Home » Eugenics Record Office (Page 28)

Category Archives: Eugenics Record Office

Hitch Your Wagon to a Star and Never Leave that Till Tomorrow which You Can do Today!

June 13, 2020 12:57 am

The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be continually fearing you will make one. While liberals criticize the model of deliberative democracy for possibly overextending itself and corroding the sphere of individual privacy, feminist theorists criticize this model for not extending itself broadly enough to be truly inclusive. The distinction between public and private as it appears in modern political theory expresses a will for homogeneity that necessitates the exclusion of many persons and groups, particularly women and radicalized groups culturally identified with the body, wildness and rationality. In conformity with the modern idea of normative reason, the idea of the public in modern political theory and practice designates a sphere of human existence in which citizens express their rationality and universality, abstracted from their particular situations and need, and opposed to feeling. Examination of the exclusionary and homogeneous ideal in modern political theory, however, shows that we cannot envision such renewal of public life as a recovery of Enlightenment ideals. Instead, we need to transform the distinction between public and private that does not correlate with an opposition between reason and affectively desire, or universal and particular. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

In this cogent and penetrating feminist critique of the ideal of the impartial public applies to the model of deliberative democracy suggested in the preceding only in certain respects. Certainly, the model of a general deliberative assembly that governed our conceptions of the public sphere well into the twenty-first century was historically, socially, and culturally a space for male bodies. I mean this not only in a sense that only men were active citizens entitled to hold office and appear in public, but also in the sense that the institutional iconography of early democratic theory privileged the male mode of self-representation. Yet here we must distinguish between the institutional and the conceptual critique. There is a certain ambivalence in the feminist critique of such models of the public sphere and deliberative democracy. On the one hand, the critique appears to take democratic institutions at their principled best and to criticize their biased and restrictive implementations in practice; on the other hand, the feminist critique appears to aim at a rejection of the ideals of free public reason and impartiality altogether. The democratic public sphere appears to be essentially and not just accidentally masculinist. A normative theory of deliberative democracy requires a strong concept of the public sphere as its institutional correlate. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

The public sphere replaces the model of the general deliberative assembly found in early democratic theory. In this context, it is important for feminist theorists to specify the level of their conceptual objection, and to differentiate among institutional and normative presuppositions. We do not reject the ideal of a public sphere, only its Enlightenment variety. Perhaps we should replace the ideal of the “civil public” with that of a heterogeneous public. There are a number of institutional measures that would guarantee and solidify group representation in such a public sphere. Yet wanting to retain the public sphere and according it a place in democratic theory is not compatible with the more radical critique of the ideal of impartial reason. We can distinguish between “deliberative” and “communicative” democracy on the grounds that most theories of deliberative democracy offer too narrow a conception of the democratic process because they continue to privilege an ideal of a common good in which the discussions participants are all supposed to leave behind their particular experience and interests. By contrast, we advocate a theory of communicative democracy according to which individuals would attend to one another’s differences in class, gender, race, religion, and so one. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

Each social position has a partial perspective on the public that is does not abandon; but through the communicative process participants transcend and transform their initial situated knowledges. Instead of critical argumentation, such processes of communicative confrontation privilege modalities of communication like greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling. I think this distinction between deliberative and communicative democracy is more apparent than real. To sustain critique of the ideals of impartiality and objectivity, which we associate with the deliberative model, we must also be able to distinguish the kind of transformation and transcendence of partial perspectives that occurs in communicative democracy from the mutual agreement to be reached in process of deliberative democracy. Yet how can we distinguish between the emergence of common opinion among members of one group, if we do not apply to such processes of communications or deliberation some standards of fairness and impartiality in order to judge the manner in which opinions were allowed to be brought forth, groups were given chances to express their points of view, and the like? The model of communicative democracy, far from dispensing with the need for standards of impartiality and fairness, requires them to make sense of its own formulations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

Without some such standards, we could not differentiate the genuine transformation partial and situated perspectives from mere agreements of convenience or apparent unanimity reached under conditions of duress. With respects to modes of communication like greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling, I would say that each of these modes may have their place within the informally structed process of everyday communication among individuals who share a cultural and historical life World. However, it is neither necessary for the democratic theorist to try to formulize and institutionalize these aspects of communicative everyday competence, nor is it plausible—and this is the more important objection—to build an opposition between them and critical argumentation. Greeting, storytelling, and rhetoric, although they may be aspects of informal communication in our everyday life, cannot become the public language of institutions and legislatures in a democracy for the following reasons: to attain legitimacy, democratic institutions require the articulation of the bases of their actions and policies in discursive language that appeals to commonly shared and accepted public reasons. In constitutional democracies such public reasons take the form of general statements consonant with the rule of law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

The rule of law has a certain rhetoric structure of its own: it is general, applies to all members of a specified reference group on the basis of legitimate reasons. In our attempt to transform the language of the rule of law into a more partial, affective, and situated mode of communication would have the consequences of inducting arbitrariness, for all who can tell how far the power of a greeting can reach? It would further create capriciousness—what about those who simply cannot understand by story? It would limit rather than enhance social justice because rhetoric moves people and achieves results without having to render an account of the bases upon which it induces people to engage in certain courses of action rather than others. In short, some moral ideal of impartiality is a regulative principle that should govern not only our deliberations in public but also the articulation of reasons by public institutions. What is considered impartial has to be in the best interests of all equally. Without such a normative principle, neither the ideal of the rule of law can be sustained nor deliberative reasoning toward a common good occur. Some Enlightenment ideals are part of any conception of democratic legitimacy and the public sphere. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

The point therefore is not rejection of the Enlightenment in toto but a critical renegotiation of its legacy. Expanding on the model of a heterogeneous, dispersed network of many publics, it is suggested how, in fact, once the unitary model of the public sphere is abandoned, women’s concerns, as well as those of other excluded groups, can be accommodated. Such a nonunitary and dispersed network of public can accommodate women’s desires for their own spaces, in their own terms. In such subaltern counter publics, the lines between the public and the private, for example, can be renegotiated, rethought, challenged, and reformulated. It is nonetheless a long step from the cultural and social rethinking and reformulation of such distinctions as between the public and the private to their implementation in legislation and governmental regulation. While sharing the concern of liberal theorists that the precipitous reformulation of such a divide may corrode individual liberties, we rightly point out that there is a distinction between opinion-making and policy-making public bodies, and that the same kinds of contrasts may not apply to each alike. Opinion-making publics, as found in social movements, for example, can lead us to recognizer and rethink very controversial issues about privacy, pleasures of the flesh, and intimacy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

However, this does not imply that the only or even most desirable consequence of such processes of public deliberation should be general legislation. Thus when conceived as an anonymous, plural, and multiple medium of communication and deliberation, the public sphere need not homogenize and repress difference. Heterogeneity, otherness, and difference can find expression in the multiple associations, networks, and citizens’ forums, all of which constitute public life under late capitalism. My goal in this essay has been to outline a deliberative model of democracy that incorporates features of practical rationality. Central to practical rationality is the possibility of free public deliberation about matters of mutual concern to all. The discourse model of ethics and politics suggest a procedure for such free public deliberation among all concerned. Such processes of public deliberation have a claim to rationality because they increase and make available necessary information, because they allow the expression of arguments in the light of which opinions and beliefs need to be revised, and because they lead to the formation of conclusions that can be challenged publicly for good reasons. Furthermore, such procedures allow self-referential critique of their own uses and abuses. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

One who takes up the vocation of spiritual service should do so only if one be sufficiently prepared for it morally—only if one be destitute of ambitions and greeds, detached from people and the thought of people, isolated from personal motivations, liberated from the lower emotions. A master of issues no command and requires no obedience. Others may do so but not one. One will bear no grudge if one’s advice is rejected. The self-actualized who performs the enlightened potentate to one’s court disciples may be unconsciously playing up to their desires or expectations but also playing down to one’s own desire for power. It may help to keep them in juvenile dependence on one but also keep one within the ego and thus reduce one’s capacity to serve them. Even if one were not ethically more sensitive and hence more scrupulous than most people, one’s own spiritual dignity and personal self-respect would alone forbid one’s taking advantage of the credulous, the inexperienced, or the unbalanced. The spiritual guide who is not oneself free from passion is a dangerous guide for those who are still struggling in the grip of passion. The teacher who has not utterly subdued personal egoism is unfit to assist those who seek liberation from it. One should learn to solve the problems of other people. The true teacher identifies oneself with one’s student and does not sit on a Himalayan height of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

The chief institutional correlate of such a model of deliberative democracy is a multiple, anonymous, heterogenous network of many public and public conversations. In other domains of social life as well, the model of deliberative democracy based on the centrality of public deliberation can inspire the proliferation of many institutional designs. Usually the sufferings entailed in these tendencies toward weakness yield no conscious satisfaction but, on the contrary, regardless of the purpose they serve, are definitely part of the neurotic’s general awareness of misery. Nevertheless these tendencies aim at a satisfaction, even when they do not, or at least apparently do not, reach it. Occasionally this aim can be observed and sometimes it even becomes apparent that the goal of satisfaction has been achieved. An individual who went to visit some friends living in the country felt disappointed that no one met her at the station and that some of her friends were not at home when she arrived. Thus far, she said, the experience was wholly painful. However, then she felt herself sliding into a feeling of being utterly desolate and forlorn, a feeling which, son afterwards, she recognized as entirely disproportionate to the provocation. This submergence in misery not only lulled the pain but was felt as positively pleasurable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

The achievement of satisfaction is much more frequent and more obvious in fantasies involving pleasures of the flesh and perversions of a masochistic character, such as fantasies of being assaulted, beaten, humiliated, enslaved, or their actual enactment. In fact they are only another manifestation of this same general inclination toward weakness. The obtaining of satisfaction by submersion in misery is an expression of the general principle of finding satisfaction by losing the self in something greater, by dissolving the individuality, by getting rid of the self with its doubts, conflicts, pains, limitations and isolation. This is called liberation from the principium individuationis. It is what is meant by the Dionysian tendency and is considered one of the basic strivings in human beings, as opposed to what is called the Apollonian tendency, which works toward an active molding and mastering of life. Dionysian trends have attempts to induce ecstatic experience, and these tendencies are widespread among the various cultures, and they manifold their expressions. The term “Dionysian” is taken from the Dionysus cults in Greece. These, as well as the earlier cults of Thracians, had as their aim the extreme stimulations of all feelings up to visionary states. This means of producing ecstatic states were music, uniform rhythm of flutes, raving dances at night, intoxicating drinks and pleasures of the flesh abandon, all working up to a seething excitement and ecstasy. (The term ecstasy means literally being outside or beside oneself.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

All over the World there are customs and cults following the same principle: in groups abandonment in festivals and religious ecstasy, and individuals, oblivion in drugs. Pain also plays a role in producing the Dionysian condition. In some Plains India tribes visions are induced by fasting, cutting off a piece of flesh, being tied in a painful position. In the Sun Dances, one of the most important ceremonies of the Plains Indians, physical torture was a very common means of stimulating ecstatic experiences. The Flagellantes in the Middle Ages used beatings to produce ecstasy. The Penitentes in New Mexico used thorns, beatings, the carrying of heavy loads. Though these cultural expressions of Dionysian tendencies are far from being patterned experience in our culture, they are not entirely alien to us. To some degree all of us know the satisfaction derived from losing ourselves. We feel it in the process of falling asleep after a physical or mental strain or of going into narcosis. The same effect can be induced by alcohol. In the use of alcohol certainly losing inhibitions is one of the factors involved, and lulling grief and anxiety is another, but here too the ultimate satisfaction aimed at is the satisfaction of oblivion and abandon. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

And there are few persons who do not know the satisfaction of losing themselves in some great feeling, whether it be love, nature, music, enthusiasm for a cause or pleasures of the flesh abandon. How can we account for the apparent universality of these strivings? In spite of all the happiness life can afford, it is at the same time full of inescapable tragedy. Even if there is no particular sufferings, there still remain the facts of old age, sickness, and death; in still more general terms, the fact remains inherent in human life that the individual is limited and isolated—limited in what one can understand, achieve, or enjoy, isolated because one is a unique entity, separate from one’s fellow beings and from surrounding nature. In fact, it is this individual limitation and isolation which mist of the cultural trends toward oblivion and abandon tend to overcome. The most poignant and beautiful expression of this striving is found in the Upanishad, in the picture of rivers which flow and, disappearing into the ocean, lose name and shape. By dissolving the self in something greater, by becoming part of a greater entity, the individual overcomes to a certain extent one’s limitations; as it is expressed in the Upanishad, “By vanishing to nothing, we become part of the creative principle of the Universe.” This seems to be the great consolation and gratification which religion has to offer human beings; by losing themselves they can become at one with God or nature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

The same satisfaction can be achieved by devotion to a great cause; by surrendering to the self to a cause we feel at one with a greater whole. In our culture we are more aware of the opposite attitude toward the self, the attitude that emphasizes and highly values the particularities and uniqueness of individuality. Humans in our culture feels strongly that one’s own self is a separate unity, distinguished from or opposite to the World outside. Not only does one insist on this individuality but one derives a great deal of satisfaction from it; one finds happiness in developing one’s special potentialities, mastering oneself and the World in active conquest, being constructive and doing creative work. Of this ideal of personal development Goethe has said, “Hoechstes Glueck der Menschenkinder ist doch die Persoenlichkeit.” However, the opposite tendency that we have discussed—the tendency to break through the shell individuality and be rid of its limitations and isolation—is an equally deep-rooted human attitude, and is also pregnant with potential satisfaction. Neither of these tendencies is itself pathological; both the preservation and development of individuality and the sacrifice of individuality are legitimate goals in the solution of human problems. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Although these proposed philosophies of life, these recipes of being, are presented as though from a stigmatized individual’s personal point of view, on analysis it is apparent that something else informs them. This something else is groups, in the broad sense of like-situated individuals, and this is only to be expected, since what an individual is, or could be, derives from the place of this kind in the social structure. One of these groups is the aggregate formed by the individual’s fellow-sufferers. The spokesperson of this group claim that the individual’s real group, the one to which one naturally belongs, is this group. All the other categories and groups to which the individual necessarily also belongs are implicitly considered to be not one’s real ones; one is no really one of them. The individual’s real group, then, is the aggregate of persons who are likely to have to suffer the same deprivation as one suffers because of having the same stigma; one’s real “group,” in fact, is the category which can serve as one’s discrediting. The character these spokespersons allow the individual is generated by the relation one has to those of one’s own kind. If one turns to one’s group, one is loyal and authentic; if one turns away, one is craven and a fool. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

The admonition that the stigmatized individual should be loyal to one’s group is voiced by professional scientists, too. For example, Riesman, in “Marginality, Conformity, and Insight,” Phylon, Third Quarter, 1935, 251-252, in describing how a sociologist, or an American, or a professor may each be seduced into accepting compliments regarding one’s self that are an insult to one’s group, adds this story: “I myself recall that I once told a woman lawyer that she was not as strident and aggressive as other Portias I had known, and I regret that she took this as a compliment and consented to the betrayal of her female colleagues of the bar. Here, surely, is a clear illustration of a basic sociological them: the nature of an individual, as one oneself as we impute it to one, if generated by the nature of one’s group affiliations. Sociologically, it should be clear that in finding oneself in different social situations, the individual will find oneself facing different claims as to which of one’s many groups is one’s real one. Other matter are less clear. Why, for example, should individuals who have already paid a considerable price for their stigma be told not to pass; perhaps according to the rule that the less you have had the less you should try to obtains? #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

And if derogation of those with a particular stigma is bad in the present and bad for the future, why should those who have the stigma, more so than those who do not, be given the responsibility of presenting and enforcing a fair-minded stand and improving the lot of the category as a whole? One answer, of course is that those with the stigma should “know better,” thus assuming an interesting relation between knowledge and morality. A better answer, perhaps, is that those with a particular stigma are often considered by themselves and by normals to be linked together through space and time into a single community that should be supported by its members. As might be expected, professionals who take an in-group standpoint may advocate a militant and chauvinistic line—even to the extent of favouring a secessionist ideology. Taking this tack, the stigmatized individual in mixed contacts will give praise to the assumed special values and contributions of one’s kind. One may also flaunt some stereotypical attributes which one could easily cover; thus, one finds second generations Jews who aggressively interlard their speech with Jewish aggressively interlard their speech with Jewish idiom and accent, and the militant homosexual who are patriotically swish in public places. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

The stigmatized individual may also openly question the half-concealed disapproval with which normals treat one, and wait to “fault” the self-appointed wise, that is, continue to examine the other’s actions and words until some fugitive sign is obtained that their show of accepting one is only a show. The problems associated with militancy are well known. When the ultimate political objective is to remove stigma from the differentness, the individual may find that one’s very efforts can politicize one’s own life, rendering it even more different from the normal life initially denied one—even though the next generation of one’s fellow may greatly profit from one’s efforts by being more accepted. Further, in drawing attention to the situation of one’s own kind one is in some respects consolidating a public image of one’s differentness as a real thing and of one’s fellow-stigmatized as constituting a real group. On the other hand, if one seeks some kind of separateness, not assimilation, one may find that one is necessarily presenting one’s militant efforts in the language and style of one’s enemies. Moreover, the pleas one presents, the plight one reviews, the strategies one advocates, are all part of an idiom of expression and feeling that belongs to the whole society. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

One’s disdain for a society that rejects one can be understood only in terms of that society’s conception of pride, dignity, and independence. In short, unless there is some alien culture on which to fall back, the more one separates oneself structurally from the normals, the more likely one may become culturally. “Behold, it came to pass that I, Omni, being commanded by my father, Jarom, that I should write somewhat upon these plates, to preserve our genealogy—wherefore, in my days, I would that ye should know that I fought much with the sword to preserve my people, the Nephites, from falling into the hands of their enemies, the Lamanites. However, behold, I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statues and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done. And it came to pass that two hundred and seventy and six years had passed away, and we had many seasons of peace; and we had many seasons of serious war and bloodshed. Yea, and in fine, two hundred and eighty and two years had passes away, and I had kept these plates according to the commandments of my fathers; and I conferred them upon my son Amaron. And I make an end. And now I, Amaron, write the things whatsoever I write, which are few, in the book of my father. Behold, it came to pass that three hundred and twenty years had passed away, and the more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

