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Diary of the Seducer—Expecting Nothing of Life He Was Entirely Absorbed by the Game itself!

Capture27The deepest hunger in the American soul today is for something truly useful to do with one’s life. If, as in so often the case in America now, the end result is human exploitation, environmental destruction, or debasement of values, what values does work really have? What does it mean to be an adult? It means certain rights and privileges that do not belong to children and adolescents, for one thing. However, as for any such “fringe benefits,” there are dues to pay. These dues come in the form of responsibilities, obligations, and expectations of other individuals and society. Morality is based on individual rights and standards which have been critically examined and agreed upon by the whole society. A sharp distinction has been drawn between the situation of the discredited with tension to manage and the situation of the discreditable with information to manage. The stigmatized employ an adaptive technique, however, which requires the student to bring together these two possibilities. The difference between visibility and obtrusiveness is involved. It is a fact that persons who are ready to admit possession of stigma (in many cases because it is known about or immediately apparent) may nonetheless make a great effort to keep the stigma from looming large. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

ImageThe individual’s object is to reduce tension, that is, to make it easier for oneself and the others to withdraw covert attention from the stigma, and to sustain spontaneous involvement in the official content of the interaction. However, the means employed for this task are quite similar to those employed in passing—and in some cases identical, since what will conceal a stigma from unknowing persons may also ease matters for those in the know. It is thus that a girl who gets around best on her artificial leg employs crutches or an artful but patently artificial limb when in company. This process will be referred to as covering. Many of these who rarely try to pass, routinely try to cover. One type of covering involves the individual in a concern over the standards incidentally associated with one’s stigma. Thus the visually impaired, who sometimes have a facial disfigurement in the region of the eyes, distinguish among themselves according to whether this is the case or not. Dark glasses sometimes worn to give voluntary evidence of blindness may at the same time be worn to cover evidence of defacement—a case revealing unsightedness while concealing unsightliness: The blind, in all conscience, have enough advertisement of their condition without adding a cosmetic factor to it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

ImageI think of nothing that would add so much to the tragedy of a blind man’s position as the feeling that, in the fight to regain his vision, he had lost not only the fight but the wholesomeness of his appearance as well. Similarly, since blindness can lead to the appearance of clumsiness, there may occur a special effort to re-learn motor propriety, an “ease and grace and adeptness at all those motions which the sighted World looks upon as ‘normal.’” A related type of covering involves an effort to restrict the display of those failings most centrally identified with the stigma. For example, a near-blind person who knows that the persons present know about one’s differentness may yet hesitate to read, because to do this one would have to bring the book up to a few inches of one’s eyes, and this one may feel expresses to glaringly the qualities of blindness. This type of covering, it should be noted, is an important aspect of the “assimilative” techniques employed by members of minority ethnic groups; the intent behind devices such as change in name and change in nose shape is not solely to pass, but also to restrict the way in which a known about attribute obtrudes itself into the center of attention, for obtrusiveness increases the difficulty of maintaining easeful inattention regarding the stigma. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

ImageThe most interesting expression of covering, perhaps, is that associated with the organization of social situations. As already suggested, anything which interferes directly with the etiquette and mechanics of communication obtrudes itself constantly into the interaction and is difficult to disattend genuinely. Hence individuals with stigma, especially those with a physical disability, may have to learn about the structure of interaction in order to learn about the lines along which they must reconstitute their conduct if they are to minimize the obtrusiveness of their stigma. From the efforts, then, one can learn about features of interaction that might otherwise be too much taken for granted to be noted. For example, the hard of hearing learn to talk with the degree of loudness that listeners feel is appropriate for the situation, and also to be ready to deal with those junctures during interaction that specifically require hearing if the properties are to be maintained: Frances figure out elaborate techniques to cope with ‘dinner lulls,’ intermissions at concerts, football games, dances, and so on, in order to protect her secret. However, they served only to make her more uncertain, and in turn more cautious, and in turn more uncertain. Thus, Frances had it down pat that at a diner party she should sit next to someone with a strong voice; if someone asked her a direct question, choke, cough, or get hiccups; take hold of the conversation herself, ask someone to tell a story she had already heard, ask questions the answers to which she already knew. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

ImageSimilarly, the blind sometimes learn to look directly at the speaker even though this looking accomplishes no seeing, for it prevents the blind from staring off into space or hanging the head or otherwise unknowingly violating the code regarding attention cues through which spoke interaction is organized. Now, let us consider some typical sadistic attitudes. We can best observe these in persons who are fairly uninhibited in expressing their sadistic tendencies toward others, whether they themselves are conscious of having such tendencies or not. When, in the following, I speak of a sadistic person, I mean a person whose attitudes toward others are predominantly sadistic. Such a person may want to enslave others or to enslave the partner in particular. One’s “victim” must be a superhuman’s slave, a creature not only without wishes, feelings, or initiative of one’s own but without any claims whatever upon the master. This tendency may take the form of molding or educating the victim, as Professor Higgings in Pygmalion molds Eliza. At best it can have some constructive aspects, as in the case of parents with children or teachers with pupils. Occasionally this aspect obtains in relations dealing with pleasures of the flesh, particularly if the sadistic partner is the more mature. It is sometimes conspicuous in homosexual relations between an older and a young man. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

ImageHowever, even there if the slave gives any indication of meaning to go one’s own way, of having friends or interests of one’s own, the devil’s horns will show themselves. Frequently, though not invariably, the master is haunted by a possessive jealousy and uses it as a means of torture. It is peculiar to sadistic relationships of this kind that keeping a hold over the victim is of more absorbing interests than the person’s own life. One will neglect one’s career, forego the pleasures or advantages of meeting other persons rather than grant the partner any independence. The ways in which the partner is kept enslaved are characteristic. They vary only within a comparatively limited range and depend on the personality structure of both members. The sadistic person will give the partner just enough to make the relationship appear worth one’s while. One will fulfill certain of the partner’s needs—though rarely more than will keep one at a minimum subsistence level, psychically speaking. And one will impress upon one the unique quality of what one gives. Nobody else, one will point out, could give one such understanding, such support, so much satisfactions in pleasures of the flesh or so many interests; nobody else, indeed, would ever put up with one. Again, one may hold one with the lure of better times—implicitly or explicitly, one will promise love or marriage or a better financial status or better treatment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

ImageSometimes one will stress one’s own need of the partner and appeal to one on that ground. All these tactics are the more effective in that by being so possessive and so disparaging one isolates the partner from others. If the latter is made sufficiently dependent one may finally threaten to leave one. still further means of intimidation may be employed, but these have so much a life of their own that they will be discussed separately, in another context. Naturally, we cannot understand what goes on in such a relationship without taking into account the characteristics of the partner. Often one is of the complaint type and hence in dread of desertion; or one may be a person who has profoundly repressed one’s own sadistic drives and is helpless on that account—as will be shown later. The mutual dependence that accrues from such a situation arouses resentment not only in the enslaved but in the enslaver as well. If the latter’s need for detachment is pronounced, one is especially resentful of the partner’s absorbing so much of one’s thought and energy. Not realizing that one oneself has created these cramping ties, one may reproach the partner for being grasping or clinging. One’s wanting to break away on such occasions is as much an expression of fear and resentment as a means of intimidation. Not all sadistic craving aims at enslavement. Another sort finds its satisfaction in playing on the emotions of another person as on an instrument. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

ImageA man or woman who expects nothing of one’s own life can be entirely absorbed in the game of playing with your emotions, which in turn gives them a reason to live. One knows when to show interest and when to be indifferent. One is hypersensitive in anticipating and observing the girl’s reactions to one. One knows what will arouse and what will check his or her desires for pleasures of the flesh. However, one’s sensitivity is limited to the requirements of the sadistic play: one is totally unconcerned with what this experience might mean to the young lady or young man’s life. This conscious shrewd calculation, more often goes on unconsciously. However, it is the same game of attracting and rejecting, charming and disappointing, elevating and degrading, bringing joy and brining grief. Another characteristic is to exploit the partner. Exploitation is not necessarily a sadistic enterprise; it may be employed merely for the sake of gain. In sadistic exploitation, too, gain may be a consideration, but it is often illusory and wholly out of proportion to the affect put into its pursuit. For the sadist, exploitation becomes a kind of passion in its own right. What matters is to experience the triumph of getting the better of others. Its specifically sadistic colouring appears in the means used for exploitation. The partner is subjected, directly and indirectly, to ever mounting demands, and is made to feel guilty humiliated if one does not fulfill them. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

ImageThe sadistic person can always find a justification for feeling discontented or unfairly treated, and for demanding still more on the account. The fulfilling of such demands never evokes gratitude, and how the demands themselves are often prompted by the desire to hurt the other person and put one in one’s place. They may have to do with material things or needs involving pleasures of the flesh or assist in establishing a career; they may be demands for special consideration, exclusive devotion, boundless tolerance. There is nothing specifically sadistic in their content: what does point to sadism is the expectation that the partner should, by whatever means are available, fill out a life that is emotionally empty. This, too, is well illustrated by constant complaints of feeling bored and wanting stimulation and excitement. The need to feed, vampirelike, on the emotional vitality of another person is as a rule completely unconscious.  However, it is probable that it is at the bottom of the craving to exploit and that it is the soil from which the expressed demand draw their sustenance. When we realize that there is simultaneously a tendency to frustrate others, the nature of the exploitation becomes still clearer. It would be a mistake to say that the sadistic person never wants to give anything. Under certain conditions one may even be generous. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

ImageWhat is typical of sadism is not a stinginess in the sense of withholding but a much more active, though unconscious, impulse to thwart others—to kill their joy and to disappoint their expectations. Any satisfaction or buoyancy of the partner’s almost irresistibly provokes the sadistic person to spoil it in some way. If the partner looks forward to seeing one, one tends to be sullen. It the partner wants pleasures of the flesh, one will be frigid or impotent. One may not even have to do, or fail to do, anything beneficial. By simply radiating gloom one acts as a depressant. One did not have to do anything: it was enough for one just to be. They shriveled and turned morbid by mere infection. What an exquisite refinement of the will to power, what an elegant cruelty! And what an amazing gift for that contagious gloom which damps even the highest spirits and stifles the very possibility of joy. As significant as any of these is the sadistic person’s tendency to disparage and humiliate others. One is remarkably keen at seeing shortcomings, at discovering the weak spots in others and pointing them out. One knows intuitively where others are sensitive and can be hurt. And one tends to use one’s intuition mercilessly for derogatory criticism. This may be rationalized as honesty or as a wish to be helpful; one may believe oneself to be sincerely troubled by doubts in regard to the other person’s competence or integrity—but if the sincerity of one’s doubts are questioned, one will become panicky. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

ImageIt may also appear as mere suspiciousness. The individual may say: “If only I could trust that person!” However, after having translated one in one’s dreams into everything loathsome from a worm to a germ, how could one expect to trust him or her! In other words, suspiciousness can be merely a consequence of disparaging another person in one’s own mind. And if the sadistic person is unaware of one’s disparaging attitude one may be conscious only of the resulting suspiciousness. Again it would seem more appropriate to speak of a passion for fault-finding than of simply tendency. One not only turns one’s searchlight on actual flaws but is extremely adept at externalizing one’s own faults and so building up a case against the other fellow. If, for instance, one has upset someone by one’s own behavior, one will immediately show concern or even contempt for that person’s emotional instability. If the partner, being intimidated, is not entirely frank with one, one will reproach him or her for one’s secrecy or for lying. One will reproach one for being dependent on one when one oneself has one all one could to make one so. Such undermining is not just a matter of words but is accompanied by all sorts of scornful behaviour. Humiliating and degrading practices of pleasures of the flesh can be one of its expression. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

ImageWhen any of these drives is frustrated, or when the tables are turned and the sadistic person feels oneself dominated, exploited, or scored, one may have spells of an almost insane rage. In one’s imagination, then, no torture is great enough to inflect upon the offender: one may kick him or her, beat him or her, slice him or her to pieces. These spells of sadistic rage can in turn be repressed, and give raise to a state of acute panic or some functional somatic disturbance pointing to an increase of inner tension. What, then, is the meaning of these trends? What are the inner necessities that compel a person to behave with such cruelty? The assumption that sadistic trends are the expression of a perverted drive in dealing with pleasures of the flesh has n basis in fact. It is true that they can be expressed in behaviour that is based in pleasures of the flesh. In this they are no exception to the general rule that all our character attitudes are bound to manifest themselves in the sphere of pleasures of the flesh—as they do in our way of working, in our gait, in out handwriting. It is also true that many sadistic pursuits are carried on with a certain excitement or, as I have said repeatedly, with an absorbing passion. The conclusion, however, that these affects of thrill or excitement are involved in the nature of pleasures of the flesh, even when they are not felt as such, merely rests on the premise that every excitement is in itself dealing with pleasure of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

ImageHowever, there is no evidence to substantiate such a premise. Phenomenologically the two sensations of sadistic thrill and abandonment in pleasures of the flesh are entirely different in nature. The assertion that sadistic impulses are a persisting infantile trend has a certain appeal in that young children are often cruel to animals or younger children, and apparently get a thrill out of it. In view of this superficial similarity one might say that the elementary cruelty of the child has merely been refined. However, actually it is not only refined: the cruelty of the adult sadist is different in kind. As we have seen, it has distinct characteristics which are lacking in the child’s outright cruelty. The child’s cruelty seems to be a comparatively simple response to feeling oppressed or humiliated. One asserts oneself by exercising one’s vengeance on weaker folk. Specifically sadistic trends are more complicated and grow from more complicated roots. Besides, like every attempt to account for later peculiarities by relating them directly to early experiences, this one, too, leave an all-important question unanswered that we will come back to at a later date. Now that we have explored the issue of freedom as an expression of grace, we can quote the remainder of Galatians 5.13, “But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

ImageThe moral law, rightly understood, does not squelch grace or abridge our freedom in Christ. God’s grace provides the only proper motive, as well as the only powerful motivation, to obey His commands. Our obedience, to be true obedience, must arise out of love for God and gratitude for His grace. The moral law of God gives direction to our love. If I truly desire to express my love to God, I need to know how to do that appropriately. Jesus gave us very simply directions (simple to understand, if not to practice): “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” reports John 14.15. Though the law gives direction, it provides no power to enable us to obey it. However, God, by delivering us from the reign of sin and the law, and bringing us unto His realm of grace, has provided the power in Christ and through His Spirit. So God by His grace has given us the right motive, the right rule of direction, and the needed power to live a life of love. Only when we understand these basic truths are we in a position to respond to Paul’s exhortation not to abuse our freedom, but instead, to serve one another in love. Here is a spiritual principle: We cannot exercise love unless we are experiencing grace. You cannot truly love others unless you are convinced that God’s love for you in unconditional, based solely on the merit of Christ, not on your performance. John said, “We love because we first loved us,” reports 1 John 4.19. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

ImageOur love, either to God or to others, can only be a response to His love for us. There are five words all beginning with the letter “L” that we need to keep in right relationship to one another. All five are either used or implied in Galatians 5.13-14. They are law, liberty, love, license, and legalism. (I have not used license up to now, and by that word I mean an abuse of our freedom in order to indulge our sinful nature.) We need to learn to live within the right relationships of law and love, law and liberty, and liberty and love. Only when we have those relationships in proper order will we avoid the traps of license on the one hand and legalism on the other. Grace keeps the law, love, and liberty in right relationship to one another. In one southern state, a narrow two-lane highway has been built through a swampland by building up the road bed above the swamp. You must be extra alert not to drift off the rod because there is no margin for error. If you go off the road, you do not end up on a grassy shoulder but rather submerged in a swamp. The built-up roadbed can also represent grace that allows you to drive safely through the swampland of legalism and license. When you focus on grace in the fullness of its meaning, you will keep the law, liberty, and love in their proper relationship to one another. However, if you focus on anyone of the instead of on grace, you will invariably end up in the swamp of legalism or license. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

ImageWhat do I mean by the phrase, “grace in the fullness of its meaning?” An expression often used in a pejorative sense is cheap grace. The term denotes an attitude that, since God’s grace is unconditional, I may live as I please; I may sin as much as I want because God will still love me and forgive me. That is the attitude of license. It results from focusing exclusively on liberty and denigrating God’s law. To counteract this sinful attitude, some of us in Christian ministry have fallen into legalism. We have taught, either directly or implicitly, that God’s grace is conditional, that there is a degree to which it is based on our performance. We have unduly focused on God’s law and disparaged liberty. However, the reality is that there is no such things as cheap grace. To us, the recipients, grace is not cheap; it is unconditionally free. However, grace is not cheap to God either. Although grace is part of essential nature of God, the extending of His grace to us cost Him the most expensive price every paid, the death of His own dear Son. So grace is never cheap. It is absolutely free to us, but infinitely expensive to God. That is what I mean by grace in the fullness of its meaning. Anyone who is prone to use grace as a license for irresponsible, sinful behaviour, surely does not appreciate the infinite price God paid to give of His grace. However, anyone who tends to use legalism as a hedge against license, just as surely forget that grace cannot be earned by our behaviour. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

ImageAll of us need to diligently apply ourselves to learning to live under the reign of God’s transforming grace. Then love, liberty, and the law will take their proper places in our lives, and we will avoid the swamplands of both legalism and license. The Book of Jacob who is the Brother of Nephi—the words of his preaching unto his brethren. He confoundeth a person who seeketh to overthrow the doctrine of Christ. A few words concerning the history of the people of Nephi. Jacob and Joseph seek to persuade humans to believe in Christ and keep His comandments—Nephi dies—wickedness prevails among the Nephites. About 544-421 Before Christ. “For behold, it came to pass that fifty and five years had passed away from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem; wherefore, Nephi gave me, Jacob, a commandment concerning the small plates, upon which these things are engraven, And he gave me, Jacob, a commandment that I should write upon these plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people which are called the people of Nephi. For he said that the history of his people should be engraven upon his other plates, and that I should preserve these plates and hand them down unto my seed, from generation to generation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Image“And if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of our people. For because of faith and great anxiety, it truly had been made manifest unto us concerning our people, what things should happen unto them. And we also had many revelations, and the spirit of much prophecy; wherefore, we knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come. Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means one should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all humans not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all humans would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the World; wherefore, I, Jacob, take it upon me to fulfill the commandment of my brother Nephi. Now Nephi began to be old, and he saw that he must soon die; wherefore, he anointed a human to be a kind and a ruler over his people now, according to the reigns of the kings. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Image“The people having loved Nephi exceedingly, he having been a great protector for them, having wielded the sword of Laban in their defence, and having labored in all his days for their welfare—wherefore, the people were desirous to retain in remembrance his name. And whoso should reign in his stead were called by the people, second Nephi, third Nehip, and so forth, according to reigns of the kings; and thus they were called by the people, let them be of whatever name they would. And it came to pass that Nephi died. Now the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites; nevertheless, they were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishamaelites. However, I, Jacob, shall not hereafter distinguish them by these names, but I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings. And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son. Yea, and they also began to search much gold and silver, and began to be lifted up somewhat in pride. Wherefore I, Jacob, gave into them these words as I taught them in the temple, having first obtained mine errand from the Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Image“For I, Jacob, gave unto them these words as I taught them in the temple, having first obtained mine errand from the Lord. For I, Jacob, and my brother Joseph had been consecrated priests and teachers of this people, by the hand of Nephi. And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by labouring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day,” reports Jacob 1.1-19. May the oblation, O Lord, be of good effect, which I humbly offer to Thy Majesty for the welfare of your children; that their lives, amid prosperity and adversity, may everywhere be guided by Thy providence; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Lord Jesus, please give me to love Thee, to embrace Thee, though I once took lust and sin in my arms. Thou didst love me before I loved Thee, an enemy, a sinner, a loathsome work. Thou didst own me when I disclaimed myself; thou dost love me as a son, and weep over me as over Jerusalem. Love brought Thee from Heaven to Earth, from Earth to the cross, from the cross to the grace. Love caused Thee to be weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, crucified, and pierced. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

ImageLove led Thee to bow Thy head in death. My salvation is the point where perfect created love and the most perfect uncreated love meet together; for thou dost welcome me, not like Joseph and his brothers, loving and sorrowing, but loving and rejoicing. Thy love is not intermittent, cold, changeable; it does not cease or abate for all my enmity. Holiness is a spark from Thy love kindled to a flame in my heart by Thy Spirit, and so it ever turns to the place from which it comes. Let me see Thy love everywhere, not only in the cross, but in the fellowship of believers and in the World around me. When I feel the warmth of the Sun of righteousness with healing power. When I feel the tender rain may I think of the gospel showers that water my soul. When I walk by the river side may I praise thee for that stream that makes the eternal city glad, and washes white my robes that I may have the right to the tree of life. Thy infinite love is a mystery of mysteries, and my eternal rest lies in the eternal enjoyment of it. “You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed in God, and it was credited to hum as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone,” reports James 2.22-24. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21Image

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Tell Me, Pretty Maiden, are there Any More at Home Like You?

