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Give Me a Laundry-List and I Will Set it to Music!

Chemistry is applied theology. In order to actualize our potentialities, in order to become fully human and completely ourselves, we must not merely think; we must also permit ourselves to be thoughts. Both the historical record of creative thought and the laboratory report of its appearance today, indicate clearly that creative intelligence can spring from the mind that is not strained to its highest pitch, but is utterly ease. Our is a civilization in which vast numbers of children and adults are so chronically bored that they have to resort during their leisure hours to a regimen of non-stop distractions. Any method which promises to make life seem enjoyable and the commonplaces of everyday experience more interesting should be welcomed as a major contribution to culture and morality. It is most certainly very difficult, perhaps quite impossible, to serve two gods simultaneously—to pursue the most sordid interests while aspiring to realize the highest ideals. This is obvious. Only a little less obvious, however, is the fact that it is very hard, perhaps quite impossible, to serve God wile failing to make the best of both Worlds—of all the World of which, as human beings, we are the inhabitants. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Rightness as fairness is to be understood as a replacement for existing conceptions There is no necessity to say that sameness of meaning holds between the word “right” (and its relatives) in its ordinary use and the more elaborate locutions needed to express this ideal contractarian concept of right. If the theory of justice as fairness, or more generally of rightness as fairness, fits our considered judgments in reflective equilibrium, and if it enables us to say all that on due examination we want to say, then it provides a way of eliminating customary phrases in favour of other expressions. So understood one may think of justice as fairness and rightness as fairness as providing a definition or explication of the concepts of justice and right. we are not to gain from the cooperative labours of others without doing our fair share. The two principles of justice guarantees the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of the good. These two principles of justice define what is a fair share in the case of institutions belonging to the basic structure. So if these arrangements are just, each person receives a fair share wen all (one’s self included) do their part. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

Further, the content of obligation is always defined by an institution or practice the rules of which specify what it is that one is required to do. And, obligations are normally owed to definite individuals, namely, those who are cooperating together to maintain the arrangement in question. As an example illustrating these features, consider the political act of running for and (if successful) holding public office in a constitutional regime. This act gives rise to the obligation to fulfill the duties of office, and these duties not as moral duties but as takes of responsibilities assigned to certain institutional positions. It is nevertheless the case that one may have a moral reason (one based on a moral principle) for discharging these duties, as when one is bound to do so by the principle of fairness. Also, one assumes public office is obligated to one’s fellow citizens whose trust and confidence one has sough and with whom one is cooperating and running a democratic society. Similarly, we assume obligations when we marry as well as when we accept positions of judicial, administrative, or others authority. We acquire obligations by promising and by tacit understandings, and even when we join a game, namely, the obligation to play by the rules and to be a good sport. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

All of these obligations are, I believe, covered by the principle of fairness. There are two important cases though that are somewhat problematical, namely, political obligation as it applies to the average citizens, rather than, say, to those who hold office, and the obligation to keep promises. In the first case it is not clear what is the requisite binding action or who has performed it. There is, I believe, no political obligation, strictly speaking, for citizens generally. Psychologically, humans are highly educated products of the twenty-first century civilization, chained, in a state of uneasy and hostile symbiosis, to a disturbingly dynamic unconscious, a wild phantasy and an unpredictable id—and yet capable of falling in love, writing string quartets, and having mystical experiences. They feel pride. They are proud to be members of a community where there is so much caring and concern for others, a caring that is broader and more sensitive than one individual is capable of. However, at times people are so frustrated with life because they work so hard and are tired and do not realize that they are burnt out and need a vacation that it can make them wonder if coming to the community is worth it. However, the other reaction they have is much stronger. People watch with awe the birth pangs of something new in the World. And their earlier state of mind returns. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

If humanity can live together without destroying one another, can live together with a caring concern for the full development of each person, can live together in the richness of diversity instead of the sterility of conformity, then we may have found a truth with many, many implications. Some people themselves are painfully confused, uncertain where they stand or who they really are. To provide themselves with a recognizable identity, a niche in the scheme of things that they can call “home,” they will give assent to the unlikeliest dogmas, conform to the most absurd and even harmful rules of thought, feeling, and conduct, put on the most extravagant fancy dress and identify themselves with masks that bear almost no resemblance to the faces they cover. The inhabitants of all these personal ideologies must somehow learn to make the best of the community in an ability to discover anything that is approximately true and Earthshaking as revolutionary power. And I believe we are making some such discovery. So there is hope that some of the overwhelming World issues may be touched, in ways we cannot even dream of now, by what we are doing. However, a good education may be defined as one which helps the boys and girls subjected to it make the best of all the Worlds in which, as human beings, they are compelled, willy-nilly, to live. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

An education that prepares them to make the best of only one of their Worlds, or of only a few of them, is inadequate. Mens sana in corpore sano (a Latin phrase, which means “a healthy mind in a healthy body”) is an ancient educational ideal and a very good one. Unfortunately, good ideals are never enough. Unless they are accompanied by full instructions regarding the methods by which they maybe realized, they are almost useless. Hell is paved with good intentions, and whole periods of history have been made hideous or grotesque by enthusiastic idealists who failed to elaborate the means whereby their lofty aspirations might be effectively, and above all harmlessly, implemented. Just how good is modern education? How successful is it in helping young people to make the best of all the Worlds which they all have to live in? At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in other schools where similar problems have arisen, the answer to this question has found expression in a renewed interest in the humanities. Excessive scientific specialization is tempered by courses in philosophy, history, literature, and social studies. All this is excellent so far as it does. However, does it go far enough? #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
Do courses in the humanities provide a sufficient antidote for excessive scientific and technical specialization? Do they, in the terminology we have been using, help youth to make the best of a substantially greater number of their Worlds? Our natural duties are to help one another when one is in need or jeopardy, provided that ne can do so without excessive risk or loss to oneself; the duty not to harm or injure another; and the duty not to cause unnecessary suffering. The first duty is a positive duty, the duty of mutual assistance. We have a duty to do something good for one another. Whereas the last two duties are negative in that they require us not to do something that is bad. The distinction between positive and negative duties is intuitively clear in many cases, but often gives way. Now in contrast with obligations, it is characteristic of natural duties that they apply to us without regard to our voluntary acts. Moreover, they have no necessary connection with institutions or social practices; their content is not, in general, defined by the rules of these arrangements. Thus we have a natural duty not to be cruel, and a duty to help another, whether or not we have committed ourselves to these actions. It is no defense or excuse to say that we have made no promise not to be cruel or vindictive, or to come to another’s assistance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

