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Slaves Lose Everything in their Chains, Even the Desire of Escaping from them!
CRESLEIGH MEADOWS AT PLUMAS RANCH
Plumas Lake, CA | from the mid $300’s
Now Selling!
Believe Me, if All those Endearing Young Charms, which I Gaze on so Fondly To-day!
There is not a soul in the World whom Heaven does not regard in particular fashion. There is not a signor a word that Heaven fails to hear. People create these extravagant habitats because they have vision, love of beauty, hopes and dreams. If the line of reasoning I have been presenting is valid, then it opens new doors to us. If we frankly face the fact that science takes off from subjectively chose set of values, then we are free to select the values we wish to pursue. We are not limited to such stultifying goals as producing a controlled state of happiness, productivity, and the like. I would like to suggest a radically different alternative. Suppose we start with a set of ends, values, purposes, quite different from the type of goals we have been considering. Suppose we do this quite openly, setting them forth as a possible value choice to be accepted or rejected. Suppose we select a set of values which focuses on fluid elements of process, rather than static attributes. We might then value: Humans as a process of becoming; as a process of achieving worth and dignity through the development of one’s potentialities; the individual human being as a self-actualizing process, moving on to more challenging and enriching experiences; the process by which the individual creatively adapts to an ever new and changing World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
We may also value the process by which knowledge transcends itself, as for example the theory of relativity transcended Newtonian physics, itself to be transcended in some future day by a new perception. If we select values such as these we turn to our science and technology of behaviour with a very different set of questions. We will want to now such things as these: Can science assist us in the discovery of new modes of richly rewarding living? More meaningful and satisfying modes of interpersonal relationships? Can science inform us as to how the human race can become a more intelligent participant in its own evolution—its physical, psychological and social evolution? Can science inform us as to ways of releasing the creative capacity of individuals, which seem so necessary if we are to survive in this fantastically expanding atomic age? Dr. Oppenheimer has pointed out that knowledge, which used to double in millenia or centuries, now doubles in a generation or a decade. If we are to be able to adapt effectively, it appears that we will need to discover the utmost in release of creativity. Can science discover the methods by which humans can most readily become a continually developing and self-transcending process, in one’s behaviours, one’s thinking, one’s knowledge? Can science predict and release an essentially “unpredictable” freedom? #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
It is one of the virtues of science as a method that it is as able to advance and implement goals and purposes of this sort as it is to serve static values such as states of being well-informed, happy, obedient. Indeed we have some evidence of this. Psychotherapy can be one of the most subtle tools for the control of one person by another. The therapist can surely mold individuals in imitation of oneself. One can cause and individual to become a submissive and conforming being. When certain therapeutic principles are used in extreme fashion, we call it brain washing, an instance of the disintegration of the personality and a reformulation of the person along lines desired by the controlling individual. So the principles of therapy can be used as a most effective means of external control of human personality and behaviour. Can psychotherapy be anything else? Here I find the developments going on in client-centered psychotherapy an exciting hint of what a behavioural science can do in achieving the kinds of values I have stated. Quite aside from being somewhat new orientation in psychotherapy, this development has important implications regarding the relation of a behavioural science to the control of human behaviour. Let me describe our experience as it relates to the issues of the present discussion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
In client-centered therapy, we are deeply engaged in the prediction and influencing behaviour. As therapists we institute certain attitudinal conditions, and the client has relatively little voice in the establishment of these conditions. Very briefly we have found that the therapist is most effective if one is: genuine, integrated, transparently real in relationships; be acceptant of the client as a separate, different, person, and acceptant of each fluctuating aspect of the client as it comes to expression; and sensitively empathic in one’s understanding, seeing the World through the client’s eyes. Our research permits us to predict that if these attitudinal conditions are instituted or established, certain behavioural consequences will ensue. Putting it this way sounds as if we are again back in the familiar groove of being able to predict behavioural consequences as these: that the client will become more self-directing, less rigid, more open to the evidence of one’s senses, better organized and integrated, more similar to the ideal which one chosen for oneself. In other words we have established by external control conditions which we predict will be followed by internal control by the individual, in pursuit of internally chosen goals. We have set the conditions which predict various classes of behaviours—self-directing behavious, sensitivity to realities within and without, flexible adaptiveness –which are by their very nature unpredictable in their specifics. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
The conditions we have established predict behaviour which is essentially “free.” Our recent research indicates that our predictions are to a significant degree corroborated, and our commitment to the scientific method causes us to believe that more effective means of achieving these goals may be realized. Research exists in other fields—industry, education, group dynamics—which seems to support our own findings. I believe it may be conservatively stated that scientific progress has been made in identifying those conditions in an interpersonal relations which, if they exist in B, are followed in A by greater maturity in behaviour, less dependence upon others, an increase in expressiveness as a person, an increase in variability, flexibility and effectiveness of adaptation, an increase in self-responsibility and self-direction. And quite in contrast to the concern expressed by some we do not find that the creatively adaptive behaviour which results from such self-directed variability of expression is too chaotic or too fluid. Rather, the individual who is open to one’s experience, and self-directing, is harmonious, not chaotic, ingenious rather than random, as one orders one’s responses imaginatively toward the achievement of one’s own purposes. One’s creative actions are no more a chaotic accident than was Einstein’s development of the theory of relativity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Thus we find ourselves in fundamental agreement with the statement that “Science has made its way by releasing, not by suppressing, the elements of variation, of invention and innovation, of novel creation in individuals. We have come to believe that progress in personal life and in group living is made in the same way, by releasing variation, freedom, creativity. There has been an interesting development in suburban architecture. Long gone are the days when homes all had verandas, with easy access to the front door, enabling one to become quickly acquainted with other in the neighbourhood. In 2020 we have architecture which speaks more directly to our current values. The most prominent part of a houses used to be the porch, but now the homes are getting larger. Inside are huge spa like bathrooms, plenty of room for delightful diversions—large living areas with fireplaces afford grand lounging; a dining room, cozy interludes. A fully functional kitchen, powder room, utility room, and even a master bedroom on the first floor. The second floor provides well-arranged sleeping quarters—with another large master bedroom—and two full bathrooms, walk-in closets larger than bedrooms some people grew up in. Do not forget the interesting mud room, the home hub and butler’s pantry. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Modern architecture provides for privacy and entertainment as those are a priority today. The old adage that “a person’s house is one’s castle” is coming true today. One’s castle’s moat is one’s front lawn, the drawbridge is one’s driveway, and the portcullis one’s automatic garage door through which one passes with electronic heraldry. Once inside, one removes one’s armour and attends to house and hearth until daybreak, when one assumes one’s executive armament and, briefcase in hand, mounts one’s steed—perhaps a BMW i8 or a BMW X7—presses the button, and rides off to the wars. Today’s home reflects our modern values of individualism, isolation, and privatization. There is this cure in the air behind my body that nobody is going to touch a cloister, a silence closing around a blossom of fire. It is no longer usual to not even know the families immediately surrounding one’s own house! People do not want to get to know their neighbour’s intimately because they may not share the same values and want to stay on good terms with them. Even when the job does not force it, the average American family moves four times. People move from house to house looking for the elusive “something.” We lack roots, continuity, and community—all of which is to say that friendship, especially deep friendship, has fallen on hard times. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
America’s leading psychologist and therapists estimate that only 10 percent of all men have any real friends. The decade-long research of 5,000 men and women by Michael McGill, published in 1985, corroborates this. He reports: “To say that men have no intimate friends seems on the surface too harsh. However, the data indicates that it is not far from the truth. Even the most intimate of friendships (of which there are few) rarely approach the dept of disclosure a woman commonly has with many other women. Men do not value friendship.” Why is this? we wonder. We all know that men, by nature, are not as relational as women. Men’s friendships typically center around activities, while women’s revolve around sharing. Men do not reveal their feelings or weaknesses as readily as women. They gear themselves for the marketplace, and typically understand friendships as acquaintances made along the way, rather than as relationships. Also, if they have an obviously close friendship with another man, men fear being suspected of deviant behaviour. And, of course, there are some who suffer from the Hank Voight, from Chicago PD, delusion that “real men do not need other people.” Tragically, those who think this way rob themselves, their wives, their children, and the Church because they will never be all God wants them to be. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