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Nobody starts off stupid. You have only to watch babies and infants, and think seriously about what all of them learn and do, to see that, except for some who face natural limitations, they show a style of life, and a desire and ability to learn that in a more mature person we might call genius. Hardly an adult in a thousand, or ten thousand, could in any three years of one’s life learn as much, grow as much in one’s understanding of the World around one, as every infant learns and grows in one’s first three years. When people are expected to behave in specific ways or are told that they are stupid or bright or ugly or lovable, they often begin to act in these ways. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. These expectations may come from parents and other authority figures, but they can also come from peers. In childhood, and especially in adolescence, peer pressure and peer evaluation become very important. It would be better to take words like “stupid” and “dumb” out of the vocabulary you use with any child. In our culture, which places a premium on intelligence, a person who is called stupid often enough is very unlikely to take risks or do anything challenging. (“Why try? I am so dumb I cannot do it.”) Often students who do not speak out in class fear that what they have to say may sound uneducated, and the instructor and other students may laugh at or ridicule them. So these students sit, mute, in class after class. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

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Persons in the grip of neurotic hopelessness manage to “carry on” in one way or another. If their capacity to be creative has not been too greatly damaged by their neurosis, they may be able fairly consciously to resign themselves to the state of their personal lives and concentrate on a field in which they can be productive. They may submerge themselves in a social or religious movement or in the work of an organization. Their work may be useful; the fact that they lack zest can be outweighed by their having no personal ax to grind. Others, in adapting themselves to their particular frame of life, may cease to question it but yet not attach much meaning to it, trying merely to fulfill their obligations. It is, I believe, the state of a defect condition, in contrast to neurosis. I interpret it, however, as the outcome of neurotic processes. They may, on the other hand, give up all serious or promising pursuits and turn to the periphery of life, trying to snatch from it some bit of enjoyment, finding their interest in a hobby or in incidental pleasures like good eating, interior design, or gardening. Or they may drift and deteriorate, let themselves go to pieces. Unable to do any consistent work, they take to drink, gambling, whoring. The kind of alcoholism described by Charles Jackson in The Lost Week-End, where a binge drinker mostly of rye, fancies himself as a writer. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

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And in his state of neurosis, he lapses into foreign phrase and quotes Shakespeare even while attempting to steal a woman’s purse, trying to pawn a typewriter for drinking money. This represents and end stage of such a condition. In this connection it might be interesting to examine whether an unconscious determination to go to pieces may not supply a powerful psychic contribution to such chronic diseases as tuberculosis and cancer. Finally, persons without hope may turn destructive, but at the same time make an attempt at restitution by living vicariously. This, in my opinion, is the meaning of sadistic trends. Because Dr. Freud regarded sadistic trends as instinctual, psychoanalytical interest has been largely focused on the so-called sadistic perversions. Sadistic patterns in everyday relationships, though not ignored, have not been strictly defined. Any kind of assertive or aggressive behaviour is conceived of as a modification or sublimation of instinctual sadistic trends. Dr. Freud, for instance, regarded a striving for power as such a sublimation. It is true that a striving for power can be sadistic; but in a person who sees life as a battle of all against all, it can merely represent a struggle for survival. Actually, it need not be neurotic at all. The result of this lack of discrimination is that we have neither a comprehensive picture of the forms sadistic attitudes may take nor any criteria as to precisely what is sadistic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

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It is left pretty much to individual intuition to determine what may rightly be called sadism and what may not—a situation hardly conductive to sound observation. The mere act of hurting others is in itself no indication of a sadistic tendency. A person may be engaged in a struggle of a personal or general nature in the course of which one had to hurt not only one’s adversaries but one’s associates as well. Hostility toward others may also be merely reactive. A person can feel hurt or frightened and want to hit back with a force that, while disproportionate to the objective provocation, is subjectively quite in keeping with it. It is easy, however, to deceive oneself on this score: all too often a justifiable reaction is claimed when actually a sadistic tendency was in operation. However, the difficulty in distinguishing one from the other does not mean that reactive hostility is nonexistent. Finally, there are all those offense tactics of the aggressive type who feels one is fighting for survival. I should not call any of these aggressions sadistic; others may get hurt in the process, but the hurting or damaging is an inevitable by-product rather than a prime intention. To put it simply, we could say that although the kinds of action we refer to here are aggressive or even hostile, they are not perpetrated in a mean spirit. There is no conscious or unconscious satisfaction derived from the very fact of hurting. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

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It has been repeatedly argued that equality undermines liberty. Some would say that a society in which principles like my radical egalitarian principles were adopted, or even the liberal egalitarian principles of Rawls or Dworkin were adopted, would not be a free society. My arguments have been just the reverse. I have argued that it is only in an egalitarian society that full and extensive liberty is possible. Perhaps the egalitarian and the anti-egalitarian are arguing at cross purposes? What we need to recognize, it has been argued, is that we have two kinds of rights both of which are important to freedom but to rather different freedoms and which are freedoms which not infrequently conflict. We have rights to fair terms of cooperation but we also have rights to non-interference. If a right of either kind is overridden our freedom is diminished. The reason why it might be thought that the egalitarian and the anti-egalitarian may be arguing at cross purposes is that the egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to fair terms of cooperation and their associated liberties require equality while the anti-egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to fair terms of cooperation and their associated liberties require equality while the anti-egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to noninterference and their associated liberties conflict with equality. They focus on different liberties. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

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What I have said above may not be crystal clear, so let me explain. People have a right to fair terms of cooperation. In political terms this comes to the equal right of all to effective participation in government and, in more broadly social terms, and for a society of economic wealth, it means people having a right to a roughly equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of the basic social arrangements that affect their lives and for them to stand in such relations to each other such that no one has the power to dominate the life of another. By contrast, rights to non-interference come to the equal right of all to be left alone by the government and more broadly to live in a society in which people have a right peacefully to pursue their interests without interference. The conflict between equality and liberty comes down to, very essentially, the conflicts we get in modern societies between rights to fair terms of cooperation and rights to noninterference. As Joseph Schumpeter saw and J.S. Mill before him, one could have a thoroughly democratic society (at least in conventional terms) in which rights to noninterference might still be extensively violated. A central anti-egalitarian claim is that we cannot have an egalitarian society in which they very precious liberties that go with the rights to non-interference would be violated. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

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Love, power, and justice are united in God and they are united in the new creation of God in the World. Humans are estranged from the ground of their being, from themselves, and from their World. However, they are still humans. One cannot completely cut the tie with their creative ground, one is still a centred person and in this sense united with oneself. One still participates in one’s World. In other words: The reuniting love, the power of resisting non-being, and the creative justice are still active in one. Life is not unambiguously good. Then it would not be life but only the possibility of life. And life is not unambiguously evil. Then non-being would have conquered being. However, life is ambiguous in all its expressions. It is ambiguous also with respect to love, power, and justice. We have touched on this fact in many places in our previous discussions. We must now consider it in the light of the new creation within the World of estrangement, which I suggest calling the holy community. In an anticipating summary I would say: in the holy community the agape quality of love cuts into the libido, eros, and philia qualities of love and elevates them beyond the ambiguities of their self-centeredness. In the holy community the spiritual power, by surrendering compulsion, elevates power beyond the ambiguities of its dynamic realization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

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In the holy community justification by grace elevates justice beyond the ambiguities of its abstract and calculating nature. This means that in the holy community love, power, and justice in their ontological structure are affirmed but that their estranged and ambiguous reality is transformed into a manifestation of their unity within the divine life. Let us first consider the ambiguities of love and the work of love as agape in the holy community. Libido is good in itself! We have defended it against Dr. Freud’s depreciation of what he described as the infinite libidinous drive with its ensuing dissatisfaction and death instinct. We have accepted this as the description in estrangement, but not of libido in its creative meaning. Without libido life would not move beyond itself. The Bible knows this as well as recent depth psychology, and we should be grateful that our new insights into the deeper levels of human nature have rediscovered the Biblical realism which was covered by several strata of idealistic and moralistic self-deception about humans. Biblical realism knows both that libido belongs to human’s created goodness and that it is distorted and ambiguous in the state of human’s estrangement. Libido has become unlimited and has fallen under the tyranny of the pleasure principle. It uses the other being not as an object of reunion but as a tool for gaining pleasure out of one. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

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Desire for pleasures of the flesh is not evil as the breaking of conventional laws, but the desires for the pleasures of the flesh in autonomy in pleasures of the flesh are evil if they bypass the center of the other person—in other words, if they are not united with the two other qualities of love, and if they are not under the ultimate criterion of the agape quality of love. Agape seems the other one in one’s center. Agape sees one as God sees one. Agape elevates libido into the divine unity of love, power, and justice. The same is true of eros. We have, following Plato, defined eros as the driving force in all cultural creativity and in all mysticism. As such eros has the greatness of divine-human power. It participates in creation in the natural goodness of everything created. However, it also participates in the ambiguities of life. The eros quality of love can be confused with the libido quality and be drawn into its ambiguities. Witness for this is the fact that the New Testament could not use the word eros any more because of its predominantly sexual connotations. And even the mystical eros can express itself in symbols which are not only taken from the life involving pleasures of the flesh but which draw the love to God to an openly ascetic, hiddenly passionate level in pleasures of the flesh. However, more is involved when we speak of the ambiguity of the eros quality of love. It is the aesthetic detachment which can take hold of our relation to culture and makes eros ambiguous. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

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The aesthetic stage of humans spiritual development is not a stage but a Universal quality of love exposed to dangers. The ambiguity of cultural eros is its detachment from the realities which it expresses and consequently the disappearing of existential participation and ultimate responsibility. The wings of eros becomes wings of escape. Culture is irresponsibly enjoyed. It has not received the justice which it can demand. Agape cuts into the detached safety of a merely aesthetic eros. It does not deny the longing toward the good and the true and its divine source, but it prevents it from becoming an aesthetic enjoyment without ultimate seriousness. Agape makes the cultural eros responsible and the mystical eros personal. The ambiguities of the philia quality of love appeared already in its first description as person-to-person love between equals. However large the group of equals may be, the philia quality of love establishes preferential love. Some are preferred, the majority are excluded. This is obvious not only in intimate relations as family and friendship, but also in the innumerable forms of sympathetic person-to-person encounters. The implicit or explicit rejection of all those who are not admitted to such a preferential relation is negative compulsion and can be as cruel as any compulsion. However, such a rejection of others is tragically unavoidable. Nobody can escape the necessity to exercise it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

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There are special forms of love with philia quality which are called a symbiotic relation and which make this tragic necessity rather clear. If the one partner of the philia-relation is used by the other one either for the sake of masochistic dependence or of sadistic domination or of both in interdependence, something which seemed to be friendship of highest quality is in reality compulsion without justice. Again, agape does not deny the preferential love of the philia quality, but it purifies it from a subpersonal bondage, and it elevates the preferential love into universal love. The preferences of friendship are not negated, but they do not exclude, in a kind of aristocratic self-separation, all the others. Not everybody is a friend, but everybody is affirmed as a person. Agape cuts through the separation of equals and unequals, of sympathy and antipathy, of friendship and indifference, of desire and disgust. It needs no sympathy in order to love; it loves what it has to reject in terms of philia. Agape loves in everybody and through everybody love itself. What agape does to the ambiguities of love, Spiritual power does to the ambiguities of natural power. The ambiguities of power are rooted in the dynamic character and the compulsory implications of power. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

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Spiritual power is not the conquest of these ambiguities by resignation of power, because this would mean resignation of being. I would be the attempt to annihilate oneself in order to escape guilt. Spiritual power is not the denial of power dynamics. In many stories about the working of the Spiritual power bodily effects are mentioned, like elevation, removal from one place to the other, shock, and horror. There are always psychological effects visible. Spirit is power, grasping and moving out of the dimension of the ultimate. It is not identical with the realm of ideas or meanings. It is dynamic power, overcoming resistance. Hen what is its difference from the other forms of power? The Spiritual power works neither through bodily nor through psychological compulsion. It works through a human’s total personality, and this means, through one as finite freedom. It does not remove one’s freedom, but it makes one’s freedom free from the compulsory elements which limit it. The Spiritual power gives a center to the whole personality, a center which transcends the whole personality and, consequently, is independent of any elements. And this is ultimately the only way of uniting the personality with itself. If this happens human’s natural or social power of being becomes irrelevant. One may keep them, one may resign some of them or even all of them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

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The Spiritual power works through them or it works through the surrender of them. One may exercise Spiritual power through words or thought, through what one is and what one does, or through the surrender of them or through the sacrifice of oneself. In all these forms one can change reality by attaining levels of being which are ordinarily hidden. This is the power which elevates the holy community above the ambiguities of power. I do not need to say much about the relation of grace and justice. The act of forgiving has been mentioned in connexion with the encounter of person and person. If based on reuniting love, in justification by grace, mutual forgiveness is justice. Only God can forgive, because in Him along love and justice are completely united. The ethics of forgiveness are rooted in the message of divine forgiveness. Otherwise they are delivered to the ambiguities of justice, oscillating between legalism and sentimentality. In the holy community this ambiguity is conquered. Agape conquers the ambiguities of love, Spiritual power conquers the ambiguities of power, grace conquers the ambiguities of justice. This is true not only of the encounters of humans with humans, but also in the encounter of humans with oneself. Humans can love oneself in terms of self-acceptance only if one is certain that one is accepted. Otherwise one’s self-acceptance is self-complacency and arbitrariness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

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Only in the light and in the power of the “love from above” can one love oneself. This implies the answer to the question of human’s justice toward oneself. One can be just towards oneself only in so far as ultimate justice is done to one, namely the condemning, forgiving, and giving judgement of “justification.” The condemning element in justification makes self-complacency impossible, the forgiving element saves from self-condemnation and despair, the giving element provides for a Spiritual center which unites the elements of our personal self and makes power over oneself possible. Justice, power, and love towards oneself is rooted in the justice, power, and love which we receive from that which transcends us and affirms us. The relation to ourselves is a function of our relation to God. We have a question about the reunion of humankind in terms of love, power, and justice. It is not easy to find an answer that can be given on the level of political organization. Is there an answer out of the relation to the ultimate? It is the merit of pacifism that, in spite of its theological shortcomings, it has kept this question alive in modern Christianity. Without it the Churches probably would have forgotten the torturing seriousness of any religious affirmation of war. On the other hand, pacifism has usually restricted a much larger problem of human existence to the question of war. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

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However, there are other questions of equal seriousness in the same sphere. One of them is the question of armed conflicts within a power group, always going on potentially in the use of police and armed forces for the preservation of order, sometimes coming into the open in revolutionary wars. If successful, they are later on called “glorious revolutions.” Does the union of humankind mean that not only national but also revolutionary wars are excluded? And if so, has the dynamics of life come to an end: and des this mean that life itself has come to an end? One can ask the same question with respect to the dynamics of the economic life. Even in a static society such as that of the Middle Ages, the economic dynamics were important and had tremendous historical consequences. One should remain aware of the fact that often more destruction and suffering is produced by economic than by military battles. Should the economic dynamics be stopped and a static World system of production and consumption be introduced? If this were so the whole technical process would also have to be stopped, life in most realms would have to be organized in ever repeated processes. Every disturbance would have to be avoided. Again the dynamics of life and with life itself would have come to an end. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

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Let us assume for a moment that this were possible. Under an unchangeable central authority all encounters of power with power are regulated. Nothing is risked, everything decided. Life has ceased to transcend itself. Creativity has come to an end. The history of humans would be finished, post-history would have started. Humankind would be a flock of blessed animals without dissatisfaction, without drive into the future. The horrors and sufferings of the historical period would be remembered as the dark ages of humankind. And then it might happen that one or the other of these blessed humans would feel a longing for these past ages, their misery and their greatness, and would force a new beginning of history upon the rest. This image will show that a World without the dynamics of power and the tragedy of life and history is not the Kingdom of God, is not the fulfilment of humans in their World. Fulfilment is bound to eternity and no imagination can reach the eternal. However, fragmentary anticipations are possible. The Church itself is such a fragmentary anticipation. And there are groups and movements, which although they do not belong to the manifest Church, represents something we may call a “latent Church.” However, neither the manifest nor the latent Church is the Kingdom of God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

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Many problems connected with the all-embracing subject of this essay have not been mentioned at all. Others have been touched on only briefly, and others have been treated rather inadequately. However, I hope that I have proved one thing: that the problems of love, power, and justice categorically demand an ontological foundation and a theological view in order to be saved from the vague talk, idealism, and cynicism with which they are usually treated. If they do not see them in the light of their own being and of being-itself, humans cannot solve any of their great problems. Many Christians have never thought through the meaning and importance of worship. It is not an overstatement to say that our pleasure-centered culture has produced many who work at their play and play at their worship. Why this confusion and tragic failure regarding worship? The answer lies in another question: Why do we worship—is it for God or for humans? The unspoken but increasingly common assumption of today’s Christendom is that worship is primarily of us—to meet our needs. Such worship services are entertainment-focused, and the worshipers are uncommitted spectators who are silently grading the performance. From this perspective preaching becomes a homiletics of consensus—preaching to felt needs—human’s conscious agenda instead of God’s. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

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Such preaching is always topical and never textual. Biblical information is minimized, and the sermons are short and full of stories. Anything and everything is judged by how it affects humans. This terribly corrupts one’s theology. The telltale sign of this kind of thinking is the common post-worship question, What did you think of the service today? The real questions ought to be, What did God think of it and of those who worshipped? and What did I give to God? It is so easy to forget that in going to worship our main concern should be to “worship in spirit and in truth,” as reported in John 4.24—not to receive a lift for ourselves. Therefore, it is important that we understand, in distinction to the popular view that worship is for us, that worship begins not with humans as its focus, but God. Worship must be orchestrated and conducted with the vision before us of an august, awesome, holy, transcendent God who is to be pleased and, above all, glorified by our worship. Everything in our corporate worship should flow from this understanding. What about our needs then? When we worship and adore God in our singing and prayer and listening to the Word, His shalom will well in our souls so that we will leave with a glad sense of personal blessings—a great lift. However, this is a byproduct, not a goal, a further evidence of the generous grace of God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

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The fact that there have been higher beings who have gone beyond the mass in goodness and insight, in serenity and radiant self-mastery, can be taken as a hint of re-embodiment’s purpose. One speaks or writes as one who is perfectly at home in these higher levels of consciousness. If an illuminated teacher or an illuminating book cannot lead anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven and keep one there, they can at least give everyone a clue which, if followed up, may lead there. “And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a human speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of humans. However, behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught. However I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people. For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he will hear my cry. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

