life are not “acted” or “put on” in the sense that the performer knows in advance just what one is going to do, and does this solely because of the effect it is likely to have. The expressions it is felt one is giving off will be especially “inaccessible” to one. However, as in the case of less legitimate performers, the incapacity of the ordinary individual to formulate in advance the movements of one’s eyes and body does not mean that one will not express oneself through these devices in a way that is dramatized and pre-formed in one’s repertoire of actions. In short, we all act better than we know how. When the individual’s stigma is established in one during one’s stay in an institution, and when the institutions retains a discrediting hold upon one for a period after one’s release, one may expect a special cycle of passing. For example, in one mental hospital it was found that patients re-entering the community often planned to pass in some degree. Patients who were forced to rely on the rehabilitation officer, the social service worker, or the employment agencies for a job, often discussed among their fellows the contingencies they faced and the standard strategy for dealing with them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
For the first job, official entrée would necessitate the employer knowing about their stigma, and perhaps the personnel officer, but always the lower levels of the organization and workmates could be kept in some ignorance. As suggested, it was felt that this could involve a certain amount of insecurity because it would not be known for sure who “knew” and who did not, and how long-lasting would be the ignorance of those who did not know. Patients expressed the feeling that after staying in a placement job of this kind for six months, long enough to save some money and get loose from hospital agencies, they would quit work and, on the basis of the six-month work record, get a job someplace else, this time trusting that everyone at work could be kept ignorant of the stay in a mental hospital. Another strategy of those who pass is to present sights of their stigmatized failing as signs of another attribute, one that is less significantly a stigma. People with mental impairments, for example, apparently sometimes try to pass as mental patients, the latter being the lesser of the two social evils. “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard,” reports Acts 4.19. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Similarly, a hard of hearing person may intentionally style his or her conduct to give others the impression that he or she is a daydreamer, an absent-minded person, an indifferent, easily bored person—even someone who is feeling faint, or snores and therefore is unable to answer quiet question since one is obviously asleep. These character traits account for failure to hear without the imputation of deafness. The self-actualized has no wish to put one’s ego forward, makes no pretensions to spiritual superiority, yet one’s wishes to awaken others to the idea that enlightenment is possible, is worth seeking, and is accompanied by unparalleled felicity. It is possible for a person to realize one’s high aspiration. However, will one then find that all is bliss? How could that be when first one would become much more sensitive to the Word’s miseries and sorrows and, second, much more aware that everything that is, including oneself, is merely a passing show—just like a dream of the night which vanishes in the morning? Will there not be a touch of melancholy in these two aspects of one’s awareness? The acceptance will be there, for one will be just as much aware of the Real which does not pass, but this acceptance will itself be touched with a kind of resignation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Is this what the religio-mystics mean when they so often admonish others to resign themselves to God’s will? There is a type of legalism I want to address: the observance of humanmade rules. Paul’s call to stand firm in our freedom in Christ and not let ourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery is just as valid today with our rules as it was in the Galatians’ day with the Mosaic law. I previously noted that King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta. However, God gave us our spiritual Magna Charta. Though Paul, He called us to be free: “You, my brothers, were called to be free.” In fact, God does not just call us to freedom, He actually exhorts us to stand firm in our freedom—to resist all efforts to abridge or destroy it. Despite God’s call to be free and His earnest admonition to resist all efforts to curtail it, there is very little emphasis in Christian circles today on the importance of Christian freedom. Just the opposite seems to be true. Instead of promoting freedom, we stress our rules of conformity. Instead of preaching living by grace, we preach living by performance. Instead of encouraging new believers to be conformed to Christ, we subtly insist that they be conformed to our particular style of Christian culture. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
We do not intend to do this and would earnestly deny we are. Yet that is the bottom-line effect of most of our emphases in Christian circles today. For example, many people would react negatively to my quoting only part of Galatians 5.12, “You, my brothers, were called to be free.” Despite the fact that this statement is a complete sentence, they would say, “But that is not all of the verse. Go on to quote the remainder: ‘But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’” (We seem to forget that verse divisions were not inspired.) The person who reacts that way has made my point. We are much more concerned about someone abusing one’s freedom than we are about one’s guarding it. We are more afraid of indulging the sinful nature than we are of falling into legalism. Yet legalism does indulge the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride. It also diverts us from the real issues of the Christian life be focusing on external and sometimes trivial rules. “But wo unto the rich who are rich as to the things of the World. For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them. And wo unto the deaf that will not hear; for they shall perish. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
“Wo unto the blind that will not see; for they shall perish also. Wo unto the uncircumcised of heart, for a knowledge of their iniquities shall smite them at the last day. Wo unto the lair, for one shall be thrust down to hell. Wo unto the murderer who deliberately killeth, for one shall die. Wo unto them who commit whoredoms, for they shall be thrust down to hell. Yea, who unto those that worship idols, for the devil of all devils delighteth in the. And, in fine, who unto all those who die in their sins; for they shall return to God, and behold his face and remain in their sins. O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded its life eternal. O, my beloved brethren, give ear to my words. Remember the greatness of the Holy One of Israel. Do not say that I have spoken hard things against you; for if ye do, ye will revile against the truth; for I have spoken the words of your Marker. I know that the words of truth are hard against all uncleanness; but the righteous fear them not for they love the truth and are not shaken. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
“O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for humans is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before one, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and one employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for one cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name. And whoso knocketh to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they are rich who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they who despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them. However, the things of the wise and the prudent shall be hid from them forever—yea, that happiness which is prepared for the saints. O, my beloved brethren, remember my words. Behold, I take off my garments, and I shake them before you; I pray the God of my salvation that he view me with his all-searching eye; wherefore, ye shall know at the last day, when all people shall be judged of their works, that the God of Israel did witness that I shook your iniquities from my soul, and that I stand with brightness before him, and am rid of your blood. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“O, my beloved brethren, turn away from your sins; shake off the chains of him that would bind you fast; come unto that God who is the rock of your salvation. Prepare your souls for that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment, that ye may not shrink with awful fear; that ye may not remember your awful guilt in perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgement, O Lord God Almighty—but I know my guilt; I transgressed thy law, and my transgressions are mine; and the devil hath obtained me, that I am a prey to his awful misery. However, behold, my brethren, is it expedient that I should awake you to an awful reality of these things? Would I harrow up your souls if your minds were pure? Would I be plain unto your according to the plainness of the truth if ye were freed from sin? Behold, if ye were holy I would speak unto you of holiness; but as ye are not holy, and ye look upon me as a teacher, it must needs be expedient that I teach you the consequences of sin. Behold, my soul abhorreth sin, and my heart delighteth in righteousness; and I will praise he holy name of my God. Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and one that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labour for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts rejoice. And behold how great the covenants of the Lord, and how great his condescension unto the children of humans; and because of his greatness, and his grace and mercy, he has promised unto us that our seed shall not utterly be destroyed, according to the flesh, but that he would preserve them; and in future generations they shall become a righteous branch unto the house of Israel. And now, my brethren, I would speak unto you more; but on the morrow I will declare unto you the remainder of my words. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 9.30-54. Depart, O Christian soul, out of this World, in the Name of God the Father Almighty, Who created thee; in the Name of Jesus Christ His Son, who suffered for thee; in the Name of this Holy Ghost, Who has been poured into thee; may thy place be this say in peace, and thy habitation in the Heavenly Jerusalem. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
My God, I feel it is Heaven to please Thee, and to be what thou wouldst have me be. O that I were holy, pure as Christ is pure, perfect as Thy Spirit is perfect! These, I feel, are the best commands in Thy Book, and shall I break them? Must I make them? Am I under such a necessity as long as I live here? Woe, woe is me that I am a sinner, that I grieve this blessed God, who is infinite in goodness and grace! O, if he would punish me for my sins, it would not wound my heart so deep to offend him; but though I sin continually, He continually repeats his kindness to me. At times I feel I could bear any sufferings, but how can I dishonour this glorious God? What shall I do to glorify and worship this best of beings? O that I could consecrate my soul and body to His service, without restraint, forever! O that I could give myself up to him, so as never more to attempt to be my own! Or have any will or affections that are not perfectly conformed to His will and His love! However, alas, I cannot live and not sin. O may Angels glorify Him incessantly, and if possible, prostrate themselves lower before the blessed King of Heaven! I long to bear a part with them in ceaseless praise; but when I have done all I can to eternity I shall not be able to offer more than a small fraction of the homage that the glorious God deserves. Give me a heart full of divine, Heavenly love. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Unto every Chrisitan souls that is afflicted, or plunged into distress, grant Thou mercy, grant relief, grant refreshment. Despise not, O Lord, we beseech Thee, those who cry out in their afflictions, but mercifully relieve their pain with speedy assistance; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Would it Not be Better to Stay Peacefully at Home, and Not Roam about the World Seeking Better Bread Made of Wheat?
Nothing else can quite substitute for a new well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They are absolutely free—and worth a fortune. Chicago was a time of great learning for me. I had ample opportunity to test out many hypotheses. I greatly expanded the empirical testing of our therapeutic hypotheses, which we had begun earlier. I developed a rigorous theory of therapy and the therapeutic relationship. I had set forth the necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change, all of them personal attitudes, not professional training. This was a rather presumptuous paper, but it presented hypotheses to be tested and sparked much research over the next fifteen years, which in general been confirming. It was a period when, at the urging of my students, I became acquainted with Martin Buber (first in writings and then personally) and with Soren Kierkegaard. I felt greatly supported in my new approach, which I found to my surprise was a home-grown brand of existential philosophy. Finally, it was a period of great learning in my personal life. A badly bundled therapeutic relationship—really nontherapeutic—thrust me into a deep internal personal crisis, and finally into therapy with one of my colleagues. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
I now learned just what it was like to experience on ne day a tremendous surge of fresh insight, only to seem to lose it all the next in a wave of despair. However, as I slowly came out of this, I at last learned what many people, fortunately, learn first. I learned that not only could I trust clients and staff and students, but I could also trust myself. Slowly I learned to trust the feelings, the ideas, the purposes that continually emerge in me. It was not an easy learning, but a most valuable and continuing one. I found myself becoming much freer, more real, more deeply understanding, not only in my relationships with my clients but also with others. All of these learnings I have mentioned carried over increasingly in my relationships with groups—first the workshops we started in Chicago, then in groups with which I have been so much involved in recent years. They have all been encounter groups, long before the term was coined. I will quickly cover the years at the University of Wisconsin and in La Jolla. At Wisconsin I rediscovered what I had learned in Chicago—that by and large most psychologists are not open to new ideas. Perhaps this is true of me too, though I have struggled against that defensive tendency. However, students, as before, were most responsive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
In one experience at Wisconsin, I violated one of the learnings I had so painfully acquired, and discovered what disaster that can bring. In the large research tea assembled for the task of studying psychotherapy with schizophrenics, I gave authority and responsibility the climate of close, open, interpersonal communication which is fundamental for carrying such responsibility. Then, as serious crises developed, I made the fatal mistake of trying to draw back into my own hands the authority I had given the group. Rebellion and chaos were the very understandable results. It was one of the most painful lessons I have every learned—a lesion in how not to carry on participative management of enterprise. In La Jolla, my experience has been much happier. A highly congenial group eventually formed the Center for Studies of the Person, a most unusual and exciting experiment. I will describe only its interpersonal aspects, because it would be impossible to describe all the activities of its member, which range from Kenya to Rome to Ireland, from New Jersey to Colorado to Seattle, from psychotherapy to writing to esoteric research, from consulting with organizations to leading of all kinds, from learning group facilitation to igniting revolutions in educational methods. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Psychologically, we are a close community, supporting each other but criticizing each other just as openly. Although our director has routine responsibilities, no one is in authority over anyone else. Everyone can do as one wishes, alone or in concert with others. Everyone is responsible for one’s own support. Currently we have only one small grant, and that from a private foundation. We do not like the strings—often initially invisible—that are attached to large or government grants. There is absolutely nothing holding us together except a common interest in the dignity and capacity of persons and the continuing possibility of deep and real communication with each other. To me it is a great experiment in building a functioning group—a nonorganization really—entirely based on the strength of interpersonal sharing. However, I could easily go one too long in my enthusiasm. There has been one other input to my learning which I should like to mention. It was first brought to my attention many years ago by Leona Tyler, who, in a personal letter, pointed out to me that my thinking and action seemed to be something of a bridge between Eastern and Western thought. This was a surprising idea, but I find that in more recent years I have enjoyed some of the teaching of Buddhism, of Zen, and especially the sayings of Lao-tse, the Chinese sage who lived some twenty-five centuries ago. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Let me quote a few lines of Lao-tse’s thoughts to which I resonate very deeply: “It is as though he listened and such listening as his enfolds us in a silence what we are meant to be.” One statement combines two of my favourite thinkers. Martin Buber endeavours to explain the Taoist principle of wu–wei, which is really the action of the whole being, but so effortless wen it is most effective that it is often called the principle of “nonaction,” a rather misleading term. Dr. Buber, in explain this concept, says: “To interfere with the life of things means to harm both of them and oneself…He who imposes himself has the small, manifest might; he who does not impose himself has the great, secret might. The perfected man…does not interfere in the life of beings, he does not impose himself on them, but he ‘helps all beings to their freedom (Loa-tse).’ Though his unity, he leads them, too unity, he liberates their nature and their destiny he releases Tao in them.” I supposed that my effort with people has increasingly been to liberate “their nature and their destiny.” Or, if one is seeking a definition of an effective group facilitator, one need look no further than Lao-tse: “A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him…but of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will also say, ‘We did this ourselves.’” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
However, perhaps my favourite saying, which sums up many of my deeper beliefs, is another from Lao-tse: “If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves, if I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves, if I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves, if I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.” I will admit that this saying is an oversimplification yet for me it contains the sort of truth which we have not yet appreciated in our Western culture. The intensity of the feeling of inner coercion in some in Western culture depends on the extent to which the personality is cramped by the authoritative control of the idealized image. It would be hard to overestimate this pressure. It is worse than any external coercion because the latter permits inner freedom to be retained. Patients are for the most part unaware of the feeling, but one can gauge its power by their relief when it is removed and a measure of inner freedom acquired. The coercion may be externalized on the one hand by imposing pressure upon others. This can have the same outward effect as a neurotic craving for domination, but though both may be present they differ in that coercion which represents an externalization of inner pressure is not primarily a demand for person obedience. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The inner pressure consists chiefly in imposing he same standards upon others as those under which the person oneself chafes—and with the same disregard for their happiness. Puritan psychology is a well-known illustration of this process. Equally important is the externalization of this inner compulsion in the form of hypersensitivity to anything in the outside World that even faintly resembles duress. As every observant person knows, such hypersensitivity is common. Not all of it stems from self-imposed coercion. Usually there is an element of experiencing one’s own power drive in others and resenting it. In detached personalities we think primarily of the compulsive insistence upon independence that would necessarily make them sensitive to any outside pressure. Externalization of an unconscious self-imposed constraint is a source that is more hidden and more often neglected in analysis. This is particularly regrettable since it often constitutes an influential undercurrent in the relationship between patient and analyst. The patient is likely to keep on invalidating every suggestion made by the analyst even after the more obvious sources of one’s sensitivity on this score have been analyzed. The subversive battle set afoot in this even is all the more severe because the analyst actually does want to bring about change in the patient. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
One’s honest assertion that one merely wants to help the patient retrieve oneself and the inner spring of one’s life is of little avail. Might one, the patient, not succumb to some inadvertently exerted influence? The fact is that since one does not know what one “really” is, one cannot possibly be selective in what one accepts or rejects, and no amount of care on the analyst’s part to refrain from imposing any personally held belief will make a difference. And since one also does not know that one labours under an inner coercion which has set one in a certain pattern, one can only rebel indiscriminately against every external intent to change one. Needless to say, this futile battle appears not only in the analytical situation but is bound to occur in greater or less degree in any close relationship. It is the analysis of this inner process that will finally the ghost. To complicate matters, the more a person tends to comply with the exacting demands of one’s idealized image the more will one externalize such compliance. One will be eager to measure up to what the analyst—or anybody else, for that matter—expects of one or what one believes they expect of one. One may appear amenable or even gullible but at the same time one will pile up secret resentment against this “coercion.” The result may be that one will eventually come to see everyone in a dominating role and be universally resentful. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