“For the Lord would not suffer, after he had led them out of the land of Jerusalem and kept and preserved the from falling into the hands of their enemies, yea, he would not suffer that the words should not be verified, which he spake unto our fathers, saying that: Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall not prosper in the land. Wherefore, the Lord did visit them in great judgment; nevertheless, he did spare the righteous that they should not perish, butt did deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. And it came to pass that I did deliver the plates unto my brother Chemish. Now, I Chemish, write what few things I write, in the same book with my brother; for behold, I saw the last which he wrote, that he wrote it with his own hand; and he wrote it in the day that he delivered them unto me. And after this manner we keep the records, for it is according to the commandments of our fathers. And I make an end. Behold, I, Abinadom, am the son of Chemish. Behold, it came to pass that I saw much war and contention between my people, the Nephites, and the Lamanites; and I, with my own sword, have taken the lives of many of the Lamanites in defense of my brethren. And behold, the record of this people is engraven upon plates which is had by the kinds, according to the generations; and I know of no revelation save that which has been written, neither prophecy; wherefore, that which is sufficient is written. And I make an end. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

“Behold, I am Amaleki, the son of Abinadom. Behold, I will speak unto you somewhat concerning Mosiah, who was made king over the land of Zarahemla; for behold, he being warned of the Lord that he should fled out of the land of Nephi, and as many would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness—and it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the and of Zarahemla. And they discovered a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla. Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews. Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth. And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

“Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. However, it came to pass that Mosiah caused that they should be taught in his language. And it came to pass that after they were taught in the language of Mosiah, Zarahemla gave a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory; and they are written, but not in these plates. And it came to pass that the people of Zarahemla, and of Mosiah, did unite together; and Mosiah was appointed to be their king. And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah, there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God. And they gave an account of one Coriantumr, and the slain of his people. And Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla; and he dwelt with them for the space of nine moons. It also spake a few words concerning his fathers. And his first parent came out from the tower, at the time of the Lord confounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered in the land northward. Before, I, Amaleki, was born inn the days of Mosiah; and I have lived to see his death; and Benjamin, his son, reigneth in his stead. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

“And behold, I have seen, in the days of king Benjamin, a serious war and much bloodshed between the Nephites and the Lamanites. However, behold, the Nephites did obtain much advantage over them; yea, insomuch that king Benjamin did drive them out of the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that I began to be old; and, having no seed, and knowing king Benjamin to be a just man before the Lord, wherefore, I shall deliver up these plates unto him, exhorting all humans to come unto God, the Holy One of Israel, and believe in prophesying, and in revelations, and in the ministering of Angels, and in the gift of speaking with tongues, and in the gift of interpreting languages, and in all things which is good save it comes from the Lord: and that which is evil cometh from the devil. And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. And now I would speak somewhat concerning a certain number who were desirous to possess the land of their inheritance. Wherefore, they went up into the wilderness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

“And their leader being a strong and mighty man, and a stiffnecked man, wherefore he caused a contention among them; and they were all slain, save fifty, in the wilderness, and they returned again to the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that they also took others to a considerable number, and took their journey again into the wilderness. And I, Amaleki, had a brother, who also went with them; and I have not since known concerning them. And I am about to lie down in my grace; and these plates are full. And I make an end of my speaking,” reports Omni 1.1-30. Heavenly Father, Thou hast led me singing to the cross where I fling down all my burdens and see them vanish, where my mountains of guilt are levelled to a plain, where my sins disappear, though they are the greatest that exist, and are more in number than the grains of fine sand; for there is power in the blood of Calvary to destroy sins more than can be counted even by one from the choir of Heaven. Thou hast given me a hill-side spring that washes clear and white, and I go as a sinner to its waters, bathing without hinderance in its crystal streams. At the cross there is free forgiveness for poor and meek ones, and ample blessings that last forever; the blood of the Lamb is like a great river of infinite grace with never any diminishing of its fullness as thirsty ones without number drink of it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

O Lord, forever will Thy free forgiveness live that was gained on the mount of blood; in the midst of a World of pain it is a subject for praise in every place a song on Earth, an anthem in Heaven, its love and virtue knowing no end. I have a longing for the World above where multitudes sing the great song, for my soul was never created to love the dust of Earth. Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem. May I always know that a clean heart full of goodness is more beautiful than the lily, that only a clean heart can sing by night and by day, that such a heart is mine when I abide at Calvary. Please Visit, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy family, and guard with watchful tenderness the hearts which have been hallowed by scared Mysteries; that as by Thy mercy they receive the healings Gifts of eternal salvation, they may retain them by Thy protecting power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please defend, O Lord, with Thy protection those whom Thou satisfies with Heavenly Gifts; that being set free from all things hurtful, we may press onwards with our whole heart to the salvation which cometh from Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We have received, O Lord, the glorious Mysteries, and pray Thee by means of them to make us partakers of things Heavenly, while we are dwelling on the Earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

Cresleigh Homes

This week’s Cresleigh Blog welcomes you to #MillsStation at #CresleighRanch! Located in the heart of Rancho Cordova, this community features modern homes built for making memories. 😍 Check it out at the link in bio! https://www.instagram.com/p/CBWN3lLgHaX/

#CresleighHomes

We beseech Thee, O Lord, that the solemn reception of Thy Sacrament may cleanse us from all our old sins, and change us into new creatures; though Jesus Christ our Lord. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-4/

Is Tragedy Stronger than Hope? Does the Past Conquer the Future? Is Wrath More Powerful than Mercy?

June 12, 2020 12:30 am

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. We have seen that in struggling with one’s conflicts the neurotic person undergoes a great deal of suffering, that moreover one often uses suffering as a means of attaining certain goals which, because of existing dilemmas, are difficult to attain otherwise. Though we are able to recognize in every individual situation the reasons why suffering is used and the ends that are to be achieved by it, there remains some bewilderment why people should be willing to pay such an enormous price. It looks as if the generous use made of suffering, and the readiness to recoil from an active mastering of life, grow out of an underlying drive which can be roughly described as a tendency to make the self weaker instead of stronger, miserable instead of happy. Since this tendency is contradictory to general conceptions of human’s nature it has been a great puzzle, in fact a stumbling block to psychology and psychiatry. It is indeed the basic problem of masochism. The term masochism originally referred to perversions dealing with pleasures of the flesh, and fantasies in which pleasures of the flesh is obtained through suffering, though being beaten, tortured, assaulted, enslaved, humiliated. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Dr. Freud has recognized these perversions and fantasies associated with pleasures of the flesh are akin to the general tendencies toward suffering, that is, those which have no apparent foundations in pleasures of the flesh; these latter tendencies have been classified as “moral masochism.” Since in perversions and fantasies associated with pleasures of the flesh suffering aims at a positive satisfaction, the conclusion has been drawn that all neurotic suffering is determined by a wish for satisfaction, or to put in into simple language, that the neurotic wants to suffer. The difference better perversions associated with pleasures of the flesh and so-called moral masochism is assumed to be a difference of awareness. In the former both the striving for satisfaction and the satisfaction are conscious; in the latter both are unconscious. The obtaining of satisfaction through suffering is a big problem even in perversions, but it becomes still more puzzling in the general tendencies toward suffering. Many attempts have been made to account for masochistic phenomena. The most brilliant of them is Dr. Freud’s hypothesis of death instinct. This contends, briefly, that there are two main biological forces operating within humans: the life instinct and the death instinct. The latter force, which aims at self-destruction, when combined with libidinal drives results in the phenomenon of masochism. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

A question of great interest which I want to raise here is whether the tendency to suffer can be understood psychologically, without taking recourse to a biological hypothesis. To begin with we have to tackle a misunderstanding, which consist in confounding actual suffering with the tendency to suffer. There is no warrant for jumping to the conclusion that since suffering exists there is therefore a tendency to incur it or even to enjoy it. For example we cannot, with H. Deutsch, interpret that fact that in our culture women secretly enjoy these pains masochistically, even though this may certainly be true in exceptional cases. A great deal of the suffering that occurs in neuroses has nothing at all to do with a wish to suffer, but is only the unavoidable consequences of existing conflicts. It occurs just as pains occurs after one has broken a leg. In both cases the pains appear regardless of whether the person wants them or not, and one does not gain anything by the suffering they incur. Manifest anxiety engendered by existing conflicts is the outstanding but not the only example for suffering of this type in neuroses. Other kinds of neurotic suffering are also to be understood in this way—such as the suffering which accompanies the realization of a growing discrepancy between potentialities and factual achievements, the feeling of being hopelessly caught in certain dilemmas, hypersensitivity to the slightest offenses, self-contempt for having a neurosis. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

This part of neurotic suffering, since it is quite unobtrusive, is often altogether neglected when the problem is tackled with the hypothesis that the neurotic wishes to suffer. And when this is done one wonders sometimes to what extent laypeople and even some psychiatrists unconsciously share the contemptuous attitude which the neurotic oneself has toward one’s neurosis. Having eliminated the neurotic sufferings which are not caused by tendencies to suffer we turn now to those which are so caused and hence fall under the category of masochistic drives. In these the surface impression is that the neurotic suffers more than is warranted by reality. In more detail, one gives the impression that something within on avidly seizes upon every opportunity to suffer, that one can manage to turn even fortuitous circumstances into something painful, that one is quite unwilling to relinquish suffering. However, here he behaviour which produces this impression to a large extent accounted for by the functions which neurotic suffering has for the person concerned. As to these functions of neurotic suffering I may summarize what we have seen thus far. Suffering may have a direct defense value for the neurotic, and may often, in fact, be the only way one can protect oneself against imminent dangers. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

By self-recrimination one avoids being accused and accusing others, by appearing ill or ignorant one avoids reproaches, by belittling oneself one avoids the danger of competition—but the suffering one thereby brings on oneself is at the same time a defense. Suffering is also a means of getting what one wants, of carrying out one’s demands effectively and of putting one’s demands on a justified basis. Concerning one’s wishes toward life the neurotic is in a dilemma. One’s wishes are, or have become, imperative and unconditional, partly because they are prompted by anxiety, partly because they are not checked by any real consideration of others. However, on the other hand one’s own capacity to assert one’s demands is greatly impaired, because of one’s lack of spontaneous self-assertion, in more general terms because of one’s basic feeling of helplessness. The result of one’s dilemma is that one expects others to take care of one’s wishes. One gives the impression that underlying one’s actions is a conviction that others are responsible for one’s life and that hey are to be blamed if things go wrong. This collides with one’s conviction that no one grants one anything, and the result is that one feels one has to coerce others to fulfill one’s wishes. It is here that suffering comes to one’s assistance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Suffering and helplessness become one’s outstanding means of obtaining affection, help, control, and at the same time allow one to evade all demands that others might make of one. Suffering has finally the function of expressing accusations against others in a disguised but effective way. When the function of neurotic suffering are recognized the problem is divested of some of its mysterious character, but is still not completely solved. In spite of the strategical value of suffering there is one factor which lends support to the notion that the neurotic wants to suffer: often one suffers more than is warranted by the strategical goal, tends to exaggerate one’s misery, to submerge oneself in feelings of helplessness, unhappiness and unworthiness. Even though we know that one’s emotions are likely to be exaggerated and that they cannot be take at face value, we are struck by the fact that the disappointments which result from one’s conflicting tendencies throw one into an abyss of misery which is disproportionate to the significance that the situation had for one. When one has been but moderately successful one dramatically exaggerates one’s defeat as an irrevocable disgrace. When one has merely failed to assert oneself one’s self-esteem drops like a deflated balloon. Wen during analysis one has to face the unpleasant prospect of working through a new problem one drop into absolute hopelessness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

We still have to examine why one thus seemingly voluntarily increases one’s sufferings beyond the strategical necessities. In such suffering there are no apparent advantages to be gained, no audiences that might be impressed, no sympathy to be won, no secret triumph in asserting one’s will over others. Nevertheless, there is a gain for the neurotic, but of a different kind. Incurring a failure in love, a defeat in competition, having to realize a definite weakness or shortcoming of one’s own is unbearable for one who has such high-flown notions of one’s uniqueness. Thus when one dwindles to nothing in one’s own estimation, the categories of success and failure, superiority and inferiority cease to exist; by exaggerating one’s pain, by losing oneself in a general feeling of misery or unworthiness, the aggravating experience loses some of its reality, the sting of the special pain is lulled, narcotized. The principle operating in this process is a dialectic one, containing the philosophical truth that at a certain point quantity is converted into quality. Concretely, it means that though suffering is painful, abandoning one’s self to excessive suffering may serve as an opiate against pain. A masterly description of this process is given in a Danish novel Aage von Kohl. The story concerns a writer whose beloved wife had been lust-murdered to years before. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

The husband had been warding off the unbearable pain by only dimly experiencing what had happened. To escape the realization of his grief he had plunged into work and had written a book, working day and night. The narrative begins the day the book is finished, that is, at the psychological moment when one would have to face one’s pain. We meet him first at the cemetery, whither his steps have inadvertently led him. We see him indulging in the most gruesome and fantastic speculations of such thoughts as worms eating the dead, people buried alive. He is exhausted and returns home, where his torture continues. He is impelled to recall minutely what had happened. If her had gone with his wife that evening when she visited friends, if she had reached him by telephone to ask him to call for her, if she had stayed with the friends, if he had taken a walk and happened to meet her at the station, perhaps the murder would not have occurred. Impelled to imagine in detail how the murder took place he becomes submerged in an ecstasy of pain, until finally he loses consciousness. Thus far the story is of particular interests for the problem we have been discussing. What happens further is that after having recovered from his orgy of torment he still has to work through the problem of taking revenge, and ultimately he becomes capable of facing his pain realistically. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

The process that is presented in this story is the same that can be seen in certain mourning customers that serve to alleviate the pain of loss by acutely intensifying it and inducing complete abandonment to it. When this narcotic effect of exaggerated pain is recognized we have a further help in finding understandable motivations in masochistic drives. However, there still remains the question of why such suffering can yield satisfaction, as it obviously does in masochistic perversions and fantasies and as we suspect it does in the general neurotic tendencies toward suffering. In order to be able to answer this question it is necessary to recognize first elements which all masochistic tendencies have in common, or more accurately, the basic attitude toward life that underlies such tendencies. When they are examined from his point of view the common denominator is definitely found to be a feeling of intrinsic weakness. This feeling appears in the attitude toward the self, toward others, toward fate in general. Briefly it can be described as a deep feeling of insignificance or rather of nothingness, nonbeing; a feeling of being like a reed that can easily be swayed by any wind; a feeling of being in the power of others, or being a their beck and call, appearing in a tendency toward over-compliance and in a defensive over-emphasis on control and not giving in; dependence on affection and the judgement of others. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

This feeling of deep insignificance can also manifest by showing an inordinate need for affection, and also later on as an inordinate fear of disapproval; a feeling of not having a say in one’s own life but of having to let others bear the responsibility for it and make the decisions; a feeling that good and evil come from outside, that one is entirely helpless toward fate, appearing negatively in a sense of impending doom, positively in an expectation of some miracle happening without one’s moving a finger; a feeling toward life in general that one cannot breathe, work, enjoy anything without others supplying the incentive, the means and the aims; a feeling of being putty in the master’s hands. How are we to understand this feeling of intrinsic weakness? Is it in the last analysis the expression of a lack of vital strength? It may be this in some cases, but on the whole differences in vitality among neurotics are in no way greater than in other people. Is it a simple consequence of the basic anxiety? Certainly anxiety has something to do with it, but anxiety alone may have the opposite effect of impelling one to strive for and attain more and more strength and power in order to be safe. The answer is that primarily this feeling of intrinsic weakness is not a fact at all; what is felt as weakness and appears as weakness is only the result of an inclination toward weakness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

This fact can be recognized from characteristics we have already discussed: in one’s own feelings the neurotic unconsciously exaggerated one’s weakness and one tenaciously insists on being weak. It is, however, not only by logical deduction that this inclination toward weakness can be discovered; very often it can be seen at work. Individuals may imaginatively seize upon every possibility of believing that they have an organic illness. One individual, whenever any difficulty arose, quite consciously wished to have tuberculosis, lie in a sanitarium and be completely taken care of. If any demand is made such a person’s first impulse may be to yield, and one will then go to the other extreme and refuse to give in at any price. In analysis an individual’s self-recriminations are often the result of one’s adopting as one’s own opinion an anticipated criticism, thus showings one’s readiness to surrender in advance to any judgment. The tendency blindly to accept authoritative statements, to lean on someone, always to recoil from a difficulty with a helpless “I cannot” instead of accepting it as a challenge, is a further evidence of the inclination toward weakness. Death is the work of the Divine wrath: “For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath, we bring our years to an end as a sigh”—as short a sigh, and as full of sorrow as a sigh. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

The idea of the Divine wrath has become strange to our time. We have rejected a religion which seemed to make God a furious tyrant, and individual with passions and desires who committed arbitrary acts. This is not what the wrath of God means. It means the inescapable and unavoidable reaction against human pride and arrogance. That reaction, through which humans are thrown back into one’s limits, is not a passionate act of punishment or vengeance on the part of God. It is the reestablishment of the balance between God and humans, which is disturbed by human’s elevation against God. We understand the profound relationship between God and humans because God sets our innermost secrets in the light of His face. God’s anger is not directed against our moral shortcomings, against special acts of disobedience to the Divine order. It is directed against the secret of our personality, against what happens in us and to us, unseen by humans, unseen even by ourselves. This, our secret, determines our fate, more than anything visible. In the realm of our visible deeds we may not feel that we deserve the wrath of God—misery and tragedy. However, God looks through the veils which hide our secrets. They are manifest to Him. Therefore, we feel every day the burden of being under a power which negates us, which disintegrates us and makes us unhappy. This is the wrath under which we pass all our days, not only those in which we endure special failures and special sufferings. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

This is the situation of all humans. However, not all humans know it. “Yet who knoweth the power of thine anger, and who of us dreads Thy wrath? So teach us to count our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom!” The 90h Psalm tries to teach us the truth about our human situation, our transitoriness and our guilt. It does what the great ancient tragedies did. They revealed to all the people of the city, gathered in the theatre, what humans are; they showed the people that the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, the most powerful—all-stand under the tragic law and the curse of the immortals. They wanted to reveal he tragic situation of humans, that is, one’s situation before the Divine. One becomes great and proud and tries to touch the Divine sphere, and one is cast into destruction and despair. This is what the psalmist wanted to reveal to the righteous and unrighteous people of one’s nation—what they were; what humans are. However, the psalmist knew that humans, even if shaken for a moment, forgot their fate. One knew that humans live as if they are to live forever, and as if the wrath of God did not exist. Therefore, he askes us to count our days, to consider how soon they shall come to an end. He prays God that He Himself may each us that we must die. The psalmist does not think that realization of the truth of what one has been saying will cast humans into despair. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