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“And I know that the Lord God will consecrate my prayers for the gain of my people. And the words which I have written in weakness will be made strong unto them; for it persuadeth them to do good; it maketh known unto them of their fathers; and it speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth them to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal. And it speaketh harshly against sin, according to the plainness of the truth; wherefore, no human will be angry at the words which I have written save he shall be of the spirit of the devil. I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell. I have charity for my people, and great faith in Christ that I shall meet many souls spotless at his judgment-sent. I have charity for the Jew—I say Jew, because I mean them from whence I came. I also have charity for the Gentiles. However, behold, for none of these can I hope expect they shall be reconciled unto Christ, and enter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation. And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the Earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all people that they should do good. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

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“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of hm to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness. And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day. And now, my beloved brethren, all those who are of the house of Israel, and all ye ends of the Earth, I speak unto you as the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come. And you hat will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the Lamb God, behold, I bid you an everlasting farewell, for these words shall condemn you at the last day. For what I seal on earth, shall be brought against you at the judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord commanded me, and I must obey. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 33.1-15. We beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy mercy to sanctify these gifts, and having received the offering of the spiritual sacrifice, to make us a perpetual oblation unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please look mercifully, O Lord, on these present offerings, that they may avail both for our devotion and our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

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My God, I bless Thee that Thou hast given me the eye of faith, to see Thee as Father, to know Thee as a covenant God, to experience Thy love planted in me; for faith is the grace of union by which I spell out my entitlement to Thee: Faith casts my anchor upwards where I trust in Thee and engage Thee to by my Lord. Be pleased to live and move within me, breathing in my prayers, inhabiting my praises, speaking in my words, moving in my actions, living in my life, causing me to grow in grace. Thy bounteous goodness has helped me believe, but my faith is weak and wavering, its light dim, its steps tottering, its increase slow, its backsliding frequent; it should scale the Heavens, but lies groveling in the dust. Lord, fan this divine spark into glowing flame. When faith sleeps, my heart becomes an unclean thing, the fount of every loathsome desire, the cage of unclean lusts all fluttering to escape, the noxious tree of deadly fruit, the open wayside of Earthly tares. Lord, awake faith to put forth its strength until all Heaven fills my soul and all impurity is cast out. Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids here present, whose faith and devotion are discerned and known by Thee. Please let me enjoy the Earth. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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You will be finding excuses to wash everything in your #BrightonStation Residence 1 kitchen! 😉 This center work island features a stainless steel under mount kitchen sink and a designer pull-out faucet with sprayer. Plus, the dishwasher is right there, streamlining how long those dishes stay “soaking” in the sink. 🚰 https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/move-in-ready-home-site-84/
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Please have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy children for whom I offer this sacrifice of praise to Thy Majesty; that they may be able to lead a good life in this World, and happily to attain eternal blessedness.
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The Spirit of Liberty is the Spirit Which is Not too Sure that it is Right and Seeks to Understand Minds

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The great want which humankind labours under at this present moment is sleep. The World should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. Which is a more effective learning strategy: reward or punishment? This question is still undecided. At present, evidence for each side is about equal. The following guidelines, however, can be applied in teaching situations, especially those involving young children. In general, rewarding desired behaviours is more effective than punishing undesired behaviours—you can still catch more files with honey than with vinegar. If punishment is necessary, it is most effective if used immediately after the undesired response. For instance, if a child must be punished, it is best done right after the child has acted incorrectly. If one parents says to the child, “Just wait until your father (or mother) gets home—then, you will get it,” the child learns to fear the arrival of the punisher and, in the process, often forgets the offense for which he or she is being punished. If punishment must be used, the reason for the punishment should be explained. “I am only doing this for your own good,” or “This hurts me more than it does you,” is less likely to teach a child a specific behaviour than saying, “I am not letting you go to the movies because you socked your little brother. This hurts him and makes him cry, and I do not want you to do it again.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

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If it is possible, combine reward and punishment. If necessary, punish the undesired behaviour, but also be sure to reward the desired behaviour. For example, do not just spank a child for playing in the street; also praise and reward the child for playing in the yard instead. Punish the undesired behaviour, not the behaver. For instance, communicate to a child that you feel his or her behaviour is “bad”—not that you think the child is bad. Most punishment do not work on very young children. Under about one year of age, children do not understand that some behaviours are acceptable and some are not and why this is so. They may think they are being punished just for being there, and more often than not they begin to associate the punisher with punishment. When you feel emotionally charged, especially if you are filled with rage, never, never, never punish a child. Adults often forget their own strength. Children are fragile and easily hurt. The only thing a child learns through abuse is hatred and fear. There is a great distinction between negative reinforcement and abusive punishment. In many cases, punishment only suppresses or limits the undesired behaviour; it does not really extinguish it. The self-actualized open to all qualified and eager seekers the mysteries and treasures of one’s own inner experience, that they may profit by one’s past struggles and present success. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

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The self-actualized brings revelations to meet our gropings, inspirations to meet our doubts. One becomes, for those docile enough to receive them, a bearer of grace and a vessel of truth, a bestower of comfort and a dispenser of confidence. Prophets and the self-actualized, teachers and saints receive the urge to share their knowledge and experience with others. Whence does this urge derive? Both lower and higher, personal and nonpersonal sources are possible. However, if from the highest, then we may say that God sends His messages to humankind through these channels. The self-actualized who starts a movement or puts one’s thoughts out, acts as a lighthouse which guides many a fumblings but aspiring soul. If one does not accept disciples individually it is because one serve humans otherwise. Those who try to get such acceptance and find themselves rebuffed may consider one selfish, cold, remote. However, they will be greatly mistaken. One can serve humankind—not each person separately but in groups or masses—and one may do this by lecturing, by writing or simply by directing one’s prayer in the appropriate way. For a writer’s books spread not only one’s ideas but also something of oneself. One can put thought on a high level but the way in which one does this depends upon one’s circumstances. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

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The self-actualized can put thought on a high level personally as a private teacher, impersonally as a public lecturer or writer, or anonymously as a proficient contemplative. All these people who have attained Reality inevitably leave a record for others or for posterity, but not necessarily with their name attached. Has anyone of the self-actualized ever vanished without leaving behind a trace of Power, knowledge, goodness, and inspiration? Even if not in words or deeds, something is left in the unseen atmosphere. They are not usually members of any sect, but circumstances or necessity may sometimes render it desirable that they be such. The self-actualized may or may not descend into the arena of action but if not one will still find ways and means to inspire, guide, or ennoble the actions of other people. One does this by teaching them and travelling among the, or by sitting still and meditating alone, or by disseminating writings among them. Even when one is unheard publicly one can help by the concentrated mind’s great power. One does what one can to introduce here and there into the consciousness of others, through whatever means one possesses, the seeds of higher ideas. These seeds may not grow and certainly may not fructify for many years, but that is not one’s affair. One knows that the vitality in these seeds and depth of mental ground in which they have been sown will inevitably lead to some result. It is enough. One has sown seed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

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One does not have to wait for roots to form, stems to grow, fruits to appear. One’s work is done. In this momentous period the true self-actualized has special work to do in trying to protect the human race from its own folly. One way is intercessory prayer which may help to mitigate the effects of the World crisis. This requires solitude. It is an impersonal contemplation and must not be disturbed by those who break into it, either to unload their personal problems or to offer personal service which in the end has the same result. Yes, some of us are genuinely aware of the soul’s existence and intimately know its freedom and blessedness. Modesty has hitherto imposed silence upon us about the fact, although compassion induced us to break it on occasions. However, we mystics must now stand on our own dignity. It is time that the World, brough to its inevitable and by us expected materialistic dead-end, should realize at last that we are not talking out of our hats but out of a real and impeccable experience. It would be an unpardonable treachery to our duty in the final and terrible World-crisis of this materialistic age if, out of false modesty or fear of intimidation by a cynical society, we who daily feel and commune with the divine presence, who realize its tremendous importance for humanity’s present condition and future life, fail to testify to its existence and reality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

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If today we venture to speak more freely and frequently, our ideas may drop into a few hospitable minds and sublimely penetrate their consciousness. It is not the self-actualizer’s function to tackle the Worldly problems which governments usually deal with: the social, political, economic, and technical ones. One’s particular work is concerned with, first, one’s ordinary duty of professional service through whatever skill one possesses to earn one’s livelihood, and second, making truth available. The mere existence of one who succeeds in identifying oneself with God benefits every sensitive person who meets one, even for a minute or two. Further, it inspires spiritual seekers who never get the chance to meet one but who hear favourably about one and respectfully receive what they hear. Finally, posterity benefits from the records left about one. Each teacher—if one is divinely commissioned—leaves a deposit of truth after he or she dies. The Master who leaves a record of one’s own climb, or a testimony to the goal’s existence, or a path pioneered for those who would follow, or an instructed disciple here and there, leaves something of oneself. Even where help may not directly and outwardly be given when difficult circumstances press on a human, it may yet be indirectly and inwardly given to one’s mind, which has to deal with, or endure, them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

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One can awaken some persons to this divine presence within themselves, but not all. One may do this mysteriously by some unknown process, or one may do it deliberately and with the display of one’s technique. The abstract does not appeal to the masses, because it gives them nothing. However, an embodied human can be seen, heard, and touched, to that extent can be understood, to that extent one gives them something; one can be followed, admired, feared, reverenced, or worshipped. Secure as one is in one’s own peace of mind, it is inevitable that the more sensitive among those who meet one feel it too. However, those who come with hostility, personal or intellectual, will be avoided if possible or find their time cut to the shortest if not. Such a person has a catalytic action on the minds and even on the lives of those who come into sympathetic contact with one. Just by being oneself one makes the philosophic virtues real to others. One does not need to be conscious of a clearly defined mission before one sets about doing something for the enlightenment of others. There is always some means open to one, some little thing one can do to make this knowledge available or to set an example of right living. It is one’s duty to communicate what one feels there, what one finds there, to those who are excluded from it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

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If at times, and with sympathetic auditors, one’s duty becomes one’s joy, at other times and with insensitive auditors it becomes one’s cross. Jesus exemplified this in His own history. The illuminate practices a wiser philanthropy than those who are presented as models of this virtue. One has no wish to take charge of anyone’s life or undertake the management of anyone’s affairs. One is not allowed by the code of ethics corresponding to one’s knowledge to make other people’s decisions for them. Hence one can say neither yes nor no to such highly personal questions. However, one can point out the consequences which are likely to follow in each case. Basically, people are just like children. They need attention. Sometimes people are really nervous when meeting people or dealing with new situations. And some of the troublemakers really just want your attention. The people-as-child analogy can be extended to cover sibling rivalry: You cannot play cards with just one person because the other people will get jealous. Think of unruly people just as you would think of a child and that will widen tolerance of them. If their needs are like those of a child, those needs are supposed to come first. The worker’s right to anger is correspondingly reduced; as an adult one must work to inhibit and suppress anger at children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

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Should the analogy to children fail to induce the necessary deep acting, surface-acting strategies for handling “irate” can be brought into play. People are urged to “work” the customers name in, as in “Yes, Mr. Camdenski,” it is true construction of your new home is talking a little longer than expected.” This reminds the individual that he is not anonymous, that there is at least some pretension to a personal relation and that some emotion management is owed. Again, workers are told to use terms of empathy. Whatever happens, you are supposed to say, I know just how you feel. Lost your light fixture? I know just how you feel? Late for a walk though? I know just how you feel. Did not get that lot you were counting on? I know just how you feel. Employees reports that such expressions of empathy are useful in convincing people that they have misplaced the blame and misaimed their anger. Remember, to treat people like they are guests in your living room, and guests are to be made comfortable and their emotional outburst are expected to be met by support. Never get super angry with a customer, they are the source of revenue. Supervisors never speak officially of an obnoxious or outrageous customer, only of an uncontrolled customer. The term suggests that a fact has somehow attached itself to this customer—not that the customer has lost control or even had any control to lose. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

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Again, the common phrase “mishandled customer” suggests a bungle somewhere up the line, by someone destined to remain lost in the web of workers that stretched from curbside to architecture. By linguistically avoiding any attribution of blame, the idea of a right to be angry at the customer is smuggled out of discourse. Linguistically speaking, the customer never does anything wrong, so he or she cannot be blamed or made the object of anger. One time, a man was waiting for a special ordered light fixture, and one of the other home buyers sagged it and had it installed in her house. The builder responded by saying politely, “I notice this man’s light fixture was installed in your house.” The dirty deed was done, but, the implication was, by no one in particular. Such implicit reframing dulls a sense of cause of effect. It separates object from verb and verb from subject. The home buyer does not feel accused, and the builder does not feel as if he or she is accusing. Emotion work has been accomplished, but it has hidden its tracks with words. Company language is aimed not only at diffusing anger, but at minimizing fear. As in the case when a refrigerator was specially ordered and delivered to the wrong address. This was labeled an incident. The term incident calms the nerves. How could we be terrified at an incident? #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

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Thus, the words that workers use and do not use help them avoid emotions inappropriate to a living room full of guest. Dealing with difficult people is part of the job. It makes us angry sometimes. And anger is part of stress. So that is why I would like to talk to you about being angry. I am not saying you should do this [work on your anger] for your corporation. I am not saying you should do it for the home buyers. I am saying do it for yourselves. The only question to be seriously discussed is “How do you rid yourself of anger?” From my experience in supervisory work I know that the problem of hopelessness is often not clearly envisaged by the analyst and hence not properly dealt with. Some of my colleagues have been so overwhelmed by the individual’s hopelessness—which they recognized but did not see as a problem—that they became hopeless themselves. This attitude is of course fatal to an analysis, for no matter how good the technique or how brave the effort, the individual senses that the analyst has really given him or her up. The same holds true outside the analytical situation. Nobody can be a constructively helpful friends or mate who does not believe in the possibility of the companion’s fulfilling one’s own potentialities. Sometimes colleagues have made the opposite mistake of not taking the individual’s hopelessness seriously enough. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

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They felt the individual needed encouragement and gave it—which is commendable, but quite insufficient. When this happens, the individual, even if one appreciates the analyst’s good intentions, is quite justified in being annoyed with one, since deep down one knows that one’s hopelessness is not just a mood that can be dissipated by well-meant encouragement. In order to take the bull by the horns and tackle the problem directly, it is necessary first to recognize from indirect indications like the ones cited above that the individual feels hopeless and the extent to which one feels so. Then it must be understood that one’s hopelessness is fully warranted by one’s entanglements. The analyst must realize and explicitly convey to the individual that one’s situation is hopeless only so long as the status quo persists and is regarded as unchangeable. In simplified form, the whole problem is illustrated by a scene from Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. The family, faced with bankruptcy, are in despair at the thought of leaving their estate with its beloved cherry orchard. A man of affairs offers the sound suggestion that they build modest homes for rent on a part of the estate. With their hidebound views, they cannot countenance such a project, and since there is no other solution they remain without hope. They ask helplessly, as if they had not heard the suggestion, whether nobody can advise or help them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

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If their mentor were a good analyst he would say: “Of course the situation is difficult. However, what makes it hopes is your own attitude toward it. If you would consider changing your claims on life there would be no need to feel hopeless.” The belief that the individual can really change, which means essentially that one can really resolve one’s conflicts, is the factor that determines whether or not the therapist dare to tackle the problem and whether one can do it with a reasonable chance of success. It is here that my differences with Dr. Freud come into clear relief. Dr. Freud’s psychology and the philosophy underlying it are essentially pessimistic. This is patent in his outlook on the future of humankind as well as in his attitude toward therapy. And on the basis of his theoretical premises, he cannot be anything but pessimistic. Humans are driven by instincts which at best are only to be modified by “sublimation.” His instinctual drives for satisfaction are inevitably frustrated by society. His “ego” is helplessly tossed about between instinctual drives and the “superego,” which itself can only be modified. The superego is primarily forbidding and destructive. True ideals do not exist. The wish for personal fulfillment is narcissistic. Humans are by nature destructive and a death instinct compels them either to destroy others or to suffer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

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All these theories leave little room for an optimistic attitude toward change and limit the value of the potentially splendid therapy Dr. Freud originated. In contrast, I believe that compulsive trends in neuroses are not instinctual but spring from disturbed human relationships; that they can be changed when these improve and that conflicts of such origin can really be resolved. This does not mean that therapy based on the principles I advocate has no limitations. Much work remains to be done before we can clearly determine these limitations. However, it does mean that we have well-founded reasons for believing in the possibility of radical change. Why, then, is it so important to recognize and tackle an individual’s hopelessness? In the first place, this approach is of value in dealing with special problems like depression and suicidal tendencies. We can, it is true, lift an individual depression by merely uncovering the particular conflicts in which the person is caught at the time, without touching upon one’s general hopelessness. However, if we want to prevent recurring depressions it has to be tackled because it is the deeper source from which the depressions emanate. Nor can insidious chronic depression be coped with unless one goes to this original source. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

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The same hold true for suicidal conditions. We know that such factors as acute despair, defiance, and vindictiveness lead to suicidal impulses; but it is often too late to prevent suicide after the impulse has become manifest. By paying minute attention to the less dramatic signs of hopelessness and by taking up the problem with the patient at the proper time, it is probable that many suicides could be averted. It is not that collective talk determines the mood of the workers. Rather, the reverse is true: the needed mood determines the nature of the worker’s talk. To keep the collective mood stripped of any painful feelings, serious talk of death, divorce, politics, religion, and news is usually avoided. People want to forget about COVID-19 and feel safe in the modest castles, which they imagine to be in a storybook fairytale. On the other hand, when there is time for it, mutual morale raising is common. As one said: “When one sales agent is depressed, thinking, ‘I am ugly, what am I doing as a sales representative?’ other sales representatives, even without quite knowing what they are doing, try to cheer her up. They straighten her collar for her, to get her up and smiling again. I have done it too, and needed it done.” Once established, team solidarity can have two effect. It can improve morale and thus improve service. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

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However, team solidarity can also become the basis for sharing grudges against the homebuyers or the corporation. Perhaps it is the second possibility that manager meant to avoid wen in Recurrent Training they offered examples of “bad” social emotion management. One teacher cautioned her students: “When you are angry with a homebuyer, do not head for the galley to blow off steam with another sales representative.” In the galley, the second sales representative, instead of calming the angry worker down, may further rile him or her up; one may become an accomplice to the aggrieved worker. Then, as the instructor put it, “There will be two of you hot to trot.” The message is, when you angry, go to a trusted therapist who will calm you down. Consider calling him or her for a phone appoint so not to drive while angry. Even if you are not suicidal, but cannot afford a therapist, a suicide hotline may be worth trying out. Support for anger or a sense of grievance—regardless of what inspires it—is bad for service and bad for the corporation. Thus, the informal ways in which workers check on the legitimacy of a grievance or look for support in blowing off steam become points of entry for company suggestions. Corporations sometimes have Ghost-Buyers who occasionally Ghost-Buy a house, and there may be senior representative on the crew, the base supervisor, and the plainclothes company supervisors who occasionally monitor employee behaviour. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

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One homebuyer was asked to fill out a company-elicited passenger opinion poll and fill out a questionnaire, and the results were presented by letter to the workers. As one male sales representative, seven years with the corporation describes it: We get told how we are doing twice a year when we are sent homebuyer evaluations. They show how the builder is competing. Oh, the homebuyers are asked to rank sales representatives: “genuinely concerned, made me feel welcome. Spoke to me more than required. Wide awake, energetic, eager to help. Seemed sincere when talking to the potential homebuyers and confirmed homebuyers. Helped established a relaxed community atmosphere. Enjoying their jobs. Treated homebuyers as individuals.” We see how this builder is doing in the competition. We are supposed to really get into it. Supervision is thus more indirect than direct. It relies on the sales representative’s sense of what homebuyers will communicate to management, who will, in turn, communicate to workers. Supervisors do more than oversee workers. Even when people are paid to be nice at all times, and when their efforts succeed, it is a remarkable accomplishment. This is possible because of emotion work, feeling rules, and social exchange. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