Indeed, a promise not to kill, for example, is normally ludicrously redundant, and the suggestion that it establishes a moral requirement where none already exited is mistaken. Such a promise is in order, if it ever is so, only when for special reasons one has the right to kill, perhaps in a situation arising in a just war. Another further feature of natural duties is that they hold between persons irrespective of their institutional relationships; they obtain between all as equal moral persons. In this sense the natural duties are owed not only to definite individuals, say to those cooperating together in a particular social arrangement, but to persons generally. This feature in particular suggests the propriety of the adjective “natural.” One aim of the law of nations is to assure the recognition of these duties in the conduct of states. This is especially important in constraining the means used in war, assuming that, in certain circumstances anyway, wars of self-defense are justified. From the standpoint of justice as fairness, a fundamental natural duty is the duty of justice. This duty requires us to support and to comply with just institutions that exist and apply to us. It also constrains us to further just arrangements not yet established, at least when this can be done without too much cost to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

Thus is the basic structure of society is just, or as just as it is reasonable to expect in the circumstances, everyone has a natural duty to do one’s part in the existing scheme. Each is bound to these institutions independent of one’s voluntary acts, performative or otherwise. Thus even though the principles of natural duty are derived from a contractarian point of view, they do not presuppose an act of consent, express or tacit, or indeed any voluntary act, in order to apply. The principles that hold for individuals, just as the principles for institutions, are those that would be acknowledged in the original position. These principles are understood as the outcome of a hypothetical agreement. If their formulation shows that no binding action, consensual or otherwise, is a presupposition of their application, then they apply unconditionally. The reason why obligations depend upon voluntary acts is given by the second part of the principle of fairness which states this condition. It has nothing to do with the contractual nature of justice as fairness. In fact, once the full set of principles, a complete conception of right, is on hand, we can simply forget about the conception of original position and apply these principles as we would any others. There is nothing inconsistent, or even surprising, in the fact that justice as fairness allows unconditional principles. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

It suffices to show that the parties in the original position would agree to principles defining the natural duties which as formulated hold to principles defining the natural duties which as formulated hold unconditionally. The same principle of fairness may establish a bond to existing just arrangements, the obligations covered by it can support a tie already present that derives from the natural duty of justice. Thus a person may have both a natural duty and an obligation to comply with an institution and to do one’s part. The thing to observe here is that there are several ways in which one may be bound to political institutions. For the most part the natural duty of justice is the more fundamental, since it binds citizens generally and requires no voluntary acts in order to apply. The principle of fairness, on the other hand, binds only those who assume public office, say, or those who, being better situated, have advanced their aims within the system. There is, then, another sense of noblesse oblige: namely, that those who are more privileged are likely to acquire obligations trying them even more strongly to a just scheme. I shall say very little about the other kind or principles for individuals. For while permissions are not an unimportant class of actions, I must limit the discussion to the theory of social justice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
It may be observed, though, that once all the principles defining requirements are chosen, no further acknowledgments are necessary to define permissions. This is so because permissions are those acts which we are at liberty both to do and not to do. They are acts which violate no obligation or natural duty. In studying permissions one wishes to single out those that they significant from a moral point of view and to explain their relation to duties and obligations. Many such actions are morally indifferent or trivial. However, among the permissions is the interesting class of supererogatory actions. These are acts of benevolence and mercy, of heroism and self-sacrifice. It is good to do these actions but it is not one’s duty or obligation. Supererogatory acts are not required, though normally they would be were it not for the loss or risk involved for the agent oneself. A person who does a supererogatory act does not invoke the exemption which the natural duties allow. For while we have a natural duty to bring about a great good, say, if we can do so relatively easily, we are released from this duty when the cost to ourselves is considerable. Supererogatory acts arise questions of first importance for ethical theory. For example, it seems offhand that the classical utilitarian view cannot account for them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

It would appear that we are bound to perform actions which bring about a greater good for others whatever the cost to ourselves provided that thus sum of advantages altogether exceeds that of other acts open to us. There is nothing corresponding to the exemptions included in the formulation of the natural duties. Thus some of the actions which justice as fairness counts as supererogatory may be required by the utility principle. I shall not, however, pursue this matter further. Supererogatory acts are mentioned here for the sake of completeness. Children should be taught that words are indispensable but also can be fatal—the only begetters of all civilization, all science, all consistency of high purpose, all angelic goodness, and the only begetters are the same time of all superstition, all collective madness and stupidity, all worse-then-bestial diabolism, all the dismal historical succession of crimes in the name of God, King, Queen, Nation, Party, Doctrines, Beliefs. Never before, thanks to the techniques of mass communication, have so many listeners been so completely at the mercy of so few speakers. Never have misused words—those hideously efficient tools of all the tyrants, war-mongers, persecutors, and heresy-hunters—been so widely and so disastrously influential as they are today. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

Generals, clergymen, advertisers, and the rulers of totalitarian states—all have good reasons for disliking the idea of universal education in the rational use of language. To the military, clerical, propagandist, and authoritarian mind such training seems (and rightly seems) profoundly subversive. To those who think that liberty is a good thing, and who hope that it may some day become possible for more people to realize more of their desirable potentialities in a society fit for free, fully human individuals to live in, a thorough education in the nature of language, in its uses and abuses, seems indispensable. Whether in fact the mounting pressures of overpopulation and overorganization in a World still enthusiastically dedicated to nationalistic idolatry will permit this kind of subversive linguistic education to be adopted by even more democratic nations remains to be seen. Make the body capable of doing many things, this will help you to perfect the mind and come to the intellectual love of God. Education is desirable and indeed, if the child is to grow into a fully human being, absolutely necessary. The detailed curriculum for an education in what maybe called the nonverbal humanities has still to be worked out. Humanities is a process that should be started in the kindergarten and continued through all the years of school and college—and thereafter, as self-education, throughout the rest of life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

