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You Always Hold Your Loved One in Your Heart, but You Must Let Go of Your Grief!
We have probed the Earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it….That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-moth bases, we would have been evicted long ago, and perhaps that is what is going on with COVID-19. Perhaps the Earth is tired of being abused. After 96 percent of wildfires are caused by humans. Reentering America, one is struck first of all by the grim monotony of American facial expressions—hard, surly, and bitter—and by the aura of deprivation that informs them. One goes abroad forewarned against exploitation by grasping foreigners, but nothing is done to prepare the returning traveler for the fanatical acquisitiveness of one’s compatriots. It is difficult to become reaccustomed to seeing people already weighted down with possession acting as if every object they did not own were bread withheld from a hungry mouth. These perceptions are heightened by the contrast between the sullen faces of real people and the vision of happiness television offers: men and women ecstatically engaged in stereotyped symbols of fun—running through fields, strolling on beaches, dancing and singing. Smiling faces with chronically open mouths express their gratification with the manifold bounties offered by the culture. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
One begins to feel there is a sever gap between the fantasies Americans life by and the realities they live in. Americans know from an early age how they are supposed to look when happy and what they are supposed to do or buy to be happy. However, for some reason their fantasies are unrealizable and leave them disappointed and embittered. The traveler’s antennae disappear after a time. These impressions fade, and reentry process is gradually effected. American once again seem familiar, comfortable, ordinary. Yet some uneasiness lingers on, for the society seems troubled and self-preoccupied—as if suddenly large numbers of America were scrutinizing their own society with the doubtful eyes of a traveler. One of the functions of a society is to make its inhabitants feel safe, and American devote more of their collective resources to security than to any other need. They build McMansions in gated communities, have cameras inside and outside the home, every member of the family has a mobile phone and every kind of insure you can dream of. Some people even go as far as buying armored (bullet proof) Ultimate Driving Machines. Yet American still think they need more safety because of shotguns in the close, nuclear bombers patrolling overhead, and the fiction the passes as news. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
With each decade we seem to accumulate more fears, and most of these fears seem to be about each other. In the fifties we were afraid of native Communists, and although we now feel sheepish about that moment of panic, today we express the same kind of fears about the mainstream media and the political party; and in our reactions to all of these fears we have created some very real dangers. Our intense fears make many people believe their race, way of life, religion, wealth, family, home and country are in danger of total extinction. During this COVID-19 crisis, many people have seriously become fearful of a World War III. Given this lack of concern for an overwhelming threat, how can we account for the exaggerated fear of climate change? From Dr. Freud we learned long ago to suspect, when a fear seems out of proportion, that is has been bloated by a wish; and this seems particularly likely when the danger is defined as a psychological one—an evil influence. The truth about climate change is if we want to save the World, we need to stop destroying forests and rain forests. We fear storms and wild beasts, but we do not censor them. If we must guard ourselves against evil influences we there by admit to their seductive appeal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Thus the McCarthy era reached its peak after the discovery that a few Americans has responded to “brainwashing” efforts, and the fear of conversion to Communism was quite explicit in public statements and popular surveys. One survey respondent, for example, made the revealing statement that “so many people in America are eager like those soldiers of ours in Korea to fall into the traps set by Communist propaganda.” The anticommunism of that period and its institutional residues have served as a kind of political fig leaf. The same emphasis surrounds of fears of radicalism today. The political party, peace demonstrations, militance, dens, and student protests are disturbing not only because they provide a serious physical danger (say the equivalent of walking through a street gang wearing the wrong colour), but also because we fear having our secret doubts about the viability of our social system voiced aloud. It is not what happens abroad that generates hysteria, but rather what appears to be happening within ourselves. This is why force must be used against the expression of certain ideas—if the ideas pluck a responsive chord counterarguments are difficult to remember, and one must fall back on clubs and tear gas. However, what is the nature of the attraction exerted by radical ideas on unwilling conservatives? #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