Such thinking ignores the wisdom of both Scripture and life. Soon after Adam’s creation, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” reports Genesis 2.18. While this relates directly to the creation of Eve, it is also a primary ontological statement about the nature man, who is, whether he admits it or not, a relational being. His growth and significance are worked out in relationships. Christ is our example. His ministry was centered in deep friendships with the Twelve, whom He repeatedly called “friends” (John 15.13-15), and there was also the inner circle of three with whom He formed an even deeper friendship and to whom He bared His heart. Being a Christian is a relationship with the Triune God through Christ and with His Body, the Church. God becomes our Father; we become eternal brothers and sisters. Relationships! The warning to not “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” (Hebrews 10.15) was, and is, a call to relationships and friendships with other believers. Friendship is not optional. Men, if you are married, your wife must be your most intimate friend, but to say, “my wife is my best friend” can be a cop-out. You also need Christian male friends who have same-sex understanding of the serpentine passages of your heart, who will not only offer counsel and pray for you, but will also hold you accountable to your commitments and responsibilities when necessary. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
It is quite clear that the point of view I am expressing is in sharp contrast to the unusual conception of the relationship of the behavioural sciences to the control of human behaviour, previously mentioned. In order to make this contrast even more blunt, I will state this possibility in a form parallel to the steps which I described before. It is possible for us to choose to value a being as a self-actualizing process of becoming; to value creativity, and the process by which knowledge becomes self-transcending. We can proceed, by the methods of science, to discover the conditions which necessarily precede these processes, and through continuing experimentation, to discover better means of achieving these purposes. It is possible for individuals or groups to set these conditions, with a minimum of power or control. According to present knowledge, the only authority necessary is the authority to establish certain qualities of interpersonal relationship. Exposed to these conditions, present knowledge suggests that individuals become more self-responsible, make process in self-actualization, become more flexible, more unique and varied, more creatively adaptive. Thus such an initial choice would inaugurate the beginnings of a social system or subsystem in which values, knowledge, adaptive skills, and even the concept of science would be continually changing and self-transcending. The emphasis would be upon humans as a process of becoming. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
I believe it is clear that such a view as I have been describing does not lead to any definable Utopia. It would be impossible to predict its final outcome. It involves a step by step development, based upon a continuing subjective choice of purposes, which are implemented by the behavioural sciences. It is in the direction of the “open society,” as that term has been defined, where individual carry responsibility for personal decisions. It is at the opposite pole from the concept of a closed society, of which Walden Two would be an example. I trust it is also evident that the whole emphasis is upon process, not upon end states of being. I am suggesting that it is by choosing to value certain qualitative elements of the process of becoming, that we can find a pathway toward the open society. It is my hope that I have helped to clarify the range of choice which is possessed before us and our children in regard to the behavioural sciences. We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood. We can choose to utilize our scientific knowledge to make people necessarily happy, well-behaved, and productive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
We can, if we wish, choose to make men submissive, conforming, docile, Or at the other end of the spectrum of choice we can choose to use the behavioural sciences in ways which will free, not control; which will bring about constructive variability, not conformity; which will develop creativity, not contentment; which will facilitate each person in one’s self-directed process of becoming; which will assist individuals, groups, and even the concept of science, to become self-transcending in freshly adaptive ways of meeting life and its problems. The choice is up to us, and the human race being what it is, we are likely to stumble about, making at times some nearly disastrous value choices, and at other times highly constructive ones. If we choose to utilize our scientific knowledge to free people, then it will demand that we live openly and frankly with the great paradox of the behavioural sciences. We will recognize that behaviour, when examined scientifically, is surely best understood as determined by prior causation. This is the great fact of science. However, responsible personal choice, which is the most essential element in being a person, which is the core experience in psychotherapy, which exists prior to any scientific endeavour, is an equally prominent fact in our lives. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
We will have to live with the realization that to deny the reality of experience of responsible persona choice is as stultifying, as closed-minded, as to deny the possibility of a behavioural science. That these two important elements of our experience appear to be in contradiction has perhaps the same significance as the contradiction between the wave theory and the corpuscular theory of light, both of which can be shown to be true, even though incompatible. We cannot profitably deny our subjective life, any more than we can deny the objective description of that life. It is my contention that science cannot come into being without a personal choice of the values we wish to achieve. And these values we choose to implement will forever lie outside of the science which implements them; the goal we select, the purposes we wish to follow, must always be outside of the science which achieves them. To me this has the encouraging meaning that the human person, with one’s capacity of subjective choice, can and will always exist, separate from and prior to any of one’s scientific undertakings. Unless as individuals and groups we choose to relinquish our capacity of subjective choice, we will always remain free persons, not simply pawns of a self-created behavioural science. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
And the fact that God does not owe us anything, where does that leave us? It leaves us in the blessed position of being eleventh hour workers in God’s Kingdom. It leaves us going home at the end of the day from God’s vineyard profoundly grateful, knowing that the gracious landowner has been generous beyond all measure. In a word it leaves us content, and “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” reports 1 Timothy 6.6. Contentment with what we have—whether it is possessions, or station in life, or mental or physical abilities—is worth far, far more than all the things we do not have. A multimillionaire reportedly was once asked how much money was enough, to which he replied, “One dollar more.” The person who is living on the basis of merit is like the multimillionaire. One is never content. One day one thinks one is not being rewarded fairly by God; the next day one is afraid one has forfeited all hope for any reward. Far better to adopt the biblical attitude that grace does not depend on merit at all, but on the infinite goodness of God and His sovereign purpose for my life (a purpose God has already declared to be for my good) than rely on all the merit points I could ever possibly accumulate. We need to remember God has already been shown to be the exceedingly gracious and generous landowner. To realize that grace, all we must do is acknowledge we are no more than eleventh-hour workers. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
With this emphasis on contentment, I am not suggesting we should always be satisfied with the status quo in every area of our lives and not pray for or seek improvement. Remember, God by His nature is graciously disposed to give us all good things (Romans 8.32). However, for all of us, there are certain things that simply are not going to change. In those areas, we must learn to be content, always accepting the fact that God does not owe us something different. Frankly, I have had to struggle to learn this myself. God has given me a physical body that, in a number of ways, is less than average. He has given me spiritual gifts that are possessed largely outside the mainstream ministry of the organization He called me to serve with. Neither of these circumstances is going to change, so I have had to learn to be content with what God has given me. I have learned this by focusing on two facts; God does not own me anything, and what He has given me was given by His grace alone. “And now, I speak unto you concerning that which grieveth me exceedingly; for it grieveth me that there should disputations rise among you. For, if I heave learned the truth, there have been disputations among you concerning the baptism of your little children. And now, I desire that ye should labour diligently, that this gross error should be removed from among you; for, for this intent I have written this epistle,” reports Moroni 8.4-6. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
O Lord our God, Whose compassion is the first cause of our fearing and loving Thy Name, mercifully pour (Thy grace) into our hearts, that we, casting away what displeases Thee, may be untied to Thee with an honest will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, the Comforter of the humble, and the Strength of the faithful, be merciful to Thy suppliants; that human weakness, which by itself is prone to fall, may be evermore supported by Thee to stand upright; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty God, I am loved with everlasting love, clothed in eternal righteousness, my peace flowing like a river, my comforts many and large, my joy and triumph unutterable, my soul lively with a knowledge of salvation, my sense of justification unclouded. I have scarce anything to pray for; Jesus smiles upon my soul as a ray of Heaven and my supplications are swallowed up in praise. How sweet is the glorious doctrine of election when based upon thy word and wrought inwardly within the soul! I bless thee that thou wilt keep the sinner thou hast loved, and hast engaged that one will not forsake thee, else I would never get to Heaven. I wrong the work of grace in my heart if I deny my new nature and my eternal life. If Jesus were not my righteousness and redemption, I would sink into nethermost hell by my misdoings, shortcomings, unbelief, unlove; if Jesus were not by the power of his Spirit my sanctification there is no sin I should not commit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
O when shall I have this mind! When shall I be conformed to his image? All the good things of life are less than nothing when compared with his love, and with one glimpse of thy electing favour. All the treasures of a million Worlds could not make me richer, happier, more contented, for one’s unsearchable riches are mine. One moment of communion with him, one view of his grace, is ineffable, inestimable. But O God, I could not long after thy presence if I did not know the sweetness of it; and such I could not know except by the Spirit in my heart, nor love thee at all unless thou didst elect me, call me, adopt me, save me. I bless thee for the covenant of grace. O God, the Bestower of peace and the Lover of charity, grant to Thy servants a true agreement with Thy will, that we may be delivered from all the temptations which attack us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For immediately after I had learned these things of you I inquired of the Lord concerning the matter. And the word of the Lord came to me by the power of the Holy Ghost, saying: Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the World not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me,” reports Moroni 8.7-8. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
CRESLEIGH MEADOWS AT PLUMAS RANCH
Plumas Lake, CA | from the mid $300’s
Now Selling!