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A profit motive is slipped in under acts of emotion management, under the rules that govern them, under the gift exchange. Who benefits now, and who pays? The lesson in deep acting—acting “as if the office is your home” and “as if this unruly homebuyer has a traumatic past”—are themselves a new development in deskilling. The mind of the emotion worker, the source of the ideas about what mental moves are needed to settle down an irate, has moved upstairs in the hierarchy so that the worker is restricted to implementing standard procedures. Of more general significance is the fact that the individual’s hopelessness constitutes a hindrance to the cure of any severe neurosis. We have to deal with a counterplay of meticulous and forward-moving forces, with resistance and incentive. Resistance is a collective term for all the forces within the individual that operate to maintain the status quo. One’s incentive, on the other hand, is produced by the constructive energy that urges one on toward inner freedom. This is the motive power with which we work and without which we could do nothing. It is the force that helps that individual overcome resistance. It makes one’s associations productive, there by giving the analyst a chance for better understanding. It gives one the inner strength to endure the inevitable pain of maturing. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

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It makes one willing to take the risk of abandoning attitudes that have given one a feeling of safety and to make the leap into the unknown of new attitudes toward oneself and others. The analyst cannot drag the individual through this process; the individual oneself must want to go. It is this invaluable force that is paralyzed by a condition of hopelessness. And in failing to recognize and tackle it the analyst deprives oneself of one’s best ally in the battle against the individual’s neurosis. The individual’s hopelessness is not a problem that can be solved by any single interpretation. There is already a substantial gain if, instead of being engulfed by a feeling of doom that one regards as unalterable, the individual begins to recognize it as a problem that may eventually be solved. This step liberates one sufficiently to go ahead. There will, of course, be ups and downs. One may feel optimistic, even overoptimistic, if one acquires some helpful insight, only to succumb to one’s hopelessness again as soon as one approaches a more upsetting one. Each time the matter must be tackled anew. However, the hold it has on the individual will relax as one realizes that one can really change. One’s incentive will grow accordingly. It may be limited, at the beginning of the analysis, to a mere wish to get rid of one’s most disturbing symptoms. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

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However, the incentive gains strength as the individual becomes increasingly aware of one’s shackles, and as one gets a taste of how it feels to be free. When we shall apprehend the meaning of life, we may discover that it provides its pre-self-actualized in such prodigies. The highest service one can render is in silent contemplation, which inspires so many aspiring souls to a higher life. This is the truth. If one is sensitive, reflective, and penetrative, the mere fact that these prophets, these light-bringers and way-showers have exited at all is enough to change a human’s life. Even if one does no more than open the human mind to its higher possibilities, one does enough. Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost—humans must pray and gain knowledge for themselves from the Holy Ghost. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, behold, my beloved brethren, I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way. However, behold, why do ye ponder these things in your hearts? Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of Angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of Angels save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the word of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

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“Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark. For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and there will be no more doctrine given until after he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh. And when he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh, the things which he shall say unto you shall ye observe to do. And now I, Nephi, cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance, and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of humans; for they will not search knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be. And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a human to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a human to pray, but teacheth one that one must not pray. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

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“However, behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform anything unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul,” reports 2 Nephi 32.1-9. Please send forth, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Holy Spirit, to make these present offerings Thy Sacrament unto us, and purify our hearts for its reception. Privileges—O Lord God, please teach e to know that grace precedes, accompanies, and follows my salvation, that it sustains the redeemed soul, that not one link of its chain can ever break. From Calvary’s cross wave upon wave of grace reaches me, deals with my sin, washes me clean, renews my heart, strengthens my will, draws out my affection, kindles a flame in my soul, rules throughout my inner human, consecrates my every thought, word, work, teaches me Thy immeasurable love. How great are my privileges in Christ Jesus! Without him I stand far off, a stranger, an outcast; in him I draw near and touch his kingly sceptre. Without him I dare not lift up my guilt eyes; in him I gaze upon my Father-God and friend. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

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Without him I hide my lips in trembling shame; in him I open my mouth in petition and praise. Without him all is wrath and consuming fire; in him is all love, and the repose of my soul. Without him is gaping hell below me, and eternal anguish; in him its gates are barred to me by his precious blood. Without him darkness spreads its horrors in front; in him an eternity of glory is my boundless horizon. Without him all within me is terror and dismay, in him every accusation is charmed into joy and peace. Without him all things external call for my condemnation; in him they minister to my comfort, and are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. Praise be to thee for grace, and for the unspeakable gift of Jesus. Although by the revelation of grace in this life we cannot know of God “what He is,” and thus are united to Him as to one unknown; still we know Him more fully according as many and more excellent of His effects are demonstrated to us, and according as we attribute to Him some things known by divine revelation, to which natural reason cannot reach, as, for instance, that God is Thee and One. For the images either received from sense in the natural order, or divinely formed in the imagination, we have so much more excellent intellectual knowledge, the stronger the intelligible light is in humans; and thus through revelation given by the images a fuller knowledge is received by the infusion of the divine light. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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Half the Failures in Life Arise from Pulling in One’s Horse as He or She is Leaping!

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It is not clear that we must take into account what the environment does to an organism not only before but after it responds. Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. If we ourselves are clear as to exactly what is meant by taking responsibility for oneself, we will understand that it is hard, if not impossible, for any neurotic to assume it. It means in the first place to acknowledge in a matter-of-fact way—to oneself and others—that such-and-such were one’s intentions, one’s words or one’s actions, and to be willing to take the consequences. This would be the opposite of lying or of putting the blame on others. To take responsibility for oneself in this sense would be hard for the neurotic because as a rule one does not know what one is doing or why one is doing it and has a keen subjective interest in not knowing. That is why one often tries to wriggle out by denying, forgetting, belittling, inadvertently supplying other motivations, feeling misunderstood, or getting confused. And since one tends to exclude or absolve oneself, one readily assumes that one’s wife, one’s business partner, one’s analyst are responsible for any difficulty that arises. Another factor that frequently contributes to one’s inability to take the consequences of one’s actions or even to see them is a hidden feeling of omnipotence, on the basis of which one expects to do whatever one pleases and get away with it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

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To recognize the inescapable consequences of one’s actions would shatter this feeling of being a god. A final factor that is relevant here looks at first glance like an intellectual incapacity to think in terms of cause and effect. The neurotic commonly gives the impression of being inherently able to think only in terms of punishment. Almost every patient feels that the analyst is blaming one, whereas actually the analyst is only confronting one with one’s difficulties and their consequences. Outside the analytical situation one may feel like a culprit always under suspicion and attack and therefore constantly on the defensive. In reality this is an externalization of intrapsychic processes. As we have seen, the source from which these suspicions and attacks stem is one’s own idealized image. It is this inner process of fault finding and defense, plus its externalization, that makes it almost impossible for one to conceive of a cause-and-effect relation where one oneself is concerned. However, where difficulties of one’s own are not involved one can be just as matter-of-fact as anyone else. If the streets get wet because it is raining one does not ask whose fault it is but accepts the causal connection. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

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When we speak of assuming responsibility for the self we mean, in addition, the capacity to stand up for what we believe is right and a willingness to take the consequences if our action or decision should prove to be wrong. This, too, is difficult when a person is divided by conflicts. For which of the conflict trends within oneself should one or could one stand up? None of them represents what one really wants or believes in. One really could stand up only for one’s idealized image. This, however, does not permit of the possibility of being wrong. Hence if one’s decision or action leads to trouble, one must falsify matters and ascribe the adverse consequences to someone else. A comparatively simple example will illustrate this problem. A person at the head of an organization craves unlimited power and prestige. Nothing may be done or decided without one; one cannot bring oneself to delegate functions to others who by virtue of their particular training might be better equipped to handle certain affairs. There is, in one’s own mind, nothing one does not know best. Besides, one does not want anyone else to feel or to become important. If only because of limitations of time and energy, one’s expectations of oneself would be impossible to measure up to. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

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However, this particular individual wants not only to dominate; one is also complaint and needs to be superhumanly good. As a result of one’s unresolved conflicts one has all the earmarks we have described—inertia and need for sleep, indecision and procrastination, and hence cannot organize one’s time. And since one feels the keeping of appointments as intolerable coercion, one secretly enjoys making people wait. In addition, one does many unimportant tings merely because they flatter one’s vanity. Finally, one’s urge to be a devoted family person consumes much of one’s time and thought. Naturally, then, things do not function very well in the organization; but seeing no flaw in oneself, one puts the blame on others or on untoward circumstances. Again let us ask, for which part of one’s personality could one take responsibility? For one’s tendency to dominate, or for one’s tendency to comply, appease, and ingratiate oneself? To begin with, one is unaware of either. However, even if one were aware of them one could not uphold one and discard the other, because both are compulsory. Furthermore, one’s idealized image does not allow one to see anything in oneself but ideal virtues and unlimited capacities. Hence one cannot take responsibility for the consequences that inevitably follow from the operation of one’s conflicts. To do so would bring into clear relief all that one is so anxious to conceal from oneself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

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Generally speaking, the neurotic is especially averse—unconsciously—to assuming responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. One shuts one’s eye to even the very obvious ones. Unable to do away with one’s conflicts, one insists—again unconsciously—that one, all powerful as one is, should be able to cope with them. Consequences, one believes, may catch up with other, but for one they do not exist. One must therefore keep on dodging any recognition of the laws of cause and effect. If one would only open one’s mind to them, they could teach one a powerful lesson. They demonstrate in a foolproof way that one’s system of living does not work, that for all one’s unconscious cunning and trickery one cannot budge the laws that operate in our psychic life with the same inexorability as in the physical sphere, but there is an astonishing lack of understand of these psychic laws in the New World. As a matter of act, the whole subject of responsibility has little appeal for one. One sees—or dimly senses—only its negative aspects. What one does not see, and learn to appreciate only gradually, is that by turning one’s back on it one defeats one’s ardent strivings for independence. One hopes to attain independence by defiantly excluding all commitments, whereas in reality the assuming of responsibility for oneself and to oneself is an indispensable condition of real inner freedom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

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In order not to recognize that one’s problems and one’s suffering stem from one’s inner difficulties, the neurotic resorts to any of three devices—and often to all of them. Externalization may be applied to the hilt at this point, in which case everything from food, climate, or constitution to parents, wife, or fate is blamed for the particular calamity. Or one may take the attitude that since nothing is one’s fault it is unfair that any misfortune should befall one. It is unfair that one should tall ill, get old, or die, that one should be unhappily married, have a problem child, or think one’s work remain unrecognized. This kind of thinking, which may be conscious or unconscious, is doubly wrong, for it eliminates not only one’s own share in one’s difficulties but also all the factors independent of oneself that have a bearing on one’s life. Nevertheless, it has a logic of its own. It is the typical thinking of an isolated being who is centered exclusively upon oneself and whose egocentricity makes it impossible for one to see oneself as only a small link in a greater chain. One simply takes it for granted that one should derive all the good of living at a particular time in a particular social system, but resents being linked with others for good or ill. Therefore one cannot see why one should suffer from anything in which one has not been personally implicated. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

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The third device is connected with one’s refusal to recognize cause-and-effect relationships. Consequences appear in one’s mind as isolated occurrences, unrelated to oneself or one’s difficulties. A depression or a phobia, for instance, may seem to descend upon one from the blue. This, of course, might be due to psychological ignorance or lack of observation. However, in analysis we can see that the patient offers a most tenacious resistance to taking cognizance of any impalpable connections. One may remain incredulous or forget them; or one may feel that the analyst, instead of speedily removing the troublesome disturbances—which was what one came for—puts the “blame” on one and cleverly saves one’s own face. Thus a patient may have become familiar with factors relevant to one’s inertia but close one’s mind to the obvious fact that one’s inertia slows up not only one’s analysis but everything else one does. Or another may have become aware of one’s aggressive-derogatory behaviour toward people but cannot understand why one often has quarrels and is disliked. That these difficulties exist within one is one thing, but one’s actual day-to-day problems are something else again. This separation of one’s inner troubles from their effect on one’s life is one of the mainsprings of the whole tendency to compartmentalize. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

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Resistance toward recognizing the consequences of neurotic attitudes and drives is for the most part deeply concealed and may be easily overlooked by the analyst for the very reason that to one the connection is so obvious. This is unfortunate, because unless the patient is made aware that one blinds oneself to consequences and the reasons for which one does so, one cannot possibly realize to what an extent one interferers with one’s own life. Awareness of consequences is the most powerful curative factor in analysis in that it impresses on the patient’s mind that only by changing certain things within oneself can one ever attain freedom. If, then, the neurotic cannot be held accountable for one’s pretenses, one’s arrogance, one’s egocentricity, one’s shirking of responsibility, can we speak in terms of morals at all? The argument will be raised that, as physicians, we need only be concerned with the patient’s illness and cure, and that one’s morals are not our province. It will be pointed out that one of Dr. Freud’s great merits was to have overthrown the “moralistic” attitude I seem to advocate! Such arguments are deemed scientific; but are they tenable? Can we really exclude in matters of human behaviour judgment as to right and wrong? #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

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If analysts decide what needs analytical examination and what does not, do they not really proceed on the basis of the very judgments they consciously reject? There is a danger, however, in such implicit judgments: they are likely to be made on either too subjective or too traditional a ground. Thus an analyst may feel that a man’s philandering need not be analyzed, while a woman’s deserves scrutiny. Or if one believes in an unbridled living out of drives in dealing with pleasures of the flesh, one may decide that faithfulness, whether in a man or a woman, needs analysis. Actually, judgments should be made on the basis of the particular patient’s neurosis. The question to be decided is whether an attitude the patient has assumed has consequences injurious to one’s development and to one’s relations with people. If it has, it is wrong and needs to be tackled. The reasons for the analyst’s conclusion should be explicitly stated to the patient in order to enable one to make up one’s own mind in the matter. And finally, do not the above arguments contain the same fallacy as exists in the patient’s thinking—namely, that morals are only a question of judgment and not primarily one of fact couple with consequences? Let us take neurotic arrogance as an example. It exists as a fact no matter whether the patient is responsible for it or not. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

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The analyst believes that arrogance is a problem for the patient to recognize and eventually overcome. Does one assume this critical attitude because one has learned in Sunday school that arrogance is sinful and humility a virtue? Or is one’s judgment determined by the fact that arrogance is unrealistic and has adverse consequences, the burden of which is inevitably that patient’s—again regardless of one’s responsibility. The consequences, though, in the case of arrogance bar the patient from knowing oneself, and so thwart one’s development. Also, the arrogant patient is apt to be unfair to others, and this again has its repercussions—not merely in subjecting one to occasional clashes with others but in alienating one from people generally. This, however, only drives one deeper into one’s neurosis. Because the patient’s morals in part result from one’s neurosis and in part contribute to its maintenance, the analyst has no choice but to be interested in them. Interestingly enough, those who share a particular stigma can often rely upon mutual aid in passing, again illustrating that those who can be most threatening are often those who can render most assistance. For example, when one homosexual accosts another, the action may be carried out in such a way that normal are unaware that anything out of the ordinary is occurring. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

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If we watch very carefully, and know what to watch for in a “gay” bar, we begin to observe that some individuals are apparently communicating with each other without exchanging words, but simply by exchanging glances—but not the kind of quick glance which ordinarily occurs between people of the same gender. The same kind of cooperativeness is to be found among the circles of stigmatized persons who know one another personally. For example, former mental patients who knew each other in the institution may maintain tactful control of this fact on the outside. In some cases, as when one of the individuals is with normal, the individual may give and be given the “go by,” the passing by of each other as though they were unacquainted. Where a greeting does occur, it may be handled discreetly; the context of the initial acquaintanceship is not made explicit, and the individual whose situation is the more delicate is accorded the right to pace the acknowledgment and the sociable exchange that follows from it. Former mental patients are not alone here of course: The professional women of the evening has a code regulating her relations with the client. For example, it is customary for a woman of the evening never to show any signs of recognizing a client when she meets one in public, unless he greets her first. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

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Where this kind of discretion is not afforded, one can sometimes expect the discredited individual to take active disciplinary action, as Reiss, in his paper on juvenile entrepreneurs, illustrates by quoting an informant. “I was walkin’ down the street with my steady girl when this gay drives by that I had been with once before and he whistles at me and calls, ‘Hi, Sweetie.’ And, was I mad…so I went down to where the boys was and we laid for him and beat on him ‘til he like to a never come to…ain’t gonna take nothin’ like that off’n a queer.” It is expected to be that voluntary maintenance of various types of distance will be employed strategically by those who pass, the discreditable here using much the same devices as do the discredited, but for slightly different reasons. By declining or avoiding overtures of intimacy the individual can avoid the consequent obligation to divulge information. By keeping relationships distant one ensures that time will not have to be spent with the other, for, as already stated, the more time that is spent with another the more chance of unanticipated events that disclose secrets. Examples may be cited from the stigma management work done by wives of mental patients. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

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“But I have cut off all our other friends [after citing five who “knew”]. I did not tell them that I was giving up the apartment and I had the phone disconnected without telling anyone so they do not know how to get in touch with me. I have not gotten too friendly with anyone at the office because I do not want people to know where my husband is. I figure that if I got too friendly with them, then they would start asking questions, and I might start talking, and I just think it is better if as few people as possible know about Joe.” By maintaining physical distance, the individual can also restrict the tendency of others to build up a personal identification of one. By residing in a region with a mobile population, one can limit the amount of continuous experience others have of one. By residing in a region cut off from one one ordinarily frequents one can introduce a disconnectedness in one’s biography: whether intentionally, as in the case of an unmarried young lady with an unborn child going out of state to have her baby, or of small-town homosexuals going to New York, Los Angeles, or Paris for relatively anonymous activity; or unintentionally, as in the case of the mental patient who gratefully finds that one’s place of commitment is far out of town and hence somewhat cut off from one’s ordinary contacts. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

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By staying indoors and not answering the phone or door, the discreditable individual can remove oneself from most of those contacts in which one’s disgrace might be established as part of the biography others have of one. A final possibility must now be considered, one that allows the individual to forego all the others. One can voluntarily disclose oneself, thereby radically transforming one’s situation from that of an individual with information to manage to that of an individual with uneasy social situations to manage, from that of a discreditable person to that of a discredited one. Once a secretly stigmatized person has given information about oneself it becomes possible, of course, for one to engage in any of the adaptive actions previously cited as being available to the known-to-be stigmatized, this accounting in part for one’s policy of self-disclosure. One method of disclosure is for the individual voluntarily to wear a stigma symbol, a highly visible sign that advertises one’s failing wherever one goes. There are, for example, hard of hearing persons who wear hearing devices that are nearly invisible; the partly blind who affect a collapsible white cane; Jewesses who wear a Star of David as a necklace. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

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It should be noted that some of these stigma symbols, such as a Knights of Columbus lapel button indicating that the wearer is Catholic, are not frankly presented as disclosures of stigma, but purportedly attest rather to membership in organizations claimed to have no such significance in themselves. It should be noted also that militant programs of all kinds can be served by this device, for the self-symbolizing individual ensures one’s being cut off from the society of normal. The manner in which a sect of New York Jews present themselves provides an example: “Obgehitene Yiden, ‘Guardian Jews,’ include those so-called ultra-Orthodox Jews who not only observe the Shulhan Aruch in the most minute detail but are most meticulous and zealous in their observance. They perform all the prescribed commandments and precepts with greatest care. These people are overtly identifiable as Jews. They wear beards and/or special traditional clothing for the exclusive purpose of being externally identified as Jewish: beards so that the ‘image of God should be upon their faces,’ traditional garments so that they ‘may refrain from any possible sin.’” Stigma symbols have the character of being continuously available for perception. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

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Some less rigid means of disclosure are also used. Fleeting offerings of evidence may be made—purposeful slips, as it were—as when a person has not disclosed their preference for same sex relationships and voluntarily commits the clumsy act of showing someone pictures one of which is private picture of himself as a way of informing new comers of his sigma. There is also disclosure etiquette, a formula whereby the individual admits one’s own failing in a matter of fact way, supporting the assumption that those present are above such concerns while preventing them from trapping themselves into showing that they are not. Thus the “good” Jew or mental patient waits for “an appropriate time” in a conversation with strangers and calmly says: “Well, being Jewish has made me feel that…” or “Having had first-hand experience as a mental patient I can…” Earlier it was suggested that learning to pass constitutes one phase in the socialization of the stigmatized person and a turning point in one’s moral career. I want to suggest now that if an individual can come to accept oneself and respect oneself, that the stigmatized individual can come to feel that one should be above passing, and will feel no need to conceal one’s failing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