Education is to life in general—an indispensable condition for any kind of improvement. School children need to learn a kind of internal awareness that can lead to a creative conscious control. All our mental processes depend upon perception. Inadequate perceiving results in poor thinking, inappropriate feeling, diminished interest in and enjoyment of life. Systematic training of perception should be an essential element in all education. Awareness has to be assigned to each special significance and value for the human being who aspires to make the bet of both Worlds and so, by teaching one’s psychophysical organism to do many things to perfect the mind and come to the intellectual love of God. It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing humans, more for the sake and evident purpose of talking to one and teaching one, than in any of her other works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There is not a moment in any day of our lives in which nature is no producing (in the sky) scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working always upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us and intended for our perpetual pleasure. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

We never attend to the sky, we never make it a subject of thought. We look upon it….only as a succession of monotonous and meaningless accident, too common or too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness of a glance of admiration. Who, among the chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow Sunbeam that came out f the south and smote their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? All has passed unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, if even for an instant, it is only by what is gross or what is extraordinary. A habit of wise passiveness in relation to the everyday drama of the clouds and mist and Sunshine can become a source of endless pleasures. However, most of the products of our educational system prefer Westerns and alcohol. In the United States of America, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are constitutionally guaranteed. However, if life hardly seems worth living, if liberty is used for subhuman purposes, if the pursuers of happiness know nothing about the nature of their quarry or the elementary techniques of hunting, these constitutional rights will not be very meaningful. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

An education in that wise passiveness recommended by the saints and the poets, by all who have lived fully and worked creatively, might help us to transform the papers promises of a democratic constitution into concrete contemporary fact. The mentally ill are the victims of their phantasy, and even more or less normal people find themselves tempted into folly, or inhibited from behaving as they know they ought to behave, by what goes on in the superreal but unrealistic World of their imagination. How can we make the best of this odd, alien, almost autonomous Universe that we carry about with us inside our skulls? Truth lives, proverbially, at the bottom of a well, and wells are often muddy. No genuinely scientific investigator has any right to be squeamish about anything. Made the worst of, our imagination will destroy us; made the best of, it can be used to break up long-established habits of undesirable feeling, to dissipate obsessive fears, to provide symbolic outlets for anger and fictional amends for real frustrations. In the course of the last three thousand years how many sermons have been preached, how many homilies delivered and commands roared out, how many promises of Heaven and threats of hell-fire solemnly pronounced, how many good-conduct prizes awarded and how many immature buttocks lacerated with whips and canes? #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
And what has been the result of all this incalculable sum of moralistic words, and of the rewards and savage punishments by which the verbiage has been accompanied? The result has been history—the successive generations of human beings comporting themselves virtuously and rationally enough for the race to survive, but badly enough and madly enough for it to be unceasingly in trouble. Can we do better in the future than we are doing today, or than our fathers did in the past? Can we develop methods more effective than pious talks and Pavlovian conditioning? Moral equivalents must be found not only for war but also for delinquency, family squabbles, bullying, puritanical censoriousness, and all the assorted beastliness of daily life. Hope is anticipation of good not yet here, or as yet “unseen.” It is of course inseparable from joy. Sometimes the good in question is just deliverance from evil, which is here. Then “we are saved by hope,” (Romans 8.24), and “we rejoice in hope,” (Romans 12.12), because “if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it,” (Romans 8.25). That eager anticipation strengthens us to stay faithful to God and to stay on the path of what is right. One of the remarkable changes brought by Jesus and his people into the ancient World concerned the elevation of hope into a primary virtue. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

Hope was not well regarded by the Greco-Roman World. It was thought of as a desperation measure. And whole, according to the myth of Pandora’s box, it may be all we have left with which to endure the agonies of life, it must be grimly held in check or it will give rise to vain expectations that only cause more misery. Christ, by contrast, brings solid hope for humanity. Clearly, then, hope also is closely related to faith. Faith is confidence grounded in reality, not a wild, desperate “leap.” It is, as Hebrews 11.1 says, substance, and evidence, or poof, not—as contemporary translations usually have it—subjective psychological states such as “being such of” or “having a conviction of.” Rather, faith sees the reality of the unseen or invisible, and it includes a readiness to act as if the good anticipated in hope were already in hand because of the reality of God (compare 2 Corinthians 4.17-18). One that believes dare trust God for the morrow, and is not more solicitous for the next year than one is for that which is past. No one worries about what was going to happen last year. Accordingly, Moses “left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king,” reports Hebrews 11.27. Egypt and its king were in the realm of “the seen.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

Moses was able to disregard them to stick with his goal because he saw the One who is invisible but none the less real for that. For one endured, as seeing Him who is unseen” (Hebrews 11.27). That is faith as the Bible portrays it. “And now it came to pass in the seventy and second year of the reign of the judges that the contentions did increase, insomuch that there were wars throughout all the land among all the people of Nephi. And it was this secret band of robbers who did carry on this work of destruction and wickedness. And this war did last all that year; and in the seventy and third years it did also last. And it came to pass that in this years Nephi did cry unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, do not suffer that this people shall be destroyed by the sword; but O Lord, rather let there be a famine in the land, to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord their God, and perhaps they will repent and turn unto tee. And so it was done, according to the words of Nephi. And there was a great famine upon the land, among all the people of Nephi. And thus in the seventy and fourth year the famine did continue, and the work of destruction did cease by the sword but became sore by famine. And this work of destruction did also continue in the seventy and fifth year. For the Earth was smitten that it was dry, and did not yield forth grain in the season of grain. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

