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Sometimes One Can Mistake Gratitude for Love—Dogs are Hardly an Article of Faith
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
It is Me Against the World–You Have Been Sentenced to a Life of Pain and Suffering!
We must learn to get our own broadcasting station in order. We must tune our own receiving sets. It may take time and effort, but the goal we seek is worth the journey, and the prize that is offered is worthy of our effort. Heaven is lost only because we lack the idea of harmony; it was destined from the foundation of the World that right should finally win and that love should concur all. We all are spiritual and mental broadcasting stations. There is a silent force flowing from us in every direction at all times. How necessary it is that we assume the role of announcer and the broadcaster. How necessary that we write our own program and deliver it ourselves. It is a law, a vibration which reproduces the word of God, the intonation, the inflections are broadcasted. As we pursue the building of this sure foundation, I am fearful that some of us may have lost sight of our divine responsibility to nurture each other in this process. We cannot force love and respect and admiration. We cannot force faith and testimony of truth. Even though we cannot force those things that matter most, there are ways we can help one another. That is, we can prepare hearts to obtain a deep and abiding testimony that God is the Savior of the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
If things have soul, then they can also suffer and become neurotic: such is the nature of the soul. Care of the soul therefore entails looking out for things, noticing where and how they are suffering, seeing their neuroses, and nursing them back to health. We do not usually concern ourselves with the state of things and tolerate much more ugliness and neglect in the things of our society than we should endure. We do not seem to realize how much our own pain reflect the ailments of our things. There is no separation between out soul and the World soul. If the World is neurotic, we will share in that disorder. If we are depressed, it may be because we are living or working in a depressed building. People impeded by either illness or frailty often feel demeaned by the World around them. Rejections come at them from all directions, from random strangers to providers of medical care. To many, the disabled serve as constant visible reminders to the able-bodies that the society they live in is shot through with inequality and suffering, and that they live in a counterfeit paradise. As God tunes the great musical instruments of creation, on the strings of this great World guitar are angels, humans, and things. We all vibrate sympathetically like different octaves of the same time, our human hearts pulsing in the same rhythms as those of the material and spiritual. World#RandolphHarris 2 of 13
We participate in the fate and condition of our objects, just as they participate in ours. Dignity is a solitary attribute. Other people can detract from it, but we have to replenish it on our own. In situations of physical incapacity, self-possession is maintained by literal holding onto oneself in spite of every possible infringement. A man disabled in a car accident claimed that he learned that it was considered bad form for him to behave like a normal person in certain situations. When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up is not easy. Tasks are given priority over feelings, productivity over kindness. Is the cancer that afflicts our human bodies essentially the same as the cancer we see corroding our cities? Is our personal health and the health of the World one and the same? Many people tend to think that the World is their enemy, that it is full of poisons that attack us, seeding us with illness and death. “It’s just me against the World. Nothin’ to lose. Witnessin’ killings, leavin’ dead bodies in abandoned buildings. More bodies being buried, I’m losing my homes in a hurry, they are relocating to the cemetery. Got me worried stressin’, my vision is blurred. The question is will I live? No one in the World loves me. I’m headed from danger, don’t trust strangers,” reports Tupac Shakur in Me Against the World. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Although the late Tupac Shakur was a young man, many senior citizens and children can relate to him. My friend’s son was afraid to go to school today because of all of the mass shootings he has been hearing about on television news. And the elderly fear leaving their houses. A sixty-six-year-old woman with degenerative arthritis decided to give up leaving her house because on the street she feels like a crippled old lady, a nothing because of how people look away from her. And how the drivers behave, constantly almost running her over with their cars like it is some kind of funny joke to see fright in someone’s eyes as a 2,000 -5,000-pound piece of metal comes close to striking them with a force that could end their lives. Some of them even yell curses. And the lady made up her mind that she is safe and secure in her house. She has plenty to read and a lot to think about. She goes on to say, “If I really want to see what is going on out there, I can look out my windas (windows).” If the World soul and our own souls are one, then as we neglect and abuse the things of the World, we are at the same time abusing ourselves. If we are to attempt to develop a sound practice of ecology, we need to tend to our inner pollutions at the same time, and if we are to attempt to clean up our personal lives through therapy or some other method, we will bed at the same time to tend to the neuroses of the World and to the suffer of people and things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Medical contempt hurts as much as any illness. Amidst pressures to hurry, patients who slow things down are regarded as obstacles. Those who cannot hear or see well or may have issues with mobility, or who ask that information be repeated, or who need to discuss their problems thoroughly are especially dreaded by hurried staff in many medical facilities. When it comes to human life, people need good quality treatment. We only get one body and if serious conditions are overlooked or not treated that person could lose their precious life or suffer an irreversible condition that may impair the quality of their life all because an analysis has a vice, or malicious intentions. No one wants to be held captive and helpless. Care of the soul requires that we have listen and see the World’s suffering. In many American cities, streets and open spaces are littered with abandoned refuse—old tires, appliances, furniture, paper, feces, urine and garbage. Houses are boarded up, windows are smashed, wood is rotting, weeds have grown wild, grass is brown, and trees are dying. We behold such a scene and think, the solution is to solve the problem of poverty. However, why not feel for the things and people themselves. We see things and people in a suffering condition—sick, broken, and dying. This disease before us is our failure in relation to the World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
What is it in us that can allow people and the things of the World to become so distressed and to show so many symptoms without a nursing response from us? What are we doing when we treat people and things so badly? After some people have endure hardships and see how much more life they have to live and what can possibly go wrong, they want to let go to avoid feeling decades more of unnecessary pain. After a serious surgery and a “questionable hemorrhage, which was going to causing him to lose so much blood that he was going to die, this is how one young man responded. “Please, please, get these doctors to listen to me. They are going to transfuse blood into me any minute, blood that I do not want. I do not care where I am bleeding. Why doesn’t anyone listen? I am ready to die. I have had a good life. Now I just want to lie here, in peace. Please, can you make them understand? They keep coming in here and patting me on the arm and telling me it will be all right, but they do not cancel the transfusions. Maybe they will listen to you, a nice young lady, if you tell them for me.” When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up to this extent is not easy. If a physician talks quickly and uses obscure language, the person is doubly silenced. People whose physical powers are constricted cannot live by American values, which presume that one is able-bodied and independent. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Those who are not self-sufficient cannot control the outcomes of ordinary tasks, let alone their larger undertakings. They dare not invest their self-esteem solely in what they are able to accomplish, and they cannot afford to live for a future that may be more difficult than their present or past. Veronika Decide to Die is a movie about a young lady (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the midst of a struggle. She felt powerless, and had to learn a way to react to all the negative messages around her in order to survive. Proving that she was still strong, capable, and attractive was a message she tried to give to a negative World a dozen times a day. Veronika felt she was stuck in a soul sucking financial job, and she was tired of evolving. She has no personal life and was morbidly depressed. Veronika had expected life to be like a strong whiskey, but felt she was being force fed a weak tea. One day, she took a hand full of pills to end her life, but she woke up in a mental hospital and now had a heart condition. Her botched suicide attempt caused an aneurysm in her heart, and she only had a week left to live. Older people who have retained their good health and full physical capacities often find themselves similarly estranged. By virtue of age, most no longer go along with our culture’s preference for the future over the past, and retirement may have hurtled them into days more focused on being than doing. Watching their peers cope with physical problems, they may regard their self-sufficiency as a perishable privilege. It addition to these pressures, everywhere they look aging itself is scorned. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Deflecting disdain on so many levels at once takes considerable stamina. Instead, many people, older and young, absorb the contempt and begin to despise themselves for no longer being capable to fulfill American values. They shrink themselves down to the size of these degrading expectations, taking on an outer demeanor which constrains their self-expression but which is regarded by others as more acceptable for their age, gender, race, culture or status. Older or disabled people who insist on remaining themselves face an exhausting divergence between who they know themselves to be and how others treat them. They feel drained each time strangers respond to them as if they are discounted or worthless members of society. These individuals are regarded as something alien, a foreign species. While our leaders fight for the rights of illegal immigrants and provide them with lawyers and financial assistance. Destructive reactions, such as the tendency to equate old age or disability with mental deficiency, are surprisingly common, and many people have no place to turn. A well-intention young senator, who is an advocate for illegal immigrants, gave a group of older people a tour around the Senate Chamber. He treated them a little like schoolchildren; explaining the legislative process in words of one syllable and shouting, as if they could not speak any English. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Finally, turning to one of the group, the Senator asked, “And what used you to be?” The old man fixed an evil eye on him and replied, “I still am.” Self-preservation can sometimes be accomplished in a sentence. Usually, however, the struggle is more protracted and the feelings that are aroused cannot be handled so succinctly. Repeatedly treated as simple-minded, many people begin to question their intelligence and competence. So little regard reaches older and disabled people from the outside World that their inner stores of confidence may slowly become depleted. Far more is involved than what occurs at the given moment of an encounter when elderly or disabled individuals meet the able-bodied every day. It is a history of learned inferiority. Aged and disabled people must constantly find ways to override other people’s inability to see them. Labels often prevent us from seeing beauty. Much like the trashed-out areas of our cities, the billboards, the thoughtless destruction of buildings that have memory and a long past, and the construction of cheap housing and commercial buildings—these and countless other soulless ways of dealing with things and people indicate anger, a rage at the World itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
When our citizens spray-paint a trolley or subway or a bridge or a sidewalk, or the side of a historical building, clearly they are not just angry at society. They are raging at the things of the Word, we have to find some insight into this anger, because at a certain level those people who are desecrating our public places are doing a job for us. We are implicated in their acting out. Why does our culture seem so angry at things and people? Why do we take out our frustrations upon the very things that could potentially make our World into a satisfying and comforting home? One answer is may be that when we are cut off from soul and its sensitivity to get great spans of time and even timeless elements, we long painfully for an ideal future and for immortality. Things have a different lifespan than humans; they can outlast many generations. Historical buildings remind us of a past we were not part of. Those past times represent our desire for immortality. If our life efforts are directed toward making a new World, toward growth and constant improvement, then the past will be the enemy, a reminder of death. Concentration on growth and change erodes appreciation for the eternal realities, those parts of the self that transcend the limits ignorance. However, the soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it thrives on the stories and vestiges of what has been. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Our history, like many elder and disabled people, youth, and other vulnerable groups, hold fiercely to our remaining capacities. For society, and each and every person, there is a limit to the amount of surrender we are able to countenance without losing ourselves. Acts of self-assertion do not have to be monumental to be vitalizing. One of the powers of soul, is a vision of life that embraces past, presence, and future in a way that transcends ordinary awareness. A soul of sensibility awakens an appreciation for old ways and ancient wisdom, for buildings that hold in their architecture and design the tastes and style of another era. Soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it feeds on the stories and vestiges of what was. We are also so angry at things and people that we feel no longer serves us. Abusing things and people is no way to have power over anything, it is actually a way of displaying that you are helpless and weak. Many of the rusting objects and rotting builds decorated with graffiti that pollute our city streets are outmoded or no longer functioning tools. If we define a thing or people only in terms of their function, when they no longer function the way we would like, or refuse to, we have no feeling for them. We discard them without a proper burial. And yet, old things and people who have been through tremendous struggles eventually reveal that they hold a great deal of soul. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Our history and people and bits of evidence of past times seem literally to glow with soul. Do not be afraid to talk to God, as he is the oldest soul maker in the World. Always remember that God speaks a certain kind of language and there is nothing negative in it. We believe in prayerful, affirmative life above anything else. We believe in actually talking to God and then letting God answer. God is unquestionably transcendent. He is wholly other than the World he made. God is the pure and unsullied Mind of the Universe, transcending virtue, transcending knowledge, transcending the good itself. God is the World’s prime mover. God is beyond thought and being. God is an independently existing entity. God will always respond to us. We shall always receive the comfort and consolation we need, the inward sense of security and well-being that everyone must have to be happy and whole. Let us find a new wavelength for our mental instruments, and as surely as we do this we shall begin to broadcast on this wavelength. We shall discover that we are not only helping ourselves, but we are helping everyone around us. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
First of all, we must be sure that we are right inside, and then learn to trust ourselves because we have faith in God. Let us tune our mental instruments to success and happiness, to the idea of physical wholeness, and above everything else to the comforting thought that there is a love in the Universe which by its very presence dissolves all hate; there is a faith that neutralizes all fear; there is a confidence that brushes aside every doubt. God never deserts us, and we shall never have to convince God to be Good. All we have to do is reverse our whole mental and spiritual outlook on life and then the miracle will take place, because what goes out must return. We live in an intense reality. Somewhere along our journey in the mortal World, we must find a faith greater than all our doubts and fears and uncertainties. Somewhere along the line we must find a love greater than all animosity. And we must find a peace beyond our confusion. This is the pathway that we are all seeking, whether or not we know it, and we are being guided by a loving intelligence which evermore seeks to being us peace and comfort, cheer and good-will, happiness and success, healthy and abundance. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
God is Looking for People Who Have Faith that is Demonstrated