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After laboriously learning to conceal, then, the individual may go on to unlearn this concealment. It is here that voluntary disclosure fits into the moral career, a sign of one of its phases. It should be added that in the published autobiographies of stigmatized individuals, this phase in the moral career is typically described as the final, mature, well-adjusted one—a state of grace I will attempt to consider later. Many false churches will be built up in the last days—they will teach false, vain, and foolish doctrines—apostasy will abound because of false teachers—the devil will rage in the hearts of humans—he will teach all manner of false doctrines. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, behold, my brethren, I have spoken unto you, according as the Spirit hath constrained me; wherefore, I know that they must surely come to pass. And the things which shall be written out of the book shall be of great worth unto the children of humans, and especially unto our seed, which is a remnant of the house of Israel. For it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which are built up, and not unto the Lord, when the one shall say unto the other: Behold, I, I am the Lord’s; and the others shall say: I, I am the Lord’s; and thus shall every one say that hath built up churches, and not unto the Lord– #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

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“And they shall contend one with another; and their priests shall contend one with another, and they shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance. And they deny the power of God, the Holy One of Israel; and they say unto the people: Hearken unto us, and hear ye our precept; for behold there is no God today, for the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work, and he hath given his power unto humans; behold, hearken ye unto my precept; if they shall say there is a miracle wrought by the hand of the Lord, believe it not; for this day he is not a God of miracles; he hath done his work. Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea lie a little, take advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbour; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in the dark. And the blood of the saints shall cry from the ground against them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

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“Yea, they have all gone out of the way; they have become corrupted. Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up. They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and the persecute the meek and the poor in heart, because in their pride they are puffed up. They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of humans. O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell! Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worthy! For the day shall come that the Lord God will speedily visit the inhabitants of the Earth; and in that day that they are fully ripe in iniquity they shall perish. However, behold, if the inhabitants of the Earth shall repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed, saith the Lord of Hosts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

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“However, behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the Earth, must tumble to the Earth, and great must be the fall thereof. For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; for behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of humans, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. And behold, other he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whsipereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. Therefore, wo be unto ne that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto one that crieth: All is well! #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

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“Yea, wo be unto one that hearkeneth unto the precepts of humans, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost! Yea, wo be unto one that saith: We have received, and we need no more! And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, one that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and one that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest one shall fall. And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, one that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and one that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest one shall fall. Wo be unto one that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough! For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of humans line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto one that receiveth I will give more; and for them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have. Cursed is one that putteth one’s trust in humans, or maketh flesh one’s arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of humans, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

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“Wo be unto the Gentiles, saith the Lord God of Hosts! For notwithstanding I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them from day to day, they will deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, saith the Lord God, if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Host,” reports 2 Nephi 28.1-32. O Lord our God, Who hast called us Christians after the Name of Thine Only-begotten Son, and hast given us Baptism in the Font for the remission of sins; make us, we beseech Thee, worthy now to receive this Communion for the remission of our sins, and to glorify Thee with thanksgiving. O God, may I never be a blot or a blank in life, cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of, or make my liberty an occasion to the flesh. May I by love serve others, and please my neighbour for one’s good edification. May I attend to what is ornamental as well as essential in religion, pursuing things that are lovely and of good report. May I render my profession of the gospel not only impressive, but amiable and inviting. May I hold forth the way of Jesus with my life as well as my lips. May I say to all I meet, I am journeying towards the Lord’s given place, some with me for your good. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

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May I be prepared for all the allotments of this short, changing, uncertain life with a useful residence in it, a comfortable journey through it, a safe passage out of it. May I ne in character and conduct like the dew of Heaven, the salt of the Earth, the light of the World, the fullness of the fountain. May I never be ashamed of Jesus or His words, never be deterred from fulfilling a known duty through fear, never be discouraged from attempting it through weakness. May I see all things in a divine light so that they may inform my judgment and sanctify my heart. And by all the disciplines of Thy providence, and all the ordinances of religion, may I be increasingly prepared for life’s remaining duties, the solemnities of a dying hour, and the joys and services that lie beyond the grave. Have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy servants for whom I offer this sacrifice of praise to Thy Majesty; that they may be able to lead a good life in this World, and happily to attain eternal blessedness. Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids here present, whose faith and devotion are discerned and known by Thee. Look mercifully, O Lord, on these present offerings, that they may avail both for our devotion and our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Send forth, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Holy Spirit, to make these present offerings Thy Sacrament unto us, and purify our hearts for its reception. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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But I Will Wear My Heart Upon My Sleeve for Daws to Peck at!

ImageThe way to love other people is to express what we feel—anger and love—without aiming to hurt feelings. Open but reverent communication is how to make love in our lives. I have talked of equality as a right ad of equality as a goal. And I have taken, as the principal thing, to be able to state what goal we are seeking when we say equality is a goal. When we are in a position actually to achieve that goal, then that same equality becomes a right. The goal we are seeking is an equality of basic condition for everyone. Let me say a bit what this is: everyone, as far as possible, should have equal life prospects, short of genetic engineering and the like and the rooting out of any form of family and the undermining of our basic freedoms. There should, where this is possible, eb an equality of access to equal resources over each person’s life as a whole, though this should be qualified by people’s varying needs. Where psychiatrists are in short supply only people who are in need of psychiatric help should have equal access to such help. This equal access to resources should be such that it stands as a barrier to there being the sort of differences between people that allow some to be in a position to control and to exploit others; such equal access to resources should also stand as a barrier to one person having power over other adult person that does not rest on the revocable consent on the part of the persons over whom one comes to have power. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

ImageWhere, because of some remaining scarcity in a society of considerable productive abundance, we cannot reasonably distribute resources equally, we should first, where considerations of desert are not at issue, distribute according to stringency of need, second according to the strength of unmanipulated preferences and third, and finally, by lottery. We should, in trying to attain equality of condition, aim at a condition of autonomy (the fuller and the more rational the better) for everyone and at a condition where everyone alike, to the fullest extent possible, has his or her needs and wants satisfied. The limitations on the satisfaction of people’s wants should be only were the satisfaction is incompatible with everyone getting the same treatment. Where we have conflicting wants, such as where two persons want to marry the same person, the fair thing to do will vary with the circumstances. In the marriage case, freedom of choice is obviously the fair thing. However, generally, what should be aimed at is having everyone have their own wants satisfied as far as possible. To achieve equality of condition would be, as well, to achieve a condition where the necessary burdens of the society are equally shared, where to do so is reasonable, and where each person has an equal voice in deciding what these burdens shall be. Moreover, everyone, as much as possible, should be in a position—and should be equally in that position—to control one’s own life. The goals of egalitarianism are to achieve such equalities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

ImageIf we are egalitarians, then minimally, classlessness is something we should aim at. It is necessary for the stable achievement of equalities of the type discussed. Beyond that, we should also aim at a statusless society, though not at an undifferentiated society or a society which does not recognize merit. It is only in such a classless, statusless society that the ideals of equality (the conception of equality as a very general goal to be achieved) can be realized. In aiming for a society, we are aiming for a society which, while remining a society of material abundance, is a society in which there are to be no extensive differences in life prospects between people because some have far greater income, power, authority or prestige than others. This is the via negativa of the egalitarian way. The via positivia is to produce social conditions where there is generally material abundance, where well-being and satisfactions are not only maximized (the utilitarian thing) but, as well, a society where this condition, as far as it is achievable, is sought equally for all (the egalitarian thing). This is the underlying conception of the egalitarian commitment to equality of condition. In our description of the encounter of power of being with power of being we have limited our task to the encounter of individuals with individuals. We must also extend our description to the encounter of social groups with social groups. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

ImageIf we do so find the same marks of power encounters, the pushing ahead and withdrawing, the absorbing and throwing out, the amalgamation and separation. This is unavoidable. For every power group experiences growth and disintegration. It tries to transcend itself and to preserve itself at the same time. Nothing is determined a priori. It is a matter of trial and risk, and decision. And this trial has elements of intrinsic power untied with compulsion whether the group or their representatives want it or not. These encounters are the basic material of history. In them human’s political destiny is decided. What is their character? The basis of all power of a social group is the space it must provide for itself. Being means having space or, more exactly, providing space for oneself. This is the reason for the tremendous importance of geographical space and the fight for its possession by all power groups. Our time gives a striking example for this fact. In the necessity of having space the Zionist fight is rooted. Israel lost its independent power of being and often its power of being altogether, when it lost its space. Now it has its space and has shown a rather strong power of being. However, perhaps something is lost: the intimate relation to time which made Israel the elected nation and which belongs to the problem of the resignation of power. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

ImageThe struggle about space is not simply the attempt to remove another group from a given space. The real purpose is to draw this space into a larger power field, to deprive it of a center of its own. If this happens, it is not the individual power of being which has changed, but the way in which the individual participates in the center, in which one influences the law and the spiritual substance of the new, larger power organization. It is, however not only geographical space which gives power and being to a social organism. It is also the radiation of power into the larger space of humankind. One of these radiations which enlarge one’s own space without reducing that of others is economic expansion. Another one is technical expansion or the spread of science and civilization. In none of these cases is a preceding calculation possible. Every factor is changing, the number of the population, the productive power, new discoveries, movements, emigration, competition, the rise of new countries, the disintegration of old ones. History, so to speak, tries what will be its next constellation. And in these trials nations and empires are scarified, and others are called into existence. The power of being of each political power group is measured by its encounter with the power of being of other power groups. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

ImageHowever, now we must remember that power is never only physical force, but it is also the power of symbols and ideas in which the life of a social group expresses itself. The consciousness of such a social group expresses itself. The consciousness of such a spiritual substance can become, and in the most important cases of history does become, the feeling of a special vocation. If we look at European history we find a series of expression of such a vocational consciousness, and we find tremendous historical consequences following from it. In an indistinguishable unity of power drive and vocational consciousness the Romans subjected the Mediterranean World to the Roman law and the order of the Roman empire, based on this law. In the same way Alexander brought Greek culture to nations which were subjected in terms of bot arms and language. Considering the fact these two imperial drives in their amalgamation created the oikoumene, the condition and frame of the spread of Christianity, we cannot say that their vocational consciousness was wrong. The same must be said about the medieval German Empire, which, on the basis of the power drives of the Germanic kings, created the structure for the united Christian body with all the glory of medieval religion and culture. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

ImageAfter the end of the Middle Ages the European nations combined power drives with vocational consciousness of different character. Spain’s World-conquering imperialism was united with the fanatical belief in being the divine tool of the Counter-Reformation. England’s vocational consciousness was rooted partly in the Calvinistic idea of World politics for the preservation of pure Christianity, partly in a Christian-humanistic feeling of responsibility for the colonial countries and for a solid balance of power between the civilized nations. This was inseparably united with an economic and political power drive and produced the largest Empire of all times and almost eighty years of European peace. The vocational consciousness of France was based on its cultural superiority in the seventeenth an and eighteenth centuries. Modern Germany was under the impact of the so-called Real-Politik, without a vocational consciousness. Her ideology was the struggle for Lebensraum, party in competition with the colonial nations and therefore in conflict with them. Adolph Hitler’s use of an obviously absurd vocational idea, that of Nordic blood, was artificially imposed an only reluctantly accepted, because there was no genuine vocational symbol. Today two great imperialistic systems fight with each other in terms of both force and vocational consciousness: Russian and America. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

ImageThe Russian vocational consciousness was based on its religious feeling that it had a mission towards the West, namely, to save the disintegrating Western civilization through Eastern mystical Christianity. This was the claim of the Slavophile movement in the nineteenth century. President-day Russian has a similar missionary consciousness towards the West civilization and at the same time towards the Far East. Her power drive, which in the official counter-propaganda appears as the desire for World domination, is not understandable without her fanatical vocational consciousness, which must be compared with that of all other imperialistic movements. America’s vocational consciousness has been called “The American dream,” namely to establish the Earthly form of the kingdom of God by a new beginning. The old forms of oppressive power were left behind and a new start was made. In the Constitution and the living democracy (both are quasi-religious concepts in the United States of America) the will is embodied to actualize what is felt as the American vocation. This was originally meant for America alone. Now it is meant explicitly for one-half of the World and implicitly for the whole World. The actual power drive working together with this vocational feeling is still rather limited. However, the historical situation increases it more and more. And it is already justified to speak of half-conscious American imperialism. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

ImageVocational consciousness expresses itself in laws. In these laws both justice and love are actual. The justice of the empires not only subject, they also unite. And in so far as they are able to do this, they are not without love. Therefore those who has subjected acknowledge silently that they have become participants of a superior power of being and meaning. If this acknowledgement vanishes because the uniting power of the empire, its strength, and its vocational idea vanishes, the empire comes to an end. Its power of being disintegrates and external attacks only execute what is already decided. The present decrease in national sovereignty, the rise of embracing power groups, and the split of the World into two all-embracing power groups, and the split of the World into two all-embracing systems of political power rises naturally the problem of a united humankind. What can be derived from our analysis of power, justice, and love for this question? There are three answers to this question. The first one does not recognize the inescapable character of the recent developments towards large organisms of power and expects a return to a number of relatively independent power centers, perhaps not national but continental. The second answer seeks for the solution in a World state, created by a kind of federal union of the present main powers and by their subjection to a central authority in which all groups participate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

ImageThe third answer expects that one of the great powers will develop into a World center, ruling the other nations through liberal methods and in democratic forms! The first answer is a matter of foresight. It belongs to the movement of social organisms that the centralizing tendency is always balanced by a decentralizing one. The question is: Which tendency determines the present situation? The technical union of the World favours centralization, but there are other, above all psychological factors which may prevail. The second answer, the expectation of the World state, contradicts the analysis of power as we have given it. A power center which unites strength with vocational consciousness cannot subject itself to an artificial authority without both of them. The presupposition for a political World unity is the presence of a spiritual unity expressed in symbols and myths. Nothing like this exists today. And before it does exist a World state has no power to create silent acknowledgment. The most probable answer seems to be the third one. It may well be that after the period of World history which is characterized by the rise of one power structure to universal power, with a minimum of suppression, the law and the justice and the uniting love which are embodied in this power will become the universal power of humankind. However, even then the kingdom of God has not come upon us. For even then disintegration and revolution are not excluded. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

ImageNew centers of power may appear, first underground, then openly, driving towards separation from or towards radical transformation of the whole. They may develop a vocational consciousness of their own. Then the power struggle starts again and the period of the fulfilled World empire will be as limited as the Augustan period of was. Can uniting love never unite humankind? Can humankind never become as a whole a structure of power and a source of universal justice? With this question we have left the realm of history and approach the question of love, power, and justice in their relation to that which is ultimate. Thus Revelation makes sense because it is the answer to the finitude and ambiguities of actual reason; the terms God, as a symbol of the Unconditioned, is meaningful insofar as it resolves the contradictions of finite being; Christology itself answers the dilemma of existence and fulfills humankind’s quest for Christ. Being, existence, life thus anticipate, in human’s conscious and unconscious experience, the revelation of the Unconditioned as God, as Christ and as Spirit. The notion of the Kingdom of God will resolve the ambiguities of history. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

ImageThe basic purpose of theology is neither to establish facts, nor to build a speculative synthesis; it is to investigate meanings.  Leaving the former task to positive theologians and their recurrent flirtation with historicism, and the latter to speculative theologians and the permanent danger of over intellectualism, we open another way, a search for the meanings of religious attitudes through a critical phenomenology, uniting an intuitive-descriptive element with an existential-critical element. However, by doing so, we boldly head for a third pitfall, which we may call a philosophical distortion of faith. If the only ultimately valid content of their faith is merely the intuition of a philosophical principle, there is not much point in the tremendous spiritual effort of all the religions of humankind. Yet the meaning of faith, as drawn out of belief-ful experience is simply that in the depth of my own being, I participate in both abyss and ground, in nothingness and in being-itself. The difference between the philosopher and the faith-ful would be that the former is relatively detached whereas the latter is involved. If this is the meaning of faith and religion, we have obviously been let down by priests and prophets, and what is more, we have been led astray. For neither priest nor prophet has taught that this was faith. To be sure, a certain amount of demythologizing is necessary—be it Primordial Humans in India or Gilgamesch in Mesopotamia, myth have to be interpreted. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

ImageThe contrast between the religious myths of faith and their reduction to one common philosophical denominator confirms what I have said elsewhere: a philosophical description of being and concern is altogether distinct from a theology of faith and grace. Speaking in specifically Christian terms, it is a fallacy to approach the faith of Christianity from a preconceived phenomenological notion of faith at large. In the first place, this does not do justice to the fact that the Christian faith, in its Catholic form and also in its Protestant form before Schleiermacher, has always described itself, not as one faith among other, but as the only saving faith. Secondly, it introduced a distinction between the conveying message of faith (called, here, its myth or symbol) and its ultimate meaning. The Christian message, however, is essentially historical. Arising out of a historical event, the preaching of the man Jesus, it was confirmed by his Resurrection from the dead in Judea under the governor Pontius Pilate. This historical structure of the Christian faith stands in judgment over our analyses for it implies that the form of the Christian Revelation is inseparable from its content. If it only expressed unconditional concern as philosophical intuition of being and non-being, its historical structure would be altogether irrelevant to its meaning. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