“And the whole Earth was smitten, even among the Nephites, so that they were smitten that they did perish by thousands in the more wicked parts of the land. And it came to pass that the people saw that they were about to perish by famine, and they began to remember the Lord their God; and they began to remember the words of Nephi. And the people began to plead with their chief judges and their leaders, that they would say unto Nephi: Behold, we know that thou art a man of God, and therefore cry unto the Lord our God that he turned away from us this famine, lest all the words which thou hast spoken concerning our destruction be fulfilled. And it came to pass that the judges did say unto Nephi, according to the words which had been desired. And it came to pass that the people had repented and did humble themselves in sackcloth, he cried: again unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, behold this people repenteth; and they have swept away the band of Gadiantion from amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct, and they have concealed their secret plans in the Earth. Now, O Lord, because of this their humility wilt thou turn away thine anger, and let thine anger be appeased in the destruction of those wicked humans whom thou hast already destroyed. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, yea, thy fierce anger, and cause that this famine may cease in this land. O Lord, wilt thou hearken unto me, and cause that it may be done according to my words, and send forth rain upon the face of the Earth, that she may bring forth her fruit, and her grain in the season of grain. O Lord, thou didst hearken unto my words when I said, Let there be a famine, that the pestilence of the sword might cease; and I know that thou wilt, even at this time, hearken unto my words, for thou sadist that: If this people repent I will spare them. Yea, O Lord, and thou seest that they have repented, because of the famine and the pestilence and destruction which has come unto them. And now, O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said. And it came to pass that in the seventy and sixth year the Lord did turn away his anger from the people, and caused that rain should fall upon the Earth, insomuch that it did bring forth her fruit in the season of her fruit. And it came to pass that it did bring forth her grain in the season of her grain. And behold, the people did rejoice and glorify God, and the whole face of the land was filled with rejoicing; and they did no more seek to destroy Nephi, but they did esteem him as a great prophet, and a man of God, having great power and authority given unto him from God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

“And behold, Lehi, his brother, was not a whit behind him as to things pertaining to righteousness. And thus it did come to pass that the people of Nephi began to prosper again in the land, and began to build up their waste places, and began to multiply and spread, even until they did cover the whole face of the land, both on the northward and on the southward, from the sea west to the sea east. And it came to pass that the seventy and sixth year did end in peace. And the seventy and seventh year began in peace; and the church did spread throughout the face of all the land; and the more part of the people, both the Nephites and the Lamanites, did belong to the church; and they did have exceedingly great peace in the land; and this ended the seventy and seventh year. And also they had peace in the seventy and eighty years, save it were a few contentions concerning the points of doctrine which had been laid down by the prophets. And in the seventy and ninth year there began to be much strife. However, it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi, and many of the brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine, having many revelations daily, therefore they did preach unto the people, insomuch that they did put an end to their strife in that same year. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