No one lives without accumulating stories. Many things in life offer useful guidance toward finding spiritual values in the World. The spirituality of a place might be marked with a well or drawing on the ground, or a monument, like a castle or mansion. When we place markers on historical battlefields or on houses where our ancestors were born, or where significant historical figures lives, we are performing a genuine spiritual act. We are honoring the special spirit that is attached to a particular place. Family is also a source and focus of spirituality. In many traditions a home shrine and special photographs honor family members. Rites of family gatherings, visits, storytelling, photographs albums, keepsakes, and even tapes of elderly relatives recording their recollections can be spiritual acts that nourish the soul. “The final state of the soul is to dwell with God or be cast out (1 Nephi 15.35).” The opportunity to voice memories to a person who both cares and understands is the most satisfying kind of completion. Story-telling is therefore far more valuable than it may seem. Realizing that such stories allow us to make an ending and find worth in the past elevates remembering and listening to their actual stature. We widen our solitudes by esteeming our memories and making use of them, instead of guarding them in a secret chess, disregarding them, or keeping them to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Action and speech are indeed the two activities whose end result will always be a story with enough coherence to be told. The most important and challenging way to honor our ancestors is to fulfill our personal and potential life’s purpose here on Earth. It can take a lifetime to know our parents in their full humanness. As we get older, our respect for our parents’ achievements increases, as does our sympathy for their disappointments and letdowns. The more our own lives twist in unexpected and humbling directions, the more we realize that our parents had been similarly buffeted. We become our parents’ retrospective peers, seeing more of them as we attain each decade. To be fully understood, vulnerability has to be lived rather than merely witnessed. It is not easy to imagine that one’s own body, which is so fresh and often so full of pleasant feelings could slow down, become tired, and may not be as agile as it once was. One cannot imagine it and, in the end, one does not want to. Many of the realizations that rush upon us as we mature are simply not attainable earlier in life. When our parents need our help prior to passing into Heaven, the period after they pass away, and the time of life when we ourselves are weak and near passing, changes our perspective on life and what we scrutinize. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Indeed, it is this period of the relationship that is perhaps the most difficult and, at the same time, the most significant. However, knowing that there is a God who strongly protects against intrusion and violation might help nurture that spirit in our own lives and honor it in others. We may discover that there are ways to be spiritual that do not counter the soul’s needs for body, individuality, imagination, and exploration. Eventually, we might find that all emotions, all human activities, and all spheres of life have deep roots in the mysteries of the soul, and therefore are holy. As children, the chief illusion we project upon our parents are that they know what they are doing and that they have control over what happens. It does not occur to us that what appears to be inflexibility may actually be a cover for confusion, or what comes out of anger may stem from stress, or what seems to be neglect and a lack of concern may be the consequence of depression. If we allow them to account for themselves and to acknowledge the extent to which their actions stemmed from their own weaknesses, all of this can make sense later. The more hurtfully our parents treated us as children, the more crucial it is for us to try to ascertain the wounds of their upbringing. Otherwise, their weaknesses become holes into which we pointlessly pour or resentment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Everyone of their failures has a story behind it, a history which has been carried forward and re-expressed rising out of a collective need for stronger union between the human and the divine. Exploring the implications of the soul allows us to learn our parents’ history and to see them as people, rather than to react blindly against them and risk replicating their hurts in our own lives. Turing the furor of our reactions into a reasonable quest for understanding is made easier when we are granted full access to our parents’ histories. Formal teachings, rites, and stories of religions provide an inexhaustible source of reflection on the mysteries of the soul. While listening to our mother or father, we might find ourselves standing in the powerful, streaming currents of time and fate. This may represent the stream of events and persons in which the individual finds one’s place. No one lives without making mistakes and incurring regrets, yet we all hope to be worthy of regard in the end. We learn from these formal sources how to understand and deal with the soul in special circumstances, and also how to understand similar images when they appear in dreams. We all hope that our parents survive into extended old age. Many cultures maintain that we each have a unique destiny to fulfill. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It is nice to have many generations in families being alive at the same time, leading to new opportunities for reworking and repairing relations between parents and children. This will also further the collective growth and maturation in the spirit realms. We are all children of parents, yet the ability to picture our parents as children can easily elude us. Like nothing else, such glimpses across generations permits us to comprehend those who shaped us and ultimately ourselves. We must find our soul’s purpose as an ethical and loving person. The ancestors are seen as allies in this process of remembering and a reservoir of power and backing to help us embody our potential in this lifetime. Conversely, when we have lost touch with a sense of greater purpose, if we are fortunate, the ancestors may bring about life changes aimed to guide us into greater contact with our soul’s longing and increased awareness of the agreements made before our birth. This may be an inspiring metaphor of the willingness to step courageously into the river of existence, instead of finding ways to remain safe, dry, and unaffected. The notion of reciprocity, of being helped and then helping in return, appeals to our basic requirement for balance and order. When children watch their parents take time out of their bust lives to help their parents, they learn that devotion can persist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Children should realize that if they regret the longevity of their parents, they will actually be regretting their own future longevity. As we get to know our parents better, we have new opportunities for correcting old misconceptions. One young man was shocked by something his father did. His father never let anyone near his checkbook. However, he got a really bad trimmer in his hand, but still insisted on paying all his bills himself. One day, out of the blue, he called his son up and asked him to come over to help him write out checks. The son could not believe it. He was incredibly nervous when he sat down next to him to do it. Although he handles million-dollar budgets for his company, his hand also started to shake because he was so honored to help his father with his precious checkbook, as it was a bonding experience. In a way, the father was allowing his son to participate in the ritual of becoming the man of the house. His father’s trust was sweeter to this son than his achievement in the corporate World. Also, the father had the opportunity to see how important he was in his son’s life, despite his son’s having garnered every external success. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Extending leniency to our parents gives us hope that someone will do the same for us when we reach this position of physical need and spiritual reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant for the hope that they instill and the example they set. People feel blessed to have their parents live so long and that hope is the essence of the commandment to honor our parents, making the prospect of living a long life less frightening. Whatever helps us to become more ethical, on even kilt, and open-hearted is one of the most powerful and sincere offerings we can make to our ancestors. An individual must take time every day to remind oneself that we are also spirits, that we are one with God, and to try to being about a deep realization that there is a power greater than oneself sustaining us; a wise counselor guiding us; a generous provider who is ready and willing to meet the needs of everyday life. We do not deny either the body or the mind, but we do affirm the spirit as the supreme presence and the superior principle of all life. We do come from this thing that we call life, or God, and we are fundamentally spiritual beings even while in the flesh. Therefore, in order to be whole, we must establish a right relationship within this trinity of our being, which is thought, feeling and action. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Have Faith in the Future