What, then, does a person gain by externalizing one’s inner constraint? As long as one believes it comes from outside one can rebel against it, even if only by way of mental reservation. Similarly, a restriction externally imposed can be avoided; an illusion of freedom can be maintained. However, more significant is the factor cited above: to admit the inner coercion would mean to admit that one is not one’s idealized image, with all the consequences that entails. It is an interesting question whether and to what extent the strain of this inner compulsion, too, is expressed in physical symptoms. My own impression is that it is a contributing factor in asthma, high blood pressure, and constipation, but my experience here is limited. It remains for us to discuss the externalization of the various features that stand in contrast to one’s idealized image. This on the whole effected by simple projection—that is, by experiencing them in others or by holding others responsible for them. The two processes do not necessarily go together. In the following examples we may have to repeat certain things we have already said in this connection, as well as others that are commonly known, but the illustrations will help us to arrive at a deeper understanding of the meaning of projection. This method has become famous, the so-called “psychology of depth.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
It leads us from the surface of our self-knowledge into levels where things are recorded which we knew nothing about on the surface of consciousness. It shows us traits of character which contradict everything that we believed we knew about ourselves. I can help us to find the way, because it cannot guide us to the deepest ground of our being and of all being, the depth of life itself. The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheists; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth of the World and depth of our souls. However, we are only in a World through a community of people. And we can discover our souls only through he mirror of those who look at us. There is no dept of life without the depth of the common life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
We usually live in history as much on the surface as we live our individual lives. We understand our historical existence as it appears to us, and not as it really is. The stream of daily news, the waves of daily propaganda, and the tides of conventions and sensationalism keep our minds occupied. The noise of these shallow waters prevents us from listening to the sounds out of the depth, to the sounds of what really happens in the ground of our social structure, in the longing hearts of the masses, and in the struggling minds of those who are sensitive to historical changes. Our ears are as deaf to the cries out of the social depth as they are to the cries out of the depth of our souls. We leave the bleeding victims of our social system as lone, after we have hurt them without hearing their cries in the noise of our daily lives, as we do our own bleeding souls. We believed once that we were living in a period of unavoidable progress to a better humanity. However, in the dept od our social structure the forces of destruction had already gathered strength. It once seemed as if human reason had conquered nature and history. However, this was surface only; and in the depth of our community the rebellion against the surface had already begun. We produced ever better and ever more perfect tools and means for the life of humankind. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
However, in the depth they had already turned into means and tools for human’s self-destruction. Decades ago prophetic minds looked into the depth. Painters expressed their feeling of the coming catastrophe by disrupting the surface of humans and nature in their pictures. Poets used strange, offensive words and rhythms in order to throw light upon the contrast between what seemed to be and what really was. Beside the psychology of depth, a sociology of depth arose. However, it is only now, in the decade in which the most horrible social Earthquake of all times has grasped the whole of humankind, that the eyes of the nations have been opened to the depth below them and to the truth about their historical existence. Yet still there are people, even in high places, who turn their eyes from this depth, and who wish to return to the disrupted surface as through nothing had happened. However, we who know the depth of what has happened should not be content to rest upon the level that we have reached. We might become despairing and self-despising. Let us rather plunge more deeply into the ground of our historical life, into the ultimate depth of history. The name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what the word means, and it is that to which the words Kingdom of God and Divine Providence point. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
And if these words do not have much meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of the ground and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously without reservation in your moral and political activities. Perhaps you should call this depth hope, simply hope. For if you find hope in the ground of history, you are untied with the great prophets who were able to look into the depth of their times, who tried to escape it, because they could not stand the horror of their visions, and who yet had the strength to look to an even deeper level and there to discover hope. Their hope did not make them feel ashamed. And no hope shall make us ashamed, if we do not find it on the surface where fools cultivate vain expectations, but rather if we find it in the depth where those with trembling and contrite hearts receive the strength of a hope which is truth. These last words shall lead us to the other meaning that the words “deep” and “depth” have in both secular and religious language: the depth of suffering which is the door, the only door, to the depth of truth. That fact is obvious. It is comfortable to live on the surface so long as it remains unshaken. It is painful to break away from it and to descend into an unknown ground. The tremendous amount of resistance against that act in every human beings and the many pretexts invented to avoid the road into the dept are natural. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The pain of looking into one’s own depth is to intense for most people. They would rather return to the shaken and devastated surface of their former lives and thoughts. The same is true of social groups who create all kinds of ideologies and rationalizations in order to resist those who would lead them to the road to the depth of their social existence. They would rather cover the breaches in their surface with small remedies than to dig into the ground. The prophets of al time can tell us of the hating resistance which they provoke by their daring to uncover the depths of social judgment and social hope. And who can really bear the ultimate depth, the burning fire in the ground of all being, without saying with prophet, “Woe unto me! For I am undone. For mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts!” “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery…You, my brothers, were called to be free. However, do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love,” reports Galatians 5.1,13. In the year 1215, English barons forced King John to sign a historic document, the Magna Charta, giving his assent to a charter of civil liberties for the English people. He did not to this freely and voluntarily, but actually under duress from the English nobles who had confronted him about his totalitarian and unjust rule. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been called the great charter of religious freedom, the Christian Declaration of Independence, and the Magna Charta of the church. The freedom set forth in Galatians is not freedom from God, but from those who insist on some form of legalism in the life of a believer. The legalism the Galatian believers were in danger of succumbing to was the teaching that believers must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians to refute that heresy. Yes, it was heresy, and Paul felt so strongly about it he called down a divine curse on those who were teaching it: “But even if we or an Angel from Heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” reports Galatians 1.8. Paul took a strong stand for the cause of freedom against this form of legalism when he wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery,” reports Galatians 5.1. And he was calling them from this form of legalism when he said, “You, my brothers, were called to be free,” reports Galatians 5.13. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
We have gotten beyond the Galatian brand of legalism today. We have not resurrected circumcisions as a requirement for salvation, and we are clear that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ apart from keeping the law. Instead, we have developed another brand of legalism, a brand that is concerned, not with salvation, but with how we live the Christian life. I call this “evangelical legalism” (a contradiction in terms, I realize—nevertheless the phrase fits the problem). Here is how I describe our form of legalism. Legalism is, first of all, anything we do or do not do in order to earn favour with God. It is concerned with rewards to be gained or penalties to be avoided. This is a legalism we force on ourselves. Second, legalism insists on conformity to humanmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real. To use a more common expression, it requires conformity to the “do’s and do nots” of our particular Christian circle. We force this legalism on others or allow others to force it on us. “YEA, for thus saith the Lord: Have I put thee away, or have I cast thee off forever? For thus saith the Lord: Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement? To whom have I put thee away, or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Yea, to whom have I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“Wherefore, when I came, there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer. O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make their rivers a wilderness and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up, and they die because of thirst. I clothe the Heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season unto thee, O house of Israel. When ye are weary he waketh morning by morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned. He Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiter, and my cheeks to them that plucked off some of the hair. I hid not y face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. And the Lord is near, and he justifieth me. Who will content with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near me, and I will smite him with the strength of my mouth. For the Lord God will help me. And all they who shall condemn me, behold, all they shall wax old as a ferment, and the moth shall eat them up. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Behold all ye that kindle fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks which ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand—ye shall lie down in sorrow,” 2 Nephi 7.1-11. Giver of all, another day is ended and I take my place beneath my great redeemer’s cross, where healing streams continually descend, where balm is poured into every wound, where I wash anew in all-cleansing blood, assured that Thou seest in me no spots of sin. Yet a little while and I shall go to Thy home and be no more seen; help me to gird up the loins of my mind, to quicken my step, to speed as if each moment were my last, that my life be joy, my death glory. I thank Thee for the temporal blessings of this World—the refreshing air, the light of the Sun, the food that renews strength, the raiment that clothes, the dwelling that shelters, the sleep that gives rest, the starry canopy of night, the Summers breeze, the flowers’ sweetness, the music of following streams, the happy endearments of family, kindred, friends. Things animate, things inanimate, minister to my comfort. My cup runs over. Suffer me not to be insensible to these daily mercies. Thy hand bestows blessings: Thy power averts evil. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
I bring my tribute of thanks for spiritual graces, the full warmth of faith, the cheering presence of Thy Spirit, the strength of Thy restraining will, Thy spiking of hell’s artillery. Blessed be my sovereign Lord! Almighty and everlasting God, the Guardian of souls, Who in Thy love dost correct, by scourging, those whom Thou receives; we call upon Thee, O Lord, that it may please Thee to bestow Thy healing on the soul of Thy servants, who suffer in their bodies from weakness, and the forces of pains, and the pangs of infirmity. Grant them, O Lord, Thy grace, that their soul, in the hour of its departure from the body, many attain to be presented by the hands of holy Angels, clear from all stains of deadly sin, unto Thee Who gavest it; through our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast been pleased to breathe into a being a soul according to Thy likeness, do Thou, while at Thy bidding dust returns to dust, command Thine image to be associated with Thy Saints and elect in an everlasting home; and gently and tenderly receive it as it returns from the land of Egypt unto Thee, and send Thy holy Angels to meet it, and show it the way of righteousness, and open the gates of Thy glory. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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But the Flower-Fed Buffaloes of the Spring Left Us Long Ago!
Plant the seeds of expectation in your mind; cultivate thoughts that anticipate achievement. Believe in yourself as being capable of overcoming all obstacle and weaknesses. There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them come about through encouragement from someone else. Encouragement is oxygen for the soul. There was a brief two-day seminar with Otto Rank, and I found his therapy (not in his theory) he was emphasizing some of the things I had begun to learn. I felt stimulated and confirmed. I employed a social worker, trained in Rankian “relationship therapy” at the Philadelphia School of Social Work, and learned much from her. So my views shifted more an more. At Ohio State University, I was greatly enriched as I presented my views of clinical work to bright and questioning graduate students. Here too, I began to realize that I was saying something new, perhaps even original, about counseling and psychotherapy. My dream of recording therapeutic interviews came true, helping to focus my interest on the effects of different responses in the interview. This led to a heavy emphasis on technique—the so-called nondirective technique. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
However, I was finding that this new-found trust in my client and this capacity for exploring and resolving his problems reached out uncomfortably into other areas. If I trusted my clients, why did I not trust my student? If this was fine for the individual in trouble, why not for a staff group facing problems? I found that I had embarked not on a new method of therapy, but a sharply different philosophy of living and relationships. Controversies over the multiculturalism have been bitter and divisive. Proponents claim that a multicultural curriculum, for example, can facilitate an appreciation for diversity, increase tolerance, and improve relations between and among racial and ethic groups. Opponents claim that multicularualists devalue or relativize core national values and beliefs, shamelessly promote “identity politics,” and unwittingly increase racial tensions. Multiculturalism is often posed as the celebration of “differences” and unique form of material culture expressed, for example, in music, food, dance, and holidays. Such an approach tends to level the important differences and contradictions within and among racial and ethnic groups. Different groups possess different forms of power—the power to control resources, the power to push political agenda, and the power to culturally represent themselves and other groups. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Different groups also have distinct perceptions of group position, which are related to, and implicated, in the organization of power. Some scholars and activists have defined racism as “prejudice plus power.” Using this formula, they argue that people of colour cannot be racist because they do not have power. However, things are not that simple. In the post-Civil Rights era, some marginalized racial groups have carved out a degree of power in select urban areas—particularly with respect to administering social services and distributing economic resources. This has led, in cities like Oakland and Miami, to conflicts between different ethnic groups over educational programs, business opportunities, and political power. We need to acknowledge and examine the historical and contemporary differences in power that different groups possess. White Americans do not experience their ethnicity as a definitive aspect of their social identity. Rather, they perceive it dimly and irregularly, picking and choosing among its varied strands that allow them to exercise an “ethnic option.” Ethnicity is flexible, symbolic, and voluntary for most White respondents in ways that it is not for non-White. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
The loose affiliation with specific European ethnicities does not necessarily suggest the demise of any coherent group consciousness and identity. In the twilight of ethnicity, White racial identity may increase in salience. Indeed, in an increasingly diverse workplace and society. Whites experience a profound racialization. The racialization process foe White is evident on many college/university campuses as White student encounter a heightened awareness of race, which calls their own identity into question as every culture in America tries to define what is the true American race. With national security debates and security measure being put in place, Latino are trying harder to assert their heritage as the true Americans. Some Whites are feeling isolated because they have been taught to be more accepting of other cultures, while they see their heritage being stripped away with antique statues being ripped down and destroyed. Other White see this as a time to ban together and assert their supremacy by joining law enforcement and targeting other ethnic groups to ensure their demise. Blacks feel they never had the choice to be American or not and have been used to support and build this country and are being replaced by preferred immigrants who get treated better and more government support than anyone else. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
For many Blacks, they have always felt like an outside group, while they understand that Britney Spears is the American Dream. She represents the true American with her blonde hair, blue eyes and red blood. In fact, the colours of the flag establish White identity, the red is for their blood, the white for their blonde hair and the blue for the colour of their eyes. And due to the fact that Britney Spears is one of the most influential and noticeable Americans Worldwide, many believe this is why she has suffered so many hardships. People are mad at Americans and America and took their frustration out of her. However, it is not only because of her heritage, but also because she achieved the American Dream at a young age by working hard, while other face oppression they cannot seem to overcome. Asians are kind of an outlier because their test scores, incomes, and educational levels, on average, tend to the be the highest of any group and their families tend to support each other, which creates a level of envy and people blame them for disasters they may not be responsible for. However, Eastern Europeans are becoming known for appealing to Japan for their IT skills. While America borrows heavily from China, if we are so concerned about national security, would it not make more sense to print our own money and potentially face hyperinflation, than to sell out and give other countries influence in our government? #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Focus group interviews with White students at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals many of the themes and dilemmas of White identity in the current period: the “absence” of a clear culture and identity, the perceived “disadvantages” of being White with respect to the distribution of resources, and the stigma of being perceived as the “oppressors of the nation.” Such comments underscore the new problematic meanings attached to “White,” and debates about the meaning will continue, and perhaps deepen, in the years to come, fueled by such social issues as affirmative action, English-only initiatives, and immigrations policies. President Trump is having such a hard time keep the nation together because democrats are playing the victim cards and trying to seem like they are the saviour or our nation by pretending to care about people who have illegally immigrated to America. When the only reason they are supporting people, who have illegally immigrated, is to get more votes and stay in office. It is the same reason American had its first “Black” president and why Joe Biden is running with a woman. These are gimmicks to appeal to marginalized groups to stay in power. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Racial meanings are profoundly influenced by state definitions and discursive practices. They are also shaped by interaction with prevailing forms of gender and class formation. An examination of both these topics reveals the fundamental instability of racial categories, their historically contingent character, and the ways they articulate with other axes of stratification and “difference.” Extending this understanding, it is crucial to relate to racial categories and meanings to concepts of racism. The idea of “race” and its persistence as a social category is only given meaning in a social order structured by forms of inequality—economic, political, and cultural—that are organized, to a significant degree, along racial lines. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object is persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Power is a collective. The individual only has power in so far as one ceases to be an individual. Alone—free—the human being is always defeated. However, if one can make a complete, utter submission, if one can escape from one’s identity, if one can merge oneself to a political party so one is that party, the one is all-powerful and immortal. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Power is power over human beings. Over the body—but, above all, over the mind. Obedience is not enough. Unless one is suffering, how can you be sure he or she is obeying your will and not one’s own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of World we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the Utopias that the old reformers imagined. It is a World of fear, social distance, treachery, and torment. A World of trampling and being trampled upon, a World which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our World will be progress toward more pain. The ancient civilizations were founded upon justice and love. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our World there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy—everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which survived from before the Revolution. We have cut links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. Are you beginning to realize what that World will be like? The fictional news media is already playing ticks with reality. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