“And it came to pass that in the eightieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, there were a certain number of the people of Nephi, there were a certain number of the dissenters from the people of Nephi, who had some years before gone over unto the Lamanites, and taken upon themselves the name of Lamanites, and also a certain number who were real descendants of the Lamanites, being stirred up to anger by them, or by those dissenters, therefore they commenced a war with their brethren. And they did commit murder and plunder; and then they would retreat back into the mountains, and into the wilderness and secret places, hiding themselves that they could not be discovered, receiving daily an addition to their numbers, inasmuch as there were dissenters that went forth unto them. And thus in time, yea, even in the space of not many years, they became an exceedingly great band of robbers; and they did search out all the secret plans of Gadianton; and thus they became robbers of Gadianton. Now behold, these robbers did make great havoc, yea, even great destruction among the people of the Lamanites. And it came to pass that it was expedient that there should be a stop put to this work of destruction; therefore they sent an army of strong humans into the wilderness and upon the mountains to search out this band of robbers, and to destroy them. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“However, behold, it came to pass that in that same year they were driven back even into their own lands. And thus ended the eightieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And it came to pas in the commencement of the eighty and first year they did go forth again against this band of robbers, and did destroy many; and they were also visited with much destruction. And they were again obliged to return out of the wilderness and out of the mountains unto their own lands, because of the exceeding greatness of the numbers of those robbers who infested the mountains and the wilderness. And it came to pass that thus ended this year. And the robbers did still increase and wax strong, insomuch that they did defy the whole armies of the Nephites, and also of the Lamanites; and they did cause great fear to come unto the people upon all the face of land. Yea, for they did visit many parts of the land, and did do great destruction unto them; yea, did kill many, and did carry away others captive into the wilderness, yea, and more especially their women and their children. Now this great evil, which came unto the people because of their iniquity, did stir them up again in remembrance of the Lord their God. And thus ended the eighty and first year of the reign of the judges. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“And in the eighty and second year they began again to forget the Lord their God. And in the eighty and third year they began to wax strong in iniquity. And in the eighty and fourth year they did not mend their ways. And it came to pass in the eighty and fifth year they did wax stronger and stronger in their pride, and in their wickedness; and thus they were ripening again for destruction. And thus ended the eighty and fifth year,” reports Helaman 11.1-38. I am praying to God of Heaven, may the Earth be blessed with a sweet smell and bring Him to mind, to give Him the best of what I have, as is only His proper share. Our God and God of our fathers, accept our rest. Sanctify us through Thy commandments, and grant our portion in Thy Torah. Please give us abundantly of Thy goodness and make us rejoice in Thy salvation. Purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth. In Thy loving favour, O Lord our God, grant that Thy holy Sabbath be our joyous heritage, and may Israel who sanctifies Thy name, rest thereon. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest the Sabbath. Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during the days of your life and during the life f all the house of Israel, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
“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
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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You Left Me a Heavenly Sweet Legacy of Love–Meet Me on Top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day
I have really hope you have found happiness, and if ever in need of something, like someone to love you, do not hesitate to call me. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears, but our intellect…must itself lack all those things which of its nature it understands. Since then it naturally understands all sensible and bodily things, it must be lacking in every bodily nature; just as the sense of sight, being able to know colour, lacks all colour. If sight itself had any particular colour, this colour would prevent it from seeing others colours, just as the tongue of a feverish person, being coated with bitter moisture, cannot taste anything sweet. The true genius shudders at incompleteness—imperfection—and usually prefers silence to saying the something which not everything should be said. Maybe there is something divine in the bliss we feel. Love aims at transcending human existence, at connecting it with the eternal and infinite, and thereby at achieving the only aspect of immortality that is open to us as human beings. Because many people want both height and depth, spirituality strengthens and develops love and transforms it into a desire for a higher level of understanding of the self, others, and the Universe. When our eyes fall upon the beauty of the Earth, our soul is able to remember true love and reverences as it enjoys the expression of the divine—of temperance, justice, and knowledge of the absolute. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The human being is a spiritual being at the core. We are the soul and have an existence beyond the physical. Our personality has, in fact, many sub-personalities or different, often conflicting, aspects. Some of these aspects can be very troublesome and sabotage our efforts at success and happiness. Magically, if we can observe some aspect of ourselves with detachment, then we can change that aspect or somewhat control it. The idea of aspects of personality and observing them is now part of our daily language (largely do the work of Psychosynthesis). We regularly hear people say, “There is a part of me that wants marry Walter, but the other part of me is says Sam Baldwin is my destiny.” Psychosynthesis work sets up a dialogue with the different aspects of self to try to find a way of balance and integration of these, often, conflicting, parts. People tend to be dominated by love, will, and intelligent activity. Love deals with matters of the heart, compassion, emotion, and sensitivity. The will is one’s drive, need to achieve, power to remove and overcome come obstacles. Intelligent activity is the capacity to actively plan, organize, construct mental schemes and models of things. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Psychosynthesis tries to identify the basic type and then attempt to bring in balance if necessary. For example, the love type may need to develop the will to be less vulnerable and more effective. The will type may need to develop emotional sensibility so as to learn to love and be loved. In the 1993 film, Sleepless in Seattle is a classic fairy tale which involves a love struck, beautiful, enchanted princess Anne Reed, and sleepless, pragmatic, handsome prince Sam Baldwin. After the death of his wife, Sam moved to Seattle with his son and is convinced he will never find love again, and he just focuses on his work in architecture and never sleeps. His son, Jonah calls a talk-radio program hosted by a psychiatrist and Johan tells the World how concerned he is about his dad, and then the father gets on the phone and talks about what love means to him. The World falls madly in love with him, and many women want to meet him, but he is not interested. Anne Reed hears the call, and although she is already engaged, she feels he is her destiny. Anne bases he love life on the 1957 film An Affair to Remember. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Psychosynthesis would have helped Anne balance her need for love, and would have helped Sam develop a less will driven and emotional aspect of his personality, which is a form of conscious balance and choice. It lets people know where they are lacking balance in their lives, and as you see it is not always a chemical imbalance, but a lack of development or personal understanding. However, fate brings the lovers together in hopes they can balance each other out. There are usually three levels of satisfaction: Happiness, joy, and bliss. Happiness is the goal for most people’s lives it is the arrangement of life events to bring about the desired end. Problem, it can be fleeting and may not last for long. Joy is the constant states of soul, and is the surest sign of the presence of the soul. Bliss is the condition of the spirit beyond all material limitations. The intellect here serves as a bridge. Because of the refinement of the matter composing it, the intellect is well adapted as a medium of consciousness—it is like a translucent substance through which the soul can shine. However, it is only in conjunction with a soul that the intellect and the whole psychophysical organism can have experiences. The soul can gain release through discriminatory knowledge (viveka), that is, by realizing the essential distinction between itself and nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
Contemplative techniques induce a stilling and purification of the mind in which the essential nature of the soul is reflected clearly. Thereby the soul learns to recognize the repression of the sublime, which tend to lead to unhappy and neurotic states that are the result of failure to understand and admit the spiritual aspects in ourselves and others. We cannot base on life on films like Sleepless in Seattle because taking such a risk could turn out to be more like Sleeping with the Enemy. Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 film in which a character called Laura Burney lives in a beautiful home by the beach on Cape Cod with her husband, Martin, a charming, handsome and wealthy investment counselor. In reality, Martin is not charming at all. He is volatile and charged with energy. Martin is extremely obsessive and has control issues. Martin is also physically and emotionally abusive toward his wife, Laura, throughout their marriage. He makes her keep the house crystal clean, makes her pretend to be happy, tells her what she is allowed to wear, selects the music she can listen to, and even controls her social activities. Therefore, we need to teach our kids that life is not all about finding love, but more about finding a career that allows one to support oneself and becoming aware of the external World, since mental and physical entities evolve on a parallel and mutually adapted lines; thus, it opens the way to a correspondence theory of perception. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
According to the theory of perception, external happenings imprint themselves via the sense and the sensus communis, or mind organ (manas), on the intellect. These images are then illuminated by the soul. The mind is, so to say, a screen containing pictures of the outer World, and the soul lights these up. However, the soul itself cannot be illuminated and this perceived introspectively; therefore, its existence is known only by inference (or by a special state of consciousness). This is why religion and talk therapy have become some popular. Doctors realize a lot of people do not have chemical imbalances, but they are experiencing situations and conditions that they are not equipped to handle and need guidance of someone who can help them recognize there is nothing wrong with them, but they may be in a situation that is not conductive to their development. By medicating people who do not have chemical imbalances, we could be doing more damage than good because we are using a drug to control them and forcing them to adapt to situations, which may be unsafe. Conversely, some people do need medication because there is something wrong with their brain. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
While we are on the subject of mental health, there was this interesting study about a mental who was schizophrenic, he was a witness to a crime, and was arrested. He mother did not want him on medication because she believed it was dangerous for him. He was being assaulted in jail because he was not normal. The investigators forced him to take a shot of an antipsychotic that would last a month so he could clear his head up enough to see lucid and testify. After taking the medication, he hanged himself because he suffered from depression, as his friends, the voices in his head were gone, and he was lonely. Therefore, not everyone needs therapy and not everyone needs medication. As a society, we just have to understand there are different types of people and not everyone is typical and we cannot force them to adhere to our standards. Of course, we can never understand what life is like for some people, who have mental or physical impairments, or who have been sheltered and do not understand the World, because we have never been in their shoes. So, it is not our job to sit back and judge people who have learned to adapt as best to life as they can. Sometimes people are living unimaginable lives. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you,” reports Matthew 7.1-2. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
A layperson’s most natural way of defending belief in induction is that it has worked in the past. Concealed in this reply, of course, is the assumption that what has already worked will continue to do so. However, there is a lack of clarity about what counts as success in using the rule. Our society has much neglected the need for the development of the capacity for expression of love and beauty. Love is a basic soul quality. When unfolded, it enables the person to love and accept the people they encounter and find the good in all people. We have to identify our infinity of living Worlds in endless pace with the infinity of God. Knowledge therefore must begin not with sense experience but with a rational search for units of divine life. The atoms of the physical World are carried in the ether, which is the universal medium of the divine life and power. The conquest of the self, in which the intellect achieves mastery over the passions of humans and drives out the beast is were all the traditional virtues of moderation and self-control have place, and at this level we appear to have the choice between good and evil. However, when we use this freedom as reason dictates, we become aware that we are simply following the urge of our nature toward union with the divine; and the rational person burns with the heroic fury of an intellectual love of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
The mind senses the presence of God in the whole of his creation. Beauty is everywhere. We live in the beauty, but in reality everything is beautiful. We place immense trust in the analogical power of reason as a means of empathy with the universal of life of things. In mathematical reasoning, we possess the standard for God’s own knowledge, and whatever we can prove mathematically we know as surely and as perfectly as God does. Thus in the genuinely scientific investigation of nature we possess a revelation equal in authority, though not in importance, to the revelation concerning human’s moral duties and destiny that is contained in the Holy Scripture. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person who built his or her house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. However, everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish person who built his or her house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with great crash,” reports Matthew 7.24- 27. That is why God wants us to apply his ways in our lives now. What we can take with us for all eternity is our love and concern with one another. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9















