Challenges are intended to be opportunities of growth. Developing a philosophy for motivation is a great way to learn to overcome hardships. One has to seek new interest within their remaining abilities. Living requires courage under all circumstances, but especially when old age or disability is something an individual is dealing with. We have to exert a deliberate effort daily to make life as good as the body allows. Our will to live a circumscribed life arises directly from our realizing the value of each ability we have retained and each new capacity we have required. It is like maintaining neatness in a household that is always on the verge of becoming unorganized: there can be no slackening of attention, or discouragement rushes in. People who find themselves in a state of decline feel like they are cut off from what was once a self. They face frustrating disruptions in their routines of writing, gardening, and seeing friends. Gradually, however, people start to look at things from another perspective. Ascension is possible when all that has to be given up can be gladly given up—because other things have become more important. Slowing down and watching the light changing on the porch, rather than hastening to get things done, accords both with the rhythms of exhaustion and the need for repose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Faith and character are intimately related. Being thankful for the things we are still able to do allows individual to awaken and feel overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude; it is like a sixth sense, like waking to the scent of fresh laundry or to the sounds of a baby singing as the sunrises in the sky. It is a humbling feeling. It is impossible to leave God out of anything, for do we not realize that God means the very intelligence by which we understand this law, the very consciousness by which we it? God is not left out. The very inspiration which cases us to inquire into this law is the ever-present spirit of God forever seeking self-expression through us. Unless our use of this law is impulse by love and unity, we shall be automatically shut out from the most effective use of it. Let us once more remind ourselves that the Universe is foolproof and that the Holy of Holies is entered only through the sanctuary of the heart, purified by love, directed by reason. The more feeling we put into our conviction, and the more faith we have in divine givingness, the more perfectly we shall be complying with the law; hence we shall have greater power over it. Historically, legends and ritual are in tandem. A people tells its stories of creation and of its deities, and then it worships these deities and celebrates its creation in rites. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
While legends are a way of telling stories about felt experience of faith and culture, rituals are actions that speak to the mind and the heart. We should return, then, to our central theme with renewed hope and increased vigor, and most certainly with an exuberant enthusiasm; with something of the spirit of an adventurer or explorer who goes out to discover new countries. The untold good which the creative spirit has placed at our disposal awaits the magic touch of our consciousness to spring into expression for us, filling the cup of our desire with its manifold of gifts. Who does not wish to be well, happy, and prosperous? Is there any normal person who desires to be inactive, impoverished, and in pain? Of course not! And there is not a voice within each of us forever proclaiming and insisting upon this divine potentiality? This urge to express is natural. Feeling unexpressed is frustration, but energy converted into action is accomplished, and we can be certain that the eternal is with us and never against us when we are never against anyone else. Moreover, we can be certain that the prayer of faith will lift up the chalice of expectancy for the outpouring of the spirit, that one may receiver from it all that one’s soul can contain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
In many respects, however, adult dignity makes us lonely. Children express their hurts and readily seek comfort from others, while we guard ourselves against our sorrows and pass the years with our most vulnerable feelings shielded from view. People know us by our defenses, by the social masks we wear when we expect to be scrutinized. As we mature, we cry less. We learn better and better how to inhibit our feelings, show self-control, how not to weep. However, many of us cry inside. That makes it harder. Our tears are dry. Tears that are not shed go away slowly and return frequently. Such suffering, many of us cannot adequately describe. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that many people in this World cry dry tears much of the time. Pain, psychological or physical, can pull us out of adult solitude, to our embarrassment and our relief. We each retain the sensitivity of a seasoned adult, but it takes a catastrophe—pain or sheer helplessness—for us to express ourselves directly as a youngster might. Many adults do not want the full extent of their suffering to be exposed. We eventually progress to a further kind of dignity, but not without first relinquishing several layers of privacy. Faith in the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to us in times of urgent need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Vulnerability evokes powerful feelings in both the susceptible and the strong. We do not have to understand these feelings as much as we need to respond to them. Through our responses, we learn about the aspects of ourselves and our relationships that may have been concealed for years. We return to the yearnings of our youth. Ritual maintains the World’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection, and care. In a life that is animated with ritual, there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and figures on their structures, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. Tradition is an important part of ritual because the soul is so much greater in scope than an individual’s consciousness. The body must be properly care for, and we should come to understand that body-mind relationships. We must also never forget that people are primarily spiritual beings with a mind and body. It is only wen these three are brought together that we can hope to have health, happiness, and success. Exercise in faith in true principles builds character; fortified character expands our capacity to exercise more faith. As a result, our capacity and confidence to conquer the trials of life is enhanced. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Intellectual acknowledgment of one’s ultimate fragility is no match for the yield of lived experience. We are always aware that we are vulnerable to illness, but we do not quite believe in its likelihood until it actually happens to us. If many of our physical troubles come from an inward sense of uncertainty and insecurity, it follows that we must find a security greater than that insecurity which comes from a sense of being isolated from the Universe, separated from the cause of our being, or apart from God. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. When faith is properly understood and used, it has dramatically far-reaching effects. Such faith can transform an individual’s life from maudlin, common everyday activities to a symphony of joy and happiness. The exercise of faith is vital to Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. We must have faith in the capacity to discover hidden characteristics and traits that can transform life. Truly, faith in the Savior is a principle of action and power. Faith is a foundation building block of creation. God created the most remote galaxies as well as composed quarks, and the smallest elements of matter we know today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Obligations Curtail Our Freedom to Waste Ourselves