The process of creating an unreal reality is conscious, or else it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. The media and many politicians use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. The lie is always a leap ahead of the truth. All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grow soft. This is why democrats make illegal immigration seem like it is about helping innocent women and children, but with people coming into this nation without being screened, you have no idea what diseases or viruses they may be carrying nor what their true purposes are. And the same people that support illegal immigration and the same exact people that want to keep Americans locked in their homes to “flatten the curve,” of economic prosperity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Governments fail because either they become stupid and arrogant or fail to adjust themselves to the changing circumstances, and were overthrown, or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible. Manifest destiny tells us that the World will be one big American Dream, and do you want it to be a World with too many government restrictions and social policies or one of Capitalism, where people are allowed to have freedom, work, earn money and achieve success? Or do you want the government to limit your success and make you shared the fruits of your labour with people who sit around eating, sleeping, rolling around in the bed gossiping, and partying all night? Some of these issues I worked out while at Ohio State, and when I was given an opportunity to start a new Counseling Center at the University of Chicago, setting my own policies and selecting my own staff, I was ready to formulate and act on what was for me a new approach to human relationships. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
I have come to trust the capacity of persons to explore and understand themselves and their troubles, and to resolve those problems, in any close, continuing relationship where I can provide a climate of real warmth and understanding. I am going to venture to put the same kind of trust in a staff group, endeavouring to build an atmosphere in which each is responsible for the actions of the group as a whole, and where the group has a responsibility to each individual. Authority has been given to me, and I am going to give it completely to the group. I am going to experiment with putting trust in students, in class groups, to choose their own directions and to evaluate their progress in terms of their own choosing. The depth of thought is a part of the depth of life. Most of our life continues on the surface. We are enslaved by the routine of our daily lives, in work and pleasure, in business and recreation. We are conquered by innumerable hazards, both good and evil. We are more drive than driving. We do not stop to look at the height above us, or to the depth below us. We are always moving forward, although usually in a circle, which finally beings us back to the place from which we fist moved. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
We are in constant motion and never stop to plunge into the depth. We talk and talk and never listen to the voices speaking to our depth and from our depth. We accept ourselves as we appear to ourselves, and do not care what we really are like. Like a tidal wave, we injure our souls by the speed with which we move on the surface; and then we rush away, leaving our bleeding souls alone. We miss, therefore, our depth and our true life. And it is only when the picture that we have of ourselves breaks down completely, only when we find ourselves acting against all the expectations we had derived from that picture, and only when an Earthquake shakes and disrupts the surface of our self-knowledge, that we are willing to look into a deeper level of our being. Rage at oneself is externalized in three main ways. Where giving vent to hostility is uninhibited, anger is easily thrust outward. It is turned then against others and appears either as irritability in general or as a specific irritation directed at the very faults in others that the person hates in oneself. An illustration may make this clear. A patient complained of her husband’s indecision. Since the indecision concerned a trivial matter, her vehemence was directly out of proportion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Knowing her own indecision, I suggested that she had revealed how mercilessly she condemned this in herself. Whereupon she suddenly felt an insane rage, with her impulse to tear herself to pieces. The fact that in her idealized image she was a tower of strength made it impossible for her to tolerate any weakness in herself. Characteristically enough, this reaction, in spite of its highly dramatic nature, was completely forgotten at the next interview. She had seen the externalization in a flash but was not yet ready to relinquish it. The second way takes the form of an incessant conscious or unconscious fear or expectation that the faults which are intolerable to oneself will infuriate others. A person may be so convinced that certain behaviour on one’s part will arouse profound hostility that one may be honestly bewildered if no hostile response is encountered. A patient, for instance, whose idealized image contained elements of wanting to be as good as Prince Lestat in Anne Rice’s Blood Canticle, was greatly astonished to find that whenever she took a firm stand or even expressed anger, people like her better than when she acted like a saint. As one would guess from this kind of idealized image, the patient’s predominant tend was compliance. Issuing originally from her need for closeness to others, it was greatly reinforced by her excitation of hostile response. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Increased compliance is in fact one of the major consequences of this form of externalization, and illustrates how neurotic trends continually augment each other in a vicious circle. Compulsive compliance is increased because the idealized image, containing in this configuration elements of saintliness, drives the person to greater self-effacement. The resulting hostile impulses then arouse rage against the self. And the externalization of the rage, leading to an increased fear of others, in turn reinforces compliance. The third way of externalizing rage is to focus on bodily disorders. Rage against the self, when not experienced as such, apparently created physical tensions of considerable severity, which may appear as intestinal maladies, headaches, fatigue, and so on. It is illuminating to see how all these symptoms disappear with the speed of lightening as soon as the rage itself is consciously felt. One may be in doubt whether to call these physical manifestations externalization or to regard them merely as physiological consequences of repressed rage. However, one can hardly separate the manifestations from the use patients make of them. As a rule they are more than eager to ascribe their psychic troubles to their bodily ailments and these in turn to some external provocation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
There is nothing psychically wrong with them, they are interested to prove; they just suffer from intestinal trouble due to wrong diet, or from fatigue due to overwork, or from rheumatism due to damp air, and so on. As to what the neurotic accomplishes by externalizing one’s rage, the same may be said here as in the case of self-contempt. One additional consideration should, however, be mentioned. The lengths to which such patients go will not be fully understood unless one is cognizant of the real danger attached to these self-destructive impulses. The patient cited in the first example had only a momentary impulse to hear herself to pieces, but psychotics may really carry it through and mutilate themselves. There is a self-destructive instinct. If not for externalization, it is probable that many more suicides would occur. It is understandable that Dr. Freud, being aware of the power of self-destructive impulses, should have postulated a self-destructive instinct (death instinct)—though by this concept he barred the way to a real understanding, and so to an effective therapy. The wisdom of all ages and of all continents speaks about the road to our depth, not the road to our death. It has been described in innumerably different ways. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
However, all those who have been concerned—mystic and priests, poets and philosophers, simple people and educated people—with that road through confession, lonely self-scrutiny, internal or external catastrophes, prayer, contemplation, have witnessed to the same experience. They have found that they were not what they believed themselves to be, even after a deeper level had appeared to them below the vanishing surface. That deeper level itself became surface, when a still deeper level was discovered, this happening again and again, as long as their very lives, as long as they kept on the road to their depth. All things are said to be seen in God and all things are judged in Him, because by the participation of His light, we know and judge all things; for the light of natural reason itself is participation of the divine light; as likewise we are said to see and judge of sensible things in the Sun, for example, by the Sun’s light. The lessons of instruction can only be seen as it were by their own Sun, namely God. As therefore in order to see a sensible object, it is not necessary to see the substance of the Sun, so in like manner to see any intelligible object, it is not necessary to see the essence of God. Intellectual vision is of the things which are in the soul by their essence, as intelligible things are in the intellect. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
And thus God is in the souls of the blessed; not this is He in our soul, but by presence, essence and power. Jacob recounts Jewish history: the Babylonian captivity and return; the ministry and crucifixion of the Holy One of Israel; the help received from the Gentiles; and the Jews’ latter0day restoration when they believe in the Messiah. About 559-545 Before Christ. “The words of Jacob, the brother of Nephi, which he spake unto the people of Nephi: Behold, my beloved brethren, I, Jacob, having been called of God and ordained after the manner of his holy order, and having been consecrated by my brother Nephi, unto whom ye look as a king or a protector, and on whom ye depend for safety, behold ye know that I have spoken unto you exceedingly many things. Nevertheless, I speak unto you again; for I am desirous for the welfare of your souls. Yea, mine anxiety is great for you; and ye yourselves know that it ever has been. For I have exhorted you will all diligence; and I have taught you the words of my father; and I have spoken unto you concerning all things which are written, from the creation of the World. And now, behold, I would speak unto you concerning things which are, and which are to come; wherefore, I will read you the words of Isaiah. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“And they are the words which my brother desired that I should speak unto you. And I speak unto you for your sakes, that ye may learn and glorify the name of your God. And now, the words which I shall read are they which Isaiah spake concerning all the house of Israel; wherefore, they may be likened unto you, for ye are of the house of Israel. And there are many things which have been spoke by Isaiah which may be likened unto you, because ye are of the house of Israel. And now, these are the words: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the Earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. And now I, Jacob, would speak somewhat concerning these words. For behold, the Lord has shown me that those who were at Jerusalem, from whence we came, have been slain and carried away captive. Nevertheless, the Lord has shown unto me that they should return again and again. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“And he also has shown unto me that the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, should manifest himself unto them in the flesh; and after he should manifest himself they should scourge him and crucify him, according to the words of the Angel who spoke unto me. And after they have hardened their hearts and stiffened their necks against the Holy One of Israel, behold, the judgments of the Holy One of Israel shall come upon them. And the day cometh that they shall be smitten and afflicted. Wherefore, after they are driven to and fro, for thus saith the Angel, many shall be afflicted in the flesh, and shall not be suffered to perish, because of the prayers of the faithful; they shall be scattered, and smitten, and hated; nevertheless, the Lord will be merciful unto them that when they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer, they shall be gathered together again to the lands of their inheritance. And blessed are the Gentiles, they of whom the prophet has written; for behold, if it so be that they shall repent and fight not against Zion, and do not unite themselves to the great and abominable church, they shall be saved; for the Lord God will fulfill his covenants which he has made unto his children; and for this cause the prophet has written these things. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Wherefore, they that fight against Zion and the covenant people of the Lord shall lick of the dust of their feet; and the people of the Lord shall not be ashamed. For the people of the Lord are they who wait for him; for they still wait for the coming of the Messiah. And behold, according to the words of the prophet, the Messiah will set himself again the second time to recover them; wherefore, he will manifest himself unto them in power and great glory, unto the destruction of their enemies, when that day cometh when they shall believe in him; and none will he destroy that believe in him. And they that believe not in him shall be destroyed, both by fire, and by tempest, and by Earthquakes, and by bloodsheds, and by pestilence, and by famine. And they shall know that the Lord is God, the Holy One of Israel. For shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? However, thus saith the Lord: Even the captives of the might shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for the Mighty God shall deliver his covenant people. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“For thus saith the Lord: I will content with them that contendeth with thee—and I will feed them that oppress thee, with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob,” reports 2 Nephi 6.1-18. Lord, have mercy upon your children. Christ, have mercy upon your people. Lord, have mercy upon humanity. O Christ, hear us. Be merciful, please Spare us, O Lord. Be merciful, Deliver us, O Lord. From all evil, O Lord, deliver us. From our sin; from unholy thoughts; from pain and anguish; from the snares of the devil; from the power of demons; from all tribulation at this time; from everlasting damnation; from Thine exceedingly dreadful wrath; by the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation; by Thine Advent; by Thy Nativity; by Thy Baptism; by Thy Passion and Cross; by Thy glorious Resurrection; by Thy wonderful Ascension; by the grace of the Holy Ghost the Comforter; in the hour of his departure; we sinners do beseech Thee to hear us; that Thou remove from us Thy wrath; We beseech Thee to hear us, O Lord. That it may please Thee to give us a humbled and contrite heart; that it may please Thee to give us a fountain of tears, that it may please Thee to give us perfect faith, hope, and love. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
We beseech thee that Thou wouldest take away from us all murmuring and impatience; that it may please Thee mercifully to raise us from the bed of sickness; that it may please Thee to restore us in health and safety to Thy holy Church; that it may please Thee to give us pardon of all sins; that it may please Thee to give us Thy grace; that it may please Thee to give us eternal life; that it may please Thee to bless us with Thy holy right hand; Son of God; O lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the World; have mercy upon us, and upon the Earth, O Lord. O Lover of Thy people, Thou hast placed my whole being in the hands of Jesus, my redeemer, commander, husband, friend, and carest for me in Him. Keep me holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; may I not know the voice of strangers, but go to Him where He is, and follow where He leads. Thou hast bathed me once for all in the sin-removing fountain, cleanse me now from this day’s defilement, from its faults, deficiencies of virtue, harmful extremes, that I may exhibit a perfect character in Jesus. O Master, who didst wash the disciples’ feet, please be very patient with me, be very condescending to my faults, go on with me till Thy great work in me is completed. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
I desire to conquer self in every respect, to overcome the body with its affections and lusts, to keep under my flesh, to guard my humahood from all grosser sins, to check the refined power of my natural mind, to live entirely to Thy glory, to be deaf to unmerited censure and the praise of humans. Nothing can hurt my new-born inner human, it cannot be smitten or die; nothing can mar the dominion of Thy Spirit within me; it is enough to have Thy approbation and that of my conscience. Keep me humble, dependent, supremely joyful, as calm and quiet as a nursing child, yet earnest and active. I wish not so much to do as to be, and I long to be like Jesus; if Thou dost make me right I shall be right; Lord, I belong to Thee, make me worthy of Thyself, please. Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural know can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. However, our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God; because the sensible effects of God do not equal the power of God as their cause. Hence from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known; nor therefor can His essence be seen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
However, because they are His effect and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to know of God, whether He exits, and to know of Him what must necessarily belong to Him, as first cause of all things, exceeding all things caused by Him. Hence we know that God’s relationship with creatures so far as to be the cause of them all; also that creatures differ from Him, inasmuch as He is not in any way part of what is caused by Him; and that creatures are not removed from God by reason of any defect on His part, but because He superexceeds them all. Reason cannot reach up to simple form, so as to know “what it is,” but it can know “whether it is.” God is known by natural knowledge through the images of his effects. As the knowledge of God’s essence is by grace, it belongs only to the good; but the knowledge of Hum by natural reason can belong both good and bad; and hence Augustine says, retracting what he had said before: “I do not approve what I said in prayer, ‘God who willest that only the pure should know truth.’ For it can be answered that many who are not pure can know many truths,” for example by natural reason. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

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My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold a Rainbow in the Sky!
Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize that they were the big things. One must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. In the finalreckoning we are not the disciple of this or what person but rather the disciple of God. The 1997 President’s Initiative on Race elicited numerous comments regarding its intent and focus. One such comment was made by Jefferson Fish, a psychologist at St. John’s University in New York, who said: “This dialogue on race is driving me up the wall. Nobody is asking the questions, ‘What is race?’ It is a biologically meaningless category” (quoted in Petit, 1998: A1). Biologists, geneticists, and physical anthropologists, among others, long ago reached a common understanding that race is not a “scientific” concept rooted in discernible biological differences. Nevertheless, race is commonly and popularly defined in terms of biological traits—phenotypic differences in skin colour, hair texture, and other physical attributes, often perceived as surface manifestation of deeper, underlying differences in intelligence, temperament, physical prowess; and sexuality. This, although race may have no biological meaning, as used in reference to human differences, it has an extremely important and highly contested social one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Clearly, there is an enormous gap between the scientific rejection of race as a concept, and the popular acceptance of it as an important organizing principle of individual identity and collective consciousness. However, merely asserting that race is socially constructed does not get a how specific racial concepts come into existence, what the fundamental determinants of racialization are, and how race articulates with other major axes of stratification and “difference,” such as gender and class. Each of these topics would require an extensive treatise on possible variables shaping our collective notions of race. The following discussion is much more modest. I attempt to survey ways of thinking about, bringing into context, and interrogating the changing meaning of race in the United States of America. My intent is to raise a series of points to be used as frames of reference, to facilitate and deepen the conversation about race. My general point is that the meaning of race in the United States has been and probably always will be fluid and subject to multiple determinations. Race cannot be seen simply as an objective fact, nor treated as an independent variable. Attempting to do so only serves, ultimately, to emphasize the importance of critically examining how specific concepts of race are conceived of and deployed in areas such as social-science research, public-policy initiatives, cultural representations, and political discourse. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Real issues and debates about race—from the Federal Standards for Racial and Ethnic Classification to studies of economic inequality—need to be approached from a perspective that makes the concept of race problematic. A second point is the importance of discerning the relationship between race and racism, and being attentive to transformation in the nature of “racialized power.” The distribution of power—and its expression in structure, ideologies, and practices at various institutional and individual levels—is significantly racialized in our society. Shifts in what “race” means are indictive of reconfigurations in the nature of “racialized power” and emphasize the need to interrogate specific concepts of racism. The present historical moment is unique, with respect to racial meanings. Since the end of World War II, there has been an epochal shift in the global racial order that had persisted for centuries. The horrors of fascism and a wave of anticolonialism facilitated a rupture with biologic and eugenic concepts of race, and challenged the ideology(ies) of White supremacy on a number of important fronts. Scholarly projects in genetics, cultural anthropology, and history, among others, were fundamentally rethought, and antiracist initiatives became a crucial part of democratic political projects throughout the World. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement was instrumental in challenging and subsequently dismantling patterns of Jim Crow segregation. (The original “Jim Crow” was a character in a nineteenth-century act, a negative stereotype of a Black man. As encoded in laws discrimination the phrase refers to both legally enforced and traditionally sanctioned limitations of Blacks rights, primarily in the U.S. South.) The strategic push of the Movement in its initial phase was toward racial integration in various institutional arenas—exempli gratia, schools, public transportation, and public accommodations—and the extension of legal equality for all regardless if “Colour.” This took place in a national context of economic growth and the expansion of the role and scope of the federal government. Times have changes and ironies abound. Domestic economic restructuring and the transnational flow of capital and labour have created a new economic context for situating race and racism. The federal government’s ability to expand social programs, redistribute resources, and ensure social justice has been dramatically curtailed by fiscal constraints and the rejection of liberal social reforms of the 1960s. Demographically, the nation is becoming more diverse and open to inclusion because more ethic groups are now growing and visible. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