We know something about the hopes that tige the old maid’s search for a ravisher under her bed, but we need to understand better the seductive impact that informs our enraged fascination with the revolutionary currents of American society. Since the very form of this question rests on certain assumptions about culture and personality, however, let me first makes these explicit. The emotional repertory of human beings is limited and standard. When caressed, we are built to feel warm, happy, and content, when frustrated feel angry, when attacked feel frightened, when insulted feel offended, when excluded jealous, and so on. However, every culture holds some of these human reactions to be unacceptable and attempts to warp its participants int some peculiar specialization. Since human beings are malleable within limits, the warping is for the most part successfully achieved, so that some learn not to laugh, some not to cry, some not to love, and some not to hate in situations in which these reactions might appropriately be expressed. This cultural warping of human emotionality is eased by compartmentalization: there are special times and places and situations where the disparaged responses are permitted, or classes of people who can provide vicarious satisfaction through conspicuous performance of some kind. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Yet there are always a few of these responses with which every society and every individual has trouble. They must be shouted down continually, although they are usually visible to the outsider. Thus although the Germans, for example, have always placed great stress on order, precision, and obedience to authority, they periodically explode into revolutionary chaos and are driven by romantic Gotterdammerung fantasies. In the same way there is a cooperative underside to competitive America, a rich spoofing tradition in ceremonious England, an elaborate pornography in all prudish societies, and so on. Rather than saying Germans are obedient or Anglo-Saxon societies stuffy or puritanical, it is more correct to day that Germans are preoccupied with issues of authority, Anglo-Saxons with the control of emotional and pleasures of the flesh expression, and so forth. Those issues about which members of a given society seem to feel strongly all reveal a conflict one side of which is strongly emphasized, the other side as strongly (but not quite successfully) suppressed. These opposing forces are much more equally balanced than the society’s participants like to recognize—were this not true there would be no need for suppression. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Life would indeed be much less frantic if we were all able to recognize the diversity of responses and feelings within ourselves, and could abandon our somewhat futile efforts to present a monolithic self-portrait to the World. Probably some exaggeration of uniformity is necessary, however, in order for us to act at all, or at least with enough consistency to permit smooth social functioning. On the individual level the delicate balance reveals itself though conversion. An individual who “converts” from one orientation to its exact opposite appears to oneself and others to have made a gross change, but actually it involves only a very small shift in the balance of a focal and persistent conflict. Just as only one percent of the voting population is needed to reserves the results of an American election, so only one percent of an individual’s internal “constituencies” need shift in order to transform one from voluptuary to ascetic, from police officer to criminal, from Communist to anticommunist, or whatever. The opposite sides are as evenly matched before, and the apparent change merely represents the desperate efforts made by the internal “majority” to consolidate its shaky position of dominance. The individual must expend just as much energy shouting down the new “minority” as one did the old; some of the most dedicated witch hunters of the 1950’s, for example, were ex-Communist. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
So the reason there is so much division in America right now is because the majority is now becoming the minority, as the demographics change. On the society levels there are more outlets from the expression of “minority” themes and sentiments, and reversals of emphasis involve more overlap between the opposing trends. The United States of America, for example, traditionally one of the most prudish societies in the World, has long displayed, in a somewhat warped and mechanical way, the greatest profusion of stimuli involving pleasures of the flesh. These considerations suggest that the fear of radical movements in America derives much of its intensity from the attraction that such movements have for their opponents—an attraction that must be stifled. However, what is it? What is so severely lacking in our society that the assertion of an alternative life style throws so many Americans into panic and rage? I would like to suggest three human desires that are deeply and uniquely frustrated by American culture: The desire for community—the wish to live in trust and fraternal cooperation with one’s fellows in a total and visible collective eternity. The desire for engagement—the wish to come directly to grips with social and interpersonal problems and to confront on equal terms an environment which is not composed of ego extensions is another human desire that is deeply and uniquely frustrated by American culture. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
The third is the desire for dependence—the wish to share responsibility for the control of one’s impulses and the direction of one’s life. When I say that these three desires are frustrated by American culture, this need not conjure up romantic images of individual struggling against society. In every case it is fair to say that we participate eagerly in producing the frustration we endure—it is not something merely done t us. For these desires are in each case subordinate to their opposites in that vague entity called the American Character. Americans have voluntarily created and voluntarily maintained a society which increasingly frustrates and aggravate these secondary yearnings, to the point where they threaten to become primary. Groups that in any way personify this threat are therefore feared in an exaggerated way, and will be until Americans as a group are able to recognize and accept those needs within themselves. “Thus says the Lord Who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters. Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, even now it is springing to light. Do you not perceive it? A way will I make in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!” (Isaiah 43.16, 18-19.) #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Most of the conditions we commonly speak of as feelings are really not feelings at all; but the feeling tones or sensations that accompany those conditions are so powerful that the conditions themselves become identified with the associated sensations. This is true love and hatred or contempt, for example, but also with hurry and peace and with self-esteem and discouragement. Now, there are some extremely serious dangers here. When we confuse the condition with the accompanying feeling—peace, for example, with the feeling of peacefulness—we very likely will try to manage the feelings and disregard or deny the reality of the conditions. That way lie such things as “falling in love with love” and most of all the well-known addictions. The person who primarily wants the feeling of being loved or being “in love” will be incapable of sustaining loving relationships, whether with God or with other humans. And the person who wants the feeling of peacefulness will be unable to do the things that make for peace—especially, doing what is right and confronting evil. So, as far as our planning for spiritual formation is concerned, we must choose and act with regard to the condition, good or bad, and allow the feelings to take care of themselves, as they certainly will. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