People who are kind, generous, and compassionate give others a striking affirmation of the intrinsic worth and importance of human beings. After being reduced to bodily terms, we are never the same. For the rest of our lives, we are unable to forget how much it is possible t be in need of others. We approach our relationships differently from then on, emphasizing those bonds which seem likely to withstand the tests of time and strain, and putting less effort into bonds of convenience. The nature of our aspirations changes along with the style of our relationships. We start asking different things of life. Considering how common impairments are, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, it becomes clear that each has our own special demons and divine figures, our own other-World landscapes and struggles. As a result of these changes, people suffering from detriment or restriction can often tell in a glance whether someone they meet has every had the experience of being helpless. They notice that a gap separates them from those who continue to be beguiled by good health. They watch as friends and relatives go on living from day to day as if they are invincible, dwelling inside a privileged deception. People suffering from ailments are not star athlete’s, who can take a hit and keep on ticking, and sometimes unnecessary psychological stress can make their condition worse, as it can amplify the pain they are experiencing or cause other conditions to flare up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Healthy people often find themselves distracted by the crude exterior of affliction, bypassing much of the complexity going on beneath the surface. Knowing what to say and do in the presence of a person who is incapacitated requires an awareness of what it is like to have time on one’s hands and to be at the mercy of others, but also knowledge of the range of emotions that arise in reaction to helplessness itself. A man spent several weeks confined to his bed. He was seriously ill and was unable to get out of bed, or move at all, even if it was only to go from laying on one side to laying on the other side. It was in that state of extreme helplessness that he saw how much a person can be in need of others. He was in need not only of his doctors, nurses, and medical staff, but also of God and spiritual help. Not only for medical care, but for comforting words or gestures. The problem of impairment raises two fundamental questions…Why me? (the questions of bafflement), and What can be done? (The question of order and control). We oppose the lessons of helplessness, hardening ourselves against the indignities and rejecting the forced revisions of our priorities. We hope only for recovery and for a return to self-sufficiency. Anything less invokes bitterness. We want to see more clearly and hear more sharply the themes that are special to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The important thing is to realize that, although life seems to be a matter of literal causes and effects, in fact we are living our deep stories, often unconsciously. We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine. People suffering from an aliment or disability first blame the condition. One says, “If only I was not elderly or disabled or pregnant, life for be better for me.” Then they blame other people, saying, “Life would be better if people did not treat me like I football player.” Then, we finally realize it is what we put out there is what determines how our life is and how people treat us. We make our life good—it does not just happen. There are countless pitfalls on the way our of misery. Focusing relentlessly on what has been lost, comparing oneself to others, aspiring for things that are out of reach, and placing blame on others are only some of the most common snares. Each personal variation is uniquely painful. Soul work involves an effort toward increasing awareness of these situations that form the foundations of our lives, for if we become familiar with the characters and themes that are central to our conditions, we can be free from their compulsions and the blindness that comes upon us when we are caught up in them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When culture and language fail to acknowledge the difficulty of receiving, the dependent person is left doubly burdened, in disliking the help that cannot be repaid and in feeling guilty about the dislike. People know that when someone visits them, that they are simply being visited. They know that one is in receipt of a charitable act and that there is no true relationship. One knows they have nothing in common with the individuals coming to see them, they know all too well. We have often heard people who are elderly or disabled say, “Look at my life—all I do is eat and sleep. What kind of life is this?” They equate their lack of productivity activity with worthlessness. Some people take their mind off of their pain by thinking about what does work right. The most important thing to do is to keep the spirit supple. When we return to our central thought that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and God shall rise the individual up, we must remember that the prayer of faith is definite—it is faith in something and about something. This type of prayer is not generalized, but specific. It is conscious and definite. The prayer of faith is a prayer which expresses faith about some particular thing. What is included is a specific want, or definite need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
If one was praying for a home, one would not be asking for an automobile. If one were praying that his or her neighbor be healed, one would not be asking for money with which to take a trip. In order to enjoy the soulfulness of mythic life, we need a deep inner faith that allows us to know and visit our own deep strata where meaning and values truly are formed. Ritual is an action that speaks to the mind and heart, but it may not make sense in a literal context. In church, people do not eat bread in order to feed their bodies, but to nourish their souls. It is a higher symbolic act. If we could grasp this simple idea, that some actions may not have an effect on actual life, but speak instead to the soul, and if we could let go of the dominant role of function in so many things we do, then we might give more to the soul every day. Frail people try to conceal their needs as much as they can and they like to keep their conditions private. Social workers have been admitted to many apartments where it is more like people are living in private cells, concealing the evidence of their incapacities and averting their eyes from each others’ problems. Usually their presence is only accepted because something had necessitated their help. It was discovered in one such instance that a client had been sitting in the dark for weeks. The light bulbs had burned out in the ceiling fixtures, and he had no floor or table lamps. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Rather than ask one of his neighbors to help, he had been reading by daylight and going to bed when it became too dark to see. His back was hurting and he could barely move without experiencing a great deal of pain, as if his spine was going to snap. Therefore, keep in mind, the one who gives help is more powerful than the one who receives it. Knowing what to do for a person suffering from an impairment and what to cease doing begins with understanding what life is like from that person’s perspective. Without this comprehension, there is a tendency to worry about the wrong things and to give assistance in the wrong ways. Learning all that we can about being dependent allows us to fall short of the ideal to the right extent. Sometimes fear can strike a disabled or elderly person like a malignancy, sapping every and power and attention from their daily lives. They are afraid of the process of their ailment, they are afraid of increasing loss of control, they are afraid of the outcome, and they are afraid of dying. They fear how their families and friends see them, how they feel about them and how their condition affects their lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
However, what can be even more difficult is when people do not know or cannot see that you are disabled or have a diminished capacity and they force you to work, harass you, physically attack you, use you for money, and threaten you because they know they can get away with it. For young people who are physically disabled, it is like experiencing one’s old age prematurely. They are locked into a parallel isolation, shamed by feelings they do not dare confess. These individuals are frightened because they are young and still have a lot of life to live and are deteriorating much sooner than they are supposed to. They do not have a professor of whatever to understand them and how they feel, and their economy of friends tends to shrink. People do not know how to behave toward them, and it is easy to lose heart for coping. Sometimes they have no spirit for anything, like their heart finally dropped out of them. Theses youngster even get bullied and attacked by people who are much older than them, but have not yet experienced what it is like to have fractured vertebrae in their spine, or whatever. However, they have courage. Courage that comes for their belief in God. The Word courage comes from the Latin cor for heart. We give ourselves fresh heart by pulling our attention away from what has been lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
It is not that fear and disheartenment can be willed away, but we have to turn our focus in a direction most favorable to their alleviation. The consciousness that heals is definite and deliberate; it is a specializing of the Universal Law. In this law we may have absolute and implicit confidence, but we must also remember that the law can do for us only what it does through us. Its energy and creativeness must be interpreted through our belief and imagination. This is but another way of saying that if we want the principle of electricity to light our living room we must provide a fixture which makes it possible for the electricity to become a light. When we pray in faith we receive what things we pray for. If we believe that we shall receive them, we shall receive them. There is a specific, definite thing we are to receive, but we are to receive it as we believe. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not adequately understood or followed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8 
If a Photograph or a Diamond Ring is All You Have, it Means the World to You!