Cans. Beer cans. Glinting on the verges of a million miles of roadways, lying in scrub, grass, dirt, leaves, sand, mud, but never hidden. Piel’s, Rheingold, Ballantine, Schaefer, Schlitz, shinning in the Sun, or picked by Moon or the beam of headlights at night; washed by rain or flattened by wheels, but never dulled, never buried, never destroyed. Here is the mark of savages, the testament of wasters, the stain of prosperity. These wise souls contemplated their past lives in a long wrathless reverie, and sought to answer prayers from below as I have said. They watched over their kindred, their clansmen, their own nations; they watched over those who attracted their attention with accomplished and spectacular displays of religiosity; they watched with sadness the suffering of humans and wished they could help and tried to help by thought when they could. However, who are these beings who defile the grassy borders of our roads and lanes, who pollute our ponds, who spoil the purity of our ocean beaches with the empty vessels of their thirst? Who are the beings who make these vessels in millions and then say, “Drink—and discard”? What society is this that can afford to cast away a million tons of metal and to make of wild and fruitful land a garbage heap? #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
Love or the lack of it is at the root of everything. Guard your children. Weigh wisdom of intervention if such is even possible. Ponder the question of inevitability. To cease wishing is a contemporary emotional and spiritual wasteland, almost like inhabiting the land of the dead. Another characteristic is satiety; if wishes are thought of only as pushed toward gratification, the end consisting of the satisfying of the need, the reality is that emptiness and vacuity and futility are greatest where all wishes are met. For this means one stops wishing. Without faith we cannot want anymore, we cannot wish. The truth of faith consists in true symbols concerning the ultimate. And the faithful is one human being with the power of thought and the need for conceptual understanding. There is a dimension of meaning expressed in the symbolism of the whish, this is what gives the wish its specifically human quality, and without this meaning, the emotional and spiritual aspects of wanting become dried up. When we have faith, it is a symbol that peace and prosperity are just around the corner and it is only a matter of time until all our need will be met. However, the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful. The difference is obvious and fundamental. However, it is, as the phrase “in principle” indicates, a difference which is not maintained in the actual life of philosophy and of faith. It cannot be maintained, because the philosopher is a human being with an ultimate concern, hidden or open. And the faithful one is a human being with the power of thought and the need for conceptual understanding. This is not only a biological fact. It has consequences for the life of philosophy in the philosopher and or the life of faith in the faithful. An analysis of philosophical systems, essays or fragments of all kinds shows that the direction in which the philosopher asks the question and the preference one gives to special types of answers is determined by cognitive consideration and by a state of ultimate concern. The historically most significant philosophies show not only the greatest power of thought but the most passionate concern about the meaning of the ultimate whose manifestations they describe. The philosophy, in its genuine meaning, is carried on by people in whom passions of an ultimate concern is united with a clear and detached observation of the way ultimate reality manifests itself in the process of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
At most general faith means much the same as trust. Therefore, we are being asked to have faith as knowledge of specific truths revealed by God. Faith is a practical commitment beyond the evidence to one’s belief that God exists. We are to have a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It is this element of ultimate concern behind the philosophical ideas which supplies the truth of faith in them. Our vision of the Universe and our predicament within it unites faith and conceptual work. We may hold that in our sinful state we will inevitably offer a resistance to faith that may be overcome only by God’s grace. It is, however, a further step for individuals of faith to put their revealed knowledge into practice by trusting their lives to God and seeking to obey his will. Humans contain the potentialities of these creative principles, and can choose to make their lives an ascent towards and then a union with the intuitive intelligence. The One is not a being, but infinite being. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
Thus Christian and Jewish philosophers who held to a creator God could affirm such a conception that God is infinite, and created the World. God, as the creator of all, is not far from any one of us. Philosophy is not only the mother’s womb out of which science and history have come, it is also an ever-present element in actual scientific and historical work. The frame of reference within which the great physicists have seen and are seeing the Universe of their inquiries is philosophical, even if their actual inquiries verify it. In no case is it a result of their discoveries. It is always a vision of the totality of being which consciously or unconsciously determines the frame of their thought. Because this is so one justified in saying that even in the scientific view of reality an element of faith is effective. Scientific view of reality an element of faith is effective. Scientists rightly try to prevent these elements of faith and philosophical truth from interfering with their actual research. This is possible to a great extent; but even the most protected experiment is not absolutely pure—pure in the sense of the exclusion of interfering factors such as the observer, and as the interest which determines the kind of question asked of nature in an experiment. What we said about the philosopher must also be said about the scientist. Even in one’s scientific work one is a human being, grasped by an ultimate concern, and one asks the question of the Universe as such, the philosophical question. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
Intellectual inquiry into the faith is to be understood as faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum). To believe is to thin with assent (credere est assensione cogitare). It is an act of the intellect determined not by the reason, but by the will. Faith involves a commitment to believe in a God, to believe God, and to believe in God. What is eternal is unchanging. In the same way the historian is consciously or unconsciously a philosopher. It is quite obvious that every task of the historian beyond finding of the facts is dependent on evaluation of historical factors, especially the nature of mortals, one’s freedom, one’s determination, one’s development out of nature and so forth. It is less obvious but also true that even in the fact of finding historical facts philosophical presuppositions are involved. This is especially true in deciding, out of the infinite number of happenings in every infinitely small moment of time, which facts shall be called historically relevant facts. The historian is further forced to give one’s evaluation of sources and their reliability, a task which is not independent of one’s interpretation of human nature. Finally, in the moment in which a historical work gives implicit or explicit assertions about the meaning of historical events for human existence, the philosophical presuppositions of history are evident. Where there is philosophy there is an expression of an ultimate concern; there is an element of faith, however hidden it may be by the passions of the historian for pure facts. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
God does not possess anything superadded to his essence, and his essence includes all his perfections. No one can attain to truth unless one philosophizes in the light of faith. Our faith in eternal salvation shows that we have theological truths that exceed human reason. And if one could attain truths about religious claims without faith, these truths would be incomplete. Higher truths are attained through faith. All these consideration show that, in spite of their essential difference, there is an actual union of philosophical truth and the truth of faith in every philosophy and that this union is significant for the work of the scientist and the historian. This union has been called philosophical faith. The term is misleading, because it seems to confuse the two elements, philosophical truth and the truth of faith. Furthermore, the term seems to indicate that there is one philosophical faith, a philosophia perennis, as it has been termed. However, only philosophical questions are perennial, not the answers. There is a continuous process of interpretation of philosophical elements and elements of faith, not one philosophical faith. Revealed theology is a single speculative science concerned with knowledge of God. Because of its greater certitude and higher dignity of subject matter, it is nobler than any other science. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
Philosophical theology, though, can make demonstrations using the articles of faith as its principles. Moreover, it can apologetically refute objections raised against the faith even if no articles of faith are presupposed. There is truth of faith in philosophical truth. And there is philosophical truth in the truth of faith. In order to see the latter point we must confront the conceptual expression of philosophical truth with the symbolical expression of truth of faith. Now, one can say that most philosophical concepts have mythological ancestors and that most mythological symbols have conceptual elements which can and must be developed as soon as the philosophical consciousness has appeared. In the idea of God the concepts of being, life, spirit, unity and diversity are implied. In the symbol of the creation concepts of finitude, anxiety, freedom and time are implied. The symbol of the “fall of Adam” implies a concept of mortal’s essential nature, of one’s conflict with oneself, of one’s estrangement from oneself. Only because every religious symbol has conceptual potentialities is theo-logy possible. There is a philosophy implied in every symbol of faith. However, faith does not determine the movement of the philosophical thought, just as philosophy does not determine the character of one’s ultimate concern. Symbols of faith can open the eyes of the philosopher to qualities of the Universe which otherwise would not have been recognized. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Faith is the starting point, scripture offers the data, and philosophy is a supplement not a competitor. Faith, philosophy, and scripture help make sense of each other. However, faith does not command a definite philosophy, although churches and theological movements have claimed and used Platonic, Aristotelian, Kantian or Humean philosophies. The philosophical implications of the symbols of faith can be developed in many ways, but the truth of faith and the truth of philosophy have no authority over each other. In the past few years, a number of persons in psychiatry and related fields have been pondering and exploring the problems of wishing and willing. We may assume that this confluence of concern must be in answer to a strong need in out time for a new light on these problems. It is not wishing that cases illness but lack of wishing. The problem is to deepen people’s capacity to wish, and one side of our task in therapy is to create the ability to wish. Wish is an optimistic picturing in imagination. It is a transitive verb—to wish involves an act. Wishing is similar to faith because it allows us to see beyond our experience and knowledge and hope that something good may happen, and so we send out more beneficial vibrations into the Universe. Every genuine wish is a creative act. I find support for this in therapy: it is indeed a beneficial step when the patient can feel and state strongly, for example, “I wish to buy a beautiful Cresleigh home and feel safe and secure in my community.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