All these changes have had a tremendous impact on racial identity, consciousness, and politics. Racial discourse is now littered with confused and contradictory meanings. The notion of “colour-blindness” is now more likely to be advanced by political groups seeking to dismantle policies, such as affirmative action, initially designed to mitigate racial inequality. Calls to get “beyond race” are popularly expressed, and any hint of race consciousness is viewed as racism. In this transformed political landscape, traditional civil rights organizations have experienced a crisis of mission, political values, and strategic orientation. Integrationist versus “separate-but-equal” remedies for persistent racial disparities have been revisited in a new light. Ore often the calls are for “self-help” and for private support to tackle problems of crime, unemployment, and drug abuse. The civil rights establishment confronts a puzzling dilemma—formal, legal equality has been significantly achieved, but substantive racial inequality in employment, housing, and health care remains, and in many cases has deepened. All this provides an historical context in which to situate evolving racial meanings. Over the past 50 years changes in the meaning of race have been shaped by, and in turn have shaped, broader global/epochal shifts in racial formation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The massive influx of new immigrant groups has destabilized specific concepts of race, led to a proliferation of identity position, and challenged prevailing modes of political and cultural organization. When we assess the changes in, and issues relevant to, racial meaning created in demographics shifts, heterogeneity is an important term to consider. Heterogeneity is the existence of differences and differential relationships within a bound category. Over the past several decades, there has been increasing diversity among so-called racial groups. Our collective understanding of who Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are has undergone a fundamental revision as new groups entered the country. The liberalization of immigration laws beginning in 1965, political instability in various areas of the World, and labour migration set in motion by global economic restructuring all contributed to an influx of new groups—Laotians, Guatemalans, Haitians, and Sudanese, among others. In the United States of America, many of these immigrants encounter an interesting dilemma. Although they may stress their national origins and ethnic identities, they are continually racialized as part of a broader group. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Many first-generation Black immigrants from, for example, Jamaica, Ethiopia, or Trinidad, distance themselves from, subscribe to negative stereotypes of, and believe that, as ethnic immigrants, they are accorded a higher status than, Black Americans. Children of Black immigrants, who lack their parents’ distinctive accents, have more choice in assuming different identities. Some try to defy racial classification as “Black Americas” by strategically asserting their ethnic identity in specific encounters with Whites. Others simply see themselves as “Americans.” Panethnic organization and identity constitute one distinct political/cultural response to increasing heterogeneity. Panethnicity is defined as the development of bridging organizations and solidarities among subgroups of ethnic collectives that are often seen as homogeneous by outsiders; such a development, they claim, is a crucial feature of ethnic change, supplanting both assimilation and ethnic particularism as he direction of change for racial/ethnic minorities. The rise of panethnicity is a response to racialization, driven by a dynamic relationship between the group being racialized and the state Elites representing panethnic groups find it advantageous to make political demands backed by the numbers and resources panethnic can mobilize. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The state, in turn, can more easily manage claims by recognizing and responding to large blocs, as opposed to dealing with specific claims from a plethora of ethically defined interest groups. Different dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are continually expressed. Conflict often occur over the precise definition and boundaries of various radically defined groups and their adequate representation in census counts, reapportionment debates, and minority set-aside programs. The increasing heterogeneity of racial categories raises several questions for research to answer. It has been suggested that an individual’s social identity divides up the World of people and places for one, and that one’s personal identity does this too, although differently. It is these frames of reference one must apply in studying the daily round of a particular stigmatized person, as one wends one’s way to and from one’s place of work, one’ place of residence, one’s place of shopping, and the places where one participates in recreation. A key concept here is the daily round, for it is the daily round that links that individual to one’s several social situations. And one studies the daily round with a special perspective in mind. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Having this unique perspective, to the extent that the individual is a discredited person, one looks for the routine cycle of restrictions one faces regarding social acceptance; to the extent that one is discreditable, for the contingencies one faces in managing information about oneself. For example, an individual of an underrepresented racial group can expect, as suggested, to cease gradually to be a shocking surprise to those in one’s own neighbourhood, and there one can obtain a small measure of acceptance; at the same time, trying to limit one’s exposure to the community will have less effect here than they will in parts of the city where one is unknown and otherwise treated less well. Some of the common techniques the individual with a secret identity employs in managing crucial information about oneself can now be considered. Obviously, one strategy is to conceal or obliterate signs that have come to be stigma symbols. Name-changing is a well-know example. A person who has a substance abuse issues provides another example: [Re a New Orleans anti-drug drive:] “Law enforcement began stopping addicts on the street and examining their arms for needle marks. If they found marks, they pressured the addict to sign a statement admitting one’s condition so one could be charged under the ‘drug addicts law.’ #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
“If the law could find no marks on a person they usually let one go. If they found marks they would hold one for seventy-two hours and try to make one sign a statement.” It should be noted that since the physical equipment employed to mitigate the “primary” impairment of some encumbrance understandably becomes a stigma symbol, there will be a desire to reject using it. An example is the individual with declining eye sight who avoids wearing bifocal glasses because these might suggest advanced age. However, of course, this strategy can interfere with compensatory measures. Hence the making of this corrective equipment invisible will have a double function. The hard of hearing provide an illustration of the using of these unapparent correctives: “Aunt Mary [a hard of hearing relative] knew all about early sound receptors, innumerable variations of the ear trumpet. She had pictures showing how such receptors had been built into hats, ornamental combs, canteen, walking sticks; hidden in arm chairs, in flower vases for the dining-room table; even hidden in men’s beards.” A more current illustration is “inviso-blended lenses”—bifocals which do not show a “dividing line.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The concealment of stigma symbols sometimes occurs along with a related process, the use of disidentifiers, as can be illustrated from the practices of James Berry, England’s first fully professionalized hangman: “It is doubtful whether violence on Berry was ever really planned, but his reception in the streets was such that he took good care whenever possible to avoid being recognized. He told one interviewer that on a number of occasions when travelling to Ireland he concealed his rope and straps about his person so that he was not given away by the Gladstone bag, which was almost as much a mark of his trade as the little black bag was of the Victorian doctor. His sense of isolation and being disliked by everyone he met probably explained the extraordinary episode when his wife an small son accompanied him to Ireland for an execution, although the explanation he offered was that it was to conceal his identity, since—he rightly guessed—no one would suppose that a man walking along holding the hand of a ten-year-old boy would be the executioner on his way to hang a murderer. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Few are the teachers, guides, priests, and leaders of beings who do not put into their work the false opinions and favoured prejudices that they themselves have been taught or have acquired. Few, also, are those who have scrupulously striven to become as free from these things as they possibly could me. Such teachers are unable to free themselves from the relativity of their own position. Hence they give instructions which are pertinent only to those who wear the crown of the self-actualized. The appeal of a teacher will depende upon the depth of one’s own inspiration, and the appeal of one’s teaching will depend upon how well it fits in with the prevailing thought and the pressing need of one’s epoch. The modern teacher should be the individual of the World, not a person of the out of touch elite. One should be one who does not practise a fastidious ascetism, does not frown on human frailty. Such a person begins one’s teaching by making other people feel that wisdom is priceless and holiness is beautiful. One must so manage the two tendencies that they balance each other. Insofar as one deals with the eternal verities, one can utter only the old, old truth. Insofar as one belongs to one’s period one must restate them in a contemporary way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The possession of such power and influence, although it is directly limited to spiritual matters, is directly manifested in Worldly matters too; for people have to live and act in the World. One will gain more esteem as a teacher, and certainly as a leader, who is known to be honourable, conscious of one’s responsibilities and obligations, whose character is well-balanced and whose promises are solid, whose statements are backed by facts and whose doctrines are worthy of trust. One is a true messenger who seeks to keep one’s ego out of one’s work, who tries to bring God and humans together without oneself getting between them. Such a teacher would not claim to be an intermediary with God but rather a counsellor with humans. No master who is a true channel for the divine life will accept the adulation of others for oneself. Their flattery will never be allowed to fool one. Instead, one will always transfer it where it belongs—to that life itself. One will accept none of the homage for oneself; one knows it is not due to one, but to the higher power which intermittently uses one. One is not a leader anxious to appear infallible before the members of one’s group. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
An aspect of asking prayer is intercessory prayer— “for all the saints.” There are many worthy petitions to make, but “saints”—believers in Jesus Christ—are to have a large place in our prayers. Notice that this call to pray “for all the saints” occasions Paul’s request for prayer for oneself: “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should,” reports Ephesians 6.19-20. Paul knew what others’ prayers could do for him. Petitionary prayers for others beings grace to their lives. Few people know that the stupendous achievement of William Carey in India was fueled by his bedridden sister who prayed for him for over fifty years. Tennyson beautifully gave verse to Paul’s wisdom, saying: “If thou shouldest never see my face again, pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this World dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are people better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round Earth is every way bound by god chains about the feet of God.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
How beautiful is the five-fold anatomy of petitionary prayer: In-Spirited—prayer “in the Spirit;” continual—prayer “on all occasions;” varied—“all kinds of prayers and requests;” persistent—“be alert and always keep on praying;” and intercessory—“for all the saints.” Certainly we ae challenged and motivated. Joseph in Egypt saw the Nephites in vision—he prophesied of Joseph Smith, the latter-day seer; of Moses, who would deliver Israel; and of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. About 588-570 Before Christ. “And now I speak unto you, Joseph, my last-born. Thou wast born in the wilderness of mine afflictions; yea, in the days of my greatest sorrow did thy mother bear thee. And may the Lord consecrate also unto thee this land, which is a most precious land, for thine inheritance and the inheritance of thy seed with thy brethren, for thy security forever, if it so be that ye shall keep the commandments of the Holy One of Israel. And now, Joseph, my last-born, whom I have brought out of the wilderness of mine afflictions, may the Lord bless thee forever, for thy seed shall not utterly be destroyed. For behold, thou art the fruit of my loins; and I am a descendant of Joseph who was carried captive into Egypt. And great were the covenants of the Lord which he made unto Joseph. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
“Wherefore, Joseph truly saw our day. And he obtained promise of the Lord, that out of the fruit of his loins the Lord God would raise up a righteous branch unto the house of Israel; not the Messiah, but a branch which was to be broken off, nevertheless, to be remembered in the covenants of the Lord that the Messiah should be made manifest unto them in the latter days, in the spirit of power, unto the brining of them out of darkness unto light—yea, out of hidden darkness and out of captivity unto freedom. For Joseph truly testified, saying: A seer shall the Lord my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins. Yes, Joseph truly said: Thus saith the Lord unto me: A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins. And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren, which shall be of great worth unto them, even to the brining of the to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers. And I will give unto hi a commandment that he shall do none other work, save the work which I shall command him. And I will make him great in mine eyes; for he shall do my work. And he shall be great like unto Moses, whom I have said I would rise up unto you, to deliver my people, O house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“And Moses will I raise up, to deliver thy people out of the land of Egypt. However, a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of thy loins—and not to the bringing forth my word only, saith the Lord, but to the convincing them of my word, which shall have already gone forth among them. Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins shall write; and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter says, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord. And out of my weakness he shall be made strong, in that day when my work shall commence among all my people, unto the restoring thee, O house of Israel, saith the Lord. And thus the prophesied Joseph, saying: Behold, that seer will the Lord bless; and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise, which I have obtained of the Lord, of the fruit of my loins, shall be fulfilled. Behold, I am sure of the fulfilling of this promise. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto me; for the thing, which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand, by the power of the Lord shall bring my people unto salvation. Yea, thus prophesied Joseph: I am sure of this thing, even as I am sure of the promise of Moses; for the Lord hath said unto me, I will preserve thy seed forever. And the Lord hath said: I will raise up a Moses; and I will give power unto him in a rod; and I will give judgment unto him in writing. Yet I will not loose his tongue, that he shall speak much, for I will not make him mighty in speaking. However, I will write unto him my law, by the finger of mine own hand and I will make a spokes-person for him. And the Lord said unto me also: I will raise up unto the fruit of thy loins; and I will make for him a spokes-person. And I, behold, I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of thy loins, unto the fruit of thy loins; and the spokes-person of thy loins shall declare it. And the words which he shall write shall be the words which are expedient in my wisdom should go forth unto the fruit of thy loins. And it shall be as if the fruit of thy loins had cried unto them from the dust; for I know their faith. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“And they shall cry from the dust; yea, even repentance unto their brethren, even after many generations have gone by them. And it shall come to pass that their cry shall go, even according to the suppleness of their words. Because of their faith their words shall proceed forth out of my mouth unto their brethren who are the fruit of thy loins; and the weakness of their words will I make strong in their faith, unto the remembering of my covenants which I made unto thy fathers. And now, behold, my son Joseph, after this manner did my father of old prophesy. Wherefore, because of this covenant thou art blessed; for thy seed shall not be destroyed, for they shall hearken unto the words of the book. And there shall rise up one mighty among them, who shall do much good, both in word and indeed, being an instrument in the hands of God, with exceeding faith, to work mighty which is great in the sight of God, unto the bringing to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel, and unto the seed of thy brethren. And now, blessed art thou, Joseph. Behold, thou art little; wherefore hearken unto the words of thy brother, Nephi, and it shall be done unto thee even according to the words which I have spoken. Remember the words of thy dying father. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 3.1-25. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Sovereign Lord, our God, Almighty, we beseech Thee to save us all, Thou only Physicians of souls and bodies. Sanctify us all, Thou that healest every infirmary; and heal also this Thy servants. Raise them up from the end of pain by Thy tender mercy; visit them in mercy and compassion; drive away from them all sickness and infirmity; that being raised up by Thy mighty hand, they may serve Thee with all thankfulness; and that we, being made partakers of Thine ineffable benignity, may praise and glorify Thee, Who doest works great and wonderful, and worthy to be praised. For it is Thine to pity and to save; and to Thee we ascribe glory, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, unto ages of ages. May the Lord forgive all thy sins and heal all thine infirmities, and save thy life from destruction, and satisfy thy desire in all things, Who only liveth and reigneth, One God in Trinity, through everlasting ages. Compassionate Lord, Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn of another day, wain will be its gifts unless I grow in grace, increase in knowledge, ripen for spiritual harvest. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Let this day know Thee as Thou art, love Thee supremely, serve Thee wholly, admire Thee fully. Though grace let my will respond to Thee, knowing that power to obey is not in me, but that Thy free love alone enables me to serve Thee. Here then is my empty heart, overflow it with Thy choicest gifts; here is my blind understanding, chase away its mist of ignorance. O ever watchful Shepherd, lead, guide, tend me this day; without Thy restraining rod I err and stray; hedge up my pat lest I wander into unwholesome pleasure, direct my feet that I be not entangled in Satan’s secret snares, nor fall into his hidden traps. Defend me from assailing foes, from evil circumstances, from myself. My adversaries are part and parcel of my nature; they cling to me as my very skin; I cannot escape their contact. In my rising up and sitting down thy barnacle me; they entice with constant baits; my enemy is within the citadel; come with almighty power and cast him out, pierce him to death, and abolish in me every particle of carnal life this day. One who has found authentic peace within oneself is in a position to assist others who are still seekers, but one who has not yet transcended mere theories and erudite studies about peace can only give them some more thoughts to add to the burden they already carry. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Have a minute? Try checking out the virtual tours available for each residence on our website! You have never seen a home quite like this before. 🙌 https://youtu.be/1Rpm_C0hXkY
One Half of the World Cannot Understand the Pleasures of the other, but in Charity there is No Excess!
A professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep. Excellence in education is the key to our nation’s future. If we are truly to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, we must empower all our students with the best schools and guidance possible. At a time when we face stark choices about how best to strengthen our economic future, our commitment to education and to children must stand absolutely firm. We have a sacred obligation to put our children’s needs first and to make the essential investments that will help them to succeed. The importance of the family for the moral development of individuals was far more often recognized by political theorists of the past than it is by those of the present. Hegel, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Mill, and Dewey are obvious examples that come to mind. Rousseau, for example, shocked by Plato’s proposal to abolish the family, says that it is “as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one’s nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the state; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one.” Defenders of both autocratic and democratic regimes have recognized the political importance of different family forms for the formation of citizens. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
On the one hand, the nineteenth-century monarchist Louis de Bonald argued against the divorce reforms of the French Revolution, which he claimed had weakened the patriarchal family, on the grounds that “in order to keep the state out of the hands of the people, I is necessary to keep the family out of the hands of women and children.” Taking this same line of thought in the opposite direction, the United States Supreme Court decided in 1879 in Reynolds v. Nebraska that familial patriarchy fostered despotism and was therefore intolerable. Denying Mormon men the freedom to practice polygamy, the Court asserted that it was an offense “subversive of good order” that “leads to the patriarchal principle, [and] when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism, while that principle cannot long exist in connection with monogamy.” However, while de Bonald was consistent in his adherence to an hierarchical family structure as necessary for an undemocratic political system, the Supreme Court was by no means consistent in promoting an egalitarian family as an essential underpinning for political democracy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
For in other decisions of the same period—such as Bradwell v. Illinois, the famous 1872 case that upheld the exclusion of women from the practice of women from the practice of law—the Court rejected women’s claims to legal equality, in the name of a thoroughly patriarchal, though monogamous, family that was held to require the dependence of women and their exclusion from civil and political life. While bigamy was considered patriarchal, and as such a threat to republican, democratic government, the refusal to allow a married woman to employ her talents and to make use of her qualifications to earn an independent living was not considered patriarchal. It was so far from being a threat to the civil order, in fact, that it was deemed necessary for it, and as such was ordained by both God and nature. Clearly in both Reynolds and Bradwell, “state authorities enforced family forms preferred by those in power and justified as necessary to stability and order.” The Court noticed the despotic potential of polygamy, but was blind to the despotic potential of patriarchal monogamy. This was perfectly acceptable to them as a training ground for citizens. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Most theorists of the past who stressed the importance of the family and its practices for the wider World of moral and political life by no means insisted on congruence between the structures of practices of the family and those of the outside World. Though concerned with moral development, they bifurcated public from private life to such an extent that they had no trouble reconciling inegalitarian, sometimes admittedly unjust, relations founded upon sentiment within the family with a more just, even egalitarian, social structure outside the family. Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville—all thought the family was centrally important for the development of morality in citizens, but all defended the hierarchy of the material structure while spurning such a degree of hierarchy in institutions and practices outside the household. Preferring instead to rely on love, altruism, and generosity as the basis for family relations, none of these theorists argued for just family structures as necessary for socializing children into citizenship in a just society. The position that justice within the family is irrelevant to the development of just citizens was not plausible even when only men were citizens. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
John Stuart Mill, in The Subjection of Women, takes an impassioned stand against justice in the family being considered irrelevant to the development of just citizens. He argues that the inequality of women within the family is deeply subversive of justice in general in the wider social World, because it subverts the moral potential of men. Mill’s first answer to the questions, “For whose good are all these changes in women’s rights to be undertaken?” is: “the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice.” Making marriage a relationship of equals, he argues, would transform this central part of daily life from “a school of despotism” into a “s school of moral cultivation.” He goes on to discuss, in the strongest of terms, the noxious effect of growing up in a family not regulated by justice. Consider, he says, “the self-worship, the unjust self-preference,” nourished by a boy growing up in a household in which “by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race.” Mill concludes that the example set by perpetuating a material structure “contradictory to the first principles of social justice” must have such “a perverting influence” that it is hard even to imagine the good effects of changing it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
All other attempts to educate people to respect and practice justice, Mill claims, will be superficial “as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked.” Mill felt as much hope for what the family might be as he felt despair at what it was not. “The family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom,” primary among which was “justice, grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympathetic association.” Mills bot saw clearly and had the courage to address what so many other political philosophers either could not see, or saw and turned away from. Despite the strength and fervor of his advocacy of women’s rights, however, Mill’s idea of a just family structure falls short of that of many feminists even of his own time, including his wife, Harriet Taylor. In spite of the fact that Mill recognized both the empowering effect of earnings on one’s position in the family and the limiting effect of domestic responsibility on women’s opportunities, he balked at questioning the traditional division of labour between the genders. For him, a woman’s choice of marriage was parallel to a man’s choice of a profession: unless and until she has fulfilled her obligations to her husband and children, she should not undertake anything else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
But clearly, however equal the legal rights of husbands and wives, this position largely undermines Mill’s own insistence upon the importance f marital equality for a just society. His acceptance of the traditional division of labour, without making any provision for wives who were thereby made economically dependent upon their husbands, largely undermines his insistence upon family justice as the necessary foundation for social justice. Thus even those political theorists of the past who have perceived the family and the wider social order, which suggests that families themselves need to be just. Even when they have, as with Mill, they have been unwilling to push hard on the traditional division of labour within the family in the name of justice or equality. Contemporary theorists of justice, with few exceptions, have paid little or no attention to the question of moral development—of how we are to become just. Most of them seem to think, to adapt slightly Hobbes’s notable phrase, that just men spring like mushrooms from the Earth. Not surprisingly, then, it is far less often acknowledged in recent than in past theories that the family is important for oral development, and especially for instilling a sense of justice. As I have already noted, many theorists pay no attention at all to either the family or gender. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
In the rare case that the issue of justice within the family is given any sustained attention, the family is not viewed as potential school of social justice. In the rare case that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention to the family as the first major locus or moral socialization, they do not refer to the fact that families are almost all still thoroughly gender-structured institutions. Among major contemporary theorists of justice, John Rawls alone treats the family seriously as the earliest school of moral development. He argues that a just, well-ordered society will be stable if its members continue to develop a sense of justice. And he argues that families play a fundamental role in the stages by which this sense of justice is acquired. From the parents’ love for their child, which comes to be reciprocated, come the child’s “sense of one’s own value and the desire to become the sort of person that they are.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
The family, too, is the first of that series of “associations” in which we participate, from which we acquire the capacity, crucial for a sense of justice, to see things from the perspectives of others. This capacity—the capacity for empathy—is essential for maintaining a sense of justice of the Rawlsian kind. Rawlsian justice is a theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. The goal is to create a permanently peaceful and tolerant international order. For the perspective that is necessary for maintaining a sense of justice is not that of the egotistic or disembodied self, or of the dominant few who overdetermine “our” traditions or “shared understandings,” or (to use Nagel’s term) of “the view from nowhere,” but rather the perspective of every person in the society for whom the principles of justice are being arrived at. The problem with Rawls’s rare and interesting discussion of moral development is that it rests on the unexplained assumption that family institutions are just. If gendered family institutions are not just, but are, rather, a relic of caste or feudal societies in which responsibilities, roles, and resources are distributed, not in accordance with innate differences that are imbued with enormous social significance, then Rawls’s theory of moral development would seem to be built on uncertain ground. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
This problem is exacerbated by suggestions in some of Rawls’s most recent work that families are “private institutions,” to which it is not appropriate to apply standards of justice. However, if families are to help form just individuals and citizens, surely they must be just families. In a just society, the structure and practices of families must give women the same opportunities as men to develop their capacities, to participate in political power and influence social choices, and to be economically secure. However, in addition to this, families must be just because of the vast influence that they have on the moral development of children. The family is the primary institution of formative moral development. And the structure and practice of the family must parallel those of the larger society if the sense of justice is to be fostered and maintained. While many theorists of justice, both past and present, appear to have denied the importance of at least one of these factors, my own view is that both are absolutely crucial. A society that is committed to equal respect for all of its members, and to justice in social distributions of benefits and responsibilities, can neither neglect the family nor accept family structures and practices that violate these norms, as do current gender-based structures and practices. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
It is essential that children who are to develop into adults with a strong sense of justice and commitment to just institutions spend their earliest and most formative years in an environment in which they are loved and nurtured, and in which principles of justice are abided by and respected. What is a child of either gender to learn about fairness in the average household with two full-time working parents, where the mother does, at the very least, twice as much family work as the father? What is a child to learn about the value of nurturing and domestic work in a home with a traditional division of labour in which the father either subtly or not so subtly uses the fact that he is the wage earner to “pull rank” on or to abuse his wife? What is a child to learn about responsibility for others in a family in which, after many years of arranging her life around those needs of her husband and children, a woman is faced with having to provide for herself and her children but is totally ill-equipped for the task by the life she agreed to lead, has led, and expected to go on leading? Difficulties already present in partnerships are sometimes brought in the open in person-centered climates. A young could had been living together and were planning to marry. They were together in an encounter group and asked the group’s permission to explore their relationship with the help of the participants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
As they began to open up to each other, it was clear that they knew each other hardly at all. They had differing goals and sharply differing perceptions. For example, the young woman thought of herself as reasonably adequate, certainly not inferior. She was astonished and hurt to find that her lover saw her as much inferior to him in social status and intellect. As they explored their differences, they became much more open with each other, but their partnership seemed highly precarious. Yet a letter more than a year later told me of their marriage, their growing areas of mutual interest and work, and their current satisfaction with their relationship. Evidently the risk they took in exploring their profound differences had deepened the bonds of partnership rather than breaking them. The areas of difference may occur in a variety of fields. In one couple the husband is hedonistic, works when he had to, regards himself as essentially “a lazy bum,” while his wife is strongly imbued with a work ethic. Says she, “My heart skips a beat when I hear him say, ‘I just want to be rich and have fun.’” She thinks he should be more serious about his work. It is an indication of the incredible complexity of human relationships that the work-oriented wife is, with her husband’s consent, a topless go-go danger, while the “lazy bum” is business! However, exploration of their differing goals is helping to bring them together. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus enjoined His followers to prayerful tenacity: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; known and the door will be opened to you,” reports Matthew 7.7. The language is unusually compelling because the three verbs (“ask…seek…knock”) indicate an ascending intensity. “Ask” implies requesting assistance for a conscious need. It also suggests humility, for the Greek word here was commonly used by one approaching a superior. “Seek” involves asking, but adds action. The idea is not just to express need, but to get up and look around for help. “Knock” includes asking, plus seeking, plus persevering—for example, one who keeps pounding on a closed door. The stacking of these verbs is powerful, and the fact that they are present imperatives gives them even more punch. Jesus’ words actually read: “Keep on asking, and it shall be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it shall be opened to you.” Such tenacity is exactly what Paul has in mind in his call to petitionary prayer when he says to “be alert and always keep on praying.” Men and women, do we pray with Scriptural persistence for our families? For the Church? Are there individuals, groups, causes, souls for which we hold up our hands in prayer? There ought to be, for God answers persistent prayer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Now, the simplicity of spiritual formation is possessed in its intention. Its aim is to bring every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God and the kingdom of God. This is the simple focus. We must keep it constantly before us and not be distracted by other things, no matter how good they may appear. Of course, we cannot realize this goal on our own. However, there is no need for that. God has made provision for achieving this aim. To “grow in grace” means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. “And whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” reports Colossians 3.17. The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to the is like breath. Spiritual formation is holistic. Each dimension of spirituality is not separate, so we must keep a sharp awareness that they are always profoundly influencing one another in the flow of real life. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Real life means the totality of the events we are actually involved in and the actions we actually carry out. In Spiritual formation the process and the outcome in Christ is beneficial to our lives. There are no formulas—no definitive how-tos—for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. However, there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and “if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we shall surely find him,” reports Jeremiah 29.13. Or, as the prophet Azariah said, “If you seek Him, He will let you find him,” We can count on God’s goodness. The Second Book of Nephi—an account of the death of Lehi. Nephi’s brethren rebel against him. The Lord warns Nephi to depart into the wilderness. His journeyings in the wilderness, and so forth. In chapter 1, Lehi prophesies of a land of liberty—his seed will be scattered and smitten if they reject the Holy One of Israel—he exhorts his sons to put on the armor of righteousness. About 588-570 Before Chris. “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had mad an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem. And he spake up them concerning the rebellious upon the waters, and the mercies of God in sparing their lives, that they were not swallowed up in the sea. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
“And he also spake unto them concerning the land of promise, which they had obtained—how merciful the Lord has been in warning us that we should flee out of the land of Jerusalem. For, behold, said he, I have seen a vision, in which I know that Jerusalem is destroyed; and had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished. However, he said, notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him who he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shell be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall blessed forever. And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would over run the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
“Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever. However, behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of the creation of the Earth, and all people, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the World; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds, and great visitations among them; wherefore, my sons, I would that ye would remember; yea, I would that ye would hearken unto my words. O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of humans, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gul of misery and woe. Awake! And arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the Earth. However, behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love. And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statuses of the judgments of the Lord; behold, this hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning. My heart hath been weighed down with sorrow from time to time, for I have feared, lest for the hardness of your hearts the Lord your God should come out in the fullness of his wrath upon you, that ye are visited by sword, and by famine, and are hated, and are led according to the will and captivity of the devil. O my sons, that these things might be a choice and a favoured people of the Lord. However, behold, his will be done; for his ways are righteous forever. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“And he hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this World with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity; that ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a just God upon you, unto the destruction, yes, the eternal destruction of both soul and body. Awake, my sons; put on the armour of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity and arise from the dust. Rebel no more against your brother, whose views have been glorious, and who hath kept the commandments from the time that we left Jerusalem; and who hath been an instrument in the hands of God, in bringing us forth into the land of promise; for were it not for him, we must have perished with hunger in the wilderness; nevertheless, ye sought to take away his life; yea, and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“And I exceedingly fear and tremble because of you, lest he shall suffer again; for behold, ye have accused him that he sought power and authority over you; but I know that he hath not sought for power nor authority over you, but he hath sought the glory of God, and your own eternal welfare. And ye have murmured because he hath been plain unto you. Ye say that he hath used sharpness; ye say that he hath been angry with you; but behold, his sharpness was the sharpness of the power of the word of God, which was in him; and that which ye call anger was the truth, according to that which is in God, which he could not restrain manifesting boldly concerning your iniquities. And it must needs be that the power of God must be with him, even unto his commanding you that ye must obey. However, behold, it was not he, but it was the Spirit of the Lord which was in him, which opened his mouth to utterance the he could not shut it. And now my son, Laman, and also Lemuel and Sam, and also my sons who are the sons of Ishmael, behold, if ye will hearken unto the voice of Nephi ye shall not perish. And if ye will hearken unto him I leave unto you a blessing, yea, even my first blessing. However, if ye will not hearken unto him I take away my first blessing, and it shall rest upon him. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
“And now, Zoram, I speak unto you: Behold, thou art the servant of Laban; nevertheless, thou hast been brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and I know that thou art a true friend unto my son, Nephi, forever. Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed with his seed, that they dwell in prosperity long upon the face of this land; and noting, save shall be iniquity among them, shall hard or disturb their prosperity upon the face of this land forever. Wherefore, if ye shall keep the commandments of the Lord, the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son,” reports 2 Nephi 1-32. All-sufficient King, when I come into Thy presence I see the gory of Thy perfections, the throne f eternal and universal empire, the ten thousand times ten thousand who minister to Thee. Impress my mind with the consciousness of Thy greatness, not to drive me from Thee but to inspire me to approach thee; not to diminish my confidence in Thee, but to lead me to admire Thy great condescension. Thou has been mindful of me and visited me, taken charge of me from birth, cared in all conditions for me, fed me at Thy table, drawn the curtains of love around me, given me new mercies every morning. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Suffer me not to forget that I look for yet greater blessings—a hope beyond the grave, the earnest and foretastes of immortality, holiness, wisdom, strength, peace, joy—all these thou hast provided for me in Christ. I grieve to think how insensible I have been of the claims of Thy authority, and the endearments of Thy love; how little I have credited Thy truth, trusted Thy promises, feared Thy threats, obeyed Thy commands, improved my advantages, welcomed Thy warnings, responded to Thy grace; but notwithstanding my desert I yet live. May Thy goodness always lead me to repentance, and Thy longsuffering prove my salvation. O God, by Whose command the moments of our life run their course; receive our prayers for Thy servants lying sick, on whose behalf we implore Thy mercy; that our fears on account of their danger may be turned into joy at their recovery; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, the eternal Salvation of believers, hear us for Thy servants, for whom we implore the assistance of Thy mercy; that their healthy may be restored to them, and they may give thanks to Thee in Thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who didst add fifteen years to the life of Thy servant Hezekiah; please let Thy power raise up Thy servants from the bed of sickness unto health; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Cresleigh now has a blog! Our post today discusses the benefits of virtual tours and why you should use them to your advantage. Check it out at the link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-now-offering-virtual-tours/
A Person Should Know Something of One’s Own Country, too, Before One Goes Abroad!