Not everyone can find the middle of a circle, but only a person who has the proper knowledge. Similarly, anyone can get angry—that is easy—or can give away money or spend it; but to do all this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way is no longer something easy that anyone can do. It is for this reason that good conduct is rare, praiseworthy, and noble. This kind of spirituality, so ordinary and close to home, is especially nourishing to the soul. Without this caring incorporated of the sacred into life, the World can become so far removed from the human situation as to be irrelevant. An appreciation for vernacular spirituality is important because without it our idealization of the holy, making it precious and too far removed from life, can actually obstruct a genuine sensitivity to what is sacred. The word mercy has fallen out of common usage in our language. It derives from the antiquated French merci, which means compassion and forbearance toward someone in one’s power. In Latin, merces signifies pay or reward, and the root merc refers to aspects of commerce. The words merchant and mercenary at first seem antithetical to mercy, and one wonders at their common root, but when we have to give help or depend on others for help, we understand why the concept of exchange underlies both usages. Mercy is based entirely on exchange. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Giving help eventually embitters us, unless we are compensated at least by appreciation; accepting help degrades us, unless we are convinced that our helpers are getting something in return. As much as we might prefer to reject this stark accounting, we discover in living through situations of dependence that good will is not enough. There is a delicate balance at the heart of mercy, showing how reciprocation replenishes both the spirit if the helper and the person who is helped. Maturing in age is one of the ways the soul nudges itself into attention to the spiritual aspect of life. The body’s changes teach us about fate, time, nature, mortality, and character. Aging forces us to decide what is important in life. However, those who depend on others for daily survival often feel their very existence is an imposition. Some people engage in a relentless pressure to please—to prove themselves worth of the burdens they impose. Many people who suffer from ailments suppress complaints and avoid asserting themselves, believing that they owe every possible accommodation to those who help them survive. Taking care of a person does not have to entail having power over major aspects of his or her life, but frailty seems to invite invasion. My father used to tell me stories about how care givers would steal my great grandmother’s jewelry, money, wedding and engagement rings, pictures of her family and even her wedding pictures. “You cannot imagine how helpless I feel,” she would tell him.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
So long as we still possess it, the power to carry out simple intentions is one of the many unnoticed pleasures of life. When we lose it, we see what it means to do the most ordinary things our own way. People cut off from inner thoughts and feelings, caught up in pain and suffering and loss cannot get very far when they try to understand themselves consciously. Some people make rebellious bids for control that they then keep secret from their helpers. One woman had a fall down the basement stairs and her daughter was so upset. She hired a woman to come in and do her laundry once a week, so she would never have to go down there. However, the senior citizen still when down there. He daughter did not know, and she is very careful about it. She feels like it is her house, her basement, her washing machine and her life. Submission does not come easily to people who have spent decades running their own lives. Going down those steps made that woman’s basement her own again, just as choosing to violate her daughter’s restrictions made her life her own again. Seizing freedom can be as unreasonable as it is gratifying. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
People who have had restriction places on their lives by ailments, injuries, or from aging often feel the need to do something to regain their independence as a means of reminding themselves that they are still able to exert influence over their own domain or their own body. Many people with physical limitations feel their social environment is gradually diminished until all that remains of their power resources is the humble capacity to comply. They feel that they may be required to give up their legal rights and are required to comply or approve in exchange for the room and board they can afford or for the retirement and medical benefits. The managers of their buildings often disrespect them and the analysis often harass them and no one seems to care. The seniors and disabled feel if they complain about the abusive treatment, they will lose their housing, be physically attacked, or their medical and financial benefits will be discontinued, which would mean they would not be able to afford their medication or living expenses and be left on the streets to die. Psychological symptoms, too, often manifest themselves in weight gain or loss, in allergies to various foods, or in idiosyncratic eating habits. And they become more and more isolated emotionally. When people who have disempowered relatives and they become depressed, they mistake this despondency for an accusation that they are not doing a good job. Hoping for appreciation, they instead get quietly hostile acquiescence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once families acknowledge the presence and important of power in situations of power in situations of dependency, they tend to have little difficulty taking stock of its distribution and beginning to remedy imbalances on either side. The belief that we do not have the ability to heal arises out of the mistaken idea that our power does the healing, or that the intellect does the healing. All that the will and the intellect could do is to behold or watch the process. The mind fixes its gaze steadfastly upon the principle and then declares that this principle is operative in human affairs, and particularly in the affairs of the one being treated. There is but one healer. This is the spirit of truth. There is but one life principle. This is God in us. There is but one final law. This is the law of good. There is but one ultimate impulsion. This impulsion is love. That which really does the healing can never fluctuate, can never change in its nature. It is not more one day and less the next. It is at this moment absolutely all thee is and it is ever available. We must forever rid ourselves of the idea that it is the personal person who does the healing. We must know that it is not us, but the Father that dwells in us, he does the works. Principle operated irrespective of personal opinion, and when through acquiescence we agree that it is operating, then it must operate. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Sure, an elderly person might not like how you just put water in the sink, swish it around with some suds and call it clean; he or she used to scrub it first with cleanser and then rinse it with disinfectant. Someone might not like how you haphazardly ruin their checkbook by just dashing off the bills, not bothering to mark down the dates, check numbers, who it was to, all that stuff. Especially sometimes when someone does not even mark down the amount of the check. Therefore, it is important to find small, but specific concessions to help meet the preferences of the elderly and disabled, which will yield large satisfactions. There is no formula for this process, but it helps to build an edifice of faith that the Lord will help make crooked paths straight. One must not only know that God is all there is, but one must know that God exists right where the need is—not in the form of the need but in the form of an answer to the need. And I can tell when, when all you have is pictures of your family, who you have never met, they mean the World to you, as well as gold and diamond trinkets. People like connections to their heritage. Grandparents get great joy of seeing pictures of their grandbabies. And child love to have pictures of their ancestors. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Get Ready Like Royalty—Feel Like Royalty!
Open up your mind and it will sing to you. The love that goes out into our work comes back as love of self. Work is an important component of the spiritual life, it can be a path to holiness, and profoundly affects the soul. When we think of work, we only consider function, and so the soul elements are left to chance. However, the rituals that are taking place when one performs a task is the soul’s work: something of the soul is being created in the work of ritual. Ordinary actions, too, accomplish something for the soul. Yet, where there is no artfulness about life, there is a weakening of soul. It seems that the problem with most modern manufacturing is not a lack of efficiency, it is a loss of soul. If people had a deep sense of the truly magical nature of their product, they would take care of the souls of their products with sacred imagination. The same principle holds for all professions and for all forms of labor. We could say, then, that all work is sacred, whether you are building a castle, creating a beautiful stain glass window, or taking out the rubbish. A special window might help ritualize a house, or a dinning room table of a special design or select wood could transform the house into an arena that has imaginal depth that feels one’s soul. It may conjure up certain memories and fantasies that have significance. Or work may be a means of sorting out issues that have little to do with the work itself. It may be a response to fate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