In particular, we must never directly cherish, protect, or manipulate feelings, whether in ourselves or others. When negative feelings have themselves become so overwhelming that they threaten to take over our lives, this is the only exception to this rule. Then we must take steps to remove the negative feeling (grief or pain, for example). Prayer or even medication for such feelings is then wise. However, even so, the focus on the feeling must not be allowed to prevent our dealing, when and as we can, with the conditions from which that feelings arises. A well-known minister, after his wife passed away, said he had learned that there is a difference between turning loose your loved one and turning loose your grief. You always hold your loved one in your heart, but you must let go of your grief. So far as possible, we must always away from painful and destructive feelings. Simply that. Walk away. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers. On the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, so that I had to reject them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
However, this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people for I will forgive their guilt and I will remember their sins no more,” reports Jeremiah 31.31-34. Charles Darwin. Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) has offered a model of emotion for various other theorists and researchers. Darwin focuses on emotive expressions—that is, on visible gestures—and not on the subjective meanings associated with them. These gestures, he posits, were acquired during a prehistoric period and have survived as “serviceable associated habits.” Originally linked to actions these emotive gestures become actions manque. The emotion of love, for example, is the vestige of what was once a direct act of copulation. The baring of teeth in rage is a vestige of the once immediate act of biting. The expression of disgust is the vestige of what was once the immediate act of regurgitating a noxious thing. For Darwin, there is no emotion without gesture although there may be gesture without action. (The says the Lord God: ) “I will give them a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within them. I will remove their heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh,” reports Ezekiel 11.19. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Darwin’s theory of emotion, then, is a theory of gesture. The question for later students thus became: are emotive gestures universal or are they culturally specific? Darwin’s own general conclusion was that they were universal. Darwin distinguished between facial expressions of emotion that are innate and universal and facial gestures (not necessarily of emotion) that are learned and thus culturally variable. He devised a sixteen-item questionnaire and sent it to thirty-six missionaries and others who had lived in non-Western societies. One question was: “Can a dogged or obstinate expression be recognized, which is chiefly shown by the mouth being firmly closed, a lowering brow, and a slight frown?” Based on his returned questionnaires, Darwin concluded that “the chief expressive actions” of human beings were innate and therefore universal. Despite his generally universalist interpretations, however, Darwin concluded that some nonverbal behaviours (such as weeping, kissing, nodding, and shaking the head in affirmation and negation) were not universal but culture-specific and “learned like the words of a language.” However, the debate has been carried forward by those who argue that emotional expressions are probably innate, and those who argue that they are modeled on language and therefore culturally variable. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
What is missing from both sides of this debate is what was missing in Darwin’s theory from the beginning: a conception of emotion as subjective experience and a more subtle and complex notion of how social factor impinge. Humans compete with each other for control of the ritual apparatus, which is a powerful tool for commanding people by controlling their emotions. The ego is a mediator between the id (drive) and conscious expression. Affects are seen as signals of impending danger (from inside or outside) and as an impetus to action. The ego is assigned the capacity to postpone id drives, to neutralize or bind them. One emotion—anxiety—is the model for all others because it is more important due to the unpleasantness of anxiety which leads to the development of various ego defenses against unpleasantness. As analysts we recognize that anxiety occupies a special position in mental life. It is the motive for defense. Defenses serve the purpose of minimizing, or, if possible, preventing the development of anxiety. Anxiety was initially defined in a way that bypasses the ego: anxiety is the reaction to an influx of stimuli which is too great for the mental apparatus to master or discharge. (Thus says the Lord God: ) “I ignore the troubles of the past. I shut mine eyes to them. For, behold, I create new Heavens and a new Earth. The past shall be forgotten and never come to mind. Humans shall rejoice forever in what I now create,” reports Isaiah 65.16, 17. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