Cresleigh Meadows is coming soon! Found just north of Feather River Boulevard, Cresleigh Meadows is home of the largest neighborhood in Plumas Ranch as well as the popular Bear River Park. With four floor plans available, ranging from approximately 2,000 – 3,500 square feet offering, three to five bedrooms, we are certain you will find the home that fits your needs and lifestyle.
Popular design elements include open floor plans, large kitchen islands, and flex spaces are staples in Cresleigh homes. Multi-generational living options also available in select homes. These news homes have all the most up-to-date features expected in luxury home. The designs offer something for the whole family. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-4/
All We Ask is to be Let Alone—God Made this Country and Humans Made this Town!
We do not lose our sense of humour when we get older—we get older when we lose our sense of humour. It is great to be great, but it is greater to be human. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove,” reports St. Matthew 17.20. Today I want to consider the question of how we—as individuals, as groups, as a culture—will live in, will respond to, will adapt to, this brave new World. What stance will we take in the face of these new developments? Deny and Ignore—one attitude which we can take is to deny that these scientific advances are taking place, and simply take the view that there can be no study of human behaviour which is truly scientific. We can hold that the human being cannot possibly take an objective attitude toward oneself, and that therefore no real science of behaviour can exist. We can say that humans are always a free agent, in some sense that makes scientific study of one’s behaviour impossible. Not long ago, at a conference on the social sciences, curiously enough, I heard a well known economist take just this view. And one of this country’s most noted theologians writes, “In any event, no scientific investigation of past behaviour can become the basis of predictions of future behaviour.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
NOW SELLING! Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
We Mortals Cross the Ocean of this World Each in One’s Average Cabin of Life!
A smile confuses an approaching frown. Mirth can be a major tool for insight, changing “ha ha” to “aha.” The illuminate prefers to pull strings from behind the curtain of obscurity. One does not want to impose oneself where one may not be wanted. One does not want to intrude on the mental privacy of others. It is this quality of remoteness in one which baffles some people, provokes others, antagonizes many, but attracts a few. It makes one profoundly different from the average being, foreign to one and hard to understand. The self-actualized is built too high for ordinary beings to appreciate one and too remote for them to understand one. it is inevitable that one should dwell isolated and aloof from all except those whose great aims justify the contact. One will descend into the arena of this World only by the direct order of God. One dwells apart in solitude. Why? “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me leadeth me beside the still waters,” reports Psalms 23.1. The World cannot grant the existence of one’s tremendous modesty, one’s perfect poise, one’s freedom from chatter, one’s vast self-restraint, and so, failing to understand, it would misunderstand. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” reports Genesis 1.27. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
The self-actualized prefers to remain anonymous, but if the mission requires it, one submits to publicity’s glare. Restrained in speech, withdrawn in self, one comes out of one’s inner World to meet one’s fellows only so far, and therefrom will not further descend. For it is a lofty World. If, in their discretion, they suppress their true beliefs and hide their inmost mind from the masses as behind a veil, it must be granted that both history and psychology justify this caution. They are reluctant to tell others about their inmost experiences; if the questioner is unsympathetic or uncomprehending, some even refuse absolutely to admit they have had such experiences. One’s rare experience, one’s precious wisdom, one’s special knowledge of life’s higher laws are not put on parade to impress others. Rather does one have among them as if one were, had, knew nothing exceptional. The other strong influence on late nineteenth-century culture was eating and the home-economics movement. Well-educated, middle-class, nonimmigrant women not only created a profession of their own, but also sought to Americanize urban slum dwellers. Home economists and social workers tried to teach immigrant women about nutrition and tried to wean them away from the “hot,” spicy cuisine of their homelands. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
The favourite foods of the home economics movement were gelatin salads and boiled dressings. A blanket of white sauce covering a slab of boneless protein was the ideal dish. Salads were orderly, encased, cool, and controllable rather than hot, sloppy, and sensuous. Jello, after all, is a Victorian product invented during the 1890s by the Genesee Pure Food Company of Leroy, New York, and was usually served in the dining room, as the dappled light of Gothic stained glass fell across the table. The elegance and refinement of manners in the dining room were, in fact, brand new, developed in the previous forty years. Nonetheless, this change in cuisine was not all one-way bullying. Cookbooks like Fannie Farmer’s and Mrs. Beeton’s, as well as manners books like Emily Post’s, were eagerly bought by immigrant women who wanted to fit into American culture. These books gave advice on food, eating, and household management to Europeans who wanted to know how things were “done” in American. Silver-plate manufacturers were constantly on the lookout for new objects and new shapes to send to market, such as the bell and Adirondack style stand was popular. Although transfer-printed chinaware existed before the Industrial Revolution, it was the establishment of transportation networks that made large-scale factories possible. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
The decoration of the parlor and the choice and arrangement of the furniture reflect the changing role of women in the nineteenth century. Woman as the embodiment of purity and high moral virtue was a theme which nineteenth-century popular culture adopted with obsessive fevour. Before the middle of the century the image of woman was what it has been since the Middle Ages. She was the daughter of Eve, the embodiment of wantonness. Before the Industrial Revolution, misogynic literature always pictured woman as less than human beings, closer to animals, and less able to control their lusts by exercise of their intellect or moral powers, but some say this is more applicable to the average male than a female. By the 1880s, the myth of the pure Victorian woman was fully formed, and the transformation of woman’s image was complete. Late nineteenth-century reformers wrote that women hard no libido; that, in fact, it was replaced by a “maternal instinct,” and that women only consented to pleasures of the flesh to please their husbands and to have children. Women were also said to be the kinder, gentler gender with higher moral standards and greater self-control. Men were thought of as smarter and more competent but more lustful and “primitive” with less ability to control their passions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Two dramatic changes took place in gender roles in the middle of the nineteenth century. Not only did men and women trade places as the moral force in society; but also the accepted roles of men and women grew further apart and took distinctly different paths. Imagine life in American in the 1830s and ‘40s. Most people lived on farms. While there were areas of market economy farming like cotton, tobacco, and wheat, the majority of people still grew most of their own food. There were some cities in America, but they were small commercial cities at harbours and along rivers. Men, women, and children had separate and unequal roles in the family, but the family was still an economic unit that worked together. The “little commonwealth” of the family needed each member to survive. It is true that the growing of the major crop was the “man’s job,” along with his children’s labour, while the growing of vegetables, fowl, and livestock; preserving food; and maintaining clothing was the “woman’s job.” However, no one would survive without both contributions. The garden, the chickens, and the food preservation ensured the family’s survival as much, if not more, than the cash crop. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,” reports Psalms 19.14. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Life in the 1830s and ’40 was limited in scope for everyone. Individuals were known by all their neighbours and restricted by the mores of the culture. Men and women were very unequal under law but were more alike in real life. Society was not under great pressure; men and women had a much more even balance of power than they were to have fifty years later. The 1830s saw Watt’s improvement of the steam engine which made the railroads and steamboats possible. The completion of the Erie canal in the 1820s opened the near Midwest and the Great Lakes to commerce and settlement. The 1850s saw the discovery of coal and iron together in Pennsylvania, which permitted the cast-iron and steel industries to produce factories in cities and to produce railroads to ship their raw materials and manufactured goods. The Civil War caused the railroads to boom and heavy industry to flourish. As a result, everything changed in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. American became urbanized. The 1870 census revealed that, for the first time, most Americans lived in cities. In a small town or a farm village, everyone knew each other, and behaviour was controlled by the neighbours. In a big city each person was anonymous, and standards for behaviour had to be internalized and enforced by the individual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