We may find ourselves doing work that has been in the family for generations or working at a job that appeared after a number of coincidences and chance events. In this sense, all work is a vocation, a calling from a place that is the source of meaning and identity, the foundation of which are beyond human intention and interpretation. However, we can never do this unless we believe that we can, for the belief that we cannot binds us back to the antiquated precedents and compels us to accept only as much good as has been experienced in the past. If we can get firmly fixed in our mind that the principle of the soul is never bound by precedent, that the doing of new things in science through new discoveries always existed as a possibility, and there was nothing in nature which prohibited the larger experiences, we shall no longer be hypnotized by limitations of the past. It is possible that most of us go through life more or less hypnotized by what everyone has believed. We say that the good we desire cannot come to us because we have never experienced much of it, or there is not enough good to go around, of that God does not hear our prayers. Too often we turn over the possibilities of the individual life to the acceptance of the collective group. Not understanding soul, companies look to the work of other cultures and try to mimic their methods. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. What we should break down is the hypnotic suggestions that bind us, and create new avenues in the mind for a fresh approach and a new outlook to the spirit. This is something every individual must do for oneself, but there must be a method or a way to begin. We have to start with the firm faith that we are dealing with power which is not bound. It is not limited. It is not only some power; it is all-power. It is not difficult to convince the mind of this, since plain reasoning compels one to accept such a viewpoint. Alchemy was a process in which raw material was placed in a vessel where it was heated, observed closely, heated some more, passed through various operations and observed once again. In the end, the result was an arcane product imagined mysteriously to be gold, the stone of the philosophers, or a potent elixir. Alchemy was a spiritual practice carried out for the benefit of the soul. Just like many of you work to benefit your family, who are part of your soul. Face it, the only reason many of you get out of bed everyday and go to work is because you believe that the qualities you produce are scared rituals which benefit your soul and are a way to honor God and the people and things you love. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
You find your poetic inspiration in your home, family, garden, and furniture to keep going even when you are tired. We must assure ourselves that we have access to the power of God. We could never do this if we felt that the power was external to us, if it were something apart from or different from our own being. We discover that God is immediate and personal, a possibility latent within the self, and ready to be called upon and used. We could imagine our own everyday work alchemically in the same way. We work on the stuff of the soul by means of the things of life. This is an ancient idea. Ordinary life is the means of entry into higher spiritual activity. At the very moment we are hard at work on some Worldly endeavor, we are also working on a different plane. Perhaps without knowing it, we are engaged in the labours of the soul. The more deeply our work stirs imagination and corresponds to images that are sacred at the core of identity and fate, the more it will have soul. Having identified ourselves with the power which is law, and the presence which is the spirit, we must consciously increase our expectation and deepen our realization. This is done by prayer, communing with the divine, until gradually we so extend our concepts of life and the possibilities of living that we are no longer bound by our thought patterns of lack and limitation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace. There is one life, that life is God, that life is my life now. This power, this presence, and this life are perfect, complete, whole, and happy. We identify the mind with this wholeness, happiness, and perfection, affirming its presence and embodying a certain feeling about it, and inward awareness. This practice must continue until the idea becomes real to us, not as though we were something apart from or approaching the reality, but as through we were operating from the very center of it, which of course we are. It is an extension or reflection of ourselves. When one concludes a successful business transaction, one feels good about oneself. When one builds their dream house or gets a new care, one stands back and contemplates it, feeling a surge of pride. However, if we allow ourselves to do bad work, the whole society suffers a wound to soul. When it is not possible to feel good about our work, then soulful pride, so necessary for creativity, turns into narcissism. Pride and narcissism are not the same thing; in a sense, they are opposites. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
The product of our work should reflect a means of loving ourselves. However, if those products are not lovable, we are forced into a narcissistic place where we lose sight of the work itself and focus on our own personal needs. Love of the World and our place in it, attained largely by our work, turns into solipsistic craving for love. We will never achieve the flowing of our own natures until we find that piece of ourselves, that lovable twin, which lives in the World and as the World. Therefore, finding the right work is like discovering your soul in the World. There will be new thoughts, new ideas coming. We will open our whole consciousness to the influx of that which is larger and better, as we identify with inward peace and joy. At times, however, we may be confronted with negative arguments of set mental patterns which circumscribe, limit, and depress the mind. Our sense may try to insist that we follow the old established precedents as our true guide, since they have been adhered to by humankind from time immemorial. Contradict those vibes, they are so deceiving as the clouded heart. A major part of faith is trusting God when we do not understand why things happen the way they do. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
We all know that God gives us opportunities. We have seen God give us favour, good situations, blessings, and promotion. That is the hand of God opening the World up for us. Right here, a certain amount of adventure, of imagination must be brought into play to create a feeling of acceptance which will break down those old thought patterns. We must understand that they are not the Truth of God’s Being, but merely monotonous repetitions of all the negative thought of the ages. We must know that our new declarations of truth have the power within themselves to completely destroy the old thought patterns. We are no longer hypnotized by the old thought patterns; we are no longer bound by negative precedents; we are no longer limited to what everyone has believed, because we know it has no truth, no reality, and no law to support it. It is but a phantom. It is obvious that climbing the ladder of success can easily lead to a loss of soul. Are there any moral problems in the job or workplace—making things detrimental to people or to the Earth, taking excessive profits or contributing to racial and sexist oppression? It is not possible to care for the soul while violating or disregarding one’s own moral sensibility. They will misconstrue your answers due to a lack of love. An alternative may be to choose a profession or projects with soul in mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Signs of love and therefore of soul are feelings of attraction, desire, curiosity, involvement, passion, and loyalty in relation to our work. When the soul is involved, the work is not carried out by a need for prestige alone; it raises from a deeper place and therefore is not deprived of passion, spontaneity, and grace. We are and always have been part of God’s Universe. Do not ask someone else to justify your belief, for this is confusion. We must in our own minds increase our faith, reaffirming its own position, which will awaken the mind to the greater influx of blessings. Just as surely as we do this, the prison walls of the lesser self begin to crumble, the horizon experiences begins to push itself father away, and, because more spiritual territory is taken in, greater experiences are bound to follow. “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright. Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the house of the upright will flourish (Proverbs 14.9-11).” Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in him as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing and does all things well. Look at others with patient eyes, as some leave reality early due to the lack of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Don’t Insult the Guest in Your Own Home
Heroes and villains are largely defined by their treatment of others. “I don’t hate my dad. I feel sorry for him. But Clint is always taking things differently. I always felt like I had to be the middleman. I gotta…pull everybody together. I never wanted to be anything other than a baseball player. That’s it. I never thought about anything else. Whenever we played ball, we felt important. Whenever we played ball we were happy. Everything changed, and I don’t know why or when it did. I just know that it isn’t there anymore (Lane Winston).” Groups that are part of a person’s life identity will ensure conformity to basic values during a vulnerable condition of the individual, typically in childhood in the socialization process. The family becomes the strongest group, one that can accept deviations from many standards, secure in the ultimate adherence of the individual. Consequently, if a split occurs, such as the disowning of a child, it is most severe and traumatic. A similar situation occurs in the community; since communities are defined primarily by contrast to other groups and by their strong boundaries, the principal opinions for which conformity is required are those that assert identity of the group. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