So we see that God is a worker and that humans, created in God’s image, is a worker and that work is good. However, then come the Fall and the Curse. “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return,” Genesis 3.17-19. The Curse made nature uncooperative, so that work became painful toil and humans had to sweat for a living. Today our working conditions vary. Some sweat more than others. We may be in a better position than some. However, the norm for the World is “painful toil.” Even more, the normal experience of humankind is one’s labour is a malaise of futility. The writer of Ecclesiastes gave this universal expression as he bemoaned his plight from the perspective of one who leaves God out of his life. In 2.4-10 he describes his professional success in acquiring vineyards and gardens and parks and enslaved humans and flocks and treasures. He was greater than all his contemporaries. He was denied nothing his eyes desired. However, he concluded in verse 11, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing gained under the Sun.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
And he reiterates in verse 17, “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the Sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the win.” Humans and others, this is as far as work will take you apart from God. You will engaged in it because, though fallen, you are in the image of God and because work is part of the natural order, and it will produce its benefits and satisfactions—but it will also be toil, and its joys will be ephemeral. Studs Terkel has revealed what has always been true under the Sun when God is left out. “And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence in the commencement of the twentieth year of the reign of the judges, that they should commence in digging up heaps of Earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites. And upon the top of these ridges of Earth he caused that there should be timers, yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a human, round about the cities. And he caused that upon those works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high. And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
“And they were prepared that they could cast stones from the top thereof, according to their pleasure and their strength, and slay one who should attempt to approach near he walls of the city. Thus Moroni did prepare strongholds against the coming of their enemies, round about every city in all the land. And it came to pass that Moroni caused that his armies should go forth into the east wilderness; yea, and they went forth and drove all he Lamanites who were in the east wilderness into their own lands, which were south of the land of Zarahemla. And the land of Nephi did run in a straight course from the east sea to the west. And it came to pass that when Moroni had driven all the Lamanites out of the east wilderness which was north of the lands of their own possessions, he caused that the inhabitants who were in the land of Zarahemla and in the land round about should go forth into the east wilderness, even to the borders by the seashore, and possess the land. And he also placed armies on the south, in the borders of their possessions, and caused them to erect fortifications that they might secure their armies and their people from the hands of their enemies. And thus he cut off all the strongholds of the Lamanites in the East wilderness, yea, and also on the west, fortifying the line between the land of Zarahemla and the land of Nephi, from the west sea, running by the head of the river of Sidon—the Nephites possessing all the land northward, yea, even all the land which was northward of the land Bountiful according to their pleasure. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“Thus Moroni, with his armies, which did increase daily because of the assurance of protection which his works did bring forth unto them, did seek to cut off the strength and the power of the Lamanites from off the lands of their possession, that they should have no power upon the lands of their possession. And it came to pass that the Nephites began the foundation of a city, and they called the nae of the city Moroni; and it was by the east sea; and it was on the south by the line of the possessions of the Lamanites. And they also began a foundation for a city between the city of Moroni and the city of Aaron, joining he borders of Aaron and Moroni; and they called the name of the city, or the land, Nephihah. And they also began in that same year to build many cities on the north, one in a particular manner which they called Lehi, which was in the north by the borders of the seashore. And thus ended the twentieth year. And in these prosperous circumstances were the people of Nephi in the commencement of the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And they did prosper exceedingly, and they became exceedingly rich; yea, and they did multiply and wax strong in the land. And thus we see how merciful and jus are all the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of humans; yea, we can behold that his words are verified, even at this time, which he spake unto Lehi, saying: #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Blessed art thou and thy children; and they shall be blessed, inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. However, remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. However, remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And we see that these promises have been verified to the people of Nephi; for it has been their quarrelings and their contentions, yea, their murderings, and their plunderings, their idolatry, their whoredoms, and their abominations, which were among themselves, which brought them their wars and their destructions. And those who were faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord were delivered at all times, whilst thousands of their wicked brethren have been consigned to bondage, or to perish by the sword, or to dwindle in unbelief, and mingle with the Lamanites. However, behold, there was never a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges. And it came to pass that the twenty and second year of the reign of the judges also ended in peace; yea, and also the twenty and third year. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“And it came to pass that in the commencement of the twenty and fourth year of the reign of the judges, there would also have been peace among the people of Nephi had it not been for a contention which took place among them concerning the land of Lehi, and the land of Morianton, which joined upon the borders of Lehi; both of which were on the borders by the seashore. For behold, the people who possessed the land of Morianton did claim a part of the land of Lehi; therefore there began to be a warm contention between them, insomuch that the people of Morianton took up arms against their brethren, and they were determined by the sword to slay them. However, behold, the people who possessed the land of Lehi fled to the camp of Moroni, and appealed unto him for assistance; for behold they were not in the wrong. And it came to pass that when the people of Morianton, who were led by a man whose name was Morianton, found that the people of Lehi had fled to the camp of Moroni they were exceedingly fearful lest the army of Moroni should come upon them and destroy them. Therefore, Morianton put it into their hearts that they should flee to the land which was northward, which was covered with large bodies of water, and take possession of the land which was northward. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And behold, they would have carried this plan into effect, (which would have been a cause to have been lamented) but behold, Morianton being a man of much passion, therefore he was angry with one of his maid servants, and he fell upon her and beat her much. And it came to pass that she fled, and came over to the camp of Moroni, and told Moroni all things concerning the matter, and also concerning their intentions to flee into the land northward. Now behold, the people who were in the land Bountiful, or rather Moroni, feared that they would hearken to the words of Morianton and unite with his people, and thus he would obtain possession of those parts of the land, which would lay a foundation for serious consequences among the people of Nephi, yea, which consequences would lead to the overthrow of their liberty. Therefore Moroni sent an army, with their camp, to head the people of Morianton, to stop their flight into the land northward. And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east. And it came to pass that the army which was sent by Moroni, which was led by a man whose name was Teancum did meet the people of Morianton. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
And when Teancu met the people of Morianton, so stubborn were the people of Morianton, (being inspired by wickedness and his flattering words) that a battle commenced between them, in which Teancum did slay Morianton and defeat his army, and took them prisoners, and returned to the camp of Moroni. And thus ended the twenty and fourth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And thus were the people of Morianton brought back. And upon their covenanting to keep the peace they were restored to the land of Morianton, and a union took place between them and the people of Lehi; and they were also restored to their lands. And it came to pass that in the same year that the people of Nephi had peace restored unto them, that Nephihah, the second chief judge, died, having filled the judgment seat with perfect uprightness before God. Nevertheless, he had refused Alma to take possession of those records and those things which were esteemed by Alma and his fathers to be most sacred; therefore Alma had conferred them upon his son, Helaman. Behold, it came to pass that the son of Nephihah, Pahoran, was appointed to fill the judgment-seat, in the stead of his father; yea, he was appointed chief judge and governor over the people, with an oath and sacred ordinance to judge righteously, and to keep the peace and the freedom of the people. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Pahoran also had the power to grant unto them their sacred privileges to worship the Lord their God, yea, to support and maintain the cause of God all his days, and to bring the wicked to justice according to their crime. And Pahoran did fill the seat of his father, and did commence his reign in the end of the twenty and fourth year, over the people of Nephi,” Alma 50.1-40. Wonder and awe, as I sit in your presence, you who sit in the gateway, in this World and in the other, mediating the power that shines through, letting pass what I need, and what I can use, holding back in mercy what I cannot. Seen against the brightness, your dark silhouette is still and sharp and clear. Sitting fiercely, with perfect intent, pure in your purpose, source of terror and comfort. A roaring fire, you sit in my heart’s center. A rampaging bull, you tear through my soul. A searing bolt, you cut through my life. A skirring arrow, you slice me in two. A standing stone, you are my anchor. The Lord reigneth while the people stand in awe; He is enthroned upon His judgment seat, while the Earth trembles. The Lord is mighty in Zion; He is exalted over all peoples. They praise His name: “God is great and revered, is holy.” Mighty King who loveth justice, Thou hast established equity; Justice and righteousness hast Thou wrought in Jacob. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
A tall-standing cypress tree is our God, supporting the Worlds on his limbs, each World ordered according to the spreading of His branches. Into each World, His twigs extend, bearing the leaves and birds that are our lives. From what source is the tree nourished? Where do its roots extend? Deep within the void they reach and are fed there from the substance of the Goddess. He makes known her will, giving it form, from which we might know it and live according to its pattern. Shaper and essence, open my eyes, open my ears, open my heart, that I might perceive the sacred pattern and conform my life to it. The goddess is the one who is Lady of all, and she is the one of whom I would speak, the one who gives birth and the one who brings death, beginning and end of the course of our lives. God is the Lord Almighty. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool, declaring: “Holy is He!” Moses and Aaron were among His priests; Samuel was among those that called upon His name, calling upon the Lord and being answered. He would speak unto them out of a pillar of cloud; they kept His testimonies and the laws He gave them. Thou, O Lord, didst answer them; Thou wast a forgiving God unto them, through punishing them for their evil. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, and I Will Pledge with Mine!