On the contrary, one believes that just this insight can give us heart of wisdom—a heart which accepts the infinite distance between God and humans, and does not claim a greatness and beatitude which belongs to God alone. The wise heart is the heart which does not try to hide this from itself, which does not try to escape into a false security or a false cynicism. The wise heart is the heart which can stand this knowledge courageously, with dignity, humility, and fortitude. This wisdom is implicit in every word of the psalm. It is the greatest wisdom that humans, having felt the tragedy of life, achieved in the ancient World. After the prayer for the wise heart (and not for intellectual wisdom!) a new section of the psalm begins, perhaps added in a later period of the Jewish religion. This new section is concerned with the nation and its historical situation. “Relent, O Thou Eternal, and delay not, be sorry for Thy servants. Satisfy us in the morning with Thy loving kindness, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Grant joy as long as Thou has been afflicting us, for all the years we have had suffering. Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants and Thy glory upon Thy children! And let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us and prosper the work of our hands!” Something new appears in these words: the significance of past and future, the prayer for a better future, for a future of happiness and joy, of the presence of God and the success of our work. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

God is not only the God of eternity. He is also the God of the future. The cycle from dust to dust, from sin to wrath, is broken. There appears the vision of an age of fulfillment, after the ages of misery. However, this vision is only for His servants—for the selected nation, and within her, only for those who are really His servants. The individual no longer stands lone before God. One is included among the other servants of God, in the midst of the people of God who look not toward their return to dust, but toward a life in a new age in which God is present. Hope supersedes tragedy. This is the highest point that religion reaches in the Old Testament. However, the spirit of religion drives beyond even this. It is not the end. What does the historical hope mean for the individual? Does it free us from the law of transitoriness and guilt? History, running toward the unknown future, throws every human back into the past, and we do not reach the age of fulfillment for which the poet longs. The cruel step of history goes over graves, and history itself does no seem to approach its fulfillment. Whenever history seems to come near to its fulfillment, it is thrown back and is further away from its fulfillment than ever before. That is what we experience so inescapably in our time. And so we ask, as all generation of humans have asked: is tragedy stronger than hope? Does the past conquer the future? Is wrath more powerful than mercy? #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

We are driven hither and tither between melancholy and expectations—from tragedy to hope, from hope to tragedy. In this situation we may be ready to receive the message of a new being, a new kind of existence which is not only hope, but also a reality, in which Divine wrath and human guilt ultimately are conquered. Christianity is based on this message: God subjecting Himself to transioriness and wrath, in order to be with us. And thus is fulfilled the hope of which he psalmist sings: “Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants and Thy glory upon Thy children.” Whether or not we accept that message, it is the answer to the questions the psalmist leaves unanswered. We may prefer to cling to the mere hope in spite of all disillusionments. We may prefer to return to the pious resignation of the older part of the psalm. We may even prefer to go back to the melancholic identification of human’s life with that of the grass field. We may choose any of these ways of interpreting our life. However, if we do choose any of them, we must realize that we cannot find in them the answer to the question of our life. And we must be resigned. However, if we accept the message of the new reality in Christ, we must understand that this message does not contain an easy answer, and that it does not guarantee any spiritual security. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

We must know that it is real answer only if we understand it permanently in the light of our human situation, in which tragedy and hope fight each other without victory. The victory is above them. When the prayer of the psalmist was answered, the victory came. “Relent, O thou Eternal!”—this prayer is the prayer of humankind through all eons, and the hidden prayer in the dept of every human soul. It is the Lord’s Day. You have come to church to worship God in spirit and in truth. You are in church to give God worth—worth-ship, as the English work properly means. What now? Here again the word which is the theme of this essay comes to center stage—discipline. It is of great significance that one of the two most prominent words denoting worship in the New Testament is the word latreuo, which means to work or serve. This tells us implicitly that worship involves work—disciplined work. It is from this word that liturgy is derived, for liturgy is one’s work in worship. All churches have liturgies, even those which would call themselves “non-liturgical.” In fact, having no liturgy is a liturgy! Relaxed charismatic services may be as liturgical in their format as a High-Church service—and in some cases more rigid. My purpose is not to recommend one liturgy over another, though, of course I have my opinion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Whatever your liturgy may be, you must work at it with all you have, for worship is work. If you are to please and glorify God, there must be some holy sweat. Please use this time to continue to live a temple-worthy life or to become temple worthy. As the Restoration continues, I know that God will continue to reveal many great and important things pertaining to His kingdom here on Earth. The Saviour is the perfect engineer, builder, and interior designer. His project is the perfection and eternal joy of our souls. Daily repentance is a transformative tool that enables us to grow a little kinder, more loving, and more understanding. Studying the scriptures brings us closer to the Saviour, whose generous love and grace assist us with our growth. Again and again the scriptures show us how families succeed through righteous living and how they fail by pursuing other paths. Fine homes follow the blueprint created by the Lord for His finest home, the temple. The Lord’s steady framework allows His Spirit to change our hearts. Experiencing a mighty change of the heart is like adding because features to the interior of the temple. As we continue in faith, the Lord gradually changes us. We receive His image in our countenance and begin to reflect the love and beauty of His character. As we become more like Him, we feel more at home in His hose, and He will feel at home in ours. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

The finest homes are refuges from the storms of life. The Lord has promised that those who keep the commandments of God prosper in the land. God’s prosperity is the power to press forward despite the problems of life. Because some live in the finest home, which is the heart of God, their faithful living provides them the strength, vision, and Heavenly help they need in the current turmoil. Mortality always brings challenges, but time after time I have seen those who strive to obey the commandments are blessed to find their ways forward with peace and hope. Those blessings are available to everyone, it does not require privilege. With God’s loving help, your soul can be all He wants it to be and you can be the finest various of yourself, prepared to establish and live in a finest home. “Now behold, I, Jarom, write a few words according to the commandment of my father, Enos, that our genealogy may be kept. And as these plates are small, and as these things are written for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites, wherefore, it must needs be that I write a little; but I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land. And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of humans, according to their faith. And now, behold, two hundred years had passed away, and the people of Nephi had waxed strong in the land. They observed to keep the law of Moses and the sabbath day holy unto the Lord. And they profaned not; neither did they blaspheme. And the laws of the land were exceedingly strict. And they were scattered upon much of the face of the and, and the Lamanites also. And they were exceedingly more numerous than were they of the Nephites; and they loved murder and would drink the blood of beasts. And it came to pass that they came many times against us, the Nephites, to battle. However, our kings and our kings and our leaders were mighty humans in the faith of the Lord; and they taught the people the ways of the Lord; wherefore, we withstood the Lamanites and swept them away out of our lands, and began to fortify our cities, or whatsoever pace of our inheritance. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine crafts of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manners of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war. And thus being prepared to meet Lamanites, they did not prosper against us. However, the word of the Lord was verified, which he spake unto our fathers, saying that: Inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land. And it came to pass that the prophets of the Lord did threaten the people of Nephi, according to the word of God, that if they did not keep the commandments, but should fall into transgression, they should be destroyed from off the face of the land. Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labour diligently, exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence; teaching the law of Moses, and the intent for which it was given; persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in one to come as though one already was. And after this manner did they teach them. And it came to pass that by so doing they kept them from being destroyed upon the face of the land; for they did prick their hearts with the word, continually stirring them unto repentance. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“And it came to pass that two hundred and thirty and eight years had passes away—after the practices of wars, and contentions, and dissensions, for the space of much of the time. And I, Jarom, do not write more, for the plates are small. However, behold, my brethren, ye can go to the other plates of Nephi; for behold, upon them the records of our wars are engraven, according to the writings of the kinds, or those which they caused to be written. And I deliver these plates into the hands of my son Omni, that they may be kept according to the commandments of my fathers,” Jarom 1.1-16. Having received life by the refreshment of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we humbly beseech Thee, O God, that by this transcendent remedy Thou wouldest both cleanse us from the contagion of all sins, and fortify us against the incursion of all dangers; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. O my Saviour, I thank Thee from the depth of my being for Thy wondrous grace and love in bearing my sin in thine own body on the tree. May Thy cross be to me as the tree that sweetness my bitter Marahs, as the rod that blossoms with life and beauty, as the brazen serpent that calls forth the look of faith. By Thy cross crucify my every sin; use it to increase my intimacy with Thyself. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

“Please it make my intimacy with Thyself the ground of all my comfort, the liveliness of all my duties, the sum of all Thy gospel promises, the comfort of all my afflictions, the vigour of my love, thankfulness, graces, the very essence of my religion; and by it give me that rest without rest, the rest of ceaseless praise. O my Lord and Saviour, Thou hast also appointed a cross for me to take up and carry, a cross before Thou givest me a crown. Thou hast appointed it to be my portion, but self-love hates it, carnal reason is unreconciled to it; without the grace of patience I cannot bear it, walk with it, profit by it. O blessed cross, what mercies dost Thou bring with Thee! Thou art only esteemed hateful by my rebel will, heavy because I shirk Thy load. Please teach me, gracious Lord and Saviour, that with my cross Thou sendest promised grace so that I may bear it patiently, that my cross is Thy yoke which is easy, and Thy burden which is light. We render thanks and praise to Thee, O Lord, Who hast strengthened us with the Communion of the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son; humbly beseeching Thy mercy that this Thy Sacrament, O Lord, may not increase our guilt and punishment, but may plead for our pardon and salvation. May it be the abolition of our sins, the strength of our weakness, our bulwark against the perils of the World. May this Communion cleanse us from guilt, and makes us partakers of the joy of Heaven: through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Cresleigh Homes

We can *spot* your future at #PlumasRanch. 😉 With three brand new communities and multiple floor plans to choose from, your dream home is within reach! Give us a call or visit our website to learn more. | (530) 870-8748 https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-4/May the sacred Feast of Thy table, O Lord, always strengthen and renew us, guide and protect our weakness amid the storms of the World, and bring us into the haven of everlasting salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

So Short is Our Life and it Seems to Long Against the Envy of Less Happier Lands

June 11, 2020 12:55 am

The Universe was at some point wound up like a great clock and has been ticking off its inexorable way ever since. It makes it impossible for me to deny the reality and significance of human choice. To me it is not an illusion that humans are to some degree the architect of themselves. Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. That means we must approach social change based on the human desire and potentiality for change, not on conditioning. This leads to a deeply democratic political philosophy rather than management by an elite. So the choice does have consequences. Upon reflection, we can see that institutionally as well, complex constitutional democracies, and particularly those in which a public sphere of opinion formation and deliberation has been developed, engage in such recursive validation continually. Basic human civil and political rights, as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to the United States of America Constitution and as embodied in the constitution of most democratic governments, are never really “off the agenda” of public discussion and debate. They are simply constitutive and regulative institutional norms of debate in our kinds of societies: although we cannot change these rights without extremely elaborate political and juridical procedures, we are always disputing their meaning, their extent, and their jurisdiction. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Democratic debate is like a ball game where there is no umpire to interpret the rules of the game and their application definitively. Rather, in the game of democracy the rules of the game no less than their interpretation and even the position of the umpire are essentially contestable. Contestation means neither the complete abrogation of these rules nor silence about them. When basic rights and liberties are violated the game of democracy is suspended and becomes either martial rule, civil war, or dictatorship; when democratic politics is in full session, the debate about the meaning of these rights, what they do or do not entitle us to, their scope and enforcement, is what politics is all about. One cannot challenge the specific interpretation of basic right and liberties in a democracy without taking these absolutely seriously. The deliberative theory of democracy transcends the traditional opposition of majoritarian politics verses liberal guarantees of basic rights and liberties to the extent that the normative conditions of discourses, like basic rights and liberties, are to be viewed as rules of the game that can be contested within the game but only insofar as one first accepts to abide by them and play the game at all. This formulation seems to me to correspond to the reality of democratic debate and public speech in real democracies much more accurately than he liberal model of deliberation upon constitutional essentials or the reasoning of the Supreme Court. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Crucial to the deliberative model of democracy is the idea of a “public sphere” of opinion-formation, debate, deliberation, and contestation among citizens, groups, movements, and organizations in a polity. When this concept of a public sphere is introduced as the concrete embodiment of discursive democracy in practice, it also become possible to think of the issues of conversational constraints in a more nuanced way. While the deliberative model of democracy shares with liberalism a concern for the protection of these rights to autonomy of equal citizens, the conceptual method of discursive validation and the institutional reality of a differentiated public sphere of deliberation and contestation provide plausible beginning points for a mediation of the stark opposition between liberalism and deliberative democracy. Bruce Ackerman’s conception of dualist democracy is based upon a similar strategy of overcoming the opposition between the standpoint of foundationalist rights-liberals on the one hand and monist majoritarian democrats on the other: “The basic meditating devices is the dualist’s two-track system of democratic lawmaking. It allows an important place for the foundationalist’s views of rights as trumps’ without violating the monist’s deeper commitment to the primacy of democracy.” In a constitutional democracy the question as to which aspects of the higher law are entrenched against the revision by the people as opposed to which aspects may be repealed is itself always open and contestable. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Conceptually as well as sociologically, models of deliberative and dualistic democracy focus on this process of “recursive” and “hermeneutic” interdependence between constitution-making and democratic politics. The comfortable cloak of objectivity is necessarily be dropped, exposing the people as a vulnerable, imperfect, subjective being, thoroughly engaged, intellectually and emotionally, objectively and subjectively, in all their activities. This is understandably too threatening. Let me simply add that what is really at issue is the confrontation of two paradoxes. If the extreme behaviourist position is true, then everything an individual does is essentially meaningless, since one is but an atom caught in a seamless chain of cause and effect. On the other hand, if the thoroughgoing humanistic position is true, then choice enters in, and this individual subjective choice has some influence on the cause-and-effect chain. In all candor I must say that I believe that the humanistic view will, in the long run, take precedence. I believe that Americans are, as a people, beginning to refuse to allow technology to dominate our lives. Our culture, increasingly based on the conquest of nature and the control of humans, is in decline. Emerging through the ruins is the new person, highly aware, self-directing, as explorer of inner, perhaps more than outer, space scornful of the conformity of institutions and the strict and rigid doctrines of authority. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

One does not believe in being behaviorally shaped, or in shaping the behaviour of others. One is most assuredly humanistic rather than technological. In my judgment one has a high probability of survival. Yet, this belief of mine is open to one exception. If we were to permit one-human control, or a military take-over of our government—and it is obvious we have been (and are) perilously close to that—then another scenario would take place. A governmental—military—police—industrial complex would be more than happy to use scientific technology for military and industrial conquest and psychological technology for the control of human behaviour. I am not being dramatic when I say that humanistic psychologists, emphasizing the essential freedom and dignity of the unique human person, and one’s capacity for self-determination, would be among the first to be incarcerated by such a government. I confess that when I wish to be scholarly, serendipity plays a very important part. Serendipity, in case you have forgotten, is the faculty of making fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident. I have an eerie feeling that I have that faculty. I have tried to facilitate clarity of communication between individuals of the most diverse points of view. I have worked for better communication between groups whose perceptions and experiences are poles apart: strangers, member of different cultures, representatives of different strata of society. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

I discern more sharply the theme of my life as having been built around the desire for clarity of communication, with all its ramifying results. I have also helped to sponsor, and have taken some part in, interracial and intercultural groups, believing that better understanding between diverse groups is essential if our planet is to survive. And then I garden. Those mornings when I cannot find time to inspect my flowers, water the young shoots I am propagating, pull a few weeds, spray some destructive insects, and pour just the proper fertilizer on some budding plants, I feel cheated. My garden supplies the same intriguing question I have been trying to meet in all my professional life: What are the effective conditions of growth? However, in my garden, though they frustrations are just as immediate, the results, whether success or failure, are more quickly evident. And when, through patient, intelligent, and understanding care I have provided the conditions that result in the production of a rare or glorious bloom, I feel the same kind of satisfaction that I have felt in the facilitation of growth in a person or in a group of persons. Why does it appeal to me to try the unknown, to gamble on something new, when I could easily settle for ways of doing things that I know from past experience would work very satisfactorily? I am not sure I understand fully, but I can see several factors that have made a difference. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

It is estimated the 145 million Americans are committed to a way of living that reflects their inner convictions about justice, equality, and peace. They believe that it is better to have things on a human scale; live frugally, to conserve, recycle, not waste; and the inner life, rather than externals, is central. I belong to that group, and trying to live in this new way is necessarily risky and uncertain. However, perhaps the major reason I am willing to take chances is that I have found that in doing so, whether I succeed or fail, I learn. Learning, especially learning from experience, has been a prime element in making my life worthwhile. Such learning helps me to expand. So I continue to risk. I like to be logical, to pursue the ramifications of a thought. I am deeply involved in the World of feeling, intuition, nonverbal as well as verbal communication, but I also enjoy thinking and writing about that World. Conceptualizing the World clarifies its meaning for me. Human beings have potentially available a tremendous range of intuitive powers. We are indeed wiser than our intellects. There is much evidence. We are learning how sadly we have neglected the capacities of the nonrational, creative metaphoric mind—the right half of our brain. Biofeedback has shown us that if we let ourselves function in a less conscious, more relaxed way, we can learn at some level to control temperature, heart rate, and all kinds of organic functions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

We find that terminal cancer patients, when given an intensive program of prayer and fantasy training focused on overcoming the malignancy, experience a surprising number of remissions. I am open to even more mysterious phenomena—precognition, thought transference, clairvoyance, human auras, Kirlian photography, even out-of-the-body experiences. These phenomena may not fit with known scientific laws, but perhaps we are on the verge of discovering new types of lawful order. I think I am learning a great deal in a new area, and I find the experience enjoyable and exciting. However, in my experience, I have found that one of the hardest things for me is to care for a person for whatever he or she is, at that time, in the relationship. It is so much easier to care for others for what I think they are, or wish they would be, or feel they should be. To care for this person for what he or she is, dropping my own expectations of what I want him or her to be for me, dropping my desire to change this person to suit my needs, is a most difficult but enriching way to satisfying intimate relationship. I think no one can know whether he or she fears death until it arrives, but with COVID-19, this is something many are thinking about. Certainly, death is the ultimate leap in the dark, and I think it is highly probable that the apprehension I feel when going under an anesthetic will be duplicated when I face death. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Yet I do not experience a really deep fear of this process. So far as I am aware, my fear concerning death relate to its circumstances. My belief that death is the end has, however, been modified by some of my learnings of the past decade. I am impressed with the accounts b Raymond Moody (1975) of the experience of persons who have been so near death as to be declared dead, but who have come back to life. I am impressed by some of the reports of reincarnation, although reincarnation seems a very dubious blessing indeed. All of this brings change and for me the process of change is life. I realize that if I were stable and steady and static, I would be living death. So I accept confusion and uncertainty and fear and emotional highs and lows because they are the price I willingly pay for a flowing, perplexing, exciting life. We must dismiss the devil by telling him he has made a mistake in coming, and we are not going with him, and he will never reappear. All of my life experiences has lead me to the belief in the possibility of the continuation of the individua human spirit, something I have never before believed possible. These experiences have left me very much interested in all types of paranormal phenomena. They have quite changed my understanding of the process of living. I now consider it possible that each of us is a continuing and changing spiritual essence lasting over time, and occasionally incarnated in a human body. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

“Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place age after age. Before the mountains were born and the Earth and land labored in pains of birth. From eternity to eternity Thou art God. For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed. Thou turnest humans back to dust and sayest: Return ye children of humans. They are as a watch in the night; Thou carriest them away; they are as a sleep, like grass which grows up, that in the dawn is fresh and flourishing, then by twilight fades and withers. Our life is seventy years or eighty at the most. Yet is their pride but toil and disappointment—for it is soon gone and we fly away. For we are consumed in Thy anger and in Thy wrath we are frightened away. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee and our most secret deeds in the light of Thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath, we bring our years to an end as a sigh. Yet who know of us dreads Thy wrath? So teach us to count our days that we may get a heart of wisdom! Relent, O Thou Eternal, and delay not; be sorry for Thy servants. Satisfy us in the morning with Thy loving-kindness that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Grant joy as long as thou hast been afflicting us, for all the years we have had suffering. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

“Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants and Thy glory upon Thy children! And let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us and prosper the work of our hands,” reports Psalm 90. There is something unique in this psalm, a rise and fall of praise and lament, of consideration and prayer, of melancholy and hope. If we want to grasp its meaning, we must follow it, word by word, feeling what the poet has felt, trying to see what he has seen, looking at our own life through his vision, as it is interpreted through his mighty words. These words come to us from the furthest past, yet they speak to our present and to every future. Later generations in Israel expressed their feeling for the incomparable power of this psalm by attributing it—and it alone—to Moses, whom they called the man of God. Let us approach it with the same awe. This psalm, like many other passages of the Bible, speaks of human’s life and death in profoundly pessimistic words. It echoes what God said to Adam in the third chapter of Genesis: “Cursed is the land for Thy sake. In the sweat of Thy face shalt thou eat bread till Thou returns unto the ground; for out it wast Thou taken: for dust Thou art, and unto dust shalt Thou return.” It would be hard to intensify the melancholy of these words. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

And I would be hard for a modern pessimist to intensify he bitterness with which job challenges his moralistic friends, saying that “man born of woman lives but a few days,” that there is hope for a tree which is cut off, that it may flourish again, but “man lies down never to arise.” And he says to God: “Thou destoyest all the hopes of humans. Thou art too strong for humans, one has to go.” And the modern naturalist would need to change nothing in the words of Ecclesiastes, the “Preacher,” when one dines that there is any difference between human and beast: “As one dies the other dies. Both sprang from the dust they both returned.” He doubts the idealistic doctrine that “the spirit of humans goes upward while the spirit of a beast does down into the Earth.” Humans ought to be happy in their work, for “that is what one gets out of life—for who can show one what is to happen afterward?” That is the mood of ancient humankind. Many of us are afraid of it. A shallow Christian idealism cannot stand the darkness of such a vision. Not so the Bible. The most universal of all books, it reveals the age-old wisdom about human’s transitoriness and misery. The Bible does not try to hide the truth about human’s life under facile statements about the immortality of the soul. Neither the Old nor the New Testament does so. They know the human situation and they take it seriously. They do not give us any easy comfort about ourselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

This is the light in which we must read on the 90^th Psalm. However, the psalm goes further. It starts with a song of praise: “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place age after age.” In order to describe human transitoriness, the poet glorifies the Divine Eternity. Before looking downward he looks upward. Before considering human’s misery he points to God’s majesty. Only because we look at something infinite can we realize that we are finite. Only because we are able to see the eternal can we see the limited time that is given us. Only because we can elevate ourselves above the animals can we see that we are like animals. Our melancholy about our transitoriness is rooted in our power to look beyond it. Modern pessimists do not start their writings by praising the Eternal God. They think that they can approach humans directly and speak about his finiteness, misery and tragedy. However, they do not succeed. Hidden—often to themselves—is a criterion by which they measure and condemn human existence. It is something beyond human. When the Greek poets called humans the “mortals,” they had in mind the immortal gods by which they measured human morality. The measure of human’s misery and tragedy is the Divine Perfection. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

The Divine Perfection is what the psalmist means when he calls God our dwelling place, the only permanence in the change of all the ages and generations. That is why he starts his song of profoundest melancholy with the praise of the Lord. God’s eternity is described in a powerful vision: “Before the mountains were born and the Earth and land labored in pains of birth, from eternity to eternity Thou art God.” Even the mountains, most immovable of all things on Earth, are born and shall die. However, God, Who was before their birth, shall be after their death. From eternity to eternity, that is, from form to form and World to World, He is. His measure of time is not our measure. “For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed.” He has His measure, which is beyond human understanding. Eternity is not the extinction of time; it is the creative unity of all times and cycles of time, of all past and future. Eternity is eternal life and not eternal death. It is the living God at Whom the psalmist looks. And then the psalmist looks down to humans and writes: “Thou turnest humans back to dust and sayest: Return, ye children of humans.” The fate of death is the fate God has decreed for humans. God delivers us to the fate God has decreed for humans. God delivers us to the law of nature, that dust must return to dust. No being can escape this decree. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

No being can acquire Divine eternity. When humans tried to become like God—so the Paradise story tells us—by trying to grasp for oneself knowledge of all good and evil powers, one achieved that knowledge. However, at the same time, one’s eyes were opened and one saw one’s real situation, which has been hidden from one in he dreaming innocence of Paradise. One saw that one is not like God. The gift of knowledge one received includes the destiny of pleasures of flesh and the fate of labouring and dying. One was awakened and one saw the infinite gap between oneself and God. Short is the time between birth and death. The poet’s tremendous vision is expressed only fragmentarily, in smiles: “They are as a watch in the night,” that is, like one of the three night watches into which the nights were divided. “Thou carriest them away, they are as a sleep”—from an infinite sleep we are awakened; one third of a night we are awake, this is our turn, this long and no longer; soon those who replace us arrive, and we are drawn into infinite sleep again. Turning from the night to the course of a day, and the life of he grass in it, the poet continues: “Like grass which grows up, that in the dawn is fresh and flourishing, then by twilight fades and withers.” The Sun, whose first rays bring life to grass, burns it to death at noon and withers it utterly away before evening. So short is our life—and it seems so long. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

“Our life is seventy years, or eighty at the most, yet is their pride-but toil and disappointment…for it is soon gone and we fly away.” Not many reach this age, which seems unimaginable to the adolescent, far removed from the mature human, and—as nothing to those who have reached it, a moment only, flying away like a bird that we can neither capture nor follow. Why is the poet so tremendously impressed by the shortness of our life? Obviously, he feels that it makes a real fulfillment impossible. Although very few want to repeat their lives, we often hear people say: “If only I could start my life again, with all its experiences, I could live it in the right way. It would be more than this broken piece, this fragment, this frustrated attempt which I call my life.” However, life does not allow us to begin again. And even if we could begin again, or even if our life were among the most perfect and happy and successful ones, would we not, looking back at it, feel as the psalmist felt? Would we not feel that the most valuable things in it, he god, the creative, and the joyful hours, were based on endless toil and followed by disappointments? Would be not feel that what we had thought to be important was not? #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

And, in the face of death, would not all our valuations become doubtful? This, certainly, was the mood of the ancient poet who wrote the psalm. There is a danger in considerations such as these. They can produce a sentimental, superficial enjoyment of our own melancholy, a lustful abiding with our sadness, a perverted longing for the tragic. There is not a hint of such a feeling in the 90^th Psalm. The poet knew something which most of our modern pessimists do not know, and he expressed it in grave words: “For we are condemned in Thy anger, and in Thy wrath we are frightened away. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee and our most secret deeds in the light of Thy countenance.” These words point to something we do not find in nature: human’s guilt and God’s wrath. Another order of things becomes visible. The natural law “from dust to dust” alone does not explain the human situation. That humans are bound to this law is the Divine reaction against the attempt of humans to become like God. We have to die, because we are dust. That is the law of nature to which we are subject with all beings—mountains, flowers, and beasts. However, at the same time, we have to die because we are guilty. That is the moral law to which we, unlike all other beings, are subjected. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Both laws are equally true; both are stated in all sections of the Bible. If we could ask the psalmist of the other Biblical writers how they thought these laws are untied, they would find it hard to answer. They felt, as we do, that death is not only natural, but also unnatural. Something in us rebels against death wherever it appears. We rebel at the sight of a corpse, we rebel against the death of children, of young people, of men and women in their strength. We even feel a tragic element in the passing of senior citizens, with their experience, wisdom, and irreplaceable individuality. We rebel against our own end, against its definitive, inescapable character. If death were simply natural, we would not rebel as we do not rebel the falling of the leaves. We accept their falling, although we do so with melancholy. However, we do not accept human’s death in the same way. We rebel; and since our rebellion is useless, we become resigned. Between rebellion against death and resignation to death we oscillate, demonstrating by both attitudes that it is nor natural for us to die. However, if anyone of us, as individuals, comes to a complete and final end, aspects of us will still live on in a variety of growing ways, and that is a pleasant thought. “Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and bless be the name of my God for it—and I will tell you of wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the stains, sunk deep into my heart. And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto Him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day log did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still rise my voice high that it reached the Heavens. And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away. And I said: Lord, how is it done? And he said unto me: “Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now, it came to pass that when I had heard these words I began to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites; wherefore, I did pour out my whole soul unto God for them. And while I was thus struggling in the spirit, behold, he voice of the Lord came into my mine again, saying: I will visit thy brethren according to heir diligence in keeping my commandments. I have given unto them this land, and it is a holy land; and I curse it not save it be for the cause of iniquity; wherefore, I will visit thy brethren according as I have said; and their transgressions will I bring down with sorrow upon their own heads. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And after I, Enos, had heard these words, my faith began to be unshaken in the Lord; and I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that after I had prayed and laboured with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith. And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of him—that if I should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation—for at the present our strugglings were in vain in restoring them to the true faith. And they swore in their wrath that, if it were possible, they would destroy our records and us, and also all the traditions of our fathers. Wherefore, I knowing that the Lord God was able to preserve our records, I cried unto him continually, for he had said unto me: Whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it. And if I had faith, and I did cry unto God that He would preserve the records; and he covenanted with me that he would bring them forth unto the Lamanites in His own due time. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“And I, Enos, knew it would be according to the covenant which He had made; wherefore my soul did res. And the Lord said unto me: Thy fathers have also required of me this thing; and it shall be done unto them according to heir faith for their faith was like unto thine. And now it came to pass that I, Enos, went about among the people of Nephi, prophesying of things to come, and testifying of the things which I had heard and seen. And I bear record that the people of Nephi did seek diligently to restore the Lamanites unto the true faith in God. However, our labours were in vain; their hatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of pray; dwelling in tens, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat; and they were continually seeking to destroy us. And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“And there were exceedingly many prophets among us. And the people were a stiffnecked people, hard to understand. And there was nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wards, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God, and all these things—stirring them up continually to keep them in fear of the Lord. I say there was nothing short of these things, and exceedingly great plainness of speech, would keep hem from going down speedily to destruction. And after this manner do I write concerning them. And I saw wars between the Nephites and Laminates in the course of my days. And it came to pass that I began to be old, and an hundred and seventy and nine years had passed away from the time that our father Lehi left Jerusalem. And I saw that I must son go down to my grace, having being wrought upon by the power of God that I must preach and prophesy unto this people, and declare the word according to the truth which is in Christ. And I have declared it in all my days, and have rejoiced in it above that of the World. And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in Him I shall rest. And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see His face with pleasure, and He will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father. Amen, reports Enos 1.1-27. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Please Grant, O Lord, that what we have taken with our mouth we may receive with our soul, and let that which has been a temporary gift become to us an everlasting remedy; through Jesus Chris our Lord. Father or Mercies, please hear me for Jesus’ sake. I am sinful even in my closet walk with thee; it is of Thy mercy I died not long ago; Thy grace has given me faith in the cross by which Thou hast reconciled Thyself to me and me to Thee, drawing me by Thy great love, reckoning me as innocent in Christ though guilty in myself. Giver of all graces, I look to thee for strength to maintain them in me, for it is hard to practise what I believe. Strengthen me against temptations. My heart is an unexhausted fountain of sin, a river of corruption since childhood days, flowing on in every pattern of behaviour; Thou hast disarmed me of the means in which I trusted, and I have no strength but in Thee. Thou alone canst hold back my evil ways, but without Thy grace to sustain me I fall. Satan’s darts quickly inflame me, and the shield that should quench them easily drops from my hand: Please empower me against his wiles and assaults. Keep me sensible of my weakness, and of my dependence upon Thy strength. Please let every trial trach me more of Thy peace, more of Thy love. Thy Holy Spirit is given to increase Thy graces, and I cannot preserve or improve them unless He works continually in me. May he confirm my trust in Thy promised help, and let me walk humbly in dependence upon Thee, for Jesus’ sake. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Cresleigh Homes

Find plenty of room to roam at #CresleighRanch! Our modern floor plans can be customized to fit you and your lifestyle. Find your future home on our website. Link in bio. 🏡 https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-4/

Please pour down upon us, O Lord, the Spirit of Thy love, that Thou mayest preserve in the same piety those whom Thou hast satisfied with the same Heavenly Bread.
#CresleighHomes

Know Your Prices, Keep Smiling, Create an Alarm–There is More than One Way to Arrive at a Redemption from Phoniness!

June 4, 2020 12:50 am

The doctrine that maintains that what I cannot have I must teach myself not to desire; that a desire eliminated or successfully resisted, is as good as a desire satisfied, seems to me a sublime form of the doctrine of sour grapes: What I cannot be sure of, I cannot truly want. Complex modern democratic societies the Second World War face the task of securing three public goods. These are legitimacy, economic welfare, and a viable sense of collective identity. These are “goods” in the sense that their attainment is considered worthy and desirable by most members of such societies; furthermore, not attaining one or a combination thereof would cause problems in the functioning of these societies such as to throw them into crises. These goods stand in a complex relation to one another: excessive realization of one such good may be in conflict with may jeopardize the realization of others. For example, economic welfare may be attained at the cost of sacrificing legitimacy by curtailing union rights, by limiting a more rigorous examination of business accounting practices, or by encouraging the unfair use of protectionist state measures. Too great an emphasis on collective identity may come at the cost of marginalized workers and dissidents whose civil and political rights may be impinged upon by a revival of a sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Thus legitimacy claims and collective identity demands, particularly if they take a nationalist tone, may come into conflict. There can also be conflicts between the claims of economic welfare and the demands of collective identity, as when excessive forms of protectionism and nationalism isolate countries in the World economic context, possibly leading to declining standards of living. Conversely, too great an emphasis on economic welfare may undermine a sense of collective identity by increasing competition among social groups and by weakening the claims of political sovereignty vis-à-vis other state. In a well-functioning democratic society the demands of legitimacy, economic welfare, and collective identity ideally exist in some form of equilibrium. The present essay is concerned with one good among others which democratic societies must attain: the good of legitimacy. I am concerned to examine the philosophical foundations of the democratic legitimacy. I will argue that legitimacy in complex democratic societies must be thought to result from the free and unconstrained public deliberation of all about matter of common concern. Thus a public sphere of deliberation about matters of mutual concern is essential to the legitimacy of democratic institutions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Democracy, in my view, is best understood as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power in the major institutions of a society on the basis of the principle that decisions affecting the well being of a collectivity can be viewed as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals considered as moral and political equals. Certainly any definition of essentially contested concepts like democracy, freedom, and justice is never a mere definition; the definition itself already articulates the normative theory that justifies the term. Such is the cause with the preceding definition. My understanding of democracy privileges a deliberative model over other kinds of normative considerations. This is not to imply that economic welfare, institutional efficiency, and cultural stability would not be relevant in judging the adequacy of a normative definition of democracy. Economic welfare claims and collective identity needs must also be satisfied for democracies to function over time. However, the normative basis of democracy as a form of organizing our collective life is neither the fulfillment of economic welfare nor the realization of a stable sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

For just as the attainment of certain levels of economic welfare may be compatible with authoritarian political rule, so too antidemocratic regimes may be more successful in assuring a sense of collective identity than democratic ones. The practical rationality embodied in democratic institutions has a culture-transcending validity claim. This form of practical reason has become the collective and anonymous property of cultures, institutions, and traditions as a result of the experiments and experiences, both ancient and modern, with democratic rule over the course of human history. The insights and perhaps illusions resulting from these experiments and experiences are sedimented in diverse constitutions, institutional arrangements, and procedural specifics. When one think through the form of practical rationality at the core of democratic rule, Hegel’s concept of “objective Spirit” (objekiver Geist) appears to me particularly appropriate. The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective—the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of this latter consists—partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing—partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

When these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective freedom exists as the covertly and overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom—where self-conscious liberty has become nature. The consciously free substance, in which the absolute “ought” is no less an “is,” has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The abstract disruption of this spirit singles it out into persons, whose independence it, however, controls and entirely dominates from within. However, the person, as an intelligent being, feels that underlying essence to be one’s own very being—ceases when so minded to be a mere accident of it—looks upon it as one’ absolute final aim. In its actuality one sees not less an achieved present, than somewhat one brings about by one’s action—yet somewhat which without all question is. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs one’s duty as one’s own and as something which is; and in this necessity one has oneself and one’s actual freedom. It is the rationality intrinsic to these anonymous yet intelligible rules, procedures and practices that any attempt aiming at the reconstruction of the logic of democracies must focus upon. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