For most of history right and wrong were external rules; now personal morality had to prevail. The ideal of “self-control” for modern people became widespread in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, the family as an economic unit, a “little commonwealth,” disappeared. It was replaced by the modern cash economy where each person is an individual. By the turn of the century in American, most people worked in manufacturing or in offices. The new middle class worked in skyscrapers and took a commuter railroad or “el” (elevated railroad) or trolley to work. “Home” was an apartment or flat of row house. Rococo Revival chairs by Henry Belter represented the Victorian ideal—modern high technology in historic costume. Belter developed a process for gluing mahogany veneers in a curved mould, creating fancy plywood. He then carved them into caricature of eighteenth-century, French Rococo chairs, much stronger and more elaborate than the originals. This was a new class of people. They were not the gentry of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century who made their living from owning land that others farmed or from shipping. They were not the “yeoman farmers” who grew their food with their own hands. They were clerks and office workers whose work was not manual and who saw themselves as newly arrived gentry. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The Irish potato famine of the 1840s drove millions of immigrants to America, including the paternal ancestors of actress Tia and Tamera Mowry, while revolutions and repressions pushed millions out of Eastern Europe in the 1850s through the ‘80s. Thus, labour was cheap. Even clerical, white-collar workers could have several servants, either live-in maids or daily cleaning ladies who returned to their (newly invented) tenements at night. In the Victorian estates, the parlor was the heart of the home and the piano the heart of the parlor. “Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly; “’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.” –“The Spider and the Fly,” Mary Howitt (1799-1888). Perhaps this poem holds a clue as to significance to the spiderweb pattern, which is a common feature on windows and fireplaces in the Winchester mansion. The kaleidoscope of home designs paralleled changes effected by the Industrial Revolution: mass production; railroad, telegraph, and telephone connecting East Coast to West; the development of water and sewer systems, and the progression of lighting from kerosene to gas to electricity. All these changes, and their resulting social ramifications, were reflected in the ways the Victorians lived. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
By the end of the century, an agrarian society had moved into the cities and created new communities called suburbs. People began vigorously consuming the natural resources around them and outputting new, consumer goods. Family-oriented households turned outward to involvement in social movements and to work outside the home, for money to buy consumer goods. When the Victorian era ended, electric light had turned night into day, forever disrupting nature’s rhythms. Some have divided the era of 1837-1901 into a Romanic and a Victorian period, separated by the Civil War, calling Victorian only those houses with flamboyant styles made possible by balloon framing and technology that eliminated the need for the handcraftsmanship of timber frame building. However, most writers and scholars of that era merely ascribe a romantic aspect to the beginning of the period, adding the moniker “The Gilded Age,” coined by Mark Twain, to aptly describe the heyday of the Victorians, 1870 through the end of the century. When the words “Victorian house” are uttered, an image instantly springs to mind, though in truth, there is no architectural category by the name “Victorian.” The fanciful gingerbread clapboard dwelling, with its dizzy array of towers, gables, spindles, and porches is but one of many architectural genres, or combinations of genres, that existed during that era. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Since the Victorian period began in 1837 and lasted until 1901, it is impossible that any one style of architecture could have dominated for that long. What was a predominant feature of that era was how classical British and European architectural models were adapted to suit North American tastes, raw materials, and technology. The advent of new technologies such as the balloon framed houses, where standardized pieces of machine-cut lumber, uniformly spaced, and held together by machine-made nails, replaced the hand-hewn post and beam structures of the past, meant that more people could own homes. House plans by mail, at the end of the 1840s, when readers of Godey’s Lady’s Book could order any one of 450 house styles, followed by mail order catalogs of houses themselves, after the Civil War, also played a part in the evolution and proliferation of house styles. The millennium will be at hand when everyone agrees that beauty and human scale are as important as efficiency in anything designed for human consumption. By painting Victorian houses with extraordinary attention to details and in every colour that hand, mind, and eye can conceive, San Francisco’s Colourist Movement is bringing that new age closer house by house. Why did the Colourist Movement arise in San Francisco? #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
San Francisco is a unique architectural museum. Its 16,000 redwood Victorians constitute one of the World’s architectural treasures. Brilliant Sunshine and crystal clarity are the natural medium of this hill-filled, fog-washed Baghdad-by-the-Bay. The warmth of these houses reflects as it enhances the city’s great natural beauty. There once were some 48,000 Victorian houses built in San Francisco during the 65 years between the Gold Rush and the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Nearly all sumptuous palaces on Nob and Rincon Hills were destroyed by the 1906 Earthquake and fire. The smaller mansions, town houses, row houses, and mass-produced Victorians that remained, in sections west and south of the burned-out downtown area, survived. Since the early 1970s, San Francisco’s Victorian houses have been shining forth in blazing colors. The city is a haven for people who can appreciate as well as create Painted Ladies. In American architecture, the painted ladies are enchanting, three-story, Queen Anne Victorian houses, which were built in the late 1880s. They are a row of multimillion dollar, colourful Victorian houses located at 710-720 Steiner Street in San Francisco, California. Each house usually has three vibrant colours and are famous Worldwide. If you like Victorian architecture, consider studying Trigonometry. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
To people feeling increasingly like helpless victims of big corporations, big government, and jobs which are means not ends, painting their homes is a satisfying form of self-expression. Nothing in San Francisco has been as effective in making people take pride in their homes, streets, neighbourhoods, and city as paint applied with imagination. (And if that gives the bureaucrats any ideas on urban renewal, and increasing unemployment, so be it!) The Colourist Movement developed spontaneously but haltingly in the 1960s. Isolated beacons of colour painted by a few courageous souls cropped up and immediately aroused the ire Pained Ladies still do on the grounds of tradition and aesthetics. Nevertheless, the momentum of the movement accelerates, spurred by the creative tension of beauty and money. Thanks to the passion and creativity of painters, colorists, and homeowners, the Painted Ladies will not only survive the evils of modernization but are now more beautiful than ever. Tradition is not only preserved but enriched with a fresh eye and bright coat of paint. The Painted Ladies are exquisite examples of how an American tradition worth preserving can be revitalized and made meaningful to a new generation. Because they are a breathtakingly beautiful lesson in renewing a tradition and a city, they have additional significance for this and future generations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Yet even these dazzling damsels cannot be taken for granted. San Francisco has not been granted immunity from the inevitable Earthquake. The right of these Victorians to exist must also be balanced against the need for adequate housing for all income levels, a reality which the success of the Colourist Movement has paradoxically made more difficult to achieve by rapidly escalating the cost of a house. The immortalized Painted Ladies must be seen in person to really appreciate them. Nothing can match the experience of encountering three stories of bright colours against a clear blue San Francisco sky. And few urban delights equal wandering around the town’s Painted Ladies on a sunny day. If you are still wondering what makes San Francisco so special, all you have to do is go look. The combined effect of colour and scale is, like inhaling pure oxygen, irresistibly exhilarating. To come upon one of these houses unexpectedly is to experience a sudden rush of pleasures. As you stroll along a street like Fair Oaks in the Mission District, your eyes develop greater sensitivity to felicities of colour and design. You sense how one house being painted led to another, creating an endless series of gems in the variegated necklace of Victorian San Francisco. However, do not wait. Colours face the same need for protection and artistic expression which inspired homeowners to paint these Victorians will inspire them again. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