Almost all our misfortunes in life some from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know people thoroughly, to judge events sanely is, therefore, a great step toward happiness. Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences. We must make sure that life does not fade away into a shadow-World in which, finally, even the date of the year becomes uncertain. For then even the names of people will become vaporized and therefore will be considered to have never existed. However, even if all disparities are somehow eliminated, we will still not attain equal opportunity for all. This is because what has not been recognized as an equal opportunity problem, except in feminist literature and circles, is the disparity within the family, the fact that its gender structure is itself a major obstacle to equality of opportunity. This is very important in itself, since one of the factors with most influence on our opportunity in life is the social significance attributed to pleasures of the flesh. The opportunities of girls and women are centrally affected by the structure and practices of family life, particularly by the fact that women are almost invariably primary parents. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. What nonfeminists who see in the family an obstacle to equal opportunity have not seen is that the extent to which a family is gender-structured can make the gender women belong to a relatively insignificant aspect of their identity and their life prospects or an all-pervading one. This is because so much of the social construction of gender takes place in the family, and particularly in the institution of female parenting. Moreover, especially in recent years, with the increased rates of single motherhood, separation, and divorce, the inequalities between the genders have compounded the first part of the problem. This disparity among families has grown largely because of the impoverishment of many women and children after separation or divorce. The division of labour in the typical family leaves most women far less capable than men of supporting themselves, and this disparity is accentuated by the fact that children of separated or divorced parents usually live with their mothers. The inadequacy—and frequent nonpayment—of child support has become recognized as a major social problem. Thus the inequalities of gender are now directly harming many children of both genders as well as women themselves. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Enhancing equal opportunity for women, important as it is in itself, is also a crucial way of improving the opportunities of many of the most disadvantaged children. As there is a connection among the parts of this problem, so is there a connection among some of the solutions: much of what needs to be done to end the inequalities of gender, will also help to equalize opportunity from one family to another. Subsidized, high-quality day care is obviously one such thing; another is the adaptation of the workplace to the needs of parents. One of the things that theorists who have argued that families need or cannot be just, or who have simply neglected them, have failed to explain is how, within a formative social environment that is not founded upon principles of justice, children can learn to develop that sense of justice they will require as citizens of a just society. Rather than being one among money co-equal institutions of a just society, a family is its essential foundation. It may seem uncontroversial, even obvious, that families must be just because of the vast influence they have on the moral development of children. But this is clearly not that case. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Unless the first and most formative example of adult interaction usually experienced by children is one of justice and reciprocity, rather than one of domination and manipulation or of unequal altruism and one-sided self-sacrifice, and unless they themselves are treated with concern and respect, they are likely to be considerably hindered in becoming people who are guided by principles of justice. Moreover, the sharing of roles by men and women, rather than the division of roles between them, would have a further beneficial impact because the experience of being a physical and psychological nurturer—whether of a child or of another adult—would increase that capacity to identify with and fully comprehend the viewpoints of others that is important to a sense of justice. In a society that minimized gender this would be more likely to be the experience of all of us. Almost every person in our society starts life in a family of some sort or other. Fewer of these families now fit the usual, though by no means universal, standard of previous generations, that is, wage-working father, homemaking mother, and children. More families these days are headed by a single parent; alternative styles of parenting is no longer so rare; many children have two wage-working parents, and receive at least some of their early care outside the home. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
There are so few who can mature with a good grace. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. While its forms are varied, the family in which a child is raised, especially in the earliest years, is clearly a crucial place for early moral development and for the formation of our basic attitudes to others. It is, potentially, a place where we can earn to be just. It is especially important for the development of a sense of justice that grows from sharing the experiences of others and becoming aware of the points of view of others who are different in some respects from ourselves, but with whom we clearly have some interest in common. How effectively suffering expresses accusation depends on the inhibitions toward raising accusations. Where the fear is not too intense, suffering may be demonstrated dramatically, with open reproaches of the general content, “Look how you have made me suffer.” This in fact is a condition under which accusations ca be expressed, because suffering makes accusations appear warranted. There is also a close connection here with the methods used to obtain affection, which we have already discussed; accusatory suffering serves at the same time as a plea for getting pity and as an extortion of favours in reparation for harm done. The greater the restraint in making accusations the less demonstrative is the suffering. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
This may go so far that the neurotic will not even bring to the attention of others the fact that one is suffering. Altogether, we find the greatest variation in one’s demonstrations of one’s suffering. Because of the fear that besets one on all sides the neurotic is constantly shuttling between accusations and self-recriminations. One result is a permanent and hopeless uncertainty as to whether or not one is right in criticizing or in considering oneself wronged. One registers or knows by experience that very often one’s accusations are not warranted by reality but are provoked by one’s own irrational reactions. This knowledge too renders it difficult for one to recognize whether or not one is really wronged, and hence prevents one from taking a firm stand when necessary. The observer is inclined to accept or interpret all these manifestations as expressions of particularly keen guilt feelings. This does not mean that the observer is neurotic, but it does imply that one as we well as the neurotic’s thinking and feeling are subject to cultural influences. To understand the cultural influences which determine our attitude toward guilt feelings we would have to consider historical, cultural and philosophical questions that would far surpass the scope of this essay. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
However, even in passing over the problem entirely it is necessary at least to mention the influence of Christian conceptions on questions of morals. This discussion of guilt feelings can be very briefly summarized as follows. When a neurotic person accuses oneself or indicates guilt feelings in some kind, the first question should be not “What is one really feeling guilty about?” but “What may be the functions of this self-recriminating attitude?” The main functions we have found are: expression of one’s fear of disapproval; a defense against this fear; and a defense against making accusations. When Dr. Freud and with him the majority of analysts tend to consider guilt feelings as an ultimate motivation they reflect the thinking of their time. Dr. Freud recognizes that guilt feelings arise from fear, for he assumes that fear contributes to the generation of the “super-ego,” which he makes responsible for guilt feelings; but he tends to believe that demands of conscience and feelings of guilt, once established, operate as an ultimate agency. Further analysis indicated that even after we have learned to react with guilt feelings to the pressure of conscience and accepted moral standards, the motivation behind these feelings—though it may show only in subtle and indirect ways—is a direct fear of consequences. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
If it is granted that guilt feelings are not in themselves the ultimate motivating power it becomes necessary to revise certain analytical theories which have been built up on the assumption that guilt feelings—particularly those of a diffuse character, which Dr. Freud tentatively called unconscious guilt feelings—are of paramount importance in bring about the neurosis. I shall mention only the three most important of these theories: that of the “negative therapeutic reaction,” which contends that the patient prefers to remain ill because of one’s unconscious guilt feelings; that of the super-ego as an inner construction which inflicts punishment upon the self; and that of moral masochism, which explains self-inflicted suffering as the result of a need for punishment. We must apply ourselves diligently to working out or salvation. It is important to display the evidences of salvation in our daily lives through our obedience to God’s commands and through putting on the Godly character traits that are called the fruit of the Spirit. And, the tense of the verb continue to work out indicates “continuous, sustained, strenuous effort.” Here again we see that sanctification is a process, and a process in which we, as believers, are very actively involved. Maintain confidence that God’s spirit is working through us. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
God is working to enlighten our understanding of His will, to stimulate in our emotions a desire to do His will, and to turn our wills so we actually obey. Most of all, God gives us the enabling power so that we are able to do His will. So progressive sanctification very much involves our activity. However, it is an activity that must be carried out in dependence of the Holy Spirit. It is not a partnership with the Spirit in the sense that we each—the believer and the Holy Spirit—do our respective tasks. Rather, we work as God enables us to work. God’s work is possessed behind all our work and makes our work possible. The Holy Spirit can and does work within us apart from any conscious response on our part. We have seen this in the initial act of sanctification where God created within us a new heart and gives us an entirely new disposition toward Him and His will. God is not dependent on us to do His work. However, we are dependent on God to do our work; we cannot do anything apart from God. In the process of sanctification there are certain things only the Holy Spirit can do, and there are certain things He has given us to do. For example, only God can create in our hearts the desire to obey God, but He does not obey us. We must do that, but we can do so only as God gives us the enabling power to obey. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
We feel and know we are eternal. To understand all is to forgive all. So we must depend on the Holy Spirit to do within us what only God can do. And we must depend on God just as much to enable us to do what He has given us to do. So whether it is His work or our work, in either case, we are dependent on Him. We are not just dependent on Him; we are desperately dependent on God. Because we so often equate Christlike character with ordinary morality, we fail to realize how impossible it is for us to attain any degree of conformity to Christ by ourselves. However, if we take seriously the long lists of Christlike character traits we are to put on, we see how impossible it is to grow in Christlikeness apart from the sanctifying influence and power of the Spirit in our lives. Christlike character traits are: Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, thankfulness. That is fourteen beneficial character traits we are to put on (and there are others in Scripture), in addition to the many negative traits—pride, envy, jealousy, lust, covetousness, selfish ambition—we are to put off. Surely we must say with Paul, “And who is equal to such a task?” reports 2 Corinthians 2.16. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
We have all been to the circus or the carnival or the county fair and watched with amazement the juggler tossing and catching his four of five clubs. Think what it would be like to juggle fourteen! Yet that is essentially what we are called to do when we are told to put on fourteen—or more—different character traits, as well as trying to put away some bad one. Only the Holy Spirit is equal to such a task. Only the Holy Spirit can orchestrate such a diverse and well-rounded development of Christian character. And yet we are told to clothe ourselves with these Christlike qualities. We are to do it; we are responsible. However, in Galatians 5.22, Paul called the qualities the “fruit of the Spirit”—the result of the Spirit’s work in our lives. Putting together those two thoughts leads to the conclusion that we are both responsible and dependent. We are responsible to clothe ourselves with Christlike character, but we are dependent on God’s Spirit to produce within us His “fruit.” We cannot make one inch of progress in sanctification apart from the powerful working of the Spirit in us. And God does this, not because we have earned it with our commitment and discipline, but because of His grace. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing—including the working of the Spirit in our lives—in Christ Jesus, that is, by His grace through the infinite merit of Christ. As we pray for the sanctifying influence and power of the Spirit in our lives, we can do so in confidence that God will answer our prayers because His answers are not dependent on us and our holiness, but on the merit of His Son. We have seen, then, a threefold view of sanctification or holiness. We have seen that our holiness is first of all an objective, perfect holiness, which is ours by virtue of our union with Him who is perfectly holy. Then we have seen that there is an initial act of sanctification in which a person’s basic disposition toward God and His law is changed. This change is experienced by the believer, but is not dependent on the believer. It is solely a work of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, we have seen that this initial act of sanctification is followed by the continuous action of the Holy Spirit throughout our lives as God works in us “to will and to act according to His good purpose,” reports Philippians 2.13. In every one of these views of sanctification we see the grace of God. God in His grace sees us perfectly holy in Christ. God in His grace sends His Holy Spirit to create a new heart within us and to write His law on our hearts, thus changing our basic disposition. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
And God in His grace continues to work in us through His Spirit to transform us more and more into the moral and spiritual likeness of His Son. It is important to keep your features perfectly under control. When you are in a public place, it is terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carries with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory is announced, for instance) is itself a punishable offense in the eyes of society. It is called a face crime. Consider that from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equally in the eyes of the law, and that they are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If one cannot measure something, one cannot understand it. If one cannot understand it, one cannot control it. If one cannot control it, one cannot improve it. Trust people and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There are risks and costs to a program of action. However, they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of a comfortable inaction. When we become conditioned to perceived truth and closed to new possibilities, the following happens: We see what we expect to see, not what we can see. We hear what we expect to hear, not what we can hear. We think what we expect to think, not what we can think. To place oneself under another’s spiritual tutelage is an act which may be dangerous or may be auspicious. It depends on the other—on whether one’s mind is really irradiated with the divine effulgence or whether it is darkened by its own ego. In The Book of Mormon, in chapter 22 of 1 Nephi, Israel will be scattered upon all the face of the Earth—the Gentiles will nurse and nourish Israel with the gospel in the last days—Israel will be gathered and saved, and the wicked will burn as stubble—the kingdom of the devil will be destroyed, and Satan will be bound. About 588-570 before Christ. “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had read these things which were engrave upon the plates of brass, my brethren came unto me and said unto me: What meaneth these things which ye had read? Behold, are they to be understood accord to thing things which are spiritual, which shall come to pass according to the spirit and not the flesh? #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
“And I, Nephi, said unto them: Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of humans according to the flesh. Wherefore, the things of which I have read are things pertaining to things both temporal and spiritual; for it appears that the house of Israel, sooner or later, will be scattered upon all the face of the Earth, and also among all nations. And behold, there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been led away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea; and whither they are none of us knoweth, save that we know that they have been led away. And since they have been led away, these things have been prophesied concerning them, and also concerning all those who shall hereafter be scattered and be confounded, because of the Holy One of Israel; for against Him will they harden their hearts; wherefore, they shall be scattered among all nations and shall be hated of all people. Nevertheless, after they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up His hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders, behold these things of which are spoken are temporal; for thus are the covenants of the Lord with our fathers; and it meaneth us in the days to come, and also all our brothers and sisters who are in the house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
“And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered. And after our seed is scattered the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed; wherefore, it is likened unto their being nourished by the Gentiles and being carried in their arms and upon their shoulders. And it shall also be of worth unto the Gentiles; and not only unto the Gentiles but unto al the house of Israel, unto the making known of the covenants of the Father of Heaven unto Abraham, saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the Earth be blessed. And I would, my brethren, that ye should know that all the kindreds of the Earth cannot be blessed unless He shall make bare his arm in the eyes of the nations. Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to make bare His arm in the eyes of all the nations, in bringing about his covenants and his gospel unto those who are of the hose of Israel. Wherefore, He will bring them again out of captivity, and they shall be gathered together to the lands of their inheritance; and they shall be brought out of the obscurity and out of darkness; and they shall know that the Lord is their Saviour and their Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the Earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood. And every nation which shall be at war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the put which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Sion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yes, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it. For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of humans; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. For the time soon cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of humans; for they will not suffer that the wicked shall destroy the righteous. Wherefore, He will preserve the righteous by His power, even if it so be that the fulness of His wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“Behold, my brethren, I say unto you, that these things must shortly come; yea, even blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke must come; and it must needs be upon the face of this Earth; and it cometh unto people according to the flesh is it so be that they will harden their hearts against the Holy One of Israel. For behold, the righteous shall not perish; for the time surely mist come that all they who fight against Zion shall be cut off. And the Lord will surely prepare a way for His people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people. And now I, Nephi, declare unto you, that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgment in righteousness. And the righteous need not fear, for they are those who shall not be confounded. However, it is the kingdom of the devil, which shall be built up among the children of humans, which kingdom is established among them which are in the flesh—for the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the World, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the World, and to do all manners of iniquity. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“Yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble and quake. Those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory. And he gathereth his children from the four quarters of the Earth; and he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture. And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One of Israel reigneth. And now behold, I, Nephi, say unto you that all these things must come according to the flesh. However, behold, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of Israel if it so be that they will repent. And now I, Nephi, make an end; for I durst not speak further as yet concerning these things. Wherefore, my brothers and sisters, I would that ye should consider that the things which have been written upon the plates of brass are true; and they testify that a being must be obedient to the commandments of God. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“Wherefore, ye need not suppose that I am my father are the only ones that have testified, and also taught them. Wherefore, if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day. And thus it is. Amen,” reports 1 Nephi 22.1-31. Spiritual help cannot be given indiscriminately and at the same time given wisely. It should be conditioned by readiness, worthiness, and willingness to receive it. It should be offered only by those who are properly equipped, suitably qualified, and purely motivated. Building up personality is a job for Christ. I should not care to entrust my personality, such as it is to any individual of a lower intellectual and moral standard them that. This critique is also applicable to spiritual teachers, as well as psychotherapists, against whom it was directed. O God of Heavenly powers, Who by the might of Thy command drivest away from people’s bodies all sickness and all infirmity; be present in Thy goodness to this Thy servant, that one’s weakness may be banished and one’s strength recalled, and one’s health being thereupon restored, one may bless Thy holy Name, through our Lord Jesus Christ. O Sovereign Lord, Thou art the creator-Father of all people for Thou hast made and dost support them; Thus art the special Father of those who know, love and honour Thee, who find Thy yoke easy, and Thy burden light, Thy work honourable, Thy commandments glorious. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
However, how little Thy undeserved goodness has affected me! how imperfectly have I improved my religious privileges! how negligent have I been in doing good to other! I am before Thee in my trespasses and sins, have mercy on me, and may Thy goodness bring me to repentance. Help me to hate and forsake every false way, to be attentive to my condition and character, to bridle my tongue, to keep my heart with all diligence, to watch and pray against temptation, to mortify sin, to be concerned for the salvation of others. O God, I cannot endure to see the destruction of my kindred. Let those that are untied to me in tender ties be precious in Thy sight and devoted to Thy glory. Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, example, that my house may be a nursey for Heaven, my church the garden of the Lord, enriched with trees of righteousness of Thy planting, for Thy glory; let not those of my family who are amiable, moral, attractive, fall short of Heaven at last; grant that the promising appearances of tender conscience soft heart, the alarms and delights of Thy word, be not finally blotted out, but bring forth judgment unto victory in all whom I love. There are risks and costs to a program of action. However, they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of a comfortable inaction. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Mills Station Residence 3 at Cresleigh Ranch
Feeling cooped up? #MillsStation Residence 3 has the answer! A covered patio right off the kitchen provides ventilation and easy access to your courtyard space! 💙 Interested in seeing more? We have interactive floor plans and photos of this home’s elevations on our website. Link in bio. 👉 https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-3/
It is Warm Work and this Day May be the Last to Any of Us at a Moment—But I Would Not be Elsewhere for Thousands!