In the Film, Touching Home (2010), starring Ed Harris shows the enduring importance of groups, in our society, in this case, the importance of the family in socialization. The film is based on a true story. Ed Harris plays Charlie Winston, who has two twin sons, Lane Winston and Clint Winston, and the boys love baseball. It is their dream to grow up and become major league baseball players. When the boys were around eight years old, the police had to bring them home from their baseball game late at night in the rain. When they got there no one was home to greet them. They had won a trophy that night and left it on the table for their dad with a note that read, “FOR YUO DAD.” When Charlie got home, he saw the trophy, and picked up and threw it across the room. After he realized what he had done, he tried to glue the trophy back together with Elmer’s glue and passed out on the couch. Charlie’s sons, Clint and Lane woke up, saw what he had done, fixed the trophy, put it on the top shelf of their closet. “Everything is going to be okay, Lane. We just have to stick together,” said Clint, as the boys turned off the closet light and went back to bed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Clint and Lane end up going to a community college where they play baseball. However, Clint’s grades dropped below mandated level and he lost scholarship and was kicked out of school, even though scouts had been looking to draft him. Lane also gets kicked off of the baseball team that same day and the boys had to go back home. They were ashamed that people would tease them for not being able to make in out of their small town and for having to come back home. Clint and Lane went to work at the quarry with their father, Charlie to save money so they could go to Arizona and try out to play baseball. At this point, Charlie is working every day and lives in his truck, which he parks in the woods. After work, Charlie askes the boys to join him for dinner at the “Redwood Restaurant.” They agree, but telling him that he cannot drink. However, later on, Clint refuses to go to dinner with his dad because he is afraid of being disappointed and Lane goes alone. The Redwood Restaurant is actually a wooden park bench in the forest, right by where Charlie parks his truck. Charlie and Lane share four cans of cold Chef Boyardee Beef and Cheese Ravioli by lantern light and have a pleasant meal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Apparently, Charlie has a drinking problem, but has cut back to one beer a day. He lives in his truck because all of his money is spent paying restitution to the courts. However, we can see the optimistic effects of group memberships is displayed here as Charlie recognizes that the family serves as a source of comfort and protection, and assertion of identity in the community, so to reestablished his role as a father and responsible member of the community, he conforms to societal norms as closely as he can. Clint and Lane love their father and can see that he is a good man who has made some mistakes, but is trying to overcome them. While they are back at home, the boys end up living with their grandmother and they pay her rent, as the boys work to save up to go to Arizona for baseball try outs. Clint is really enthusiastic about saving up money, so he moonlights (gets a second job) at a laundromat. Lane spends more time with his father than Clint does. However, Lane’s priorities change as he spends more time in town when he meets a young lady name Rachael, and he wants to use his money to buy a car to impress her because he starts to doubt his ability at succeeding as a baseball play. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
What is amazing about Lane is he is not embarrassed of his father at all and takes his girlfriend, Rachael and even shows her were his dad lives. Clint is not embarrassed, but they have some issues that need to be worked out. Clint has about $4,000.00 saved up, but Lane does not want to play baseball anymore, so the boys fall out and their friends tell them that they are twins and two halves of one thing and that they should stick together. Everyone can relate to how hard it is when there are barriers to your goals and how sometimes an individual gets tired of trying and experiencing up and downs in relation to their goals and just wants to give up. And it is nice that the boys have family and friends who care for them and they can stay in town and make a living. In a way, it is refreshing that in this small-town people are not as materialistic. And as fate would have it, Clint gets a wrench thrown in the program just when he is about to leave town. Clint sneaks into his room and steals the money. When he gets to Per Mill Creek Saloon, he shows the guys a picture of his twin boys that he has been carrying in his wallet since they were about three years old. Everyone tells him that his boys are good-looking. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
After looking all of Clint’s money gambling, Charlie gets arrested and the Sheriff calls the boys down to come get their father. However, Charlie begs the officers to take him to jail, but they refuse to because no one got hurt. Charlie then tells his boys he is sorry and they take him home. The boys had been out when they got the call, so they did not know the money was missing, but after they drop their dad off, they go back to their grandmother’s house and Clint finds the jar of his money on the floor empty. He goes to confront his dad, and beats him up, Lane shows up and pulls Clint off of their dad. It just seems destine for the boys to stick together and perhaps that is why Charlie stole their money? Nevertheless, at work, Charlie passes out and the boys have to take him to the hospital, and Clint says he hopes his dad dies. Although the words are harsh, one can understand how it feels when a family member or someone you do not know robs you of your future and your hopes and dreams and all your time and effort seems to have gotten you nowhere. However, everything in life happens for a reason and sometimes we cannot see why God closed certain doors, but it may be to protect us from something. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Nonetheless, when you question if your parents love you or if someone makes you feel like you are alone and that even your family member who has passed away did not love you, and they are not around to defend themselves, think back on all the things they did for you and realize money is not everything. It turns out that Charlie had a binder full of newspaper articles about his sons and their accomplishments and it always made him feel better when he would look at it. Now, that is true love. Charlie is like a true American man, it is in his blood to work, in fact, it looks like he is working himself to death, but that is what keeps him alive. That is his love for his sons because it seems like he is barely hanging in there. Any outsider can tell that he seems to be just clinging to life. However, to his sons, Charlie is like a superman and will live through anything. They do not realize that he is getting older and that he is not as strong as he used to be. Clint and Lane do not really grasp the concept that their father is mortal, like most young people. Charlie ends up cleaning up his life and buying new clothes and going to therapy for his problems. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
He takes his sons for baseball try outs again, and Lane almost got drafted, but scouts did not want to take a chance on him because he hurt his ankle during tryouts and they did not draft Clint because he was throwing 87 miles per hour and they needed the radar to clock him at 90 miles per hour. So, the family comes together and has Christmas together and Charlie tells his boys that he wishes that he was a better father and promises to pay them back every penny. After dinner, Charlie makes up an excuse to leave. The next morning the sheriff goes to get Charlie out of his truck to take him to therapy and finds him dead under a tree. The film did foreshadow Charlie’s death especially through reliving of the emotional undertones, and the intense emotional experience of chasing after dreams and the twins potentially being separated. However, it seems that Charlie took the money because he knew he was dying and he wanted time with his precious boys and knew he would not be around to protect them and that it was vital for them to stick together. Therefore, the experience of blowing the money was to get a few more moments of joy out of life and to protect his family, it was not sought for its own sake, not simply as a means to an end. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
The time Charlie got to spend with his sons, his mother and his brother over Christmas was a movement that was very powerful, educational, and therapeutic. It was a tool for solving individual problems and for bonding. Clint and Lane buried their father under and Oak tree, and said their good byes. It was so important for them to have closure and a place where they can go to remember their father and communicate with him and show him respect. Clint finally gets his tooth fixed and they boys go to Arizona together for baseball tryouts. It was a very emotional movie and a great show. By the ending, I silently cried and had to wash my face and blow my nose. It was so touching. This film shows you how important families are and that forgiveness is a virtue. I am happy that Clint and Lane got to spend time with their father before he passed into Heaven, so they do not have to live with a hole in their hearts. Charlie may not have been a perfect father, but he loved his family and tried hard to overcome his affliction. Once a person is dead, that is it, they are gone, and your live is forever changed. Therefore, enjoy your family while you have them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
Acceptance is the calm recognition of the loss and the ability to carry on. Not everyone who suffers a loss reached this stage. “I told you of a place that I had been. It was dark and I was supremely alone. No matter now if the compass fails again because in your love, I built a home. We’re all we need, oh darling. Yeah, we’re all we need. Most certainly I’m where I’m supposed to be. In a molten Sun, with you I am free. Today our hearts won first prize because we’re wise with the feeling. Yeah, we’re all we need (We’re All We Need by Above and Beyond).” God, we ask you for your forgiveness for the wrongs that we have done and for the things that we have neglected. We ask you forgiveness for the people we have hurt along the way and those who we have failed to love as you Love. We ask for your forgiveness. God, we receive your forgiveness and resolve in our hearts that with your strength we determine not to make these errors again. God, we receive your forgiveness and by the power of your Holy Spirit, we walk away from everything we know to be wrong and embrace everything we know about you for the Kingdom, glory, and the power are always and forever yours. Bless it be. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Randolph Harris II International Institute 