By the time you see these houses, some will be repainted. Painted Ladies only captures a moment in time. Painted Ladies is a collection of the best houses, details, and rows of houses our search uncovered. The aim in selecting was that each house be unique in color and architecture. Some are stronger on colour, others on architecture, but most are a happy marriage of both. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into Heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of humans? For he hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in him; and they have faith in him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore he advocateth the cause of the children of humans; and he dwelleth eternally in the Heavens. And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have Angels ceased to minister unto the children of humans. For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of Godliness,” reports Moroni 7.27-30. The self-actualized enlightenment, like the being, eludes the unenlightened observer, who cannot comprehend this kind of being, and so usually ends by misunderstanding one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Wisdom is called mobile by way of similitude, according as it diffuses its likeness even to the outermost of things; for nothing can exist which does not proceed from the divine wisdom by way of some kind of imitation, as from the first effective and formal principle; as also works of art proceed from the wisdom of the artist. And so in the same way, inasmuch as the similitude of the divine wisdom proceeds in degree from the highest things, which participate more fully of its likeness, to the lowest things which participate of it in a lesser degree, there is said to be a kind of procession and movement of the divine wisdom to things; as when we say that the sum proceeds to the Earth, inasmuch as the ray of light touches the Earth. Every procession of the divine manifestation comes to us from the movement of the Father of light. These things are said of God in Scriptures metaphorically. For as the Sun is said to enter a house, or to go out, according as its rays reach the house, so God is said to approach to us, or to recede from us, when we receive the influx of His goodness, or decline from Him. “And the office of their ministry is to call humans unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of humans, to prepare the way among the children of humans, by declaring the word of Christ unto the children of humans, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him,” Moroni 7.31. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Lost persons, in Christian terms, are precisely the ones who mistake their own person for God. They falsely identify, and cannot recognize, what is closet to them—themselves. Then, as we have noted, everything becomes delusional. Such a one really does think one is in charge of one’s life—though, admittedly, to manage it “successfully,” one may have to bow outwardly to this or that person or power. However, one is in charge (one believes), and one has no confidence in the one who really is God. As we have seen, such ones “do not see fit to center their knowledge upon God.” Their god, as Paul elsewhere wrote, is their “belly” (Philippians 3.19), the feeling center of the self. They are willing slaves of their feelings or appetites (Romans 16.18). They “want what they want when they want it,” as the song says, and that is the ultimate fact about them. If they do not get it, they become angry and depressed, and are a danger to themselves and others. The philosophy of living with an underlying motive of doing everything for one’s own personal peace and comfort rapidly colours everything that might formerly have come under the headings of right and wrong. This new way of thinking adds entirely new shades, often in blurring brushstrokes of paint that wipe out the existence of standards or cast them into a shadow that pushes them out of sight. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
If one’s peace, comfort, way of life, convenience, reputation, opportunities, job, happiness, or even ease is threatened, “Just abort it.” Abort what? Abort another life that is not yet born. Yes, but also abort the afflictions connected with having a disabled child, and abort the burdens connected with caring for the old or invalid. Added swiftly are the now supposedly thinkable attitudes of aborting a child’s early security in one’s rights to have two parents and a family life; aborting a wife’s need for having her husband be someone to trust and lean upon; aborting the husband’s need for having a companion and friend as well as a feminine mate; aborting any responsibility to carry through a job started. Thus self-idolatry rearranges the entire spiritual and moral landscape. It sees the whole Universe with different eyes. If it is not abortion that is at the center, it will be something else; but the fundamental pride of putting oneself at the center of the Universe is the hinge upon which the entire World of the ruined self turns. The surest source of destruction to humans is to obey themselves. Yet, self-obedience seems the only reasonable path for nearly everyone. So blindly do we all rush in the direction of self-love, that every one thinks one has a good reason for exalting oneself and despising all others in comparison. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Whereas the primal relationship of human to human is giving one, in the state of sin it is purely demanding. Every person exists in a state of complete voluntary isolation; each being lives one’s own life, instead of all living the same God-life. Well, of course. Each is a god unto oneself. “And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of beings may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which one hath made unto the children of humans. And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me. And he hath said: Repent all ye ends of the Earth, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and have faith in me, that ye may be saved,” reports Moroni 7.32-34. O God, Who gavest the Holy Spirit to Thine Apostles, vouchsafe a good effect to Thy people’s devout prayer; that as Thou hast given them faith, Thou mayest also bestow on them peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the Holy Spirit enkindle in us that fire which our Lord Jesus Christ sent upon the Earth, and ardently desired to see enkindled, Who with thee will allow of to see deeply into the hidden meaning of life for ye are the best qualified to guide us in matters of conduct and motive. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
My Father, enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips, supply words that proclaim “Love lusters at Calvary.” There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son, made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me; there the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow; there thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made; there infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured. Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy, cast off that I might be brought in, trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain Heaven’s best, stripped that I might be clothed, wounded that I might be healed, athirst that I might drink, tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, entered darkness that I might have eternal light. My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes, groaned that I might have unfading healthy, bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem, bowed his head that I might uplift mine, experienced reproach that I might receive welcome, closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that I might for ever live. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightiest spare me, all this transfer thy love designed and accomplished; help me to adore thee by lips and life. O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise, my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed, Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed, sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood, hell’s gates closed, Heaven’s portal open. Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross, might to subdue, comfort and save. The Lord wants us to bring our children up with tenderness, discipline, and instruction. The words “bring them up” mean “to nourish or feed.” Bring them up also means to let them be kindly cherished, and to speak to one’s children with gentleness and friendliness. When I was a teenager, my best friend’s father was a man’s man. He had spent thirty-two years in the Coast Guard as a noncommissioned officer, a chief bosun’s mate. He was a big man, and in his prime he had put on the gloves with Joe Louis. When he walked down the street, officers greeted him first. He could be rough and tumble. However, do you know what he called his 165-pound son? “Dear Ken.” I was “Mr. Randy,” and I did not mind at all. In fact, it made me feel great. He was not hung up on “Real men do not show affection.” In fact, he still hugs his grown son—a man’s man himself. We are to be tender. Men are never manlier than when they are tender with their children—whether holding a baby in their arms, loving their grade-schooler, or hugging their teenager or adult children. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
A child needs also to know that one’s father and one’s mother are happily married, and supportive of their children. A child who comes from a happy home is more likely to be stable. Tenderness—verbal and physical—comes naturally to a father living under God’s Word. Men, how do we measure up? Next there is training. This is a strong word which means discipline, even by punishment. Discipline certainly includes corporal discipline as needed. However, it encompasses everything necessary to help train a child in the way one should go. The tragedy is that so many men have left this to their children’s mothers. Not only is this unfair to the mother, but it robs the child of the security and self-esteem which come from being disciplined by the father. Men, do you leave the discipline of your sons and daughters to your wives? If so, that is a sad breach of domestic responsibility. You are not living under God’s Word! O God, the Enlightener and the Life of believers, the ineffable greatness of Whose gifts is celebrated by the testimony of this day’s festival; grant unto Thy people to apprehend in their understandings what they have learned by a miracle, that Thine adopted children, whom the Holy Spirit has called together, may love Thee without any lukewarmness, and confess Thy Faith without any dissension; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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My Heart is a Lonely Hunter that Hunts on a Lonely Hill!