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. I accept life unconditionally. Life holds so much—so much to be happy about always. And keep in mind, a pint of example is worth a gallon of advice. Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band, if you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or lily in your medieval hand. And everyone will say, as you walk your flowery way, “If he or she is content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me, why, what a most particularly pure young man or young woman this pure young person must be!” The confusion of moral values and artistic design found expression in the Aesthetic Movement, a credo of the late nineteenth century. At its heart was the belief that good design or beauty is elevating and that bad design or ugliness is corrupting. Followers of the Aesthetic Movement believed that Truth and Beauty were intertwined and that Falsehood and Ugliness were one. Aesthetics, then, had a moral implication, and good proportion, honesty, and harmony with natural laws were as much a characteristic of personal morality as of design. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
This movement began in England and was Championed by the “Goths,” that is, the supporters of the Gothic Revival. In general, they wanted to restore the ritual and mystery of the medieval church and remove the more recent “low church” alterations which bring the congregation and the priest closer together. They came to believe in Gothic as the peculiarly English style (despite the Abbe Suger, Notre-Dame de Paris,Saint-Denis, and Chartres). Aesthetic Movement devotees generally fell into two camps. One camp led by John Ruskin (he celebrated the buildings of medieval Venice and believed that Gothic design was superb because it was the honest work of true crafts-people who worked anonymously and cared more for the glory of God than the glory of artistic fame), the great art critic of his time, felt that art must be inspired by nature to be true good, that no creation of compass and rule with mechanical repetition could ever hope to contain the spark of true art. Gothic Venice stood for an organic, communal way of life, and the beauty of its buildings reflects a wholesome social order. The most famous practitioner in this branch of the Aesthetic Movement was William Morris, whose plant-design wallpapers and carpets became very popular. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The Aesthetic Movement, was also known as “art for art’s sake,” and it permeated British culture during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as well as spreading to other countries such as the Untied States of America. The idea that beauty was the most important element in life, lead writers, artists, and designers to create works that were admired simply for their beauty rather than any narrative or moral function. The movement blossomed into a cult devoted to the creation of beauty in all avenues of life from art and literature, to home decorating, to fashion, and embracing a new ornate style. The other camps of aestheticians had a number of famous leaders. They believed that the direct imitation of nature in the applied arts was fakery. They deplored the use of perspective and modeling in wallpapers and carpet and insisted on flat, “conventionalized” forms for flat surfaces. Charles Locke Eastlake was a spokes-person for this camp. He wrote Hints on Household Taste and made the Aesthetic Movement popular in America. Another one of the most famous people in the Aesthetic Movement was Sarah Winchester with her World famous, marvelous, Gothic Queen Anne Victorian mansion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Owen Jones, the chronicler of ornament and cofounder of the South Kensington School (later part of the Victoria and Albert Museum) was a famous champion. Another, of many, noteworthy people, and later infamous, spokes-person for this group of aesthetes was the writer Oscar Wilde. It is through his persecution as a homosexual that the word “aesthetic” has come to have conflicting implications. As a result, the Aesthetic Movement came to be regarded as both a moral crusade and an “immoral effeminate” circle at the same time. To understand this movement, however, one must look at the World against which they were reacting. The middle of the nineteenth century saw the end of crafted home furnishings in America. Just as the Rococo Revival style became popular, it became possible to make everything by the carload. Curved parlor chairs with naturalistically carved roses at the crest became the rage. Wallpapers with roses and ribbons were printed in so many modulated colours that they seemed three-dimensional. Wall-to-wall, Aubusson, patterned carpets had more roses and arabesque. China was transfer-printed with French shepherdesses and more roses. All of this factory-made prettiness in the French tastes was cloying to English aesthetic tastes. Badly made furniture and lumpy vases with oddly placed roses made them cringe. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
People usually worked together to give the exteriors of Victorian houses a bright, elegant look and to highlight the carving and detail on the pillars and panels. Sometimes flowers on the houses might be painted a colour like navy blue on the capital as a lark. An element many Queen Anne’s have is a tower or a turret with a witches cap. Victorians were big on celebrating holidays, which is why one can find many religious and occult symbols and patterns on these estates. When we turn to the great tradition of Western political thought with questions about the justice of the treatment of the genders in mind, it is to little avail. Bold feminists like Mary Astell, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Thompson, Harriet Taylor, and George Bernard Shaw have occasionally challenged the tradition, often using its own premises and arguments to overturn its explicit or implicit justification of the equality of women. However, John Stuart Mills is a rare exception to the rule that those central position in the tradition almost never question the justice of the subordination of women. This phenomenon is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that Aristotle, whose theory of justice has been so influential, relegated women to a sphere of “household justice”—populated by person who are not fundamentally equal to the free men who participate in political justice, but inferiors whose natural function is to serve those who are more fully human. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The liberal tradition, despite its supposed foundation of individual rights and human equality, is more Aristotelian in this respect than is generally acknowledged. In one way or another, almost all liberal theorists have assumed that the “individual” who is the basic subject of the theories is the male head of the household. Thus they have not usually considered applying the principle of justice to women or to relations between the genders. When we turn to contemporary theories of justice, however, we expect to find more illuminating and beneficial contributions to the subject of gender and justice. As the mission of the family and the falseness of their gender-neutral language suggest, however, mainstream contemporary theories of justice do not address the subject any better than those of the past. Theories of justice that apply to only half of us simply will not do; the inclusiveness falsely implied by the current use of gender-neutral terms must become real. Theories of justice must apply to all of us, and to all of human life, instead of assuming silently that half of us take care of whole areas of life that are considered outside the scope of social justice. In a just society, the structure and practice of families must afford women the same opportunities as men to develop their capacities, to participate in political power, to influence social choices, and to be economically as well as physically secure. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Unfortunately, much feminists intellectual energy in 2020 has gone into the claim that “justice” and “right” are masculinist ways of thinking about morality that feminists should eschew or radically revise, advocating a morality of care. The emphasis is misplaced, I think, for several reasons. First, what is by now a vast literature on the subject shows that the evidence for differences in women’s and men’s ways of thinking about moral issues is not (at least yet) very clear; neither is the evidence about the source of whatever differences there might be. It may well turn out that any differences can be readily explained in terms of roles, including female primary parenting, that are socially determined and therefore alterable. There is certainly no evidence—nor could there be, in such a gender-structured society—for concluding that women are somehow naturally more inclined toward contextuality and away from universalism in their moral thinking, a false concept that unfortunately reinforces the old stereotypes that justify separate spheres. The capacity of reactionary forces to capitalize on the “different moralities” strain in feminism is particularly evident in an Apostolic Letter from Pope John Paul II, “On The Dignity of Women,” in which he refers to woman’s special capacity to care for others in arguing for confining them to motherhood or celibacy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Second, I think the distinction between an ethic of justice and an ethic of care has been overdrawn. The best theorizing about justice, I argue, has integral to it the notions of care and empathy, of thinking of the interests and well-being of others who may be very different from ourselves. It is, therefore, misleading to draw a dichotomy as though they were two contrasting ethics. The best theorizing about justice is not some abstract “view from nowhere,” but results from the carefully attentive consideration of everyone’s point of view. This means, of course, that the best theorizing about justice is not good enough if it does not, or cannot readily be adapted to, include women and their points of view as fully as men and their points of view. But what are the conditions that change the equilibrium and mobilize aggression? What are the causes of “innate” aggression in animals and humans? If we can figure this out, we can then start to understand why some people feel threated by the equality of women. In reviewing both the neurophysiological and the psychological literature on animals and human aggression, the conclusion seems unavoidable that aggressive behaviour of animals is a response to any king of threat to the survival. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Or, as I would prefer to say more generally, to the vital interests of the animal—whether as an individual or as a member of its species. This general definition comprises many different situations. The most obvious are a direct threat to the life of the individual or a threat to one’s requirements for sex and food; a more complex form is that of “crowding,” which is a threat to the need for physical space and/or to the social structure of the group. However, what is common to all conditions for the arousal of aggressive behaviour is that they constitute a threat to vital interests. Mobilization of aggression is the corresponding brain areas occurs in the service of life, in response to threats to the survival of the individual or of the species; that is to say, phylogenetically programmed aggression, as it exists in animals and humans, is a biologically adaptive defense reaction. That this should be so is not surprising if we remember the Dr. Darwinian principle in regard to the evolution of the brain. Since it is the function of the brain to take care of survival, it would provide for immediate reactions to any threat to survival. Do men think they will be robbed of their roles as providers and be forced to submit and be subordinate? #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Well, some people also believe that the lessening of women’s dependence on their husbands is what is to blame for the weakening of the family stability. Some people believe that paid work is “men’s” and it is “fathers” who bequeath wealth or poverty on their children. Aggression is by no means the only form of reaction to threats. The animal reacts to threats to one’s existence either with rage and attack or with fear and flight. In fact, flight seems to be the more frequent form of reaction, except when the animal has no chance to flee and therefore fights—as the ultima ratio—the final argument and also the last resort. Dr. Hess was the first to discover that by the electrical stimulation of certain regions of the hypothalamus of a cat, the animal would react either by attack or by flight. As a consequence he subsumed these two kinds of behaviours under the category of “defense reactions,” indicating that both reactions are in defense of the animal’s life. So with the oppression of women, it may be a primitive function in the brains of some people, that is triggered as a response to make sure there will still be homemakers and someone to produce children. This urge to discriminate against women could be a subconscious behaviour that some are not aware of because they have not been made to go to therapy and unearth the issues they are having subconsciously. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
By ignoring that people need help and not punishing those who are not acting righteously, we are producing and allowing a sick society to flourish. Any animal, regardless of it species, reacts to a life-threatening attack with one of two patterns of behaviour: either with flight, or with aggression and violence—that is, fight. The brain always acts as a unit in directing any behaviour; consequently, the mechanisms in the brain that initiate and limit these two dissimilar patterns of self-preservation are closely linked to one another, as well as to all other parts of the brain; and their proper functioning depends on the synchronization of many complex and delicately balanced subsystems. A further important impediment to criticism and accusation is directly linked up with the basic anxiety. If the outside World is felt to be hostile, if one feels helpless toward it, then taking any risk of annoying people seems sheer recklessness. For the neurotic the danger appears all the greater, and the more one’s feeling of safety is based on the affection of others the more one is afraid of losing that affection. For one annoying another person has an entirely different connotation from what it has for the normal person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Since one’s own relations to others are thin and fragile one cannot believe that others’ relations toward one are any better. Hence one feels that annoying them involves the danger of a final break; one expects to be dropped altogether, to be definitely spurned or hated. Besides, one assumes consciously or unconsciously that others are as much terrified as one is of being found out and criticized, and therefore one is inclined to treat them with as much delicacy as one would have them use toward one. One’s extreme fear of making or even feeling accusations put one in a special dilemma because, as we have seen, one is filled with pent-up resentment. In fact, as everyone knows who is acquainted with neurotic behaviour, plenty of accusations do find expression, sometimes in veiled, sometimes in open and most aggressive forms. Since I nevertheless asset that there is an essential meekness toward criticism and accusation it is worth while to discuss briefly the conditions under which such accusations will find expression. They may be expressed under the stress of despair, more specifically, when the neurotic feels one has nothing to lose by it, when one feels that one will be rejected in any cause, regardless of one’s behaviour. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Such an occasion arises, for example, if one’s special efforts to be kind and considerate are not returned right away or are rejected. Whether one’s accusations are discharged explosively in one scene, or whether they last for some time, depends on the duration of one’s despair. One may in a single crisis thrust upon others all one has ever held against them, or one’s accusations my extend over a longer period. One really means what one says, and expects the others to take it seriously—with the secret hope, however, that they will realize the depth of one’s despair and therefore condone one. Even with no despair a similar condition exists if the accusations concern person whom the neurotic consciously hates and from whom one expects nothing good. In another condition, which we shall discuss presently, the very element of sincerity is missing. If one feels that one is, or is in danger of being, found out and accused, the neurotic can also be accusatory with more or less vehemence. The danger of upsetting others may then appear as the lesser evil compared to the danger of being disapproved of. One feels oneself in an emergency and makes a counter-attack, like an animal which is apprehensive by nature and strikes out when in danger. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Patients may thrust violent accusations upon the analyst (or wife, husband, child, and so forth) at the time when they are most afraid of something being uncovered, or when they have done something for which they anticipate disapproval. Unlike the accusations made under the stress of despair, attacks of this kind are made blindly. They are expressed without any conviction of being right about them, for they are born out of a sheer feeling of the need to ward off an immediate danger, regardless of what means are used. While they may incidentally contain reproaches which are felt to be real, in the main they are exaggerated and fantastic. Deep down the neurotic does not believe in them oneself, does not expect them to be take seriously and is greatly amazed if the others does so, if the other, for example, enters into a serious argument or shows signs of being hurt. When we realize the fear of accusation that is inherent in the neurotic structure, and when we realize furthermore the ways in which this fear is dealt with, then we can understand why on the surface the picture is often contradictory in this respect. A neurotic person is often unable to express a warranted criticism, even though one is full of intense accusations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Every time one loses something one may be convinced that the maid or his wife has stolen it, but be quite unable to accuse her or even to object because she has not served dinner punctually. The accusations which one does express have often somehow a character of unreality, are not to the point, have a false colouring, are unwarranted or entirely fantastic. As a patient one may fling at the analyst wild accusations of ruining him, but be unable to express a sincere objection to the analyst’s taste in coffee. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy is impossible, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it is needed, and the promptly to forget it gain, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that is the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, one again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you have just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involves the use of doublethink. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
These open expressions of accusations are not usually sufficient to discharge all the pent-up resentment that is present. In order to do that indirect ways are necessary, ways which allow the neurotic to express one’s resentment without being away that one does. Some of it comes out inadvertently, some is shifted from the person one really means to accuse to comparatively indifferent persons—a woman may scold her maid, for example, when she had a grudge against her husband—or to circumstances or fate in general. These are safety valves which in themselves are not specific for neuroses. The specifically neurotic method for expressing accusations indirectly and unconsciously is to use the medium of suffering. By suffering the neurotic may present oneself as a living reproach. A wife wo becomes ill because her husband comes home late expresses her grudge more effectively than by making a scene, and also reaps the advantage of appearing in her own eyes as an innocent martyr. The family is a crucial determinant of our opportunities in life, of what we “become.” It has frequently been acknowledged by those concerned with real equality of opportunity that the family presents a problem. However, though they have discerned a serious problem, these theorists have underestimated it because they have seen only half of it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
They have seen that the disparity among families in terms of the physical and emotional environment, motivation, and material advantage they can give their children has a tremendous effect upon children’s opportunities in life. We are not born as isolated, equal individuals in our society, but into family situations: some in the social middle, some poor and without homes, and some superaffluent; some to a single soon-to-be-separated parent, some to parents whose marriage is fraught with conflict, some to parents who will stay together in love and happiness. Any claims that equal opportunity exists are therefore completely unfounded. Decades of neglect of the poor, especially of poor African American and Hispanic House-holds, accentuated by the policies of the Reagen years, have brought us farther from the principles of equal opportunity. To come close to hem would require, for example, a high and uniform standard of public education and the provision of equal social services—including health care, employment training, job opportunities, drug rehabilitation, and decent housing—for all who need them. In the Book of Mormon, in 1 Nephi, Chapter 21, the Messiah will be a light to the gentiles and will free the prisoners—Israel will be gathered with power in the last days—Kings will be their nursing fathers—Compare Isaiah 49. About 588-570 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“And again: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broke off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people; yea, all ye that are broke off, that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel. Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken ye people from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name. And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; and said unto me: Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain; surely my judgement is with the Lord, and my work with God. And now, saith the Lord—that formed me from the womb that I should be His servant, to bring Jacob again to him—through Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And He said: It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the Earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to Him who humans despiseth, to Him whom the nations abhorreth, to servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship because of the Lord that is faithful. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, O isles of the sea, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee, and give thee my servant for a covenant of the people, to establish the Earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that thou mayest say to the prisoners: Go forth; to them that sit in darkness: Show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high paces. They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the Sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. And then, O house of Israel, behold, these shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim. Sing, O Heavens; and be joyful, O Earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. However, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not. For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste against thy destroyers; and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold; all these gather themselves together, and they shall come to thee. And as I live saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on even as a bride. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants; and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children whom thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the first, shall again in thine ears say: The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart: Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where have they been? Thus saith the Lord God: behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall by thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the Earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for thy shall not be ashamed that wait for me. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“For shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives delivered? However, thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be take away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with one that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob,” reports 1 Nephi 21.1-26. With the work of God in our sanctification, transforming work of progressive sanctification is the work of God’s Spirit. He is the One who changes us more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This transformation is much more than merely a change of outward conduct. It is a renovation of our inner beings, or as someone has said, it is a transformation of the essential being. It means our motives as well as our motivations are being constantly changed, so that we can say with the psalmist, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long,” and “I rejoice in the following your statues as one rejoices in great riches,” reports Psalm 119.47 and 14. However, although the verb be transformed is in the passive voice, it is in the imperative mood; that is, it is a command to do something. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
This indicates that we as believers are not passive in this transforming process. We are not like blocks of marble being transformed into a beautiful sculpture by a master sculptor. God has given us a mind and hearth with which to respond to and cooperate with the Spirit as He does His work in us. That thought leads naturally to the Scripture passage that is considered to be the classic statement of the working together of the believer with the Holy Spirit who is at work within him. “Therefore, my dream friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose,” reports Philippians 2.12-13. O God, Who ever governest Thy creatures with tender affection; incline Thine ear to our supplications, and graciously regard Thy servants, who are suffering from bodily sickness; and visit them with Thy salvation, and bestow the medicine of Heavenly grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed in thy presence, in Thy service, to Thy glory. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
O God, Who hast vouchedsafe to humankind the remedies that bring salvation, and the gifts of eternal life; preserve to Thy servant the gifts of Thy power, and grant that not only in one’s body, but also in one’s soul, one may experience Thy healing; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, assists every hour, that I may not be one moment apart from Thee, but may rely on Thy Spirit to supply every thought, speak in every word, direct every step, prosper every work, build up every mote of faith, and give me a desire to show forth Thy praise; testify Thy love, advance Thy kingdom. I launch my bark on the unknow waters of this year, with Thee, O Father, as my habour, Thee, O Son, at my helm, Thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails. Guide me to Heaven with my loins grit, my lamp burning, my ear open to Thy calls, my heart full of love, my soul free. Give me Thy grace to sanctify me, Thy comforts to cheer, thy wisdom to teach, Thy right hand to guide, Thy counsel to instruct, Thy law to judge, Thy presence to stabilize. May Thy fear by my awe, Thy triumph my joy. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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And can I ever bid these joys farewell? Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, where I may find the agonies, the strife of human hearts: for lo! I see afar, O’ersailing the blue cragginess, a car and steeds with streamy manes–the charioteer looks out upon the winds with glorious fear: and now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly along a huge cloud’s ridge; and now with springtly wheel downward come they into freshers skies, tipt round with silver from the Sun’s bright eyes. Still downward with with capacious whirl they glide; and now I see them on the green-hill’s side in breezy rest among the nodding stalks. The charioteer with wond’rous gesture talks to the trees and mountains; and there son appears shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear, passing along before a dusky space made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase some ever-fleeting music on they sweep.
“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. However, I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and he parched ground into the springs,” reports Isaiah 41.17.18 Life is not about accomplishment; it is all about doing, participating, progressing, growing, learning. “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name,” reports Isaiah 45.3
When Reading the History of Political Thought, Just Simply Add Woman and Stir!