The more we realize what infinite harm neurotic conflicts inflict on the personality, the more stringent appears the need truly to resolve them. However, since, as we now understand, this cannot be done by rational decision nor by evasion nor by the exertion of will power, how can it be done? There is only one way: the conflicts can be resolved only by changing those conditions within the personality that brought them into being. This is a radical way, and a hard one. In view of the difficulties involved in changing anything within ourselves, it is quite understandable that we should scour the ground for short cuts. Perhaps that is why individuals—and others as well—so often ask: If one sees one’s basic conflict, is that enough? The answer is clearly, no. Even when the analyst—discerning quite early in the analysis just how the individual is divided—is able to help one recognize this split, the insight is of no immediate profit. It may bring a certain relief in that the individual begins o see a tangible reason for one’s troubles instead of simply being lost in a mysterious haze; but one cannot apply it to one’s life. A perception of how one’s divergent parts operate and interfere with one another makes one no les divided. One hears these facts as one hears a strange message; it seems plausible, but one cannot realize its implications for oneself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

One is bound to invalidate the facts by manifold unconscious mental reservations. Unconsciously one will insist that the analyst is exaggerating the magnitude of one’s conflicts; that one would be quite all right if it were not for outside circumstances; that love or success would rid one of one’s distress; that one can evade one’s conflicts by keeping away from people; that though it may be true of ordinary folk that they cannot serve two masters, one with one’s unlimited powers of will and intelligence could manage to do so. Or one may feel-again unconsciously—that the analyst is a charlatan or a well-meaning fool, feigning professional cheerfulness; that one ought to know the individual is ruined beyond repair—which means that the individual responds to the analyst’s suggestions with one’s own feelings of hopelessness. Since such mental reservations point to the fact that the individual either clings to one’s particular attempts at solution—these being much more real to one than the conflicts themselves—or that one fundamentally despairs of recovery, all the attempts and all their consequences must be worked through before the basic conflict can profitably be tackled. The search for an easier road has given rise to another questions, lent weight by Dr. Freud’s emphasis on genesis: Is it enough to relate these conflicting drives—once they have been recognized—to their origins and early manifestations in the childhood situation? #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Again the answer is, no—and again, for the most part, the same reasons apply. Even the most detailed recollection of one’s early experiences gives the individual little beyond a more lenient, ore condoning attitude toward oneself. It in no way make one’s present conflicts any less disrupting. A comprehensive knowledge of early environmental influences and the changes they effected in the child’s personality, though it has little direct therapeutic values, does have a bearing on our inquiry into the conditions under which neurotic conflicts develop. As is generally recognized, this knowledge is also of great prophylactic value. If we know what environmental factors are helpful to a child’s development and what factors delay and limit it, a way is opened to the prevention of the rank growth of neuroses in future generations. It was, after all, the changes in one’s relations with oneself and others that originally brought about the conflicts. Briefly, a child may find oneself in a situation that threatens one’s inner freedom, one’s spontaneity, one’s feeling of security, one’s self-confidence—in short the very core of one’s psychic existence. One feels isolated and helpless, and as a result one’s first attempts to relate oneself to others are determined not by one’s real feelings but by strategic necessities. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

One cannot simply like or dislike, trust or distrust, express one’s wishes or protest against those of others, but has automatically to devise ways to cope with people and to manipulate them with minimum damage to oneself. The fundamental characteristics that evolve in this way may be summarized as an alienation from the self and others, a feeling of helplessness, a pervasive apprehensiveness, and a hostile tension in one’s human relations that ranges from general wariness to definite hatred. As long as these conditions persist, the neurotic cannot possibly dispense with any of one’s conflicting drives. On the contrary, the inner necessities from which they stem become even more stringent in the course of the neurotic development. The fact that the pseudo solutions increase the disturbance in one’s relations with others and with oneself means that real solutions become less and less attainable. The goal of therapy, therefore, can only be o change the conditions themselves. The neurotic must be helped to retrieve oneself, to become aware of one’s real feelings and wants, to evolve one’s own set of values, and to relate oneself to others on the basis of one’s feelings and convictions. If we could achieve this by some magic, the conflicts would be dispelled without their having even to be touched upon. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

As there is no magic, we must know what steps have to be taken to being about the desired change. Therapy affords insight and helps the individual grow. It helps makes one more empathic and gives theory more experiential meaning. If affords more faith in one’s understanding life. The real aristocrats among those in therapy are those who have had nervous breakdowns. Everybody else is kind of “square.” Therapy can yield a fuller awareness of the extent to which one has been inauthentic in one’s everyday existence, and some help and encouragement to dare to be genuine in one’s everyday existence. This experience can also be gotten out of a good platonic relationship, probably. There is more than one way to arrive at redemption from phoniness. Such experience can enhance one’s sensitivity to phoniness, to inauthenticity in another person; and it also gives one an opportunity to be a role model of authenticity of others. Now, if you can get this courage to be authentic in some way other than therapy, so much the better; but I suspect it is rather difficult to. There may be some wise seniors who have knocked around a lot, and who have worked in every kind of work—who have cheated, lied, stolen, and sinned. They have paid the consequences of all these things #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

After paying the consequences for their bad behaviour, on their own, they may have realized how they shortchanged themselves. They may have arrived at the authentic way, and can be regarded as natural untrained graduates of a therapeutic program. Since they have been one, they can spot phony. They are experts. They are more expert at phoniness than the others. They can help an individual grope for a way to be more genuine and at the same tie be effective in life. They can help a person realize that one does not have to be destroyed when one is genuine, that one will not inevitably be divorced, fired, or run out of town if one presents oneself as one is In 50 or 60 years, a human may discover authenticity and have some therapeutic capacity. However, a training analysis or bout of therapy may expedite this. The corporate World has a toe and heel, and each performs a different function: one delivers a service, the other collects payment for it. When an organization seeks to create demand for a service and then deliver it, it uses the smile and the soft questioning voice. Behind this delivery display, the organization’s worker is asked to feel sympathy, trust, and good will. On the other hand, when the organization seeks to collect money for what it has sold, its workers may be asked to use a grimace and the raised voice of commands. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Behind this collection display of beneficial and comforting emotions and expressions, the worker is asked to feel distrust and sometime positive bad will. Some companies assign the function of debt collecting to outside agencies in order to preserve pleasant and morally satisfying associations with the company name. The builder’s billing department explained: “We use eight or nine collection agencies around the country. No one initiates actions in this office. We prefer that the agency be the bad guy or gal and we be he nice people.” Just over 1 percent of customers do not pay their bills. After solicitations, some 40 percent pay, and 33 percent of that goes to the collection agency. In each kind of display, the problem for the worker becomes how to create and sustain the appropriate feeling. The reason for describing the polar extremes of emotional labour, as represented by a sale agent and the bill collector, is that it can give us a better sense of the great variety of emotional task required by jobs that fall in between. It can help us see how emotional labour distributes itself up and down the social classes and how parents can train children to do the emotional labour required by different jobs. Now this is tremendously important for us today as it has been in the past. Perhaps we are in a time when it is more important that ever. The prospering of God’s cause on Earth depends upon His people thinking well. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

Today we are apt to downplay or disregard the importance of good thinking to strong faith; and some, disastrously, even regard thinking as opposed to faith. They do not realize that in so doing they are not honoring God, but simply yielding to the deeply anti-intellectualist currents in the New World. They do not realize that they are operating on the same satanic principle that produced the “killing fields” of Cambodia, where those with any sign of education—even the wearing of glasses—were killed on the spot or condemned to starvation and murderous labour. We too easily forget that it is great thinkers who have given direction to the people of Christ in their great moments: Paul, John, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, to name a few. At the head of the list is Jesus Christ Himself, who was and is the most powerful thinker the World has ever known. Logical is a great design of a noble science that allows us to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy slavery and darkness; and thus, with all due submission and deference, it offers an humble assistance to divine revelation. Its chief business is to relieve the natural weakness of the mind by some better efforts of nature; it is to diffuse a light over the understanding in our inquiries after truth. And it renders its daily service to wisdom and virtue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

Bluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favours evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally “hell to pay.” That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of the World history. To take the “information” of the Scripture into a mind thinking straight under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, by contrast, is to place our feet solidly on the high road of spiritual formation under God. “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes,” reports Psalm 19.7-8. And “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee,” reports Psalm 119.11. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” reports Psalm 119.105. “I love Thy commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything,” reports Psalm 119.127-128. “Those who love Thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble,” reports Psalm 119.165. Worship does not just “happen.” Worship requires careful preparation on the part of minister and congregations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

I have experienced both side of this, and I know Sunday morning can be the worst time of the week. It is probably true that couples, especially those with young children, have more disagreements on Sunday morning than on any other day of the week. Sometimes by the time we get to church, worship is an impossibility—unless, perhaps, the sermon is on repentance! The answer to the problem begins Saturday (on Friday night for those who attend church on Saturday) preparation. (Any men who interpret the following as women’s work are wrong. Both husband and wife should share responsibility for the practical and spiritual preparations for the Lord’s Day.) It is advisable that young families have their clothing clean and laid out of Saturday (or Friday) night, and even breakfast be decided upon. The whereabouts of Bibles and lessons should be known, and even better, ought to be collected and ready. There should be an agreed-upon time to get up which leaves plenty of time to get ready for church. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is also a good idea. Spiritually, prayer about the Lord’s Day is essential—prayer for the service, the music, the pastors, one’s family and one’s self. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

The Puritans understood this well. As one of their great preachers, George Swinnock, quaintly expressed it: Prepare to meet thy God, O Christian! Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday (of Friday) night. The oven of thine heart thus baked, as it were, overnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when thou wentest to bed, would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldst rise. If thou wouldst thus leave thy heart with God on the Saturday (or Friday) night, thou shouldst fine it with him in the Lord’s Day morning. On Sunday (or Saturday) everyone needs to get up on time, eat at a set hour, and leave plenty early, ideally after a short time of family prayer asking that God will be glorified and speak to each family member. If you do this, Sunday (or Saturday) worship will ascend to new heights. Next you ought to come expecting to uniquely meet God in corporate worship. Congregational worship makes possible an intensity of devotion which does no as readily come in individual worship. On the tragic level, a mob tends to descend to a much deeper level of cruelty than individuals by themselves. It is also understood that the appreciation and enjoyment of an informed group of music lovers at a symphony is more intense than that of a single listener at home. This holds true for worship as well, because corporate worship provides a context where passion is joyously elevated and God’s Word comes with unique power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

“At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigour in me, but in church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through,” reports Martin Luther. We must come with great expectation—for we will experience just what we expect. Anything may be found in symbol. However, how do we know that what it points to is not itself a more abstract symbol. In order to speak of symbolic knowledge one must delimit the symbolic realm by an unsymbolic statement. Were there no limit to symbolism, there would be no knowledge either. Faith would imply an indefinite progress from symbol to further symbol, without any ultimate encounter with the Unsymbolic. That is, it would be a regress, an acknowledgement of the ultimacy of despair, of the impossibility of making sense out of the human situation, of the universal fallacy of thinking that revelatory situations truly are revelatory, or revelation without content. Some argue that the human intellect is fallen, depraved, darkened, and blinded, and therefore human reason is irrelevant or suspect when it comes to becoming or growing as a Christian. Now, even if this point is granted in the case of evangelizing unbelievers, it does not follow that Christians should not use or cultivate their intellects once they become disciples. Moreover, from the fact that reasoning alone will not bring someone to Christ, it does not follow that we should not persuade or reason with people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Preaching alone will not save people without the Spirit’s work, but will still preach and work on our messages. We should do the same thing with our use of reason in evangelism. This will is fallen and depraved too, but God still commands people to make a choice to believe. The doctrine of total depravity does not mean that the image of God is effaced, that sinners are as evil as they could possibly be, or that the intellect, emotions, and will are gone or completely useless. Rather, total depravity means that the entire person, including the intellect, has been adversely affected by the Fall and is separate from God. The sinner alone cannot extricate oneself from this condition and cannot merit God’s favour or commitment oneself to God on the basis of one’s own righteousness. Further, the entire personality is corrupt but no inoperative, and every aspect of our personality has a natural inclination to fun in ways contrary to God’s ways. However, none of this means that reason, considered itself, is bad. “Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which he spake unto this house of Israel, saying: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord. For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a human took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and became to decay. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive three began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not. And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to its word. And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck off those branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire hat they may be burned. And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will; and it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself; wherefore, I will take these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will. Take thou branches of the wild olive tree, and graft them in, in the stead thereof; and these which I have plucked off I will cast into the fire and burn them, that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And it came to pass that the servant of the Lord of the vineyard did according to the word of the Lord of the vineyard, and grafted in the branches of the wild olive tree. And the Lord of the vineyard caused that is should be digged about, and pruned, and nourished, saying unto his servants: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, that perhaps I might preserve them unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself; for it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way, and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And it came to pass that a long time passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labour in the vineyard. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard, and also the servant, went down into the vineyard to labour. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Behold, look here; behold the tree. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard looked and beheld the tree in the which the wild olive branches had been grafted: and it had sprung forth and begun to bear fruit. And he beheld that it was good; and the fruit thereof was like unto the natural fruit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“And he said unto the servant: Behold, the branches of the wild have taken hold of the moisture of the root thereof, that the root thereof hath brought forth much strength; and because of the much strength of the root thereof the wild branches have brought forth tame fruit. Now, if we had not grafted these branches, the tree therefore would have perished. And now, behold, I shall lay up much fruit, which the tree thereof I shall lay up against the season, unto mine own self. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Come, le us go to the nethermost part of the vineyard and behold if the natural branches of the tree have not brought forth much fruit also, that I make lay up of the fruit thereof against the season, unto mine own. And it came to pass that they went forth whither the master had hid the natural branches of the tree, and he said unto the servant: Behold these; and he beheld the first that it had brought forth much fruit; and he beheld also that it was good. And he said unto the servant: Take of the fruit thereof, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self; for behold, said he, this long time have I nourished it, and it hath brought for much fruit,” reports Jacob 5.1.20. O Taste and see how good the Lord is Alleluia. Bless the Lord in the Heavens, Alleluia. Bless Him in the highest, Alleluia. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

Bless the Lord, all ye Angels of His, Alleluia. Bless Him, all His host, Alleluia. What blessings or thanksgiving can we offer for this Sacrament? Thee only, O Jesus, do we bless, with the Father and the most Holy Spirit, now and forever. Blessed Creator, Thou hast promised Thy beloved sleep: Please give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; if dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let Thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of His holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grace, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to Thy presence. Weaken my attachment to Earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; as pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with Thee. All glory for this precious hope; for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not Thy mercies in the night season; Thy hand never weariness, Thy power needs no repose, Thine eye never sleeps. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by person anxieties. Show Thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; Thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to Thee awake or asleep. “For, as I have often old you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on Earthly things. However, our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to being everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body, reports Philippians 3.18-21. Chris is administering the Bread of the Saints and the Cup of life for remissions of sins. Thou art Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who wast born of the Virgin Mary. While we receive this most holy Cup, please deliver us from all sin. The Spiritual dispeller of darkness, the Spiritual Father is not only holy Himself but is also an experienced teacher of the way to holiness for others. One who takes upon oneself the task of guiding disciples should possess sure-footed experience gained by years of work with the most varied kinds of apprentices. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Cresleigh Homes

Say ‘yellow!’ to your bright and sunny future at #MillsStation at #CresleighRanch! 👋 With 4 different floor plans available, we know you will find exactly what you have been searching for. 💙 https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/We Thy servants, O Lord, bow down our necks before Thy holy Altar, awaiting Thy rich mercies. Send forth upon us, O Lord, Thine abundant grace and benedicition, and hallow our souls and bodies and spirits, that we may be made worthy communicants of Thy holy Mysteries, unto remission of sins and eternal life.
#CresleighHomes

Avenge the Patriotic Gore that Flecked the Streets of Baltimore, And by the Battle-Queen of Yore, Maryland!

June 2, 2020 11:11 pm

The true mentor will possess a penetrating insight into one’s pupil’s needs. Such a guru seeks neither money nor personal power. One will be able to perceive from what source a person draws one’ life, whether from the impulsion of the ego or from the inspiration of God. The instantaneous and adequate nature of one’s replies to all questions shows a deeper understanding than the merely intellectual, hence must be intuitive, inspirational, or realizational. On such a basis a human’s fitness for guruship becomes more evident. The role of spiritual guide involves a code of ethics, a special moral responsibility on the part of the guide. The appellation of spiritual teacher should be given only to one who not only can communicate the spiritual truth intellectually but who also lives it fully. The teacher must not only provide instruction; one must also set an example of how to live and act in the World, and one must not only do both of these but one must also provide a profounder influence than other humans by virtue of one’s own attainment, as telepathically revealed by one’s mere presence. The perfect teacher is one who lives up to the teaching itself. The semi-perfect one tries to live up to the teaching. The imperfect one does not even try: avoid one. Actions, deeds, are the final test of the spiritual human or guru. The life one leads must be a pattern. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

The spiritual guide who ask one’s disciples to practise self-discipline and remodel their characters, will seem to them to be offering impossible counsels of perfection unless one oneself is willing to do or has already done what one asks. However sound one’s theoretical guidance may be, it will fail in persuasive power to the extent that it is not at one with one’s own experience. Whatever help one can give through teaching is limited on the other person’s side by both ability to understand and willingness to receive it. One can give a human no other Grace then this, to point out the way to God. However, there is none better. One seeks to bring humans back to the memory of one’s true native land. There is no room for such a human in rigid official Worlds. One could not even influence, let alone save, such a society. At best one can make some people more fully conscious of what they already dimly feel: that civilization is in danger and its leaders half-bankrupt; that society is sick unto death; that the individual needs spiritual help to endure and grapple with the depressing situation in which one finds oneself. What chance has the individual spiritual educator to continue one’s work when public and government alike accept the false suggestion that only through large organized groups and recognized traditional institutions can people be correctly led? #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

The end of such a trend can only be as it has been in the past—monopoly, dictational religion, centralized tyrannical power, heresy-hunting persecution, and the death of individualism, which means the death of truth. Jesus was an individualists. One prefers to remain unrecognized for what ne genuinely is so that others will not even suspect one’s true status—unless one deliberately wishes them to be made aware in order to help them in a special way. Unless one has been invested with a special mission to speak or write to the World, the authentically illumined human will not publicly announce the fact for one’s illumination. Anyone who does is an impostor. We may turn over the multitudes of tomes in which the opinions of human lie locked up, but the self-actualized will tell us more Truth in a day than we are likely to learn from all that huge mass of speculation. If World history show little if any ethical progress on the part of humanity, are the self-actualized to be blamed as futile? No. That merely shows the intractability of the human material they are working on, for their lives are given to doing whatever they can. They are not miracle humans. The best help one can give is to put a human upright on one’s own feet by helping one get one’s own experience of the glimpse. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