The workers have nothing to lose but their chairs. They have a World to gain. Worrying is like a rocking chair—it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself,” reports St. Matthew 6.34. There are many insights laid out by Paul which asks of the Christian that they be watchful. He strong being is strong only if one watches one’s strength, aware of the fact that there is weakness in one’s strength. There is a non-Christian in every Christian. There is a weak being in every strong one. There is cowardice in every courage, and unbelief in every faith, and hostility in every love. Watchfulness means that the Christian never can rest on one’s being a Christian, that one who is strong can never rely on one’s strength. One can be strong by subjecting oneself to a strong discipline. By suppressing much in oneself one may become powerful in relation to others. It is often this type that is called a strong personality. And, certainly, strength without the ability to direct oneself is no strength. However, those who have this ability and are admired as strong personalities should be watchful: they should watch whether their strength has weakness at its basis, whether it excludes elements of life that constitute the richness and the glory of life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
If they do not watch their hidden weakness, it may flow forth as hatred for those who affirm the abundance of life. This abundance they cannot endure, because it reveals the weakness on which their strength is built. In order to reassure themselves, they force upon others the same restrictions they have imposed on their life. Their domineering strength creates weakness in others. There is a profound ambiguity about the strong Christian personality: Christianity could not live, society could not go on, without them. However, many other Christians, many persons, who perhaps could have become strong themselves, are destroyed or reduced to mental weakness and often illness by them. They are the bearers of Christianity and society; but their victims among Christians and non-Christians, beginning with their children, their wives or their husbands, are numerous. Be watchful when you are considered, or consider yourself, strong. Be watchful, and do not demand of those around you to be what you are, and what they are not. You will destroy them by your strength. Those who are considered strong usually have a strong conviction. They seem to do what Paul asks them to—namely, to “stand in the faith.” Everybody needs place to stand upon. Without a foundation no strength is possible. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
In the physical Universe it is a place on the well-grounded Earth, as the Greeks said; no experience seems more disturbing, even for the strongest mins, than the shaking of the ground in an Earthquake. In the social Universe it is the home—the home town country on which we stand; and from earliest times those who lost their homeland were considered weakest and most unprotected. What about the spiritual Universe? Language is the place we stand on in the spiritual Universe. For out of the word by which we grasp our World and our own being all other spiritual creations grow: knowledge and the arts, social traditions and philosophical beliefs. The word gives beings the strength to build a World above the given World. It makes one the ruler of nature, as in the paradise story: one becomes the ruler over other living beings by giving them names. One who is strong in the spiritual Universe is strong in the power of the word. A profound insight into human strength and human weakness is expressed in the story of the tower of Babel. Humankind was strong as long as it was united in one language. Its strength impelled it to enter the Heavenly sphere. However, when God wanted to destroy human’s self-elevation and reveal one’s weakness, one confused the one language so that people no longer understood each other. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
We are in a similar situation today. Our period is weak, because we can no longer speak to each other. Each one has one’s own language, and the word has lost its power. It has become shallow and confused. We have experienced Earthquake and exile in the spiritual World. Paul asks the Corinthians to stand on something that is deeper than the physical and social and spiritual Universe, something that cannot be shaken, because all levels of the Universe rest upon it, their divine Ground. To stand on this Ground is, in Paul’s words, to stand in the faith. One, of course, thinks of the faith in the form in which one has brought it to the Corinthians. However, in this faith, faith itself is present—namely, the standing on the ultimate Ground below any shaking and changing ground. Breaking the way to this Ground is the meaning of the appearance of the Christ. “Stand firm in your faith” means—do not give up that faith that alone can make your ultimately strong, because it gives you the ultimate Ground on which to stand. Standing firm in one’s faith does not mean adhering to a set of beliefs; it does not require us to suppress doubts about Christian or other doctrines, but points to something which is possessed beyond doubt in the depth in which human’s being and all being is rooted. To be aware of this Ground, to live in it and out of it is ultimate strength. “Be strong” and “stand in the faith” are one and the same command. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
However, remembering now the word “be,” some may reply—“Then the demand to be strong is not for us, because we do not stand in any faith. Doubt or unbelief is our destiny, not faith. We know you are right, there is no strength where there is no faith. However, we have neither. And if there is some strength in us, it is the strength of honesty, the unwillingness to submit to a faith that is not ours, either for conventional reasons, or because of our longing for strength, or because of being taken in by our contemporary emotion-arousing evangelists. Our strength is to resist and to reject strength that is born of dishonesty. Some of the best minds of our time would speak thus. To them I answer—Your honesty proves your faith and therefore your honesty is your strength! You may not believe in anything that can be stated in doctrines or symbols. However, you stand on the ultimate Ground, you stand firm in your faith as long as you sand in honesty and take your doubt and your unbelief seriously without restriction. Become aware of the faith that you have, and you will find words for it, perhaps even Christian words. However, with or without words, be strong; for you are strong. Strength, according to Paul’s words, includes courage. For human strength is built on human anxiety. Insecurity takes many forms. One of the most dangerous is the experience of being split within ourselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
One who is united with oneself is invincibly strong. However, who is? We are all dominated by forces that conquer parts of our being and split our personality. We have not merely lost the power of the word; we also have lost the strength that is given with a united, centered personality. We are disrupted by compulsions, known formerly as demonic powers. And who can command a split personality—“Be strong!” To which side of the personality can such a command be addressed? Yet, there is the possibility of something else. Healing power, coming ultimately from the Ground on which we stand in the faith, can enter the personality and unite it in an act of courage. It is the courage that takes upon itself the anxiety of our disruptions. This courage is the innermost center of faith. It dares to affirm our being, while simultaneously rejecting it. Out of this courage the greatest strength emerges. It is the strength that overcomes the powers splitting World and soul. Be courageous! Say Yes to yourselves in spite of the anxiety of the No. So Paul finishes his description of the strong personality: a courageous, watchful hero, firm in faith, worthy of great praise. However, that is just what Paul has in mind is based on something beyond courage and faith and watchfulness. It is not the strength of a hero. It is the strength of one who surrenders the praise one could receive as a hero to the humility of love. They may be friendly and be willing to help. This they demand of themselves. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
However, everything they demand of themselves they also demand of others. They use the word “be” without hesitation. They become tyrants through personal strength. Without love one who is strong becomes a law for the weak. And the law makes those who are weak even weaker. It drives them into despair, or rebellion, or indifference. Strength without love destroys, first others, then itself. For love is not something that may or may not be added to strength in its fullest sense; it is an element of strength. One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life, the power of reunion of the separated. Strength without love leads to separation, to judgment, to control of the weak. Love reunites what is separated; it accepts what is judged; it participates in what is weak, as God participates in our weakness and gives us strength by His participation. “When he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour,” reports Revelations of St. John. If you are a thoughtful and observant person you will probably recognize in this description the usual course of human affairs—thank God for any exceptions there may be! And if you find yourself substantially exempted from this picture, you can say thankfully, “There, but for the grace of God, go I. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Paul, at least, was not hopeful that things would get better as human history moved along. He was not a believer in “progress” as it has been humanly understood. In what seems to have been his last letter, perhaps the very last thing he wrote, he warned Timothy that “in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of Godliness, although they have denied its power,” reports 2 Timothy 3.1-5. One could be forgiven for thinking that this certainly looks like “now.” Who does not recognize in these words the prevailing tone and texture of contemporary life? Who does not know that such behaviour, if not approved outright, is excused or even justified by clever psychological, legal, and moral maneuvers, often reciting elevated “principles.” In fact this has been the end stage f every successful human society that has arisen on Earth. Invariably, such a society begins to believe it is responsible for its success and prosperity and begins to worship itself and rebel against the understandings and practices that allowed it, under God, to be successful in the first place. “Jeshurun grew fat and kicked,” the prophetic analysis states Deuteronomy 32.15. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