That wish, in effect, moves the conflict from a submerged, unarticulated plane in which one takes no responsibility but expects God and parent to read his or her wishes by telepathy, to an overt, healthy conflict over what one wants. On the basis of theological myth of creation God exults when mortals come through with a wish of one’s own. The wish in interpersonal relationship requires mutuality. This is a truth shown in its breach in many myths, and brings the person to one’s doom. Peer Gynt in Ibsen’s play runs around the World wishing and acting on his wishes; the only trouble is that is wishes have noting to do with the other person he meets but are entirely egocentric, encased in cask of self, sealed up with a bung of self. In The Sleeping Beauty, by the same token, the young princes who assault the briars in order to rescue and awaken the slumbering girl before the time is ripe, are exemplars of behavior which tries to force the other in love and pleasures of flesh before the other is ready; they exhibit a wishing without mutuality. The young princes are devoted to their own desires and needs without relation to Thou. If wish and will can be seen and experienced in this light of autonomous, imaginative acts of interpersonal mutuality, there is profound truth in St. Augustine’s dictum, “Love and do what you will.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
We cannot be naïve about human nature. We know full well that this wishing is stated in ideal terms. We know that the trouble is precisely that mortals do wish and will against their neighbor, that imagination is not only the source of our capacity to form the creative mutual wish but it is also bounded by the individual’s own limits, convictions, and experience; and, thus, there is always in our wishing an element of doing violence to the others as well as to ourselves, no matter how well analyzed we may be or how much the recipient of grace or how many times we have experienced satori. This is called the willful element, willful here being the insistence of one’s own wish against the reality of the situation. Willfulness is the kind of will motivated by defiance, in which the wish is more against something than for its object. The defiant, willful is correlated with fantasy rather than with imagination, and is the spirit which negates reality, whether it be a person or an aspect of impersonal nature, rather than sees it, forms it, respect it, or takes joy in it. There are two realms of will, the first consisting of an experience of the self in its totality, a relatively spontaneous movement in a certain direction. In this kind of willing, the body moves as a whole, and the experience is characterized by a relaxation and by an imaginative, open quality. This is an experience of freedom which is anterior to all talk about political or psychological freedom; it is a freedom, presupposed by the determinist and anterior to all the discussions of determinism. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
In contrast, the will of the second realm is that in which some obtrusive element enters is that in which some obtrusive element enters, some necessity for a decision of an either/or character, a decision with an element of an against something alone with a for something. If one uses the Freudian terminology, the “will of the Super-Ego” would be included in their realm. We can will to read but not to understand, we can will knowledge but not wisdom, we can will scrupulosity but not mortality. This is illustrated in creative work. In the second realm of will is the conscious, effortful, critical application to creative endeavor, in preparing a speech for meeting or revising one’s manuscript, for example. However, when actually giving the speech, or when hopefully creative inspiration takes over in our writing, we are engrossed with a degree of forgetfulness of self. In this experience, wishing and willing become one. One characteristic of the creative experience is that it makes for a temporary union by transcending the conflict. The temptation is for the second ream to take over the first; we lose our spontaneity, our free flow of activity, and will become effortful, controlled and so forth, Victorian will power. Our error, then, is that will tries to take over the work of imagination. This is very close to a wish. Will is the capacity to organize oneself so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take place. Wish is the imaginative playing with the possibility of some act or state occurring. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
Will and wish may be seen as operating in polarity. Will requires self-consciousness; wish does not. Will implies some possibility of either/or choice; wish does not. Wish gives the warmth, the content, the imagination, the innocence’s play, the freshness, and the richness of the will. Will gives the self-direction, the maturity, to wish. Will protect wish, permits it to continue without wish, will loses its life-blood, its viability, and tends to expire in self-contradiction. If you have only will and no wish, you have the dried-up, Victorian, neopuritan mortal. If you have only wish and no will, you have the driven, unfree, infantile person who, as an adult-remaining-an-infant, may become the robot mortal. Awareness of one’s feelings lays the groundwork for knowing what one want. This point may look very simple at first glance—who does not know what one wants? However, the amazing thing is how few people actually do. If one looks honestly into oneself, does one not find that most of what one thinks one wants is just routines like fresh fish on Friday; or what one wants is what one thinks one should want—like being a success in his or her work; or wants to want—like loving one’s neighbor? One can often see clearly the expression of direct and honest wants in children before they have been taught to falsify their desires. The child exclaims, “I like ice cream, I want a cone,” and there is no confusion about who wants what. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Such directness of desire often comes like a breath of fresh air in a murky land. It may not be best that one has the cone at the time, and it is obviously the parents’ responsibility to say Yes or No if the child is not mature enough to decide. However, let the parents not teach the child to falsify one’s emotions by trying to persuade him or her that he or she does not want the cone! To be aware of one’s feelings and desires does not at all imply expressing them indiscriminately wherever one happens to be. Judgment and decision are part of any mature consciousness of self. However, how is one going to have a basis for judging wat one will or will not do unless one first knows what one wants? For an adolescent to be aware that one wants to drive a brand-new BMW 3 Series, does not mean that one acts on this impulse. However, suppose he never lets his impulses reach the threshold of awareness because they are not socially acceptable? How is he then to know years later, when he buys a care, whether he wants to drive it or not, or whether because thus is then the acceptable and expected act, the routine thing to do? People who voice with alarm the caution that unless desires and emotions are suppressed they will pop out every which way, and everyone, will experience neurotic emotions. As a matter of fact, we know that it is precisely the emotions and desires which have been repressed which later return to drive the person compulsively. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
The Victorian gyroscope kind of person had to control his or her emotions rigidly, for, by virtue of having locked them up in jail, one had turned them into lawbreakers. However, the more integrated a person is, the loses compulsive become one’s emotions. In the mature person feelings and wants occur in a configuration. In seeing a dinner as part of a drama on the stage, to give a simple example, one is not consumed with desires for food; one came to see a drama and not to eat. Or wen listening to a concert singer, one is not consumed with pleasures of the flesh even though she may be very attractive; the configuration is set by the fact that one chose in coming to hear music. Of course, as we have indicted, none of us escape conflicts from time to time. However, these are different from being compulsively driven by emotions. Every direct and immediate experience of feeling and wanting is spontaneous and unique. That is to say, the wanting and feeling are uniquely part of that particular situation at the particular time and place. Spontaneity means to be able to respond directly to the total picture—or, as it is technically called, to respond to the figure-ground configuration. Spontaneity is the active “I” becoming part of the figure ground. In a good portrait painting the background is always an integral part of the portrait; so an act of a mature human being is an integral part of the self in relation to the World around it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Spontaneity, thus, is very different from effervescence or egocentricity, or letting out one’s feelings regardless of the environment. Spontaneity, rather is the acting “I” responding to a particular environment at a given moment. The originality and uniqueness which is always part of spontaneous feeling can be understood in this light. For just as there never was exactly that situation before and never will be again, so the feeling one has at that time is new and never to be exactly repeated. It is only neurotic behavior which is rigidly repetitive. God’s great plan of happiness provide a perfect balance between eternal justice and the mercy we can obtain through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It also enables us to be transformed into new creatures in Christ. A loving God reaches out to each of us. We know that through his love and because of his Atonement of his only begotten Son, all humankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances. Eternal relationships are also fundamental to our theology. The family is ordained of God. Under the great plan of our loving Creator, the mission is to achieve the supernal blessing of exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Finally, God’s love is so great that, except for the few who become people of perdition, God has provided a destiny of glory for all his children, including those who have passed away. Our loving Heavenly Father wants us to have joy. “Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested,” reports Kate Atkinson. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15