The human will then know that God really exists, that one’s own inner being is connected with God, and that one can draw upon this connection for moral strength and personal guidance, mental peace and spiritual knowledge. We have already seen that a revelatory situation is revelatory insofar as it permits an awareness of the Unconditional as perceived through, underneath, and beyond the many elements that constitute the concrete situation. There is no revelation without a concrete setting. And a concrete setting is not revelatory unless it point beyond itself, to an eternal abyss, ground and meaning. This is to say that in the existential experience of the Unconditional, the human and cosmic elements, whose convergence have formed the situation in question, are perceived as symbolic of their eternal ground. The Unconditioned makes itself known through symbolic situations. In other words, it reaches us through symbols. The symbol belongs to the World of appearances. It may be literally anything. For anything which has been involved in a concrete experience of the Unconditional may retain, for the mind which has known it in the fire of communion with being-itself, a flavour of remembrance. It has kept the power of reminding us of that experience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

It has been endowed with a sort of secondary revelatory power; and whenever we meet this symbol, we shall be thrown back into the revelatory constellation hat once connected with this particular symbol. This is the main use of the word symbol: it denotes the elements that have been associated with a revelation and that have retained some of the revelatory power then manifested. A second use of the term follows. We cannot speak of the Unconditional directly. Even to say “Unconditional” is to see it as a contrasted with the conditional, and this conditions the content of the word “Unconditional.” There is no way of expressing the ultimate ground of being unless we use symbolic terms. The terms are understood as pointers to, not as copies of, reality. God does not mean a God, but points to a realm where “a” is meaningful, beyond singular and plural; as Unconditional, one is neither subject of the verb “to be” nor object of the verb “to know,” but one is beyond object and subject. It is highly symbolic language which must be used at this point. However, its symbolic character foes not diminish its truth; on the contrary, it is a condition of its truth. To speak unsymbolically about being-itself falsifies the real situation. Our knowledge of God is derived from the perfections which flow from Him to creatures, which perfections are in God in a more eminent way than in creatures. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Now our intellect apprehends them as they are in creatures, and as it apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as names, which are symbols, are applied to God, the perfections which they signify, such as goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As regards to what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. However, as regard their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures. Spiritual formation requires thinking. The Gospel of Jesus directly repudiates all false information about God and, therewith, about the meaning of human life; and it works to undermine the power of those ideas and images that structure life away from God. However, for it to have this effect we must use our ability to think. What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of given facts or assumptions. It extends the information we have and enables us to see the “larger picture”—to see it clearly and to see it wholly. And it undermines false or misleading ideas and images as well. It reveals their falseness to those who wish to know it. It is a powerful gift of God to be used in the service of truth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Here is Paul thinking under inspiration: “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” reports Romans 8.31-32. Here is Martin Luther thinking and standing in the power of God before his examiners at Worms: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscious is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.” The earliest printed version of his statement added the famous words: “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.” And so we must apply our thinking to and with the Word of God. We must thoughtfully take that Word in, dwell upon it, ponder its meaning, explore its implications—especially as it relates to our own lives. What are we to do in the light of the facts of the gospel and the revelation of God and of human destiny contained in the Bible? We must “pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it,” reports Hebrews 2.1. We must thoughtfully put it into practice. We must seek the Lord by devoting our powers of thinking to understanding the facts and information in the gospel. This is the primary way of focusing our minds on him, setting him before us. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

When we focus our minds on God, in doing so we will be assisted by God’s grace in ways far beyond anything we can understand on our own; and the ideas and images that governed the life of Christ through his thought life will possess us. However, two factors—self-contempt and anxiety—are largely responsible for the repression of sadistic impulses. The thoroughness and depth of repression vary. Often the destructive impulses are merely kept from awareness. By and large it is astonishing how much sadistic behaviour can be lived out without the individual’s knowing it. One is conscious only of occasional desires to mistreat a weaker person, of being excited when one reads about sadistic acts, or of having come obviously sadistic fantasies. However, these sporadic glimpses remain isolated. The bulk of what one does to others in one’s daily behaviour is for the most part unconscious. One numbness of feeling for oneself and others is one factor that blurs the issue; until this is dispelled one cannot emotionally experience what one does. Besides, the justifications brought to bear to conceal the sadistic trends are often clever enough to deceive not only the sadistic person oneself but even those affected by them. We must not forget that sadism is an end stage of a severe neurosis. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

And because sadism is a neurosis, the kind of justification employed will depend upon the structure of the particular neurosis from which the sadistic trends stem. The complaint type, for instance, will enslave the partner under the unconscious pretense of love. One’s demands will be attributed to one’s needs. Because one is so helpless or so apprehensive or so ill, the partner should do things for one. Because one cannot be alone, the partner should always be with one. One’s reproaches will be expressed indirectly by one’s demonstrating, unconsciously, how much others make one suffer. The aggressive type expresses sadistic trends quite undisguisedly—which, however, does not mean that one is any more aware of them. One has no hesitation in showing one’s discontent, one’s scorn, and one’s demands but feels that, besides being entirely justified, one is simply being frank. One will also externalize one’s lack of regard for others and the fact that one exploits them, and will intimidate them by telling them in no uncertain terms how much they abuse one. The detached person is singularly unobtrusive in expressing sadistic trends. One will frustrate others in a quiet way, making them feel insecure by one’s readiness to withdraw, conveying the impression that they are cramping or disturbing one, and taking secret delight in letting them make fools of themselves. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

However, sadistic impulses can be much more deeply repressed, and then give rise to what might be called an inverted sadism. What happens here is that the person so greatly fears one’s impulses that one leans over backward to keep them from being revealed to oneself or others. One will shun everything that resembles assertion, aggression, or hostility and as a result will be profoundly and diffusely inhibited. To lean over backward from enslaving others is to be incapable of giving any order, much less of assuming a position of responsibility or leadership. It makes for overcaution in exerting influence or giving advice. It involves the repression of even the most legitimate jealousy. A good observer will merely notice that the person gets a headache, a stomach ailment, or some other symptom when things do not go one’s way. Leaning over backward from exploiting others brings self-effacing tendencies to the fore. It shows in not daring to express any wish—not daring even to have a wish; in not daring to rebel against abuse or even to feel abused; in tending to regard the expectations or demands of others as better justified or more important then one’s own; in preferring to be exploited rather than assert one’s own. Such a person is between the devil and the deep blue sea. One is frightened of one’s impulses to exploit but despises oneself for one’s unassertiveness, which one registers as cowardice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

And when one is exploited—as will naturally happen—one is caught in an unsolvable dilemma and may react with a depression or some functional symptom. Similarly, instead of frustrating others one will be overanxious not to disappoint them, to be considerate and generous. One will go to great lengths to avoid anything that could conceivably hurt their feelings or in any way humiliate them. One will intuitively find something “nice” to say—an appreciative remark, for instance, that will heighten their self-confidence. One tends automatically to take blame on oneself and will be profuse in one’s apologies. If one must make a criticism one will make it in the mildest possible form. Even when others grossly abuse one, one will show nothing but “understanding.” However, at the same time one is hypersensitive to humiliation and suffers excruciatingly under it. The sadistic play on emotions, when deeply repressed, may give place o a feeling that one is powerless to attract anyone. Thus a person may honestly believe—often in spite of good evidence to the contrary—that one is unattractive to the opposite gender, that one has to content oneself with the crumbs. To speak in this case of a feeling of inferiority is merely to use another word for what the person is conscious of anyhow, and what may simply be an expression of one’s self-contempt. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

However, of relevance here is the fact that the notion of unattractiveness may be an unconscious recoil from the temptation of playing the exciting game of conquering and rejecting. During analysis it may gradually become clear that the individual has unconsciously falsified the whole picture of one’s love relations. And a curious change will take place: the “ugly Peking duckling” becomes aware of one’s desire and capacity to attract people, but turns against them with indignation and contempt as soon as they take one’s advances seriously. The consequent personality picture is deceptive and difficult to evaluate. Its similarity to the compliant type is striking. As a matter of fact, while the overtly sadistic person ordinarily belongs to the aggressive type, the inverted sadist began, as a rule, by developing predominately complaint trends. The likelihood is that one was especially hard hit and crushed into submission in childhood. One may have falsified one’s feelings, and, instead of rebelling against the oppressor, turned to loving one. As one grew older—perhaps around puberty—the conflicts because unbearable and one took refuge in detachment. However, when confronted with failure one could no longer stand the isolation of one’s ivory tower. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Looking to escape the ivory tower, one then seemingly revered to one’s former dependence, but with this difference: one’s need for affection became so desperate that one was willing to pay any price not to be left alone. At the same time one’s chances of finding affection were diminished because one’s need for detachment—which was still present—constantly interfered with one’s desire to attach oneself to someone. Worn out by this struggle, one becomes hopeless and developed sadistic tendencies. However, one’s need for people was so insistent that one had not only to repress one’s sadistic trends but to learn over backward to conceal them. Being with others is, in this event, a strain—though one may not realize it. One tends to be stilted and shy. One must constantly play a role that is contrary to one’s sadistic impulses. It is only natural that one oneself should think one is really found of people; and it comes as a shock to one when in analysis one wakes up to the fact that one has very little feeling for them at all, or at least is quite uncertain what one’s feelings are. At this point one is inclined to take this apparent lack for an unalterable fact. However, actually one is merely in process of relinquishing one’s pretense of positive feelings, and unconsciously prefer to feel nothing rather than face one’s own sadistic impulses. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

A positive feeling for others can only begin to develop when one recognizes those impulses and starts to overcome them. There are certain elements in the picture, however, that to the trained observer will indicate the presence of sadistic trends. To begin with, here is always some insidious way in which one can be seen to intimidate, exploit, and frustrate others. There is usually a perceptible though unconscious contempt for others, superficially attributed to their lower moral standards. In addition, there are a number of incongruities which point to sadism. The person, for instance, may sometimes put up with sadistic behaviour directed at oneself with apparently limitless patience but at other times show hypersensitivity to the slightest domination, exploitation, or humiliation. Finally, one gives the impression of being “masochistic”—namely, of indulging in feeling victimized. However, since the term and the concept behind it are misleading, it is better to steer away from it and describe instead the element involved. Being pervasively inhibited in asserting oneself, the inverted sadist will in any case be readily abused. However, in addition, because one chafes under one’s own weakness, one is often actually attracted to openly sadistic persons, at once admiring and abhorring them—just as the latter, sensing in one a willing victim, are attracted to one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Thus one puts oneself in the way of exploitation, frustration, and humiliation. Far from enjoying such maltreatment, however, one suffers under it. What it gives one is an opportunity to live out one’s own sadistic impulses through someone else, without having to face one’s own sadism. One can feel innocent and morally indignant—while hoping at the same time that someday one will get the better of the sadistic partner and triumph over one. Dr. Freud observed the picture I describe but vitiated one’s findings with unwarranted generalizations. In fitting them into the frame of one’s whole philosophy, he took them as proof that no matter how good a person is on the surface, one is inherently destructive. Actually, the condition is particular outgrowth of a particular neurosis. We have come a long way from the point of view that regards a sadistic person as a pervert in regards to pleasures of the flesh or that uses elaborate terminology to say one is mean and vicious. The perversions in the pleasures of the flesh are comparatively rare. When they are present they are merely one expression of a general attitude toward others. The destructive trends are undeniable; but when we understand them we see a suffering human being behind the apparently inhuman behaviour. With this we open the possibility of reaching such a human being by therapy. We find one a desperate individual who seeks restitution for a life that has defeated one. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Therefore, we ought to worship God for the promise of God’s presence. We all know God is everywhere—He is omnipresent—and that He has promised us, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,” reports Hebrews 13.5. Nevertheless, He has given the Church the unique promise that “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them,” reports Matthew 18.20. That means that God’s presence is with us in a very special way when we assemble to focus on Him. The sense of Christ’s presence will bring a great blessing to a community, which ultimately results in some people establishing Bible studies. If we would just let the truth sink in, think what such an awareness of Christ’s presence would do to corporate worship of the confessing Church. One thing is for sure, discrimination, violence, riots, and crimes would cease in cathedral and chapel alike! Humans, when we meet for corporate worship, Chris is in our midst. He walks among the glowing lampstands of His churches (Revelation 1.20). He treads yacht and spirit and truth. He desires our praise. This being the highest priority, we must answer truthfully: do we worship as God desires? All the prophets worshipped the Father in the name of Christ—Abraham’s offering of Isaac was in similitude of God and His Only Begotten—Humans should reconcile themselves to God through the Atonement—the Jews will reject the foundation stone. About 544-421 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

“Now behold, I came to pass that I, Jacob, having ministered much unto my people in word, (and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates) and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain; but whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away; but we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children, and also our beloved brethren, a small degree of knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers—now in his thing we do rejoice; and we labour diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents. For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before His coming; and not only we ourselves has a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us. Behold, they believed in Christ and worshipped the Father in His name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and His Only Begotten Son. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

“Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea. Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by His grace, and His great condescensions unto the children of humans, that we have power to do these things. Behold, great and marvelous are the words of the Lord. How unsearchable are he depths of the mysteries of one; and it is impossible that humans should find out all His ways save it be revealed unto them; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God. For behold, by the power of His word humans came upon the face of the Earth, which Earth was created by the power of His word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the World was, and to speak and humans were created, O then, why no able to command the Earth, or the work-personship of one’s hands upon the face of it, according to His will and pleasure? Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from His hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that He counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all His works. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

“Wherefore, beloved brethren, be reconciled unto one through the atonement of Christ, His Only Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a resurrection, according to the power of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the first-fruits, and obtained a good hope of glory in Him before He manifesteth Himself in the flesh. And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of a resurrection and the World to come? Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of humans; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. However, behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old. However, behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away His plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

“And now I, Jacob, am led on by the Spirit unto prophesying; for I perceive by the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that by the stumbling of the Jews they will reject the stone upon which they might build and have safe foundation. However, behold, according to the scriptures, this stone shall become the great, and the last, and the only sure foundation, upon which the Jews can build. And now, my beloved, how is it possible that these, after having rejected the sure foundation, can ever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner? Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my over anxiety for you,” reports Jacob 4.1-18. We are guilty, O Father Almighty, through our frequent sins, guilty through the neglect of Thy graces. However, from these trespasses of our guilty conscience the Sacrifice of Thine Only Son, offered up to Thee with His Blood, hath cleansed us. And it may also be our succour when we offend after being redeemed, since even until the final day of doom it bestows the grace of repentance on those who do not sin against the Spirit. So may He Who for our redemption made Himself an Advocate with the Father, be Himself the Pleader for our iniquities, even Christ our Lord and eternal Redeemer. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Be reconciled, we pray Thee, unto sinners by the Blood of the Righteous One; acknowledge the Victim by Whose intervention Thou hast been propitiated: and receive as Thine adopted children those whose Father Thou hast become through grace. Heavenly Father, my faith in in Thee, my expectation is from Thee, my love goes out toward Thee, I believe Thee, accept Thy word, acquiesce in Thy will, rely on Thy promises, trust Thy providence. I bless Thee that the court of conscience proves me to be Thine. I do not need signs and wonders to believe, for Thy word is sure truth. I have cast my anchor in the port of peace, knowing that present and future are in nail-pierced hands. Thou art so good, wise, just holy, that no mistake is possible to Thee. Thou art fountain and source of all law; what Thou commandest is mine to obey. I yield to Thy sovereignty all that I am and have; do Thou with me as Thou wilt. Thou hast given me silence in my heart in pace of murmurings and complaints. Keep my wishes from growing into willings, my willings from becoming fault-finding with Thy providences, and have mercy on me please. If I sin and am rebellious, please help me to repent; then take away my mouring and give me music; remove my sackcloth and adorn me with beauty; please take away my sighs and fill my mouth with songs; and when I am restored and rest in Thee, give me Summer weather in my heart. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

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. There is currently a $30,000.00 incentive on this home, and an addtional $5,000.00 for using one of their prefeered lenders.

Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/move-in-ready-home-site-84/

My Heart is Like a Rainbow Shell that Paddles in Halcyon Sea!