ImageActually it would be difficult to discover a systematic theology that appeals less to the historical sources of Christian doctrine than ours. What this implies for Christology proper will detain us later. It is enough now to note that the notion of faith, the notion of original sin, the notion of revelation, have been stripped of their specifically Christian elements and made into universal philosophical concepts. One could heed Calvin’s warning: “Should some mind, abandoning the wisdom contained in the Word of God, bring us a different doctrine, he must rightly be suspected of vanity and falsehood.” For a theologian to straitjacket the Christian faith in a scheme which is supposedly valid for all and sundry faiths is highly suspect. At this stage, however, we should suspend judgment. In the development of our Christology, we are bringing in the necessary corrections. “But, behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles—yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon other lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the Earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations—and when that day shall come they shall be visited of the Lord or Hosts, with thunder and with Earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storm, and with tempest, and with the flame of the devouring fire. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Image“And all the nations that fight against Zion, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision; yea, it shall be unto them, even as unto a hungry man which dreameth, and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soul is empty; or like unto a thirsty human which dreameth, and behold one drinketh but one awaketh and behold one is faint, and one’s soul hath appetite; yea, even so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. For behold, all ye that doeth iniquity, stay yourselves and wonder, for ye shall cry out, and cry; yea, ye shall be drunken but not with wine, ye shall stagger but not with strong drink. For behold, the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. For behold, ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets; and your rulers, and the seers hath one covered because of your iniquity. And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered. And behold the book shall be sealed; and in the book shall be a revelation from God, from the beginning of the World to the ending thereof. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations of the people. Wherefore the book shall be kept from them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Image “However, the book shall be delivered unto a human, and one shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust, and one shall deliver these words unto another; however, the words which are sealed one shall not deliver, neither shall one deliver the book. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for behold, they reveal all things from the foundation of the World unto the end thereof. And the day cometh that the words of the book which were sealed shall be read upon the house tops; and they shall be read by the power of Christ; and all things shall be revealed unto the children of humans which ever have been among the children of humans, and which ever will be even unto the end of the Earth. Wherefore, at that day when the book shall be delivered unto the human of whom I have spoken, the book shall be hid from the eyes of the World, that the eyes of none shall behold it save it be that three witnesses shall behold it, by the power of God, besides him to whom the book shall be delivered; and they shall testify to the truth of the book and the things therein. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Image“And there is none other which shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God, to bear testimony of his word unto the children of humans; for the Lord God hath said that the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead. Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to bring forth the words of the book; and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good will he establish his word; and wo be unto him that rejecteth the word of God! However, behold, it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall say unto him to whom he shall deliver the book: Take these words which are not sealed and deliver them to another, that he may show them unto the learned, saying: Read this, I pray thee. And the learned shall say: Bring hither the book, and I will read them. And now, because of the glory of the World and to get gain will they say this, and not for the glory of God. And the human shall say: I cannot bring the book, for it is sealed. Then shall the learned say: I cannot read it. Wherefore I shall come to pass, that the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words thereof to one that is not learned; and the human that is not learned shall say: I am not learned. Then shall the Lord God say unto him: The learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work; wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Image“Touch not the things which are sealed, for I will bring them forth in mine own due time; for I will show unto the children of humans that I am able to do mine own work. Wherefore, when thou hast read the words which I have commanded thee, and obtained the witnesses which I have promised unto thee, then shalt thou seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me, that I may preserve the words which thou hast not read, until I shall see fit in mine own wisdom to reveal all things unto the children of humans. For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the World that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I am work not among children of humans save it be according to their faith. And again it shall come to pass that the Lord shall say unto him that shall read the words that shall be delivered him: forasmuch as this people draw near unto me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear towards me is taught by the precepts of humans—therefore, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, yea, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall be hid. And wo unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord! And their works are in the dark; and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Image“And they also say: Surely, your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay. However, behold, I will show unto them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I know all their works. For shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he had no understanding? However, behold, saith the Lord of Host: I will show unto the children of humans that it is yet a very little while and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field; and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest. And in that say shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. And the meek also shall increase, and their joy shall be in the Lord, and the poor among humans shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For assuredly as the Lord liveth they shall see that the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off; and they that make a human an offender for a word and lay a snare for one that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. However, when he seeth his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Image“They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and the that murmured shall learn doctrine,” reports 2 Nephi 27.1-35. O LORD our God, the Bread of Heaven, the Life of the World, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am not worthy to partake of Thine immaculate Mysteries;–but in Thy Divine tenderness do Thou vouchsafe my by Thy grace to partake of Thy holy Body and precious Blood, without condemnation, unto remission of sins and eternal life. O God of my delight, Thy throne of grace is the pleasure ground of my soul. Here I obtain mercy in time of need, here see the smile of Thy reconciled face, here joy pleads the name of Jesus, here I sharpen the sword of the Spirit, anoint the shield of faith, put on the helmet of salvation, gather manna from Thy word, am strengthened for each conflict, nerved for the upward race, empowered to conquer race, empowered to conquer every foe; please hep me to come to Christ as the fountain head of descending blessings, as a wide open flood-gate of mercy. I marvel at my insensate folly, that which such enriching favours within my reach I am slow to extend the hand to take them. Have mercy upon my deadness for Thy name’s sake. Ouicken me, stir me, fill me with holy zeal. Strengthen me that I may cling to Thee and not let Thee go. May Thy spirit within me draw all blessings from Thy hand. When I advance not, I backslide. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

ImagePlease let me walk humbly because of good omitted and evil done. Impress on my mind the shortness of tie, the work to be engaged in the account to be rendered, the nearness of eternity, the fearful sin of despising Thy Spirit. May I never forget that Thy eye always sees, Thy ear always hears, Thy recording hand always writes. May I never give Thee rest until Christ is the pulse of my heart; the spokes-person of my lips, the lamp of my feet. O LORD our God, Who hast called us Christians after the Name of Thine Only-begotten Son, as hast given us Baptism in the Font for the remission of sins; please make us, we beseech Thee, worthy now to receive this Communion for the remission of our sins, and to glorify Thee with thanksgiving. O LORD my God, grant me so to receive the Body and Blood of Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that by means thereof I may receive forgiveness of all my sins, and be filled with Thy Holy Spirit, O our God, Who livest and reignest World without end. Cleanse us, O Lord, from our secret faults, and mercifully absolve us from our presumptuous sins, that we may receive Thy holy things with a pure mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, O Lord, that our bodies may be sanctified by Thy holy Body, and that they may avail for the pardon of our offences and remission of our sins. Glory be to Thee forever, O Lord God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21   Image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rancho Cordova, CA |
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4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 2,757 square feet

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

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We Have Seen Better Days–Is this the Man That Made the Earth to Tremble, that Did Shake Kingdoms?

Capture5Through education, we have the ability to change and improve the World in which we live. By touching the lives of students, outstanding educators make the future brighter for all of us. If it be true that, in ages of equality, humans readily adopt the notion of a great central power, it cannot be doubted on the other hand that their habits and sentiments predispose them to recognise such a power and give it their support. Humans connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means, God with ends; hence this idea of greatness, as humans conceive it, leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all humans to follow the same course toward the same objects is a human notion;–to introduce infinite variety of actions, but so combined that all these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity. The human idea of unity is almost always barren; the divine idea pregnant with abundant results. Humans think they manifest their greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the purpose of God which is simple—His means are infinitely varied. As the humans who inhabit democratic countries have no superiors, no inferiors, and no habitual or necessary partners in their undertakings, they readily fall back upon themselves and consider themselves as being apart. I had occasion to point this out at considerable length in treating of individualism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

ImageHence such humans can never, without an effort, tear themselves from their private affairs to engage in public business; their natural bias leads them to abandon the latter to sole visible and permanent representatives of the interest of the community, that is to say, to the State. Not only are they naturally wanting in a taste for public business, but they have frequently no time to attend to it. Private life is so busy in democratic periods, so excited, so fully of wishes and of work, that hardly any energy or leisure remains to each individual for public life. I am the last person to content that these propensities are unconquerable, since my chief object in writing this essay is to combat them. I only maintain that at the present day a secret power is fostering them in the human heart, and that is they are not checked they will wholly overgrow it. I have also had occasion to show how the increasing love of well-being, and the fluctuating character of property, cause democratic nations to dread all violent disturbance. The love of public tranquility is frequently the only passion which these nations retain, and it becomes more active and powerful among them in proportion as all other passions droop and die. This naturally disposes the members of the community constantly to give or to surrender additional rights to the central power, which alone seems to be interested n defending them by the same means that it uses to defend itself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

ImageAs in ages of equality no human is compelled to lend one’s assistance to one’s fellow-humans, and none has any right to expect much support from them, every one is at once independent and powerless. These two conditions, which must never be either separately considered or confounded together, inspire the citizen of a democratic country with very contrary propensities. One’s independence fills one with self-reliance and pride among one’s equals; one’s debility makes one feel from time to time the want of some outward assistance, which one cannot expect from any of them, because they are all impotent and unsympathizing. In this predicament one naturally turns one’s eyes to that imposing power which alone rises above the level of universal depression. Of that power one wants and especially one’s desires continually remind one, until one ultimately views it as the sole and necessary support of one’s own weakness. In democratic communities nothing but the central power has any stability in its position or any permanence it its undertakings. All the members of society are in ceaseless stir and transformation. Now it is in the nature of all governments to seek constantly to enlarge their sphere of action: hence it is almost impossible that such a government should not ultimately succeed, because it acts with a fixed principle and a constant will, upon, humans, whose position, whose notions, and whose desires are in continual vacillation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

ImageIt frequently happens that the members of the community promote the influence of the central power without intending it. Democratic age are periods of experiments, innovation, and adventure. At such times there are always a multitude of people engaged in difficult or novel undertakings, which they follow alone, without caring for their fellow-humans. Such persons may be ready to admit, as a general principle, that the public authority ought not to interfere in private concerns; but, by an exception to that rule, each of them craves for its assistance in the particular concern on which one is engaged, and seeks to draw upon the influence of the government for one’s own benefit, though one would restrict it on all other occasions. If a large number of people apply this particular exception to a great variety of different purposes, the sphere of the central power extends insensibly in all directions, although each f them wishes it to be circumscribed. Thus a democratic government increases its power simply by the fact of its permanence. Time is on its side; every incident befriends it; the passions of individuals unconsciously promote it; and it may be asserted, that the older a democratic community is, the more centralized will its government become. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

ImageThis may ore completely explain what frequently takes place in democratic countries, where the very people who are so impatient of superiors patiently submit to a master, exhibiting at once their pride and their servility. The hatred which people bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become more scarce and less considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely at the very time when they have least fuel. I have already given the reason of this phenomenon. When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye; whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of genera uniformity: the more complete is this uniformity, the more insupportable does the sight of such a difference become. Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow by what it feeds upon. This never-dying, ever-kindling hatred, which sets a democratic people against the smallest privileges, is peculiarity favourable to the gradual concentration of all political rights in the hands of the representative of the state alone. The sovereign, being necessarily and incontestably above all the citizens, excites not their envy, and each of them thinks that one strips one’s equals of the prerogative which one concedes to the crown. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

ImageThe human of a democratic age is extremely reluctant to obey one’s neighbour who is one’s equal; one refuses to acknowledge in such a person ability superior to one’s own; one mistrust one’s justice, and is jealous of power; one fears and one contemns one; and one loves continually to remind one of the common dependence in which both of them stand to the same master. Every central power which follows its natural tendencies courts and encourages the principle of equality; for equality singularly facilitates, extends, and secures the influence of a central power. In like manner it may be said that every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relives it from inquiry into an infinite number of small details which must be attended to if rules were to be adapted to humans, instead of indiscriminately subjecting humans to rules: this the government likes what the citizens like, and naturally hates what they hate. These common sentiments, which, in democratic nations, constantly unite the sovereign and every member of the community in one in the same pardoned for the sake of its tastes; public confidence is only reluctantly withdrawn in the midst even of its excesses and its errors, and it is restored at the first call. Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central power is vested; but they always love that power itself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

ImageThus, by two separate paths, I have reached the same conclusion. I have shown that the principle of equality suggests to people the notion of a sole, uniform, and strong government: I have now shown that the principle of equality imparts to them a taste for it. To governments of this kind the nations of our age are therefore tending. They are drawn thither by the natural inclination of mind and heart; and in order to reach that result, it is enough that they do not check themselves in their course. I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will be the natural form of government. A democratic people is not only led by its own tastes to centralize its government, but the passions of all the humans by whom it is governed constantly urge it in the same direction. It may easily be foreseen that almost all the able and ambitious members of a democratic community will labour without ceasing to extend the powers of government, because they all hope at some time or other to wield those powers. It is a waste of time to attempt to prove to them that extreme centralization may be injurious to the State, since they are centralizing for their own benefit. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

ImageAmong the public people of democracies there are hardly any but humans of great disinterestedness or extreme mediocrity who seek to oppose the centralization of government: the former are scarce, the latter powerless. Justice as proportional justice cannot fulfill the quest implied in a concrete situation, but love can. One should never say that love’s work starts where the work of justice ends. For love shows what is just in the concrete situation. Nothing is more false than to say to somebody: since I love you and you love me, I do not need to get justice from you or you from me, for love eliminates the need for justice. Such language is used by people who want to avoid the obligations which are connected with justice. It is said by tyrannical rulers to their subjects and by tyrannical parents to their children. And even if they do not say it, they act accordingly. It is a clever way of trying to escape the responsibility and the self-restriction demanded by justice. Often, the love which supposedly transcends justice is nothing more than an emotional outburst of self-surrender, alternating with emotional outburst of hostility. Therefore it is false to say: Loves gives what justice cannot give; love drives to a self-surrender which is beyond the demand of justice. There is much self-surrender which the demand of proportional justice, exempli gratia death for a cause on which one’s own existence depends. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

ImageHowever, there are other kinds of self-surrender which are not demanded by proportional justice. They are demanded by love. However, if they are demanded by love they are demanded by creative justice. For the creative element in justice is love. Love, in this respect, has the same relation to justice which revelation has to reason. And this is not an accidental analogy. It is rooted in the nature of both revelation and love. Both of them transcend the rational norm without destroying it. Both of them have an “ecstatic element.” Love in some of its expressions, exempli gratia in which Paul gives in Cor. Xiii can be called justice in ecstasy, as revelation can be called reason in ecstasy. This also is confirmed by Paul when he derives both revelatory experiences and the working of love from the divine spirit. And as revelation does not give additional information in the realm where cognitive reason decides, so love does not drive to additional acts in the realm where practical reason decides. Both give another dimension to reason, revelation to cognitive reason, love to practical reason. Neither of them denies that to which it gives the dimensions of depth, namely to reason. As revelation does not contradict the structures of cognitive reason (otherwise revelation could not be received), so love does not contradict justice (otherwise it could not be actualized). This consideration points to the dependence of the whole realm of moral action on the presence of the Spiritual power. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

ImageThe relation of justice to love in personal encounters can adequately be described through three functions of creative justice, namely, listening, giving, forgiving. In none of them does love do more than justice demands, but in each of them love recognizes what justice demands. In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening. Reproaches, reactions, defences may be justified in terms of proportional justice. However, if there were more mutual listening, perhaps they would prove to be unjust. All things and all humans, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. However, we can give it to them only through the love which listen. Love in its attempt to see what is the other person is by no means irrational. It uses all possible means to penetrate into the dark places of one’s motives and inhibitions. It uses, for example, the tool provided by depth psychology which give unexpected possibilities of discovering the intrinsic claims of a human being. Through it we have learned that human expression can mean something quite different from what they seem or intended to mean. They seem to be aggressive, but what they express may be love, inhibited by shyness. They seem to be sweet and submissive and they are actually symptoms of hostility. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

ImageWords, well meant, but uttered improperly, may produce in reaction complete injustice. Listening love is the first step to justice in person-to-person encounters. And it has also a function in encounters with living nature and nature generally. However, if we tried to purse the problem of human justice and injustice toward nature, a large new field of inquiry would be opened, too large for our present task and too much in need of references to art and poetry task and too much in need of references to art and poetry for an ontological analysis. The second function of creative justice in personal encounters is giving. It belongs to the right of everyone whom we encounter to demand something from us, at least that even in the most impersonal relations the other one is acknowledged as a person. However, this minimum of giving drives toward a maximum—including possible self-sacrifice if the occasion demands it. If it serves the purpose of reuniting love, giving is an expression of creative justice. It is obvious that under this criterion it may mean the demand to resist and to restrain and to deprive. Here again psychological wisdom can help to do what appears to be the opposite of giving love. Creative justice includes the possibility of sacrificing the other one in one’s existence, though not in one’s being as a person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

ImageThe third and most paradoxical form in which justice is untied with love is forgiving. Their unity is indicated in the Pauline term: justification by grace. Justification literally means: making just, and it means in the context of Paul’s and Luther’s doctrine to accept as just one who is unjust. Nothing seems to contradict more the idea of justice than this doctrine, and everybody who has pronounced it has been accused of promoting injustice and amorality. It seems to be utterly unjust to declare one who is unjust, just. However, nothing less than this is what has been called the good news in Christian preaching. And nothing less than this is the fulfilment of justice. For it is the only way of reuniting those who are estranged by guilt. Without reconciliation there is no reunion. Forgiving love is the only way of fulfilling the intrinsic claim in every being, namely its claim to be reaccepted into the unity to which it belongs. Creative justice demands that this claim be accepted and that one be accepted who is unacceptable in terms of proportional justice. In accepting one into the unity of forgiveness, love exposes both the acknowledged break with justice on one’s side with all its implicit consequences and the claim inherent in one to be declared just and to be made just by reunion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

ImageFor the most part, “religion” is not equated with the ultimate dynamic of faith, but rather with human’s systematic ambition to give a name to the Unconditioned. This ambition is not only justified; it is also necessary to faith itself. For faith cannot be communicated unless it is couched in language; and language, if it is to be understood, must have a recognizable frame of reference. A system of speech that will express the Unconditioned by pointing to it cannot be purely intellectualistic. Faith as being ultimately concerned is a centered act of the whole personality. If one of the functions which constitute the totality of the personality is partly or completely identified with faith, the meaning of faith is distorted. An intellectualistic bias makes faith into an act of intellectual, unconditional belief in a set of supposedly revealed, or at least infallible, statements; this distortion forgets that faith is not knowledge, but beyond knowledge. A voluntaristic overemphasis makes faith into a product of the will-to-believe; but no command to believe and no will to believe can create faith. Finite humans cannot produce the certainty which belongs to faith. Finally, there are emotionalistic distortions where faith is a matter of merely subjective emotions, without a content to be known and a demand to be obeyed. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

ImageA safe course avoiding these pitfalls must be charted. The concrete content of faith, the linguistic expression of the Unconditioned, is neither mere knowledge, nor mere will to believe or mere feeling. Connected with all three, it lies deeper than any. Yet only the rational faculties can provide a distinct knowledge of anything. One must then conclude that, although it is intellectual, the process of tacking a name on the Unconditioned cannot aim at a distinct knowledge. All it can do is to devise adequate symbols and myths. The symbols and myths must be related to the elaborate conception of Revelation. No concrete content of faith is human-made in the ordinary sense of the terms. One cannot invent symbols of the infinite; none can be produced intentionally. No poet can purposely set oneself the task of elaborating a new symbolic of the Absolute. Rather, symbols are provided along with human’s perceptions of the Unconditional. Those elements of the concrete Universe that were present to one’s consciousness, or even to one’s unconscious, within the situation where one identified oneself with an unconditional concern, may all become for one adequate symbols of faith. In order to be meaningful to a collective unconscious of the group in which they appear. The peculiar experience in which the ground of being (the Unconditional) is reached any potential symbols of it are provided by revelation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

ImageThe congeries of elements that contribute to this experience form a revelatory situation, a revelatory event, a constellation of revelatory character. A revelatory event, since it is an event, can be studied historically. It is dated and located. Yet there is no new revelation with each new revelatory event: always and everywhere there is only the one revelation, namely the manifestation of the depths of being. What strikes humans as a new revelation actually is a new awakening. Thus understood, revelation is the manifestation of what concerns us ultimately. Negatively, it opens our eyes to the abysmal element in the ground of being; it lays bare the fact that, though we are, we might not have been; this threat of non-being, or shock of non-being, is a necessary element in revelation. Apart from it one cannot reach ultimacy, for ultimacy faces us precisely when every conditioned element of being has been discarded. What remains is then, seen from the dark night, non-being, abyss. However, a revelation that would end there would foster despair, not faith. Faith is sparked wen revelation shows the beneficial sides of the mystery of being: as ground and not only as abyss. The correlation of abyss and ground in revelation nevertheless show how near despair may be to faith. The hell of despair is the strange work that love odes within us in order to open us up for its own work, justification of one who is unjust. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

ImageA revelatory situation always has two side both of which escape the ordinary superficial structure of life. We are now touching the rock bottom of being-itself. We are at the parting of nothingness and being. What then takes place is no longer simply an event; it is a miracle! And what is experiences is no mere experience; it is ecstasy. Ecstasy is the state of mind in which reason is beyond itself, that is, beyond its subject-object structure. The mind then is thrown out of its normal balance, shaken in its structure. Reason reaches its boundary line, is thrown upon itself, and then is driven again to its extreme situation. What is then known is known as the Unconditional; it escapes all the conditions of common human knowledge and experience, since it underlies all of them and gives them the power to be. If inspiration is the same for the cognitive quality of the ecstatic experience, it cannot mediate knowledge of finite objects or relations. It does not add anything to the complex of knowledge which is determined by the subject-object structure of reason. Inspiration opens a new dimension of knowledge, the dimension of understanding in relation to our ultimate concern and to the mystery of being. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

ImageIsrael will be gathered and will enjoy millennial rest—Lucifer was cast out of Heaven for rebellion—Israel will triumph over Babylon (the World)—Compare Isaiah 14. About 559-545 Before Christ. “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them and bring them to their place; yea, from far unto the ends of the Earth; and they shall return to their lands of promise. And the house of Israel shall possess them, and the land of the Lord shall be for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives unto whom they were captives; and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in that day that Lord shall give thee rest, from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. And it shall come to pass in that day, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the kind of Babylon, and say: How hath the oppressor creased, the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers. One who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, one that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole Earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Image“Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and also the cedars of Lebanon, saying: Since thou art laid down no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the Earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kinds of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee: Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave; the noise of thy viols is not heard; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Art thou cut own to the ground, which did weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thy heart: I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the aides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and shall consider thee, and shall say: Is this the man that made the Earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? And made the World as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, and opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, yea, all of them, lie in glory, every one of them in his own house. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Image“However, thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and the remnant of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land and slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquities of the fathers, that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor sill the face of the World with cities. For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts. The Lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposes, so shall I stand—that I will bring the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot; then shall his yoke burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposes upon the whole Earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations. For the Lord of Hosts hath purposes, and who shall disannul? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Image“In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden. Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken; for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety; and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant. Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved; for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in one’s appointed ties. What shall then answer the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it,” 2 Nephi 24.1-32. LORD and Master, Jesus Christ, Co-eternal Word of the Father, made like us in all but sin, for the salvation of our race: enable us to be not only hearers of Thine oracles, but also doers of the word, and to bring forth good fruit, thirty-fold and an hundred-fold, that we may attain the kingdom of Heaven: and speedily may Thy compassion overtake us; for in Thee are our glad tidings, O Saviour and Guardian of our souls and bodies, and to Thee we ascribe all glory. O LORD, in prayer I launch far out into the eternal World, and on that broad ocean my soul triumphs over all evils on the shoes of mortality. Time, with its gay amusements and cruel disappointments, never appears so inconsiderate as then. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

ImageIn prayer I see myself as nothing; I find my heart going after Thee with intensity, and long with vehement thirst to live to Thee. Blessed be the strong gales of the Spirit that speed me on the way to the New Jerusalem. In prayer all things where below vanish, and nothing seems important but holiness of heart and the salvation of others. In prayer all my Worldly cares, fears, anxieties disappear, and are of as little significance as a puff of wind. In prayer my soul inwardly exults with lively thoughts at what thou art doing for Thy church, and I long that Thou shouldest get Thyself a great name from sinners returning to Zion. In prayer I am lifted above the frowns and flatteries of life, and tastes of Heavenly joys; entering into the World I can give myself to Thee with all my heart, to be Thine forever. In prayer I can place all my concerns in Thy hands, to be entirely at Thy disposal, having no will or interests of my own. In prayer I can intercede for my friends, ministers, sinners, the church, Thy kingdom to come, with greatest freedom, ardent hopes, as a son to his father, as a lover to the beloved. Please help me to be all prayer and never to cease praying. “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching,” reports 1 Timothy 4.11. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21Image

 

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

Capture3Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.