The human decline into what was expressed in the words of Paul to Timothy is inevitable. However, underneath it all is the radical evil of the human heart—a heart that would make me God in place of God. The prophetic clarity still stands for all to read and test. Our human “righteousness” is like “filthy rags” reports Isaiah 64.6. And over against this we hear intoned: “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to given to each being according to one’s ways, according to the results of one’s deeds,” reports Jeremiah 17.10. Some fathers exasperate their children by being overly strict and controlling. They need to remember that rearing children is like holding a wet bar of soap—too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too loose a grip and it slides away. A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control. We cannot begin to estimate the ravages of overstrictness on the evangelical Christian community over the years. I have had occasions in my ministry to bury people who lived virtually all of their seventy years in reaction to the harsh legalism of their upbringing—lost bars no one could manage to pick up. Others were not so tragic. They came to renounce legalism Biblically and theologically, but still wrestled with it emotionally for the rest of their lives. Why are some fathers overly strict? Many because they are trying to protect their children from an increasingly Philistine culture—and smothering rules seem the best way to accomplish that. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
Others are simply controlling personalities who use rules, money, friendship, or clout to rule their children’s lives. The Bible, read through their controlling grid, becomes a license to own and dominate. Still others wrongly understand their faith in terms of Law rather than grace. Some men are overly strict because they are concerned about what others will think. “If my child goes to this place or wears this clothing, or is heard listening to that music, what will they think?” Not a few preacher’s kids have been catapulted into rebellion because their fathers squeezed their lives to fit their parishioners’ expectations. What a massive sin against one’s children! Rather, we ought to begin our fatherhood by holding the tiny helpless bar snugly, but as it grows, gradually and wisely loosen our grip. As conscientious fathers we have to say “no” to many things. Thus we should try to say “yes” to as much as possible, and save our no’s for the really important situations. We must be Biblical in regard to our no’s—and as our children grow, be prepared to discuss the rules Biblically and principally. We must learn to trust God with our children, realizing they must learn to make decision for themselves. Fathers, do not exasperate your children by being overly strict. Learn to hold their lives with God’s pressure and to mold it with His love. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
Seeking the Master: Great possibilities attach themselves to the first interview between the student earnestly seeking direction, needing guidance, or requesting counsel, and the illuminate who has established communion with God. These possibilities do not depend upon the length of time it takes nor upon what is said during the actual conversation itself. They depend upon the attitude which a student silently brings with one and upon the power which the illuminate silently expresses. In other words, they depend upon invisible and telepathic factors. Only when one is finally ready for a master will one find a true one. However, to be ready the aspirant must bring his character to its highest possibility. When that is done then even at the first meeting the power of attraction will speak silently yet eloquently. Both will know, before that first meeting ends, that the other is the right one; there will be no doubts, no hesitations; they can exist only when judgement is wrong. One will know an affinity of soul that can and has previously been experienced with no one else. Affinity has its own clear language. It will put both people at perfect ease. When a sensitive heart, a receptive mind, and a strong yearning for spiritual perfection meet a being who embodies such perfection to a large degree, there is or should be some recognition, some brief purification, some intellectual clarification, some emotional exaltation, amounting in all to a miniature mystical experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
When the predestined disciple meets the master for the first time, one may feel either that one has known the individual before or else that one has known one always. Sometimes we have the feeling on meeting a stranger for the first time, one may feel either that one has known one before or else that one has known one always. Sometimes we have the feeling on meeting a stranger for the first time, that we have known one long and known one well. The feeling on first meeting the destined master is much the same but greatly expanded and deeply intensified. The feeling which is aroused on this contact—whether affinity or antipathy—must be one’s first guide to the choice of a master. One may feel the force of a real attraction when first meeting one’s master, in most cases, but it is just possible one may not. The human in whose presence your character rises to its best and your faith to its highest, is the being who can help you spiritually. Without this inward affinity it is of not much use to attach yourself to a guide, however reputed one may be. “And now, my brethren, how is it possible that ye can lay hold upon every good thing? And now I come to that faith, of which I said I would speak; and I will tell you the way whereby ye may lay hold on every good thing. For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent Angels to minister unto the children of humans, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing,” reports Moroni 7.20-22. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the splendour of Thy brightness may shine upon us, and the light of Thy Light confirm with the illumination of the Holy Spirit the hearts of those who have been born again through Thy grace: for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who celebrate the solemnity of the gift of the Holy Ghost, may be kindled with Heavenly desires, and thirst for the fountain of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Everlasting Creator-Father, I have destroyed myself, my nature is defiled, the powers of my soul are degraded; I am vile, miserable, strengthless, but my hope is in thee. If ever I am saved it will be by goodness undeserved and astonishing not by mercy alone but by abundant mercy, not by grace but by exceeding riches of grace; and such thou hast revealed, promised, exemplified in thoughts of peace, not of evil. Thou hast devised means to rescue me from sin’s perdition, to restore me to happiness, honour, safety. I bless thee for the everlasting covenant, for the appointment of a mediator. I rejoice that he failed not, nor was discouraged, but accomplished the work thou gavest him to do; and said on the cross, “It is finished.” I exult in the thought that thy justice is satisfied, thy trust established, thy la magnified, and a foundation is laid for my hope. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
I look to a present and personal interest in Christ and say, surely he has borne my griefs, carried my sorrows, won my peace, healed my soul. Justified by his blood I am saved by his life, glorying in his cross I bow to his scepter, having his Spirit I possess his mind. Lord, grant that my religion may not be occasional and partial, but Universal, influential, effective, and may I always continue in thy words as well as thy works, so that I may reach my end in peace. Almighty and everlasting God, Who in the fulness of this day’s mystery hast completed the secret work of the Paschal solemnity; grant, we beseech Thee, that we who have been made Thine adopted sons may obtain that peace which our Lord Jesus Christ left unto us when He came to Thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the Holy Spirit prepare our minds by Divine mysteries, forasmuch as He Himself is the remission of all sins; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the power of the Holy Spirit be present with us, that it may both mercifully cleanse our hearts, and protect us from all adversities; through our Lord Jesus Christ. O God, Who by the mystery of this day’s festival dost sanctify Thy Universal Church in every race and nation, shed abroad throughout the whole World the gift of the Holy Spirit; that the work wrought by Divine goodness at the first preaching of the Gospel may now also be extended among believing hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