May 21, 2020 12:48 am

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and lead us from this World to another. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when one first appears one is a protector. Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Governments and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being doing by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, excreta, excreta. They might as well accuse us of wishing humans not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by State. How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what is does not contain—prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion—should ever have gained ground in the political World? The modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain. They divide humankind into two parts. Humans in general, except one, form the first; the politician oneself forms the second, which is by far the most important. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

In fact, they begin by supposing that humans are devoid of any principle of action, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no initiative; that they are inert matter, passive particles, atoms without impulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence, susceptible of assuming, from an exterior will and hand an infinite number of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected. Moreover, every one of these politicians does not hesitate to assume that one is, under the names of organizers, discoverer, legislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal initiative, this creative power, whose sublime mission it is to gather together these scattered materials, that is, human, into society. Starting from these data, as a gardener according to one’s caprice shapes one’s trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, cones, vases, espaliers, distaffs, or fans; so the Socialist, following one’s chimera, shapes poor humanity into groups, series, circles, subcircles, honeycombs, or social workshops, with all kinds of variations. And as the gardener, to bring one’s tree into shape, needs hatchets, pruning hooks, saws, and shears, so the politician, to bring society into shape, needs forces which one can only find in the laws; the law of tariffs, the law of taxation, the law of assistance, and the law of education. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

It is so true, that the Socialists look upon humankind as a subject for social experiments, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will request a portion of humankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is well known how popular the idea of trying all systems is, and one of their chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent Assembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make one’s experiments. It is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before one makes one of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances, the agriculturist some seed and a corner of one’s field, to make trial of an idea. However, think of the difference between the gardener and one’s trees, between the inventor and one’s machine, between the chemist and one’s substances, between the agriculturist and one’s seed! The Socialist thinks, in all sincerity, that there is the same difference between oneself and humankind. No wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artificial production of the legislator’s genius. This idea, the result f a classical education, has taken possession of all the thinkers and great writers of our country. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

To all these persons, the relations between humankind and the legislator appear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the potter. Moreover, if they have consented to recognize in the heart of humans a capability of action, and in one’s intellect a faculty of discernment, they have looked upon this gift of God as a fatal one, and thought that humankind, under these two impulses, tended fatally towards ruin. They have taken it for granted that if abandoned to their own inclinations, humans would only occupy themselves with religion to arrive at atheism, with instruction to come to ignorance, and with labour and exchange to be extinguished in misery. I shall now resume the subject by remaking, that immediately after the economical part of the question, and before the political part, a leading question presents itself. It is the following: What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop? I have no hesitation in answering, Law is common force organized to prevent injustice;–in short, Law is Justice. It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they preexist, and one’s work is only to secure them from injury. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have the domain of force, which is justice. I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion—that there are too many great humans in the World; there are too many legislators, organizers, institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations excreta, excreta. Too many persons place themselves above humankind, to rule and patronize it; too many persons make a trade of looking after it. It will be answered—“You yourself are occupied upon it all this time.” Very true. However, it must be admitted that it is another sense entirely that I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose of inducing them to relax their hold. I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a physiologist does with the human frame; I would study and admire it. I am acting with regard to it in the spirit that animated a celebrated traveler. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

A child had just been born, and a crow of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said—“This child will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his nostrils.” Another said—“He will be without the sense of hearing, unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders.” A third said—“He will never see the light of the Sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique direction.” A fourth said—“He will never be upright, unless I bend his legs.” A fifth said—“He will not be able to think, unless I press his brain.” “Stop!” said the traveler. “Whatever God does, is well done; do not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty.” God has implanted in humankind also all that is necessary to enable it to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology, as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

Away wit their social laboratories, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun—reject all systems, and try liberty—liberty, which is an act of faith in God and His work. Several passages analyze the concrete contents of faith as formulated in diverse religions, classifying them according to contrasting tendencies: historical and non-historical; ontological and moral; ontological and cosmological; sacramental and ethical. Many other points of view could be found. There is stress on negativity and void, on positivity and fulfilment, on cosmic expression of the power of being, on manifestation of the pleasures of the flesh and vital urge, on the demonic aspects of being (witch-cults), on the ethical implications of being, and so on indefinitely. You could say, “What a mess!”; but you could also say, “What a wealth of symbols, all expressing human’s ultimate concern, all pointing to the ground and abyss! What a luxuriance of revelatory situations and experiences! #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

What a devotion to human’s quest for being-itself, for the New Being beyond the distinction of subject and object!” Yet this multitude of symbols, myths, rites, creeds, scriptures and traditions raises a serious question: Is there, or should there be, a criterion to judge all these expressions of faith? The Unconditional, of which we are immediately aware if we turn our minds to it. The criterion of every concrete expression of our ultimate concern is the degree to which the concreteness of the concern is in unity with its ultimacy. The prophet whose preaching creates for one’s disciples a new symbol of the Unconditional, and the priest who ritually uses accepted symbols of faith and worship both run a great risk. It is the danger of every embodiment of the unconditional element, religious and secular, that it elevates something conditioned, a symbol, an institution, a movement as such to ultimacy. Yet it is the greatness of religion that it tries to surpass the given reality in order to approach the unconditional. Should there be a final revelation, or a universal set of religious symbols, it would be such a revelation, and such a symbol, as would negate itself most completely at the very moment when it reveals the Unconditional most positively. A perfect symbol of the Unconditioned is no longer self-subsistent as it seemed to be before; it has become transparent or, as we could say, “theonomous.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

A State has often been described as a person who has emotions, thoughts, intentions, decision like an individual person. However, there is a difference which makes all this impossible: the social organism does not have an organic center, in which the whole being is untied so that central deliberations and decisions are possible. The center of a social group is those who represent it, the rulers or the parliaments, or those who have the real power behind the scene without being official representatives. The analogy has been driven to the point where the representative centers of social power are equated with the deliberating and deciding center of a personality. However, this is what one could call “a deception of the metaphor.” The analogy can be carried through metaphorically but not properly. For the deciding center of a group is always a part of the group. It is not the group which decides, but those who have the power to speak for the group and force their decisions upon all the members of the group. And they may do this without the (at least) silent consent of the group. The importance of this analysis is visible whenever one makes a group responsible for what the deciding center has forced upon the group. This gives a solution to the painful question of the moral guilt of a nation (exempli gratia Nazi Germany). It is never the nation which is directly guilty for what is done by the nation. It is always the ruling group. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

However, all individual in a nation are responsible for the existence of the ruling group. Not many individuals in Germany are directly guilty of Nazi atrocities. Still, all of them are responsible for the acceptance of a government which was willing and able to do such things. Those who represent the power of a social group are a representative but not an actual center. A group is not a person. Nevertheless it has a structure of power. It is centered. Therefore social power is hierarchical power, power in degrees. Social power, centered and therefore hierarchical, has many forms in which it can appear. It can appear in the control of a society by a feudal group, a military caste, a high bureaucracy, an economic upper class, a priestly hierarchy, an individual ruler with or without constitutional restrictions, the ruling committees or a parliament, a revolutionary vanguard. The ruling group shares the tensions of power, especially the tension between power by acknowledgement and power by enforcement. Both are always present, and if one of them is lacking, then no power structure can stand. When they reflect, the silent acknowledgement of the people appears: “Those who represent us represent us by divine order or by historical destiny. No question can be raised about it. No criticism is allowed.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

Or: “Those who represent us are chosen by us: now we must accept them as long as they are in legal power, even if they misuse it, otherwise the system as such with the chances it gives to us also would fall down.” The ruling group is safe as long as this kind of acknowledgement is subconscious or half-conscious—metaphorically speaking, silent. If the acknowledgement becomes conscious and doubt must be suppressed, danger for the system appears. Then the moment may come when the suppression no loner works and a revolutionary situation develops. It is noticeable that even in such a situation the law is valid that power has centered or hierarchal character: the bearers of the revolutionary situation are a small group of people who have decided to withdraw acknowledgment. Marx has called them, with a militaristic image, the vanguard. They are the center of power in a revolutionary situation, the objects of severest suppression in the prerevolutionary stage, the ruling group in the postrevolutionary stage. For enforcement is the other side of the hierarchical power structure. It also works well as long as it works silently in the overwhelming majority of the group. This is done by internalized law, a smooth administration and conformistic attitude. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

However, this is an ideal case and depends on many favourable factors (exempli gratia in England). Usually the compulsory element is much stronger. There is an easy deception in the mind of idealist about the situation. They experience the small number of enforcing officials in a big city and that even this small number has to do actual enforcement only occasionally. So they feel the absence of enforcement more than its presence. However, most enforcement is done by the treat of enforcement, if it is a real threat. Examples for this can be increased indefinitely even with respect to the best educated citizen (taxes). You cannot remove silent acknowledgment and you cannot remove manifest enforcement from any structure of power. The ruling minority in a social group are both objects of the silent acknowledgement by the majority and the agents of the enforcement of the law against the willfulness of any member of the group. This latter position produces all the problems which disturb and possibly ruin a social organism. If the law the ruling group is supposed to represent and to enforce were unambiguous, the situation would be simple. However, actually it is burdened with all the ambiguities of justice. An archaic acknowledgment of this fact is the idea that the ruler is above the law, because it is one’s function to make decisions where the law necessarily remains indefinite. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

Although modern constitutions avoid an open expression of such a translegal position, they cannot exclude actions of the ruling group which follow the same principle. And this position “above the law” is neither in ancient nor in modern times a denial of the law. On the contrary, it is meant as a way of making the application of the law possible. The law must be given in a creative act, and it is given by members of the ruling group. It mut be applied to the concrete situation in a daring decision, and the decision is made by members of the ruling group. It must be changed in a foreseeing risk; and the risk is taken by members of the ruling group. This analysis shows that those who are in power always do two things: they express the power of justice of the whole group; and, at the same time, they express the power and the claim for justice of themselves as the ruling group. This situation has induced Christian as well as Marxist anarchists to accept the ideal of a society without a power structure. However, being without a power structure means being without a center of action. It means an agglomeration of individuals without a united power of being and without a uniting form of justice. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

A State-like organization cannot be avoided, and if it is given, no checks and balances, not even those of the American Constitution, can present the ruling groups from expressing their own power and justice of being in the justice and power of the whole group. The power of being of the group constitutes their own power of being. They stand and fall with it. And they have the justification that they are acknowledged by the whole group in whatever constitutional terms this may be expressed. If the whole group definitely withdraws its acknowledgement, they cannot exist. They can prolong their power by physical and psychological compulsion, but not forever. The silent acknowledgement received by a ruling group from the whole group cannot be understood without an element which is derive neither from justice nor from power but from love, namely from love under the guidance of its eros and philia qualities. It is the experience of community within the group. Every social group is a community, potentially and actually; and the ruling minority not only expresses the power and justice of being of the group, it also expresses the communal spirit of the group, its ideals and valuations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Every organism, natural as well as social, is a power of being and a bearer of an intrinsic claim for justice because it is based on some form of reuniting love. It removes as organism the separateness of some part of the World. The cell of a living body, the members of a family, the citizens of a nation, are examples. This communal self-affirmation, on the human level, is called the spirit of the group. The spirit of the group is expressed in all its utterances, in its laws and institutions, in its symbols and myths, in its ethical and cultural forms. It is normally represented by the ruling classes. And this very fact is perhaps the most solid foundation of their power. Every member of the group sees in the members of the ruling minority the incarnation of those ideals which one affirms when one affirms the group to which one belongs. This incarnation may be a kind or a bishop, a big landowner or a big business person, a union leader or a revolutionary hero. Therefore every ruling minority preserves and presents and propagates those symbols in which the spirit of the group is expressed. They guarantee the permanence of a power structure more than the strictest methods of enforcement. They guarantee what I have called the silent acknowledgment of the ruling group by the whole group. In this way, the power and justice of being in a social group is dependent on the spirit of the community, and this means on the uniting love which created and sustains the community. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

On this score there are great differences among various types of neuroses. The greatest integrity is to be found in those truly detached persons who have kept out of the whirlpool of neurotic competition and neurotic attachments and are not easily bribed by either “love” or ambition. Also, their onlooker attitude toward life often permits them a considerable objectivity in their judgment. However, not every detached person can take a stand. One maybe so averse to disputing or to committing oneself that even in one’s own mind one takes no clear position, but either muddles issues or at best registers the good and the bad, the valid and the invalid, without arriving at any conviction of one’s own. The aggressive type, on the other hand, seems to contradict my assertion that as a rule the neurotic has difficulty in taking a stand. Especially if one is inclined to rigid tightness one seems to have an unusual capacity for definite opinions, for defending them and sticking to them. However, the impression is deceptive. When this type is definite it is too often because one is opinionated rather than because one has genuine convictions. Since they serve as well to choke all doubts in oneself, one’s opinions will often have a strict and rigid doctrine of thought or even fanatic character. Moreover, one can be bribed by prospects of power or success. One’s dependability is restricted to the limits set by one’s drive for domination and recognition. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

The neurotic’s attitude toward responsibility can be confusing. This is due in part to the fact that the word itself has a variety of implications. It may refer to conscientiousness in fulfilling duties or obligations. Whether the neurotic is responsible in this sense depends on one’s particular character structure; it is not a thing that all neuroses have in common. Responsibility for others may mean feeling responsible for one’s own actions in so far as they affect someone else; but it may also be a euphemism for dominating others. Holding oneself responsible when it implies taking blame may be merely an expression of rage at not being one’s idealized image and in this sense have nothing to do with responsibility. The person and gospel of Jesus Christ—building on simple “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”—is the only complete answer to the false and destructive images and ideas that control the life of those away from God. The process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing those destructive images and ideas with the images and idea that filled the mind of Jesus himself. We thereby come increasingly to see “that light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” as reported in 2 Corinthians 4.4. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

As we might expect from our earlier study the ruined self and the restored self, the contrast between the idea system of humanity and the idea system of God is very sharp, because their fundamental assumptions (about who God is and who we are) are totally different. Thus the prophet Isaiah speaks: “’My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” reports Isaiah 55.8-9. This is forcibly illustrated by Peter’s response to Jesus’ declaration that he himself would soon be tortured and killed. Peter has just acknowledged that Jesus was the promised Messiah or anointed Saviour of humankind. However, now, he rebukes Jesus and urges that such things must never happen to him, the Messiah. “Messiah” was an idea with a content and associated image in Peter’s mind totally different from what Jesus was saying. Jesus therefore called Peter “Satan,” or “Adversary,” and pointed out that he was thinking in human terms, not in God’s terms. “Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but things of humans,’” reports Matthew 16.23. The two ways are radically different. Radically different ideas and radically different images. And of course they determine radically different courses of thought and action. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

Another illustration of the great difference in outlook is found in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. There he contrasted the way of Earth or flesh and the way of the new person. The human way is one of anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, and lying. “Bout now you must also ride yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices,” reports Colossians 3.8-9. Think for a moment how true this is to human life. However, now, Paul says, “Lie no more, since you have stripped off the old self and its characteristic behaviour and put on the new self, which sees things as they really are in God’s view,” as report in Colossians 3.10. In that view the usual human distinctions (between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free person, and so on) do not matter in how we relate to people, because Christ is (or can be) in all alike (verses 10-11). What is more unlike humans than to treat all kinds of people with equal truth and love? The ideas and images that govern unredeemed humanity make it impossible, except in highly selective circumstances and in very recent societies strongly influenced by Jesus and his followers. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

Paul knew we can only escape being conformed to a fallen humanity by receiving the mind of Christ himself (I Corinthians 2.16; Philippians 2.5). Spiritual formation in Christ moves toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his. How is this to come about? Two other factors in our thought life can be used by God to break the power of the toxic system of ideas and images that makes us “dead to God.” And after he has implanted new life from above in us by Word and Spirit, we can (and must) also begin to take initiative in progressively retaking the whole of our thought life for God’s kingdom. His grace will accompany us every step of the way, but it will never permit us to be merely passive in our spiritual formation in Christ. These other two factors are information (of “facts”) and our ability to think—to connect things up, to see what must or cannot be the cause if certain other things are so. “For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out of the dust. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

“For thus saith the Lord God: They shall write the things which shall be done among them, and they shall be written and sealed up in a book, and those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not have them, for they seek to destroy the things of God. Wherefore, as those who have been destroyed have been destroyed speedily; and the multitude of their terrible ones shall be as chaff that passesth away—yea, thus saith the Lord God: It shall be at an instant, suddenly—and it shall come to pass, that those who have dwindled in unbelief shall be smitten by the hand of the Gentiles. And the Gentiles are lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and have stumbled, because of the greatness of their stumbling block, that they have built up many churches; nevertheless, they put down the power and miracles of God, and preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain and grin upon the face of the poor. And there are many churches built up which cause envyings, and strifes, and malice. And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for e is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and workd of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until be bindeth them with his strong cords. For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God Worketh not in darkness. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

“God doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the World; for he loveth the World, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all humans unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation. Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay: but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the Earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price. Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say uno you, Nay. Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all humans; and one hath commanded one’s people that they should persuade all humans to repentance. Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all humans are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden. He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that humans preach and set themselves up for a light unto the World, that they may get gain and praise of the World; but they seek not the welfare of Zion. Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all humans should have charity, which charity is love. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

“And except they should have charity they were nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the labourer in Zion to perish. And again, the Lord God hath commanded that humans should not murder; that they should not lie; that they should not steal; that they should not take the name of the Lord their God in vain; that they should not envy; that they should not have malice that they should not contend one with another; that they should not commit whoredoms; and that they should do none of these things; for whoso doeth them shall perish. For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of humans; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of humans and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto human, Black and White, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Hew and Gentile,” reports 2 Nephi 27.16-33. We beseech Thee, Lord, open Thy Heavens, open our eyes: from thence may Thy gifts descend to us; from hence may our hearts look back to Thee. May Thy throne be laid open to us, while we receive the benefits which we implore; may our mind be laid open to Thee, while we render the service which is enjoined to us. Look down from Heaven, O Lord, behold and visit this vine which Thy right hand hath planted. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

Strengthen the weak, relieve the contrite, confirm the strong. Build them up in love, cleanse them with purity, enlighten them with wisdom, keep them with mercy. Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd, defend the purchase of Thy Blood. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, seek for the lost, convert the wandering, bind up that which is broken. Put forth Thine own hand from Heaven, and touch the dead of each being on Earth. May they feel the touch of Thy hand, and receive the joy of the Holy Spirit, that they may remain blessed forevermore. Gracious Lord, Thy name is love, in love please receive my prayer. My sins are more than the wide sea’s sand, but where sin abound, there is grace more abundant. Look to the cross of Thy beloved Son, and view the preciousness of His atoning blood; listen to His never-failing intercession, and whisper to my heart, “Thy sins are forgiven, be of good cheer, lie down in peace.” Grace cataracts from Heaven and flows forever, and mercy never wearies in bestowing benefits. Grant me more and more to prize the privilege of prayer, to come to Thee as a sin-soiled sinner, to find pardon in Thee, to converse with Thee; to know Thee in prayer as the path in which my feet tread, the latch upon the door of my lips, the light that shines through my eyes, the music of my ears, the marrow of my understanding, the strength of my will, the power of my affection, the sweetness of my memory. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

May the matter of my prayer be always wise, humble, submissive, obedient, scriptural, Christ-like. Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain, that if I seem not to obtain my petitions I shall have larger, richer answers, surpassing all that I ask or think. Unsought, thou hast given me the greatest gift, the person of Thy Son, and in Him Thou wilt give me all I need. Take away from us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, all our iniquities and the spirit of pride and arrogance, which Thou resistest, and fill us with the spirit of fear, and give us a contrite and humbled heart, which Thou doest not despise,–that we may be enabled with pure minds to enter into the Holy of Holies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God the Father, Who in Thy great and ineffable love to humans didst send Thy Son into the World, to bring back the wandering sheep, turn not away Thy face from us when we approach this Thy tremendous and unbloody Sacrifice; for we trust not to our righteousness, but to Thy gracious compassion, whereby Thou dost redeem our race. O LORD God or Master, reject me not, though defiled by a multitude of sins, for, behold, I approach to this Thy divine and Heavenly Mystery. Not as being worthy, but looking only to Thy goodness, I lift up my voice unto Thee. O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and I am not worthy to look upon this Thy holy and spiritual Table, whereon Thine only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ is mystically set forth as a Sacrifice for me a sinner, for one stained with every defilement. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

Cresleigh Homes

Find your dream home at #PlumasRanch! 😍 With four floor plans and dynamic design elements, we know you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for. 🔎

Want to stay up to date on Plumas Ranch? Sign up for our interest list! You’ll get the latest news delivered right to your inbox. 👍https://linktr.ee/cresleighhomes

#CresleighHomes

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

May 20, 2020 12:41 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cresleigh Homes

Dinner is served. 🤩 #BrightonStation Residence 4 has a beautiful formal dining room accessible through the butler’s pantry (in the back left) or through the main hallway, creating connectivity and flow. 🙌 https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-4/

#CresleighRanch
#CresleighHomes

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

May 19, 2020 1:13 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No discussion of Christianity is meaningful if we leave out the sight of conception of a revelatory experience: a final revelation, if there is one, is first of all a constellation of revelatory character. The discipline of petitionary prayer: The practice of prayer—the list, the quiet, the place, the time, the posture, preparation, and the length—all suggest one thing—discipline. Work—candidly, prayer is work, not a sport. It is not something that you do if you like it, or devote your spare time to, or do only if you are good at it. Prayer is the proper work of the soul which loves Christ (Ephesians 6.18): And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alter and always keep on praying for all the saints. This is a call to work! We must never wait until we feel like praying—otherwise we may never pray, unless, perhaps, we fall headfirst into an open wall. The context of Paul’s charge in Ephesians 6 is spiritual warfare—and that is what prayer is! Christian people face the World in prayer. Work and war, war and work—these are the words we must keep before us if we are to become humans of prayer. “Now I, Nephi, do speak somewhat concerning the words which I have written, which have written, which have been spoken by the mouth of Isaiah. For Behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!