ImageLocated off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/home-site-78/

Wonders are Many, and None is More Wonderful than Humanity!

CaptureMost people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. The social self is the image we think other people have of us, and the way we ourselves present to other people because of this view. One problem is that, in order to project this image, we may sometimes feel compelled to do or say things we do not really feel. This can turn into a sort of game that keeps us from really communicating with people. So-called satellite relationships may be formed by either partner, and this often causes great pain as well as enriching growth. Satellite relationships means a close secondary relationship outside the marriage which may or may not involve pleasure of the flesh, but which is valued for itself. It seems much preferable to such terms as “extramarital pleasures of the flesh” or “an affair” or “mistress” or “lover.” When two persons in a partnership learn to look upon each other as separate persons, with separate as well as mutual interests and needs, they are likely to discover that outside relationships are one of those needs. And when that outside relationship involves the possibility of intimacy involving pleasures of the flesh, it poses problems for the primary partners. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageLarke, for example, gives her partner Radley, the freedom to date other women, and knows that the dating can lead to pleasures of the flesh.  Intellectually this has her full approval, but her emotional lag behind this logical stance. She is often jealous and hurt, yet also feels confirmed by the fact that Radley always prefers her, returns to her. I often observe in encounter groups, or groups where couples are involved, the beginning development of such satellite relationships. An emotional, volatile wife who is resentful of her husband’s compulsive dedication to his research forms a new relationship with another man in the group. He is playful, which her husband is not. He is feelingful and expressive of emotions, qualities lacking in her husband. The relationship becomes very close. The woman is very open with both her husband and her new-found love about her excitement and satisfaction in the new alliance, and also the confusion and conflict it generates in her. Her husband had a great many good qualities, and she feels disloyal to him, but–. As for her researcher-husband, who has described himself in the group as being without feelings, he discovers a depth of jealousy and anger in himself that frightens him. He is suffering intensely. He and his wife talk and talk, sometimes bitterly, sometimes caringly, at times really understanding one another, at other times experiencing nothing but anger. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageBecause of all of this was so much in the open, the group and I were a part of the situation. We could not help but observe the sharp swings in mood between husband and wife, the alternating closeness and distancing in the satellite relationship. Different members of the group listened understandingly to all three members f the triangle, especially to the pain and anger and conflict experienced by the wife and her husband. As the group experience came to an end, I wondered whether a person-centered approach would be responsible for breaking up a marriage which, with all its flaws, had lasted for many years. It is a heavy question to ponder. Months later a member of the group told me of a letter she had received from the wife. Their marriage, she said, had never been better. They were talking with each other in ways they had never done before, sharing feelings they would previously have hidden. The marriage had more value, to each of them, than in all its previous years. The dynamics of their marriage has drastically changed. Previously the hard-working, achieving husband cared for and looked after the woman he regarded as overemotional and needing restraint. Meanwhile his wife resented his dedication to his work, felt unfulfilled, regarded herself as definitely his inferior. Now it has come much closer to being a partnership of equals. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageThis is a pattern I have observed on numerous occasions. There is no doubt in my mind that when partnerships are exposed to a person-centered approach satellite relationship become more likely. Individuals—both men and women—discover that it is possible to feel love for more than one person at a time. One or both may experience a second love, outside of their primary relationship. This nearly always leads to jealousy, pain, and fear and loss. Yet that crisis can be lived through with a consequent enrichment of the partnership. The core of the problem is jealousy, and the depth of its roots. Jealousy characterizes the relationship in which one seeks more power than love. Many do not believe that jealousy has any place in open marriage. The frequency of jealousy has made me wonder whether it is simply the result of cultural conditioning, in which case it might disappear in a generation or two, or whether it has some basic biological foundation, like the territoriality that we find in animals, birds, and ourselves. There is evidence in the lives of many couples to indicate that feelings of jealousy can be modified and worked through, though not without feelings of hurt. To the extent that jealousy is made up of a sense of possessiveness, any alteration in that feeling makes a profound difference in the politics of the marriage relationship. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageFeelings of jealousy can also be modified and worked through to the degree that each partner becomes truly a free agent, then the relationship only has permanence if the partners are committed to each other, are in good communication with each other, accept themselves as separate persons, and live together as persons, not roles. This is a new and mature kind of relationship toward which many couples are striving. One woman, speaking out of her own personal experience in her marriage and also a counselor, expresses a point of view full of person-centered wisdom: “I think that there is one essential condition for living through the crises and enriching the relationship. It is the ability to believe that you have the right to experience what you are experiencing, and that you do not need the permission of your partner to do it. At the same time, you care enough for your partner to stay with him while he is having his feelings, and listen to them without feeling overresponsible and letting them control your behaviour. What I see frequently happening is that the partner who is involved in another relationship feels controlled, guilty, and angry when he is not received fully by his mate. That increases the feeling of threat and abandonment in the other, who becomes more clinging. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImagePretty soon they are involved in a terrible vicious cycle that is very hard to break. I think the ideal situation is when one can tell the partner: “I need and I owe it to myself to experience this other relationship now. I am hearing your hurt, your jealousy, your fear, your anger; I do not like to receive them, but they are a consequence of the choice I am making, and I love you enough to want to be available to work through them with you. If I decide not to have this other experience it is because I choose to do so, and not because I let you stop me. In that way I will not feel resentful of you, and I will not punish you for my lack of courage in making my choices and being responsible for the consequences.” This is a mature kind of striving for both independence and richness. In general, the characteristics of an impairment of moral integrity are a decrease in sincerity and an increase in egocentricity. It is interesting to note that this connection that in Zen Buddhist writings sincerity is equated with wholeheartedness, pointing to the very conclusion we reach on the basis of clinical observation—namely, that nobody divided within oneself can be wholly sincere. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageSincerity, that is, not-deceiving, means putting forth one’s whole being, technically known as the whole being in action in which nothing is kept in reserve, nothing is expressed under disguise, nothing goes to waste. When a person lives like this, one is said to be a golden-haired lion; one is a symbol of virility, sincerity, wholeheartedness; one is divinely human. Egocentricity is a moral problem in so far as it entails making others subservient to one’s own needs. Instead of their being regarded and treated as human beings in their own right they come to be merely means to an end. They have to be appeased or liked for the sake of allaying one’s own anxiety; they have to be impressed for the sake of lifting one’s own self-respect; they have to be blamed because one cannot assume responsibility for oneself: they have to be defeated because of one’s own need to triumph, and so on. The particular ways in which these impairments manifest themselves vary with the individual. Most of them have already been dealt with in some other connection and need only be reviewed here in a more systematic fashion. I shall not attempt to be exhaustive. That would be difficult, if for no other reason than that we have not yet discussed sadistic trends and must postpone doing so because they are to be regarded as an end state of neurotic development. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageStarting with the most obvious, whatever course a neurosis takes, unconscious pretenses are always a factor. Outstanding are the following: The pretense of love. The variety of feelings and strivings that can be covered by the term love or that are subjectively felt as such is astonishing. It may cover parasitic expectations on the part of a person who feels too weak or too empty to live one’s own life. In a more aggressive form it may cover a desire to exploit the partner, to gain through one success, prestige, and power. It may express a need to conquer someone and to triumph over one, or to merge with a partner and live through one, perhaps in a sadistic way. It may mean a need to be admired, and so secure affirmation for one’s idealized image. For the very reason that love in our civilization is so rarely a genuine affection, maltreatment and betrayal abound. We are left with the impression, then, that love turns into contempt, hate, or indifference. However, love does not swing around so easily. That fact is that the feelings and strivings prompting pseudo love eventually come to the surface. Needless to say, this pretense operates in the parent-child relationship and in friendship as well as in pleasures of the flesh. The pretense of goodness, unselfishness, sympathy, and the like is akin to the pretense of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageThe pretense of goodness is characteristic of the complaint type and is reinforced by a particular kind of idealized image as well as by the need to blot out all aggressive impulses. The pretense of interest and knowledge is most conspicuous in those who are alienated from their emotions and believe that life can be mastered by intellect alone. They have to pretend that they know everything and are interested in everything. However, it appears also in a more insidious way in persons who seem to be devoted to a particular calling, and without being aware of it use this interest as a steppingstone to success, power, or material advantage. The pretense of honesty and fairness is most frequently found in the aggressive type, especially when one has marked sadistic trends. One sees through the pretenses of love and goodness in others and believes that because one does not subscribe to the common hypocrisies of feigning generosity, patriotism, piety, or whatever, one is particularly honest. Actually one has one’s own hypocrisies of a different order. One’s lack of current prejudices may be a blind and negativistic protest against any traditional values. One’s ability to say no may be not strength but a wish to frustrate others. One’s frankness may be a wish to deride and humiliate. A desire to exploit may be behind the legitimate self-interest to which one confesses. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageThe pretense of suffering must be discussed in greater detail because of the confused views that circulate around it. Analysts who adhere strictly to Dr. Freud’s theories share with the layman the belief that the neurotic wants to feel abused, wants to worry, has a need for punishment. The data supporting the concept that the neurotic wants to suffer are well known. However, the term wants actually covers a variety of intellectual sins. The authors who propound the theory fail to appreciate that the neurotic suffers much more than one knows and that one usually becomes aware of one’s suffering only when one begins to recover. What is even more relevant, they do not seem to understand that suffering from unresolved conflicts is inevitable and entirely independent of one’s persona wishes. If a neurotic lets oneself go to pieces, one certainly does not bring such harm on oneself because one wants it but because inner necessities compel one to do so. If one is self-effacing and offers the other cheek, one—at least unconsciously—hates doing so and despises oneself for it; but one is in such terror of one’s own aggressiveness that one must go to the opposite extreme and let oneself be abused in some way or other. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImageAnother characteristic that has contributed to the notion of a propensity for suffering is the tendency to exaggerate or dramatize any affliction. It is true that suffering may be felt and displayed for ulterior motives. It may be a plea for attention or forgiveness; it may be unconsciously used for purposes of exploitation; it may be an expression of repressed vindictiveness and be employed then as a means to exort sanctions. However, in view of the inner constellation, these are the only ways open to the neurotic to achieve certain ends. It is true also that one often lays one’s suffering to false causes and so gives the impression of wallowing in suffering for no good reason. Thus one may be disconsolate and attribute it to one’s being “guilty,” while in reality one suffers from not being one’s idealized image. Or one may feel lost when separated from a loved one, and though one attributes one’s feeling to one’s deep love, in reality—being torn within oneself—one cannot bear living alone. Finally, one may falsify one’s affects and believe that one suffers when actually one is filled with rage. A woman, for instance, may think she is suffering when her lover has not written at the appointed time, but is really angered because she wants things to happen exactly as she expects them or because she feels humiliated at any seeming lack of attention. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageSuffering, in this case, is unconsciously preferred to recognizing the rage and the neurotic drives responsible for it, and is emphasized because it serves to cover up the duplicity involved in the whole relationship. In none of these instances, however, can it be inferred that the neurotic wants to suffer. What is expressed is an unconscious pretense of suffering. However, the self-actualized has a greater power, and seeks less publicity. It is only if one knows that a mission has to be performed calling for public notice that one is likely to abrogate this rule. Yet, of course, there will be no egoism and no vanity behind the abrogation. Such a prophet is like a bell, calling its hearers to attend the true church within themselves. One’s work is being done within the inner life of hundreds of human beings. One’s altruism is active more often behind the scenes of the World-stage than before its footlights. The masters rarely emerge from their obscurity to positions of influence and prominence but their disciples may and occasionally do. One will be content to plant seed-thoughts, and wait and work patiently, knowing and believing in the inherent power of true ideas to grow in their proper time into mature, fruitful existence. The perfect concentration that reigns within one’s being can have the same effect when deliberately directed upon sensitive and sympathetic minds as the concentration of the burning lens upon dry paper. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageThe devotee can be inspired, exalted, and illumined. Once one has uttered the sacred Word, once one has revealed to humans what they have not been able to know for themselves, one has done one’s work. If it fails to be accepted, if one gains no converts to belief in human’s higher purpose, the blame is not one’s. One cannot give spiritual peace to the spiritually peaceless as a lasting gift, but one can show them that it does exist as a reality and is no mere figment of the imagination. And one makes this demonstration by being just what one is and acting just as one does. The self-actualized starts no cult oneself and founds no church. This is usually done by the disciples who gather together because one would not gather them around. Merely to remember with devotion that such a being is living on Earth is to know, in some mysterious telepathic way, that there is inward sustenance. The last thing one wants to do is to leave a sect behind one. Like Jesus Christ, one wants people to depend on the truth rather than on a person. The words of a person so inspired, so wise, directly act on our minds and evoke our intuition. The self-actualized will help people on one’s own terms, not theirs, and guide them in one’s own way, again not necessarily the expected way. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

ImageCould we but trace some of these higher movements of history, we would have to trace their course back to the secret inspiration of some illuminates who live quietly and serve humankind without advertising the fact. That which the illuminate will give out as doctrine will depend upon the conditions and needs of one’s epoch and place. One will be neither too active nor ultramodernistic. In classical Christianity, faith implies the assumption of humans into redemption by Christ, one’s purification from the stain of original sin contracted in the First Man. Faith remains saving; it saves from estrangement by revealing that estrangement is, after all, not estranging. This estrangment is “sin,” incurred by the very fact that we are created. The correlation of faith and sin remains; the classical language may be used, but voided of its substances. There is no faith without a concrete content, corresponding to the objective knowledge of Revelation in classical theology, but the traditional terms have been given a radical reinterpretation. The formulas in which faith conveys its concrete content are only symbolic attempts to identify the Unconditioned. The real purpose of faith is to grasp the power of being, conquering non-being, to experience our ultimate concern, this purpose expresses itself in symbols and myths which point to the depth of reason and its mystery. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

ImageObjective statements of faith, whether made inside or outside the Christian tradition, are symbols and myths, pointers to the ultimate ground of being, to the absolute meaning of reality. Religion, whether pagan or Christian, is a system of symbolic statements and symbolic rites trying to express an experience of the Unconditioned. Religion is also the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. As such it is a universal phenomenon lying at the root of atheism, agnosticism, and the loftiest mysticism: faith tends to become the stuff of all life. The case is the same, in this context, with religion: In some cases the religious root is carefully covered, in others it is passionately denied; in some it is deeply hidden and in others superficially. However, it is never completely absent. For everything that is participates in being-itself, and everybody has some awareness of this participation, especially in the moments which one experiences the threat of non-being. The religious situation of our age is implicitly surfacing in science, metaphysics, art, politics, ethics, unchurched mysticism, and eschatological movements. The religious situation is there identified with an unconscious, self-evident faith which lies at a deeper level than the apparent antithesis of belief and unbelief. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

ImageImages increase the danger of inadequate ideas. They have the power to obsess and to hypnotize, as well as to escape critical scrutiny. The image one has of oneself, for example, can override everything else and cause one to act in ways contrary to all reality and good sense. Those who have been rejected or abused as children or have lived with addicted or “cold” parents, have distorted images of themselves and of “reality.” These are constantly present to their minds and force them into the disastrous “lifescape” of thought where they then must live. In groups, shared images lead to fads, group-think, and mob hysteria that, once again, has no regard to fact or reasonableness. Individuals who suffer from a poor image of themselves are caught up in self-rejection and have no defenses against group pressures. They do not see themselves as the objects of God’s love, and they have no place to make a stand. Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often some from the way they are part of a much larger temptation of self-rejection. We have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions to our desolate condition. We accept it as a fact that we deserve to be pushed aside and rejected. We see ourselves that way. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

ImageSelf-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the scared voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. However, this profound truth will have little or no effect without powerful images of ourselves as God’s beloved. Self-rejection is, ultimately, our soul’s reproach to God’s, deriving from false images of oneself and one’s World. To manipulate images—and thereby people—is the work of the propagandist and the advertiser. Unfortunately, is often done in the name of Christ to achieve some desired result. By contrast, to loosen the grip of fallen imagery and its underlying idea structure is a fundamental part of what mental healthy professionals must do to assist their patients. It is also essential to the Christian ministries of inner healing and evangelism. In the millennial day all people will praise the Lord—He will dwell among them—Compare Isaiah 12. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And in that day thou shalt say: O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Image“And in that day shall ye say: Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things; this is known in all the Earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee,” reports 2 Nephi 22.1-6. O Benignant King of ages and Master of all creation, relieve Thy Church approaching Thee through Christ; fulfil for each of us what is good for him; bring us all to perfection, and make us meet for the grace of Thy sanctification, uniting us together in Thy Holy Church, which Thou hast purchased with the precious Blood of Thine Only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; with Whom, and with Thine All-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, Thou art blessed and glorified forever. Lord Jesus, please grant me the favour of being led by Thee, under the directions of Thy providence and Thy word. Grant me Thy blessings with bitter things, to brighten and quicken me, not to depress and make me lifeless; please grant me, like Gideon of old, way-tokens, by removing things that discourage me; grant me succour beneath the shadow of Thy sympathy when I am tempted. Accept my unceasing thanks that I am not cast off from Thy hand as a darkened star or a rudderless vessel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageSuffer not my life to extend beyond my usefulness; cast me not under the feet of pride, injustice, riches, Worldly greatness, selfish oppression of humans; please help me to wait patiently, silently upon Thee, not to be enraged or speak unadvisedly. Let Thy mercy follow me while I life, and give me assistance to resign myself to Thy will. Take my heart and hold it in Thy hand; write upon it reverence to Thyself with an inscription that time and eternity cannot erase. To Thy grace and the care of Thy covenant I commit myself, in sickness, and in health, for Thou hast overcome the World, fulfilled the law, finished justifying righteousness, swallowed up death in victory, and taken all power everywhere. Make this covenant with thine own blood in the court of forgiving mercy; attach unto in Thy name in which I believe, for it is sealed by my unworthy mortal hand. The self-actualized announces one’s revelation to one’s contemporaries in the mode that is one’s and theirs. Ina scientific age one will present facts and reason logically. Great Adepts are content to make history rather than figure in it, although their figures have glowed brightly in history like shooting stars and then disappeared. One’s success in communicating truth will depend, on one’s audience’s side, both on the degree of understanding it possesses and feelings it envinces toward one. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

 

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 Your new #PlumasRanch backyard will be your favorite spot to relax and unwind after a long day. 👌

ImageWe have multiple lots ready for move-in at Plumas Ranch! Check out our website to explore the #Riverside#Meadows, and #Bluffs communities. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-bluffs-at-plumas-ranch/

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Business Underlies Everything in Our National Life, Including Our Spiritual Life!