With these sobering vistas of the human heart and soul before us, we need now to rethink for our time what it means to be lost. For a ruined soul is a lost sou. What is a lost soul? Just someone God is mad at? When is a person lost? And is anyone lost today? Considerable confusion on this topic has resulted from trying to think of being lost in terms of its outcome. Theologically, that outcome is Hell—a most uncomfortable notion. Certainly, if you are lost in any sense there is a little likelihood of your arriving where you want to be. However, the condition of lostness is not the same as the outcome to which it leads. We are not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost. TO be lost means to be out of place, to be omitted. “Gehenna,” the term often used in the New Testament for the place of the lost, may usefully be thought of as the cosmic dumb for the irretrievably useless. Think of what it would mean to find you have become irretrievably useless. Something that is lost is something that is not where it is supposed to be, and therefore it is not integrated into the life of the one to whom it belongs and to who it is lost. Think of what it means when the keys to your house or are lost. They are useless to you, no matter how much you need them and desire to have them and no matter what fine keys they may be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
And when we are lost to God, we are not where we are supposed to be in his World and hence are not caught up into his life. We are not “partakers of the divine nature,” have not “escaped the corruption that is in the World” through lust reports 2 Peter 1.4. We are our own god, and our god does not amount to much. When we are lost to God, we are also lost to ourselves: we do not know where we are or how to get where we want to go. We may know we are lost or we may not. Many a driver is lost long before one knows one his—though rarely before one’s wife knows it. Many are lost before God but do not know it. They sincerely believe that they know where they are, where they are going, and how to get there; but in fact they do not, and they often find out too late. Disorientation to moral, personal, and divine reality, as well as to the physical, sometimes leads us across lines that cannot be recrossed. This is part of the tragic meaning of human time and action. Almighty and everlasting God, Who in the fulness of this day’s mystery hast completed the secret work of the Paschal solemnity; grant, we beseech Thee, that we who have been made Thine adopted sons may obtain that peace which our Lord Jesus Christ left unto us when He came to Thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the Holy Spirit prepare our minds by Divine mysteries, forasmuch as He Himself is the remission of all sins; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
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Watch and Pray that Ye Enter Not into Temptation: that Spirit Indeed is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak!
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Knowledge of the HOLY One is Understanding—I Know that is a Secret, for it is Whispered Everywhere!
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace. You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Today’s pressures on the principalship show no signs of decreasing their intensity. Future challenges include encouraging dispersed yet centered leadership, creating a cohesive community out of increasingly diverse populations, being responsible without being in charge, changing rapidly in response to social needs without leaving people behind, building trust and confidence in an openly cynical society, and caring for people while challenging them to grow. Together, these challenges will continue to fill every day with problems to solve, puzzles to unravel, and paradoxes to manage and endure. The whole ask of psychotherapy is the task of dealing with a failure in communication. The emotionally maladjusted person, the “neurotic,” is in difficulty first, because communication within oneself has broken down, and second because, as a result of this, one’s communication with others has been damaged. If this sounds somewhat strange to you, then let me put it in other terms. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The influence of such an understanding catalyst in the group permits the members to come closer and closer to the objective truth involved in the relationship. In this way mutual communication is established and some type of agreement becomes much more possible. So we may say that though heightened emotions make it much more difficult to understand with an opponent, our experience makes it clear that a neutral, understanding, catalyst type of a leader or therapist can overcome this obstacle. This last phrase, however, suggests another obstacle to utilizing the approach I have described. Thus far all our experience has been with small face-to-face groups—groups exhibiting industrial tensions, religions tensions, racial tensions, and therapy groups in which many personal tensions are present. In these small groups our experience, confirmed by a limited amount of research, shows that a listening, empathic approach leads to improved communication, to greater acceptance of others and by others, and to attitudes which are more beneficial and more problem-solving in nature. There is a decrease in defensiveness, in exaggerated statements, in evaluative and critical behavior. However, these findings are from small groups. What about trying to achieve understanding between larger groups that are geographically remote? Or between face-to-face groups who are not speaking for themselves, but simply as representatives of others, like the delegates at the United Nations? #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
God would have been generous just to have restored them, but He went beyond that. God would cause their harvests to be so abundant they would recoup the losses from the years of famine. God says He will repay them, though He obviously owes them nothing. From time to time I have opportunity to minister individually to people who in some way have really “blown it” in life. For some, it may have been before they became Christians; for others it occurred while they were believers. Usually these people lament their “lost” years, the years when they served sin instead of God, or years that were wasted as Christians. I try to encourage these people about the grace of God. I cannot promise them God will “repay” those lost years as He did for the Israelites, but I can assure them that it is God’s nature to be gracious. I encourage them to pray to this end and to realize, as they pray, that they are coming to a God who does not withhold His grace because of demerits. “For behold, if a person being evil giveth a gift, one doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto one the same as if one had retained the gift; wherefore one is counted evil before God. And likewise also is it counted evil unto a being, if one shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it porfiteth one nothing, for God recevieth none such,” reports Moroni 7.8-9. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, “It is finished.” Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of atonement achieved, expiation completed, satisfaction made, guilt done away, my debt paid, my sins forgiven, my person redeemed, my soul saved, hell vanquished, Heaven opened, eternity made mine. O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons. Write them upon my heart, that my walk be sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ-loving; and suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me. O God, Who by Christ’s Resurrection restores us to life eternal; raise us up to the Author of our salvation, Who is seated at Thy right hand that He Who came to be judged for our sake, may come to judge in our favour, Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, Who with thee we may enter he shrine of Heaven, and that we may abandon bleak despair and hard cynicism. Lord, please keep us from becoming engulfed in the agency of moral wickedness. Let us take your unseen hand and may you be our personal saviour or spiritual guide, whether dead or alive—someone who we believe to have come to enlighten human kinds. Lord, become our secret refuge, and may we deserve your grace. May our intellectual effort be sustained beyond the stage of ordinary beings in which we now rest. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Tell Me that I Will Always be the One that You Want, Do Not Know What I Would do if I Ever Lose You!
Well, now, there is a remedy for everything except death. Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! It is not what name others call you that matters, but name you respond to that truly determines who you are. If asked in a poll, although most people would say they believe in God, and though church attendance still remains high and confessions of atheism are relatively rare, it is still perfectly clear that the crisis in modern society has also had a negative effect on religion. Theologians themselves have realized this and have spoken quite openly about the anguish religion as we know it is currently going through. The development began centuries ago, but the closer we come to the present, the greater its rate of acceleration has been. Because religion fulfills a double function, its collapse leaves us with a double loss. Our religion, based primarily on the Judeo-Christian tradition, provides us with both an explanation of the natural World and moral principles—an ethic. Those two functions have nothing to do with each other, for how you explain the natural World is one thing, and what moral principles and values you have is quite another. However, the two functions were not originally separated, and there are a number of reasons why not. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 