4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 2,757 square feet

#CresleighHomes

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

May 18, 2020 3:31 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable—Now is the Time for All Good People to Come to the Assist the Party!

May 16, 2020 1:13 am

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to profit of the community to which your later work belongs. Through education, we have the ability to change and improve the World in which we live. By touching the lives of humanity, outstanding educators make the future bright for all of us. The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign and one’s subjects, occurred naturally to the imagination of aristocratic nations, because those communities contained individuals or families raised above the common level, and apparently destined to command by their birth, their education, and their wealth. This same nation is naturally wanting in the minds of humans in democratic ages, for converse reasons; it can only be introduced artificially, it can only be kept there with difficulty; whereas they conceive, as it were, without thinking upon the subject, the notion of a sole and central power which governs the whole community by its direct influence. Moreover in politics, as well as in philosophy and in religion, the intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general notions. Complicated systems are repugnant to it, and its favourite conception is that of a great nation composed of citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all governed by a single power. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which presents itself to the minds of humans in the ages of equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every person sees that one differs but little from those about one, one cannot understand why a rule which is applicable to one person should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the slightest privileges are repugnant to one’s reason; the faintest dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people offend one, and uniformity of legislation appears to one to be the first condition of good government. I find, on the contrary, that this same notion of a uniform rule, equally binding on all the members of the community, was almost unknown to the human mind in aristocratic ages; it was either never entertained, or it was rejected. These contrary tendencies of opinion ultimately turn on either side to such blind instincts and such ungovernable habits, that they still direct the actions of humans, in spite of particular exceptions. Notwithstanding the immense variety of conditions in the middle ages, a certain number of persons existed at that period in precisely similar circumstances; but this did not prevent the laws then in force from assigning to each of them distinct duties and different rights. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

On the contrary, at the present time all the powers of government are exerted to impose the same customs and the same laws on populations which have as yet but a few points of resemblance. As the conditions of humans become equal among a people, individuals seem of less importance, and society of greater dimensions; or rather, every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd, and nothing stands conspicuous but the great and imposing image of the people at large. This naturally gives the humans of democratic periods a lofty opinion of the privileges of society, and a very humble notion of the rights of individuals; they are ready to admit that the interests of the former are everything, and those of the latter nothing. They are willing to acknowledge that the power which represents the community has far more information and wisdom than any of the members of that community; and that it is the duty, as well as the right, of that power to guide as well as govern each private citizen. If we closely scrutinize our contemporaries, and penetrate to the root of their political opinions, we shall detect some of the notions which I have just pointed out, and we shall perhaps be surprises to find so much accordance between humans who are so often at variance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The Americans hold, that in every state the supreme power ought to emanate from the people; but when once that power is constituted, they can conceive, as it were, no limits to it, and they are ready to admit that it has the right to do whatever it pleases. They have not the slightest notion of peculiar privileges granted to cities, families, or persons; their minds appear never to have foreseen that it might be possible not to apply with strict uniformity the same laws to every part, and to all the inhabitants. These same opinions are more and more diffused in Europe; they even insinuate themselves among those nations which most vehemently reject the principle of the sovereignty of the people. Such nations assign a different origin to the supreme power, but they ascribe to that power the same characteristics. Among them all, the idea of intermediate powers is weakened and obliterated: the idea of rights inherent in certain individuals is rapidly disappearing from the minds of humans; the idea of the omnipotence and sole authority of society at large rises to fill its place. These ideas take root and spread in proportions as social conditions become more equal, and humans more alike; they are engendered by equality, and in turn they hasten the progress of equality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

In France, where the revolution of which I am speaking has gone further than in any other European country, these opinions have got complete hold of the public mind. If we listen attentively to the language of the various parties in France, we shall find that there is not one which has not adopted them. Most of these parties censure the conduct of the government, but they all hold that the government ought perpetually to act and interfere in everything that is done. Even those which are most at variance are nevertheless agreed upon this head. The unity, the ubiquity, the omnipotence of the supreme power, and the uniformity of its rules, constitute the principal characteristics of all the political systems which have been put forward in our age. They recur even in the wildest visions of political regeneration: the human minds pursues them in its dreams. If these notions spontaneously arise in the minds of the private individuals, they suggest themselves still more forcibly to the minds of princes. While the ancient fabric of European society is altered and dissolved, sovereigns acquire new conceptions of their opportunities and their duties; they learn for the first time that the central power which they represent may and ought to administer by its own agency, and on a uniform plan, all the concerns of the whole community. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The idea that the power of the government should be concerned with the welfare of the entire community was never conceived before our time by the monarch of Europe, now sink deeply into the minds of kings, and abides there amid all the agitation of more unsettled thoughts. Our contemporaries are therefore much less divided than is commonly supposed; they are constantly disputing as to the hands in which supremacy is to be vested, but they readily agree upon the duties and the rights of that supremacy. The notion they all form of government is that of a sole, simple, providential and creative power. All secondary opinions in politics are unsettled; this one remains fixed, invariable, and consistent. It is adopted by state-people and political philosophers; it is eagerly laid hold of by the multitude; those who govern and those who are governed agree to pursue it with equal ardour; it is the foremost notion of their minds, it seems connatural with their feelings. It originates therefore in no caprice of the human intellect, but it is a necessary condition of the present state of human kind. Humans become human in personal encounters. Only by meeting a “thou” does a human being realize that one is an “ego.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

No natural object within the whole Universe can do this to one. Humans can transcend themselves in all directions in knowledge and control. They can use everything for their purposes. Humans are limited only by their finitude. However, these limits can be reduced infinitely. Nobody can say where the final limits of human power lie. In one’s encounter with the Universe, humans are able to transcend any imaginable limit. However, there is a limit for a human which is definite and which one always encounters, the other human. The other one, the “thou,” is like a wall which cannot be removed or penetrated or used. One who tries to do so, destroys oneself. The “thou” demands by one’s very existence to be acknowledged as a “thou” for an “ego” and as an “ego” for oneself. This is the claim which is implied in one’s being. Humans can refuse to listen to the intrinsic claim of the other one. One can disregard one’s demand for justice. One can remove or use one. One can try to transform one into a manageable object, a thing, a tool. However, in doing so one meets the resistance of one who has the claim to be acknowledged as an ego. And this resistance forces one either to meet the other one as an ego or to give up one’s own ego-quality. Injustice against the other one is always injustice against oneself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

The master who treats the slave not as an ego, but as a thing endangers one’s own quality as an ego. The slave by one’s very existence hurts the master as much as one is hurt by one. The external inequality is balanced by the destruction of the ego-quality of the master. This leads to the question whether the “Golden Rule” can be considered as the principle of justice in personal encounters. It is used even by Jesus. And it is certainly an expression of practical wisdom to do to people what one wants to have done by them! However, it is not the criterion of justice in person encounters. For it may well be that one wants to receive benefits which would contradict equally the justice towards the other one, if one received them. If we are asked for them, we should reject them. If things are demanded or given that are obviously evil, this is comparatively easy. However, if we feel obliged to fulfil what seems to be a just claim, a claim we ourselves would make, it is difficult. Nevertheless we hesitate. We are suspicious of the others as we would be of ourselves; we suspect that behind the manifest meaning of the demand something else is hidden that should be rejected, an unconscious hostility, the desire to dominate, the will to exploit, the instinct of self-destruction. In all these cases the justice in a person-to-person encounter cannot be defined in terms of the “Golden Rule.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

We have discovered the absolutely valid forma principle of justice in every personal encounter, namely the acknowledgement of the other person as a person. However, we have tried in vain to derive contents for this formal principle from the “Golden Rule.” The question then is: Are there other ways to discover such contents? A seemingly incontestable answer is: The cultural process gives the contents; they are provided by human experience, embodied in laws, tradition, authorities as well as the individual conscience. One who follow those rules and decides under the guidance of one’s conscience has a solid foundation for justice in personal encounters. Humankind is never without a treasury of ethical wisdom which presents its self-destruction and which, in religious terminology, is based on universal revelation. Since justice is the form of the power of being, the being of humankind could not have lasted for one moment without structures of justice in the encounter of humans with humans. Most of the daily encounters between human beings are determined by these sources of justice. In some cases law, tradition, and authority are predominant, in others the individual conscience. This is an important difference and can lead to tragic conflicts, as classically described in Sophocles’ Antigone. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

However, it is not decisive for our problems. For objective riles and individual conscience are interdependent. Laws, traditions, and authorities have been established as sources of justice through decisions in which the individual conscience was involved. And on the other hand, the individual conscience has been shaped by processes in which laws, traditions, and authorities have been internalized, and have become rules of justice which make external compulsion unnecessary. In somehow paradoxical ways one could say: Law is externalized conscience; conscience is internalized law. Rules of justice are created by the interplay of law and conscience. Is it possible to transcend this situation? Is there a way, other than the interplay of law and conscience, to get contents for the justice of person-to-person encounter? The only answer left is the classical theory of natural law, the belief that it is possible to discover structures of human relations which are universally, unchangeably, and concretely valid. The Ten Commandments are considered by classical theology as statements of the natural law and so are their interpretations in the Sermon on the Mount. The Roman Church adds the ecclesiastical interpretation of both. It does not deny that they are natural laws. However, because awareness of them is ineffective and distorted, the Church must restate them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

However, these laws remain natural law and they are, in principle, rationally recognizable. In our analysis of equality and freedom two basic tenets of the natural law theory, we have tried to show that in the moment in which these principles are used for concrete decisions they become indefinite, changing, relative. This holds true of all contents of the natural law. They are like the principles which are supposed to control pleasures of the flesh relations—historically conditioned and often in flagrant conflict with the intrinsic justice of these relations. The natural law theory cannot answer the questions of the contents of justice. And it is possible to show that this question cannot be answered at all in terms of justice alone. The question of the content of justice drives to the principles of love and power. A further specific impairment is the development of unconscious arrogance. Again I mean this in the sense of arrogating to oneself qualities one does not have or that one has in a lesser degree than is assumed, and of unconsciously claiming the right on this ground to be demanding and derogatory toward others. All neurotic arrogance is unconscious in that the person is unaware of any false claims. This distinction here is not between conscious and unconscious arrogance but between one that is conspicuous and one that is hidden behind overmodesty and apologetic behaviour. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

The difference lies in the measure of available aggression rather than in the measure of existing arrogance. In the one instance a person openly demands special prerogatives; in the other one is hurt if they are not spontaneously given to one. What lacking in either case is what might be called realistic humility, that is, a recognition—not only in words but with emotional sincerity—of the limitations and imperfections of human beings in general and one one’s own in particular. In my experience every patient is averse to thinking or hearing of any limitation that might apply to one. This is especially true of the patient with hidden arrogance. One would rather scold oneself mercilessly for having overlooked something than admit, with St. Paul, that “our knowledge is piecemeal.” One would rather recriminate oneself for having been careless or lazy than admit that nobody can be equally productive at all times. The surest indication of hidden arrogance is the apparent contradiction between self-recrimination, with its apologetic attitude, and the inner irritation at any criticism or neglect from outside. It often requires close observation to discover these hurt feelings because the overmodest type is likely to repress. However, actually one may be just as demanding as the openly arrogant person. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

One’s criticisms of others, too, is no less scathing, though what appears on the surface may be only a self-effacing admiration. Secretly, however, one expects the same perfect of others as of oneself, which means that one lacks a true respect for the particular individuality of others. The crux of the problem is stated well by St. Pau in Romans 14.5: “One man considers one day more scared than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in one’s own mind.” People simply have different opinions about various issues. One person sees no problem in a certain practice; another person considers that practice to be sinful. Most often these differing opinions arise from our family, or geographical, or perhaps, church cultures. I know that a certain practice that was offensive to the church I grew up in was not even an issue in a church I attended in California, whereas the California Christians would have been scandalized by one prominent practice back in Texas. Yet neither practice is addressed in the Bible. Where do these cultural convictions come from? They develop in various ways. Some have their origin in a “fence” someone erected a long time ago and no one knows that the original problem was. Others originated in the individual experience of some Christian who began to lay one’s personal conviction on others. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

There was once a missionary family who literally were forced off the mission field over peanut butter. They were sent to a location where peanut butter was not available, so they asked friends back in the States to occasionally send them some. The problem was that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spirituality not to have peanut butter. The newer missionary family considered this a matter of differing opinions, so they continued to receive and enjoy their peanut butter. However, the pressure from the other missionaries to conform became so intense, the newer family finally gave up and left the mission field. How could something like this—that probably seems petty and foolish to us—have happened? I imagine it developed something like this: A missionary family who greatly enjoyed peanut better went to this particular mission field. Upon discovering there was no peanut butter available locally, they faced a choice of doing without it or asking friend or relatives in the States to send it to them. As they considered their options before the Lord, they came to the conclusion that doing without peanut butter was a small sacrifice to make for being on the mission field. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Though, like the apostle Paul, they have a “right” to peanut butter, they chose not to use that right. “Do you not know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered at the alter? In the same way, the Lord has command that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel,” 1 Corinthians 9.13. The family did as to the Lord. “One who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. One who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for one gives thanks to God; and one who abstains, does so the Lord and gives thanks to God,” reports Romans 14.6. If my theory of this issue’s origin is correct, I personally find their thinking quite acceptable, perhaps even applaudable, in that circumstance. That is Paul’s whole point in Romans 14. If they decide to give up peanut butter as to the Lord who I am to belittle or ridicule them? Paul said the person whose faith allows on to eat peanut butter must not look down on one who does not. “Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way,” reports Romans 14.13. So what went wrong? If the original missionary family made a sincere decision to give up peanut butter as to the Lord, how did it eventually become a divisive issue among missionaries? #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Again, I a speculating. It probably because a divisive issues because one family elevated the particular leading of God for them to the level of a spiritual principle, which they then applied to everyone: “If God had ‘led’ us to give up peanut better on the mission field, surely that is His will for everyone else.” Whether I have speculated correctly on the reasons behind this story or not makes no difference. Even if they are not true in this particular instance, they have been true in scores of others. As Christians we cannot seem to accept the clear biblical teaching in Romans 14 that God allows equally Godly people to have differing opinions on certain matters. We universalize what we think is God’s particular leading in our lives and apply it to everyone else. When we think like that, we are, so to speak, “putting God in a box.” We are insisting that He must surely lead everyone as we believe He had led us. We refuse to allow God the freedom to deal with each of us as individuals. When we think like that, we are legalists. We must not seek to bind the consciences of other believers with the private convictions that arise out of our personal walk with God. Even if you believe God has led you in developing those convictions, you still must not elevate them to the level of spiritual principles for everyone else to follow. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Only what God has commanded in his word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions. If we are going to enjoy the freedom we have in Christ, we must be alter to convictions that fall into the category of differing opinions. We must not seek to bind the consciences of others or allow to them to bind ours. We must stand firm in the freedom we have in Christ. The destruction of Babylon is a type of the destruction at the Second Coming—it will be a day of wrath and vengeance—Babylon (the World) will fall forever—compare Isaiah 13. About 559-545 Before Christ. “The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see. Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones, for mine anger is not upon them that rejoice in my highness. The noise of the multitude in the mountains like as of a great people, a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together, the Lord of Hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of Heaven, yea, the Lord, and the weapons of one’s indignation, to destroy the whole land. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“Therefore shall all hands be faint, every person’s heart shall be afraid; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to pay the land desolate; and one shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of Heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the Sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the Moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the World for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay down the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a human more precious than fine golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore, I will shake the Heavens, and the Earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of Hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no human taketh up; and they shall every human turn to one’s own people, and flee every one into one’s own land. Every one that is proud shall be thrust through; yea, and every one that is joined to the wicked shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver and gold, nor shall they delight in it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“Their bows shall also dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. However, the wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her day shall not be prolonged. For I will destroy her speedily; yea, for I will be merciful unto my people, but the wicked shall perish,” reports 2 Nephi 23.1-22. O God, Who hast sounded in our ears Thy divine and saving oracles, enlighten the souls of us sinners to the full understanding of what has been spoken, that we may not only appear to be hearer of spiritual words, but also doers of good works, following after faith unfeigned, blameless life, and irreproachable conduct; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Benign LORD, I praise Thee continually for permission to approach They throne of grace, and to spread my wants and desires before Thee. I am not worthy of Thy blessings and mercies for I am far gone from original righteousness; my depraved nature reveals itself in disobedience and rebellion; my early days discovered in me discontent, pride, envy, revenge. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor the multiplied transgressions of later years, my failure to improve time and talents, my abuses of mercies and means, my wasted sabbaths, my perverted seasons of grace, my long neglect of Thy great salvation, my disregard of the Friend of sinners. While I confess my guilt, help me to feel it deeply, with self-abhorrence and self-despair, yet to remember there is hope in Thee, and to see the Lamb that takes away sin. Through Him my I return to Thee, listen to Thee, trust in Thee, delight in Thy law, obey Thee, be upheld by Thee. Preserve my understanding from error, my affections from love of idols, my lips from speaking guile, my conduct from stain of vice, my character from appearance of evil, that I may be harmless, blameless, rebukeless, exemplary, useful, light-giving, prudent, zealous for Thy glory and the good of my fellow-humans. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

Cresleigh Homes

In these uncertain times, the question remains: to buy or to rent? Check out our blog post today to explore the pros and cons. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/owning-vs-renting-which-is-better/

#CresleighHomes

Randolph Harris II International Institute

Category Archives: Eugenics Record Office

Post navigation