Enthusiasm is the light that makes the Sun shine on achievement. Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. Life is not a destination; it is a journey. It is not a series of goals; it is a series of steps, of events unfolding as you make your way. The Theosophic teaching that the master takes on the karma of his pupil is often misunderstood. So many students think that the master hesitates to accept a pupil because of the heavy liability of accepting one’s karma. The measure of truth in this belief is that the master does have some moral responsibility for the self-injuring mistakes committed by the pupil as a direct consequence of special knowledge entrusted to one or for society-injuring misuse of special powers transferred to one or around into activity within one because of special instructions given by the teacher—in either case before one was sufficiently strong morally and pure in motive. However, the general karma of the pupil is not accepted nor can it be accepted by any master. That is the pupil’s making and one must work it out. If the student thinks the teacher ever laces obstacles or temptations in anyone’s way, one is mistaken. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The teacher does not have to place obstacles in your life; it is done by life itself, or, more precisely, by the karma arising from the individual character and its special needs. The teacher may not them and act accordingly, but one does not create them. In the end, the student creates one’s own obstacles and one’s own temptations by one’s thinking, by one’s character, and by one’s karma. One is not only an in instructor but is too often called upon to play the role of mentor, to be a wise counselor at all times and a trusted friend in difficult times, to solve personal problems and guide personal decisions. This ideal person is yet to be found, alas! However, the wish for one is strong enough to clothe lesser being in imagined perfection. Those who regard one as an unreliable visionary are not less victims of prejudice than those who regard one as an omniscient prophet. Even the person who talks from God’s inspiration can convince only those other people who are ready. Not all are sensitive to one’s spell. They equate human’s powers with God’s powers, blandly refusing to see that one can create nothing but can only provide the conditions which makes some creations possible. They exaggerate what is true, that one possessed, potentially, certain Godlike attributes, into what is untrue, that one can do what God does. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
It is a self-deception to believe that the master can interfere in all sorts of miraculous ways in the disciple’s Worldly life or intervene in all sorts of arbitrary ways in one’s spiritual life. The master’s true function, the most important role one can play in the disciple’s career, is to assist the latter’s efforts to withdraw into one’s inner self, to guide, strengthen, and protect one’s endeavour to practise deep and meaningful prayer. There is a common belief in the Old World—picked up by and transferred to some in the New World—that without submission to a leader, master, guru whose guidance is to lead them and whose power is to life them int Heaven, they can never win access to this goal. When it refers to authentically enlightened people, it is an exaggerated belief, and a false one when it refers to all others. Blind acceptance of it has precipitated a case of neurosis in some cases, and much feeling of morbid frustration in most cases where seekers have failed to find a guru or, finding, have become disappointed or disillusioned afterwards. There is no celestial witch-doctor, no angelic magician coming to change their characters overnight. Those who do not understand that true development is self-development will look for, even demand, a guru’s “magic,” as they believe it to be. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
When people demand supernatural abilities from a master, this will lead them to frequent one’s vicinity or even live in it permanently, in order to be more or less constantly under one’s mesmeric influence. Thus they come to depend increasingly on an outside source—another person—and remain ungrown. The disciples exert so much pressure and encouragement on the guru to do what one cannot do for them that they go on believing their own desires in the matter, that is, their ego, rather than one. They think one can give them total protection against risks, perils, and falls on the spiritual path. That is impossible. The guru is not omniscient and not almighty. One is still a limited human being. Why force one into accepting a false position? The idea of a master as being some sort of free perfect and infallible counsellor in all the domestic personal and professional perplexities of life is an appealing one. If it were true where there would be many more disciples. However, it is only a romantic piece of wishful thinking. Many academics in recent years have become aware of the objectionable nature of using the supposedly generic male forms of nouns and pronouns. As feminist scholars have demonstrated, these words have most often not been used, throughout history and the history of philosophy in particular, with the intent to include women. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
There is always some agency to deny the memories and significance of others, like the unreal news media, to rewrite the past. It has become a commonplace in 2020 for some people are paid more than most of the rest of us to debase history, trivialize truth, and annihilate the past on a daily basis. Those who do not learn from history used to have to relive it, but only until those in power could find a way to convince everybody, including themselves, that history never happened, or happened in a way best serving their own purposes—or best of all that it does not matter anyway, expect as some dumbed-down TV documentary cobbled together for an hour’s entertainment. People can make you say anything and they can make you believe anything because that is just what they do—they get inside, they steal space in your head and make you question your soul, of what we believe to be an inviolable inner core of the self, into harsh and terminal doubt. You have to live—do live, from habit that becomes instinct. This is a World where every sound one makes is overheard, there are video cameras on every corner, on cars, on houses, on people, in hotel rooms, and, except in darkness, and maybe even then, every movement is scrutinized. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Some people discriminate against women because they dislike them. They know the reason. It is because they are considered to be delicate, beautiful, loving and clean-minded, and they mange to carry themselves in that manner. There are individuals who dislike all women, and especially the successful, young, and pretty ones. Women strike some people as dangerous and just a glance at a woman gives them a moment filled with morbid terror. The idea may even cross their mind that there is something divine about these woman, and that makes them feel a peculiar uneasiness, which has fear mixed up in it as well as hostility whenever a woman is anywhere near them. These individuals hate women because they are young and pretty and not overtly interested in pleasures of the flesh, because they want to go to bed with these women, and the women are out of their league. Therefore women, are a threat to some because they are an aggressive symbol of chastity. This makes some people want to remove women from the registers, gives them the desire to wipe out every record of everything a woman has done. They want to deny the existence of women, so they are forgotten. Totally abolish them, annihilate them, vaporize them from the face of the plant. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
However, man is a selfish create and knows that he must procreate in order to survive and rubbing musty elbows with other men in the elevator does not endure survival. So, some live in shame and fear and pretend to be heterosexual, but have clandestine love affairs with other men and pray on boys in hopes no one finds out about their true desires. But men can never replace woman. That is why God blessed the with the miracle of child birth, to ensure the prosperity of the human race. Man, mankind, and he are going out of style as universal representations, though they have by no means disappeared. However, the gender-neutral alternative that most contemporary theorist employ are often even more misleading than the blatantly sexist use of male terms of reference. For they serve to disguise the real and continuing failure of theorists to confront the fact that there are some socially relevant physical differences between women and men, and the even more important fact that the genders have had very difference histories, very different assigned social roles and “nature,” and very different degrees of access to power and opportunity in all human societies up to and including the present. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
False gender neutrality is not a new phenomenon. Aristotle, for example, used Anthropos—“human being”—in discussions of “the human good” that turn out not only to exclude women but to depend on their subordination. Kant even wrote of “all rational beings as such” in making arguments that he did not mean to apply to women. However, it was more readily apparent that such arguments or conceptions of the good were not about all of us, but only about the male heads of families. For their authors usually gave at some point an explanation, no matter how inadequate, of why what they were saying did not apply to women and of the different characteristics and virtues, rights, and responsibilities they thought women ought to have. Nevertheless, their theories have often been read as though they pertain (or can easily be applied) to all of us. Feminist interpretations of the last fifteen years or so have revealed the falsity of the “add women and stir” method of reading the history of political thought. The falseness of the Gender-neutral language of contemporary political theorists is less readily apparent. Most, though not all, contemporary moral and political philosophers use “men and women,” “he or she,” “persons,” or the increasingly ubiquitous “self.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Sometimes they even get their computers to distribute masculine and feminine terms of reference randomly. Since they do not explicitly exclude or differentiate women, as most theorists in the past did, we may be tempted to read their theories as inclusive of all of us. However, we cannot. Their merely terminological responses to feminist challenges, in spite of giving a superficial impression of tolerance and inclusiveness, often strained credulity and sometimes results in nonsense. They do this in two ways: by ignoring the irreducible biological differences between the genders, and/or by ignoring their different assigned social roles and consequent power differentials, and the ideologies that have supported them. Thus gender-neutral terms frequently obscure the fact that so much of the real experience of “persons,” so long as they live in gender-structured societies, does in fact depend on what gender they are. False gender neutrality is by no means confined to the realm of theory. Its harmful effects can be seen in public policies that have directly affected large numbers of women adversely. It was used, for example, in the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision that the exclusion of pregnancy-related disabilities from employers’ disability insurance plans was “not a gender-based discrimination at all.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
In a now infamous phrase of its majority opinion, the Court explained that such plans did not discriminate against women because the distinction drawn by such plans was between pregnant women and “non-pregnant persons.” Examples of false gender neutrality in contemporary political theory will more frequently in our discussions. Ackermans’ Social Justice in the Liberal State is a book containing scrupulously gender-neutral language. He breaks with this neutrality only, it seems, to defy existing gender roles; he refers to the “Commander,” who plays the lead role in the theory, as “she.” However, the argument of the book does not address the existing inequality or role differentiation between the genders, though it has the potential for doing so. The full impact of Ackerman’s gender-neutral language without attention to gender is revealed in his section on abortion: a two-page discussion written, wit the exception of a single “she,” in the completely gender-neutral language of fetuses and their “parents.” The impression given is that there is no relevant respect in which the relationship of the two parents to the fetuses would be so slight as to reasonably play only a minor role in the discussion of abortion. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
However, this would have to be a society without gender—one in which sexual differences carried no social significance, the genders were equal in power and interdependence, and “mothering” and “fathering” a child meant the same thing, so that parenting and earning responsibilities were equally shared. We certainly do not live in such a society. Neither is there any discussion of one in Ackerman’s theory, in which the division of labour between the genders is not considered a matter of social (in) justice. In such a context, a “gender-neutral” discussion of abortion is almost as misleading as the Supreme Court’s “gender-neutral” discussion of pregnancy. A second illustration of false gender neutrality comes from Derek Phillip’s Toward a Just Social Order. Largely because of the extent of his concern—rare among theorists of justice—with how we are to achieve and maintain a just social order, Phillips pays an usual amount of attention to the family. He writes about the family as the locus for the development of a sense of justice and self-esteem, of an appreciation of the meanings of reciprocity, of the ability to exercise unforced choice, and of an awareness of alternative ways of life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
The problem with this otherwise admirable discussion is that, apart from a couple of brief exceptions, the family itself is presented in gender-neutral terms that bear little resemblance to actual, gender-structured life. It is because of “parental affection,” “parental nurturance,” and “child rearing” that children in Phillips’s families become the autonomous moral agents that his just society requires its citizens to be. The child’s development of a sense of identity is very much dependent upon being raised by “parental figures who themselves have coherent and well-integrated personal identities,” and we are told that such a coherent identity is “ideally one built around commitments to work and love.” This all sounds very plausible. However, it does not take into account the multiple inequalities of gender. In gender-structure societies—in which the child rearers are women, “parental nurturance” is largely mothering, and those who do what society regards as “meaningful work” are assumed not to be primary parents—women in even the best of circumstances face considerable conflicts between love (a fulfilling family life) and “meaningful work.” Women in less fortunate circumstances face even greater conflicts between love (even basic care of their children) and any kind of paid work at all. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
It follows from Phillips’s own premises that these conflicts are very likely to affect the strength and coherence in women of that sense of identity and self-esteem, coming from love and meaningful work, that he regards as essential for being an autonomous moral agent. In turn, if they are mothers, it is also likely to affect their daughters’ and sons’ developing sense of their identity. Gender is clearly a major obstacle to attainment of a social order remotely comparable to the just one Philips aspires to—but his false gender-neutral language allows him to ignore this fact. Although he is clearly aware of how distant in some other respects this vision of a just social order is from contemporary societies, his use of falsely gender-neutral language leaves him quite unaware of the distance between the type of family that might be able to socialize just citizens and typical families. The combined effect of the omission of the family and the falsely gender-neutral language in recent political thought is that most theorists are continuing to ignore the highly political issues of gender. The language they use makes little difference to what they actually do, which is to write about men and about only those women who manage, in spite of the gendered structures and practices of the society in which they live, to adopt patterns f life that have been developed to suit the needs of men. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The fact that human beings are born as helpless infants—not as the purportedly autonomous actor who populate political theories—is obscured by the implicit assumption of gendered families, operating outside the range of theories. To a large extent, contemporary theories of justice, like those of the past, are about men with wives at home. For three major reasons, this state of affairs is unacceptable. The first is the obvious point that women must be fully included in any satisfactory theory of justice. The second is that equality of opportunity, not only for women but for children of both genders, is seriously undermined by the current gender injustices of our society. And the third reason is that, as has already been suggested, the family—currently the linchpin of the gender structure—must be just if we are to have a just society, since it is within the family that we first come to have that sense of ourselves and our relations with others that is at the root of moral development. In one of His prayer parables, the Lord dramatized what He wants from all believers. Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. #RandolpHarris 14 of 19
He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about people. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For sometime he refused. However, finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she will not eventually wear me out with her coming!’” (Luke 18-1-5) The cultivation of persistence was a recurring motif in Jesus’ teaching on prayer. In Gethsemane Jesus challenged His disciples when they failed to persevere by saying, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak,” reports Mark 14.38. In the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi, chapter 20 The Lord reveals His purposes to Israel—Israel has been chosen in the furnace of affliction and is to go forth from Babylon—Compare Isaiah 48. About 588-570 Before Christ. “Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness. Nevertheless, they call themselves of the holy city, but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel, who is the Lord of Hosts; yea, the Lord of Hosts is his name. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“Behold, I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them. I did show them suddenly. And I did it because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is iron sinew, and thy brow brass; and I have even from the beginning declared to thee; before it came to pass I showed them thee; and I showed them for fear lest thou shouldst say—Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image hath commanded them. Thou hast seen and heard all this; and will ye not declare them? And that I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. They are created now, and not from the beginning, even before the day when thou heardest them not they were declared unto thee, lest thou shouldst say—Behold I knew them. Yes, and thou heardest not; yes, thou knewest not; yet, from that time thine ear was not opened; for I knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb. Nevertheless, for my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain from thee, that I cut thee not off. For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake, yes, for mine own sake will I do this, for I will not suffer my name to be polluted, and I will not give my glory unto another. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“Hearken unto me, O Jacob, and Israel my called, for I am he; I am the first, and I am also the last. Mine hand hath also laid the foundation of the Earth, and my right hand hath spanned the Heavens. I call unto them and they stand up together. All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; who among them hath declared these things unto them? The Lord hath loved him; yes, and he will fulfil His word which he hath declared by them; and He will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall come upon the Chaldeans. Also, saith the Lord; I the Lord, yea, I have spoken; yea, I have called him to declare, I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. Come ye near unto me; I have not spoken in secret; from the beginning, from the time that it was declared have I spoken; and the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me. And thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I have sent him, the Lord thy God who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way thou shouldst go, hath done it. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments—then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thy seed also had been as the sand; the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed before me. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter to the end of the Earth; say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not; he led them through the deserts; he caused the water to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock also and the waters gushed out. And notwithstanding he hath done all this, and greater also, there is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked,” 1 Nephi 20.1-22. Almighty and everlasting God, the Maker of all creation, mercifully hear our prayers, and grant many and happy years to Thy servants in Detroit, Michigan, and the state of Mississippi, and the people of Chattanooga, Tennessee for not only has COVID-19 hit them hard and is about to leave them without homes, but the people in Chattanooga lost their homes to a natural disaster and their entire town was destroyed. Dear, God, we thank you for all the blessings we have been afforded, and you didst cause us to come forth from our mother’s wombs into this life, that we may spend all our lives so as to please Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Love beyond compare, Thou art good when Thou givest, when Thou takest away, when the Sun shines upon me, when night gathers over me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the World, and in love didst redeem by soul; Thou dost love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust. Thy goodness has been with me during another year, leading me though a twisting wilderness, in retreat helping me to advance, when beaten back making sure headway. Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead; I hoist sail and draw up anchor, with Thee as blessed pilot of my future as of my past. I bless Thee that Thou hast veiled my eyes to the waters ahead. If thou hast appointed storms of tribulation, Thou wilt be with me in them; if I have to pass through tempests of persecution and temptation, I shall not drown; if I am to die, I shall see Thy face the sooner; if a painful end is to be my lot, grant me grace that my faith fail not; if I am to be cast aside from the service I love, I can make no stipulation; only glorify Thyself in me whether in comfort or trial, as a chosen vessel meet always for Thy use. O God, the Life of the faithful, the Saviour and Guardian of those that fear Thee, Who, after the expiration of a year, hast been pleased to bring Thy servants to our natural birthday; increasing in us the grace of the Protector of life, and multiply their days with many years; that having, by Thy favour, been carried through a happy life, they may be enabled to attain the height of Heavenly joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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Rancho Cordova, CA |
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With all the changes and challenges one faces each day, there has never been a greater need to take the time to determine one’s priorities, and then with renewed focus, align one’s daily actions with one’s purpose or goals. Since one cannot know it all or do it all, it is vital that one learns to take the time to contemplate what it is one needs to know and what one need to do. The art of being wise is to know what to overlook. Where there is equality there can be sanity. Sooner or later it will happen: strength will change into consciousness. Some speculate that in the future, race will cease to be the basis of identity and special-interest power because of the growth in mixed-race people. This is called hybridity. It has been a long-standing dream that increased race mixing will solve our racial problems. Multiraciality disrupts our fixed notions about race and opens up new possibilities with respect to dialogue and engagement across the colour line. It does not, however, mean that race is over. Although the number of people of mixed-racial descent is unclear, and contingent on self-definition, the 2010 US census counted approximately 9 million individuals, or 2.9 percent of the people, self-identified as multiracial, and this has resulted in a growing literature on multiracial identity and its meaning for a racially stratified society. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19