ImageSome humans are more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children. To be conscious that you are unaware of the true facts is a great step toward knowledge. What The Real Advantages Are Which American Society Derives From The Government of The Democracy: The political institutions of the Untied States of America appear to me to be one of the forms of government which a democracy may adopt: but I do not regard the American constitution as the best, or as the only one which a democratic people may establish. In showing the advantages which the Americans derive from the government of democracy, I am therefore very far from meaning, or from believing, that similar advantages can be obtained only from the same laws. General Tendency of The Laws Under The Rule of The American Democracy, And Habits of Those Who Apply Them: Defects of a democratic Government easy to be discovered.—Its Advantages only to be discerned by long Observation.—Democracy in America often inexpert, but general Tendency of the Laws advantageous.—In the American Democracy public Officers have no permanent interest distinct from those of the Majority.—Result of this State of things. The defects and the weaknesses of a democratic government may very readily be discovered; they are demonstrated by the most flagrant instances, while it is beneficial influence is less perceptibly exercised. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

ImageA single glance suffices to detect the defects and weaknesses of a democratic government and its evil consequences, but its good qualities can only be discerned by long observation The laws of the American democracy are frequently defective or incomplete; they sometimes attack vested rights, or give a sanction to others which are dangerous to the community; but even if they were good, the frequent changes which they undergo would be an evil. How comes it, then, that the American republics prosper, and maintain their position? In the consideration of laws, a distinction must be carefully observed between the end at which they aim, and the means by which they are directed to that end; between their absolute and their relative excellence. If it be the intention of the legislator to favour the interests of the minority at the expense of the majority, and if the measure one takes are s combined as to accomplish the object one has in view with the least possible expense of time and exertion, the law may be well drawn up, although its purpose be bad; and the more efficacious it is, the greater is the mischief which it causes. Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from a majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their own advantage. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

ImageThe worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. The laws of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the minority, because an aristocracy, by its very nature, constitutes a minority. It may therefore be asserted, as a general proposition, that the purpose of a democracy, in the conduct of its legislation, is useful to a greater number of citizens than that of an aristocracy. This is, however, the sum total of its advantages. Aristocracies are infinitely more expert in the science of legislation than democracies ever can be. They are possessed of a self-control which protects them from the errors of a temporary excitement; and they form lasting designs which they mature with the assistance of favourable opportunities. Aristocratic government proceeds with the dexterity of art; it understands how to make the collective force of all its laws converge at the same time to a given point. Such is not the case with democracies, whose laws are almost always infective or in inopportune. The means of democracy are therefore more imperfect than those of aristocracy, and the measures which it unwittingly adopts are frequently opposed to its own cause; but the object it has in view is more useful. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

ImageLet us now imagine a community so organized by nature, or by its constitution, that it can support the transitory action of bad laws, and that it can await, without destruction, the general tendency of the legislation: we shall then be able to conceive that a democratic government, notwithstanding its defects, will be most fitted to conduce to the prosperity of this community. This is precisely what has occurred in the United States of America; and I repeat, what I have before remarked, that the great Advantage of the Americans consist in their being able to commit faults which they may afterward repair. An analogous observation may be made respecting public officers. It is easy to perceive that the American democracy frequently errs in the choice of the individuals to whom it intrusts  the power of the administration; but it is more difficult to say why the sate prospers under their rule. In the first place it is to be remarked, that if in a democratic state the governors have less honesty and less capacity then elsewhere, the governed on the other hand are more enlightened and more attentive to their interests. As the people in the democracies is more incessantly vigilant in its affairs, and more jealous of its right, it prevents its representative from abandoning that general line of conduct which its own interest prescribes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

ImageIn the second place, it must be remembered that if the democratic magistrate is more apt to misuse one’s power, one possesses it for a shorter period of time. However, there is yet another reason which is still more general and conclusive. It is no doubt of importance to the welfare of nations that they should be governed by people of talents and virtue; but it is perhaps still more important than the interests of those humans should not differ from the interests of the community at large; for if such were the case, virtues of a high order might become useless, and talents might be turned to a bad account. I say that it is important that the interests of the persons in authority should not conflict with or oppose the interests of the community at large; but I do not insist upon their having the same interests as the whole population, because I am not aware that such a state of things ever existed in any country. No political form has hitherto been discovered, which is equally favourable to the prosperity and the development of all the classes into which society is divided. These classes continue to form, as it were, a certain number of distinct nations in the same nation; and experience has shown that it is no less dangerous to place the fate of these classes exclusively in the hands of any one of them, than it is to make one people the arbiter of the destiny of another. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

ImageWhen the rich alone govern, the interests of the less affluent is always endangered; and when the less affluent makes the laws, that of the rich incurs very serious risks. The advantage of democracy des not consist, therefore, as has sometimes been asserted, in favouring the prosperity of all, but simply in contributing to the well-being of the greatest possible number. The humans who are intrusted with the direction of public affairs in the Untied States of America, are frequently inferior, both in point of capacity and of morality, to those whom aristocratic institutions would rise to power. However, their interests are identified and confounded with that of the majority of their fellow-citizens. They may frequently be faithless, and frequently mistake; but they will never systematically adopt a line of conduct oppose to the will of the majority; and it is impossible that they should give a dangerous or an exclusive tendency to the government. The mal-administration of a democratic magistrate is a mere isolated fact, which only occurs during the short period for which one is elected. Corruption and incapacity do not act as common interests, which may connect humans permanently with one another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

ImageA corrupt or an incapable magistrate will not concert one’s measures with another magistrate, simply because that individual is as corrupt and as incapable as oneself; and these two humans will never unite their endeavours to promote the corruption and inaptitude of their remote posterity. The ambition and the maneuvers of the one will serve, on the contrary, to unmask the other. The vices of a magistrate, in democratic states, are usually peculiar to one’s own person. However, under aristocratic governments public humans are swayed by the interest of their order, which, if it is sometimes confounded with the interests of the majority, is very frequently distinct from them. This interest is the common and lasting bond which unites them together; it induces them to coalesce, and to combine their efforts in order to attain an end which does not always ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and it serves not only to connect the persons in authority, but to unite them to a considerable portion of the community, as well as by the government of which one is a member. The common purpose which connects the interest of the magistrates in the aristocracies, with that of a portion of their contemporaries, identifies it with that of future generations; their influence belongs to the future as much as to the present. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

ImageThe aristocratic magistrate is urged at the same time toward the same point, by the passions of the community, by one’s own, and I may almost add, by those of one’s posterity. Is it, then, wonderful that one does not resist such repeated impulses? And, indeed, aristocracies are often carried away by the spirit of their order without being corrupted by it; and they unconsciously fashion society to their own ends, and prepare it for their own descendants. The English aristocracy is perhaps the most liberal which ever existed, and no body of humans has ever, uninterruptedly, furnished so many honourable and enlightened individuals to the government of a country. It cannot, however, escape observation, that in the legislation of England the good of the poor has been sacrificed to the advantage of the rich, and the rights of the majority to the privileges of the few. The consequence is, that England, at the present day, combines the extremes of fortune in the bosom of her society; and her hands perils and calamities are almost equal to her power and her renown. In the United States of America, where the public officer have no interests to promote connected with their caste, the general and constant influence of the government is beneficial, although the individuals who conduct it are frequently unskillful and sometimes contemptible. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

ImageThere is, indeed, a secret tendency in democratic institutions to render the exertions of the citizens subservient to the prosperity of the community, notwithstanding their private vices and mistakes; while in aristocratic institutions there is a secret propensity, which, notwithstanding the talents and the virtue of those who conduct the government, leads them to contribute to the evils which oppress their fellow-creatures. In aristocratic governments public humans may frequently do injuries which they do not intend; and in democratic states they produce advantages which they never thought of. Ethical norms are given by God. Moral commandments are expressions of a divine will, which is sovereign and without criteria. It cannot be measured in terms of adequacy to human nature. It must be obeyed as it is given through revelation. However, the question then is: Why should anyone obey the commandments of this divine lawgiver? How are they distinguished from the commands given by a human tyrant? He is stronger than I am. He can destroy me. However, is not that destruction more to be feared which would follow the submission of one’s personality center to a strange will? Would not this be just the denial of the moral imperative? #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

ImageThe other way of the theological foundation of the moral imperative is the theonomous one. It avoids the destructiveness of the heteronomous way. However, just for this reason it become ontological. It assets (in agreement with the predominant trend of classical theology) that the law given by God is human’s essential nature, put against one as law. If humans were not estranged from oneself, if one’s essential nature were not distorted in one’s actual existence, no law would stand against one. The law is not strange to humans. It is natural law. It represents one’s true nature from which one is estranged. Every valid ethical commandment is an expression of human’s essential relation to oneself, to others and to the Universe. This alone makes it obligatory and its denial self-destructive. This alone accounts for the unconditional form of the moral imperative, however questionable and conditioned the contents may be. The theonomous solution leads inescapably to ontological problems. If God is not seen as a strange an arbitrary lawgiver, if His authority is not heteronomous but theonomous, ontological presuppositions are accepted. Theonomous ethics include ontology. And they also verify the ontological foundations on which they rest. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

ImageThe ontological statements about the nature of love, power, and justice are verified if they are about to solve the otherwise insoluble problems of the ethics of love, power, and justice. To show that his is the case we must consider the ethical functions of love, power, and justice in the spheres of personal relations, of social institutions and of the holy. In the first sphere, justice is leading, in the second sphere, power, and in the third sphere, love. However, all three principles are effective in each sphere. And the sphere of the holy is a quality in the other spheres, and only in some respects a sphere of its own. So we shall speak first of justice, love, and power in human relations, then of power, justice, and love in social institutions, then of love, power, and justice in relation to the holy. Our treatment of the Fall is superior to many others in trying to meet the philosophers half way. It duly recognizes that philosophical intuition opens insights into sin. It happily borrows from psychology its description of a state before the Fall as dreaming innocence, distinguished from awakeness and from experience. However, the dreaming innocence is not anterior to a subsequent event which would give the acquired knowledge of good and evil. It is the psychological background of all human acts. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

ImageHuman actions mark a passage from the dreaming innocence of one who has not been subjected to the conditions of human existence to the wide-awake experience of humans in existence. In other words, the state before the Fall corresponds, in mythological language, to what philosopher call essence. The choice between good and evil corresponds to existence itself. This leap from essence to existence ins universal fact, but is not a fact distinct from creation. Every human being, by the very fact that one is created, is in existence. As such one is in a state of wide-awake experience; one has the experiential knowledge of good and evil as soon as one is able to act humanly. Original sin is not original in the sense that the first man sinned and that from this we derived the fact that we are born sinners. The notion of a moment in time in which humans and nature were changed from good to evil is absurd, and it has no foundation in experience or revelation. There is a danger of this identification of sin and creation; critics has voiced the justified fear that sin may become a rational necessity. The Fall of man is the transition from uncreated essence, or non-being, to created existence, or being. This happens to every human. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

ImageEvery person is caught in the following tragedy: no exercise of one’s faculties is possible without the experience of estrangement from one’s essence in God, that is, without sin. Now, the trouble with this is that it certain is not the meaning of Revelation. That a theologian should argue against the Fall as a primordial catastrophe of the human race on the basis that it has no foundation in experience is disconcerting, for no supporter of this classical Christian belief has ever claimed that we have experience t. It would be as absurd to base the Fall of the First Man on present-day experience as it would be childish to deny that Fall arguing from the absence of a direct experience of it by humankind today. The original Fall has no foundation in revelation. It is significant that the account is exclusively based on Genesis and on the story of Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Yet it is recognized by exegetes that if Genesis tells a story of the first sin, it does not speak of transmission of that sin. The Old Testament had no notion of original sin as taught by Christianity. It has no notion of the sin of Adam and that of his descendants, imitating their forefathers, have also sinned, but it never suspected that there could be a causal link between Adam’s sin and man’s being born in sin. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

ImageOn the contrary, rabbinical tradition taught, and still teaches the humans are born without sin. It is not on Genesis, but on St. Paul, that the Christian view is founded. “As the fault of one has brought condemnation of all humans, so the righteousness of one brings on all a lifegiving righteousness,” reports Romans 5.18. St. Paul knows the Fall in the light of the Redemption. They are two correlative events. The historicity of Redemption stands facing the historicity of the Fall. One who would deny the latter would by implication negate the former. These words are not obscure: that several are justified through the obedience of Christ, as they have been constituted sinners through the disobedience of Adam; and accordingly, that just as Adam, enfolding us in his ruin, has caused our perdition, likewise Christ brings us back to salvation through his grace. I do not think that a longer proof is needed in such a clear light of truth. Whereas the contents of the personal unconscious are acquired during the individual’s lifetime, the contents of the collective unconscious are invariably archetypes that were present from the beginning. Their relation to the instincts has been discussed elsewhere. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

ImageThe archetypes most clearly characterized from the empirical point of view are those which have the most frequent and the most disturbing influence on the ego. These are the shadow, and the anima, the animus. The most accessible of these, and the easiest to experience, is the shadow, for its nature can in large measure be inferred from the contents of the personal unconscious. The only exceptions to this rule are those rather rare cases where the absolute qualities of the personality are repressed, and the ego in consequence plays an essentially negative or unfavourable role. The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involved recognizing the dark aspects of the personality are present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapeutic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period. Closer examination of the morbid characteristics—that is, the inferiorities constituting the shadow—reveals that they have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an obsessive or, better, possessive quality. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

ImageEmotion, incidentally, is not an activity of the individual but something that happens to one. Affects occur usually where adaption is weakest, and at the same time they reveal the reason for its weakness, namely a certain degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one behaves more or less like a primitive, who is not only the passive victim of one’s effects but also singularly incapable of moral judgment. Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one’s own personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person. No matter how obvious it may be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections, there is little hope that the subject will perceive this oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

ImageOne must be convinced that one throws a very long shadow before one is willing to withdraw one’s emotionally-toned projections from the objects. Let us suppose that a certain individual shows no inclination whatever to recognize one’s projections. The projection-making factor then has a free hand and can realize its object—if it has one—or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power. As we know, it is not the conscious subject but the unconscious which does the projecting. Hence one meets with projections, one does not make them. The effect of projection is to isolate the subject from one’s environment, since instead of a real relation to it there is now only an illusory one. Projections change the World into the replica of one’s own unknown face. In the last analysis, one dreams a World whose reality remains forever unattainable. The resultant sentiment d’incompletude and still worse feeling of sterility are in their turn explained by projection as the malevolence of the environment, and by means of this vicious circle the isolation intensified. The more projections are thrust in between the subject and the environment, the harder it is for the ego to see through its illusion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

ImageA forty-five-year-old patient who had suffered from a compulsion neurosis since he was twenty and had become completely cut off from the World said to me: “But I can never admit to myself that I have wasted the best twenty-five years of my life.” We can all blame Adam for or problems or recognize that Jesus is or Redeemer. It is often tragic to see how blatantly a person bungles one’s own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in oneself, and now one continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course—for consciously one is engaged in bewailing ad cursing a faithless World that recedes further and further into the distance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil one’s World. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop one. One might assume that projections like these, which are so very difficult if not impossible to dissolve, like being caught in Satan’s web of sins, would belong to the realm of the shadow—that is, to the negative side of the personality. This assumption becomes untenable after a certain point, because the symbols that then appear no longer refer to the same but to the opposite gender, in a man’s case to a woman and vice versa. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

ImageThe source of projections is no longer the shadow—which is always of the same gender as the subject—but a contrasexual figure. Here we met the animus of a woman and the anmia of a man, two corresponding archetypes whose autonomy and unconsciousness explain the stubbornness of their projections. Though the shadow is a motif as well known to mythology as anima and animus, it represents first and foremost the personal unconscious, and its content can therefore be made conscious without too much difficulty. In this it differs from anima and animus, for whereas the shadow can be seen through and recognized fairly easily, the anima and animus are much further away from consciousness and in normal circumstances are seldom if ever realized. With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow—so far as its nature is personal. However, when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for humans to recognize the relative evil of their nature, but it is a rare and shattered experience for one to gaze into the face of absolute evil. The stem of Jesse (Christ) will judge in righteousness—the knowledge of God will cover the Earth in the Millennium—the Lord will raise an ensign and gather Israel—Compare Isaiah 11. About 559-545 before Christ. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

Image“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon  him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall makes him quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. However, with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reigns. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

Image“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the Earth. The envy of Ephraim also shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim also shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. However, they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind he shall shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make humans go over dry shod. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt,” reports 2 Nephi 21.1-16. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

ImageLord God, of might inconceivable, of glory incomprehensible, of mercy immeasurable, of benignity ineffable; do Thou, O Master, look down upon us in Thy tender love, and show forth, towards us and those who pray with us, Thy rich mercies and compassions. O God, Thou art very great, my lot is to approach Thee with Godly fear and humble confidence, for Thy condescension equals Thy grandeur, and Thy goodness is Thy glory. I am unworthy, but Thou dost welcome; guilty, but Thou art merciful; indigent, but Thy riches are unsearchable. Thou hast sown boundless compassion towards me by not sparing Thy Son, and by giving me freely all things in him; this is the foundation of my hope, the refuge of my safety, the new and living way to Thee, the means of that conviction of sin, brokenness of heart, and self-despair, which will endear to me the gospel. Happy are they who are Christ’s, in Him at peace with Thee, justified from all things, delivered from coming wrath, made heirs of future glory; give me such deadness to the World, such love to the Saviour, such attachment to his house, such devotedness to his service, as proves me a subject of his salvation. My every part of my character and conduct make a serious and amiable impression on others, and impel them to ask the way to the master. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Image Let to no incident of life, pleasing or painful, injure the prosperity of my soul, but rather increase it. Please send me Thy help, for thine appointments are not meant to make me independent of Thee, and the best means will be vain without super-added blessings. The self-actualized may tell of truth, as one knows it, by refraining from speech and entering the Stillness. However, if one’s interlocutors have not been preciously prepared to understand what lies behind one’s silence, they may not benefit by it. Serving humanity in one’s secret way, drawing benediction for all from this divine source, it would seem to be an unrequited activity; but one is included as recipient and beneficiary. Some come to illuminate, not to instruct. Some who have attained true wisdom make no special attempt to communicate it through speech or writing, or to express it in action. Does this mean the World never benefits from them, as it benefits by the existence and work of even the humblest primary school teacher? It does not. For their contribution, though quite noiseless, is not at all valueless. It is to let the silent influence of their presence among us touch those who can receive it, even though they do so unwittingly. Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love one’s neighbour on an empty stomach. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23Image

HOME SITE 78

4-5 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 3,501 square feet – $589,854

ImageGorgeous 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! 

ImageThere 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://youtu.be/TikCeN8MlLA

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https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/