I think he rented the family. I do not believe Lillian is his mother. I do not believe Billy is his brother. They are all from Central Casting. For the past fifteen years I have been involved, with many different colleagues from the United States of America and other countries, in what I have come to think of as the building community. We have worked with small groups, then with larger groups of fifty to two hundred, and occasionally with very large groups of dix hundred to eight hundred. We have taken real personal risks. We have been changed by our learnings. We have made many mistakes. We have often been deeply puzzled by the process in which we have become involved. We have tried out different formulations of what we have observed and experienced, but we feel very tentative about coming to any conclusions. Yet one central element stands out. We have, at some fundamental level, become more effective in facilitating the formation of temporary communities. In these communities, most of the member believe both a keen sense of their own power and a sense of close and respectful union with all of the other members. The ongoing process includes increasingly open interpersonal communication, a growing sense of unity, and a collective harmonious psyche, almost spiritual in nature. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
In these groups we have come to focus our efforts on providing a climate in which the participant can make one’s own choices, can participate equally with others in planning or carrying out activities, can become more aware of personal strengths, can become increasingly autonomous and creative as the architect of one’s own life. Because of this total focus on empowering the individual, we have come to think of our way as a person-centered approach. This philosophical approach is not the only possible basis for forming communities. Communities began in the prehistoric past, when our ancient ancestors banded together for the common purpose of hunting, or later for agriculture. The communities f the American Indians have patterns based in philosophy and ritual from which we could profit today. The earliest communities in civilization formed around rivers or harbours, whose commerce bound the citizens together. In the United States of America, idealistic communities formed around charismatic leaders or religious ideologies. One has only to think of the Amish to realize that some of these communities have had remarkable survival strength. In China, groups have for centuries been a part of village life. To some extent historically, and certainly since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, these communities have been notable for their emphasis on the collective purpose. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In the Old World, the welfare (well-being) of the total organism, the state or nation, is paramount. Individual autonomy is de-emphasized, and each person is helped to become conscious of being but one cell in a great organic structure. In Western culture, however, there has been a different trend, a stress on the importance of the individual. The philosophy of democracy, of human rights, the right of self-determination—these are the elements that have come to be stressed. Out of such a soil has developed a particular philosophical way of being—the person-centered approach which I have mentioned. I am, for the moment, ignoring all the other possible bases for forming community, and will be speaking only of experiences based on and growing out of his person-centered philosophy. Person-centered communities of various kinds have formed in different settings. Teachers have been able to create such entities in their classrooms. Staff groups in a number of organizations grow and function in a person-centered way. Some church groups function in this fashion. To a very limited degree, industry has experimented with such communities quite successful—until a point is reached where the goal of personal growth confronts the goal of profit-making. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In short, there has been a ferment at work in our culture which has brought about many efforts to give more prominence to the dignity and strength and self-determination of the individual. As a culture, we are groping for future forms of community. In these workshops, we have had the opportunity to experience and observe the formation of communities in which the dynamics of the process stand out because there are relatively few factors extraneous to the experiment. These workshops have not been carried out within the framework of established institutions. They are not university or government or foundation sponsorship. They are not profit-making. They are free from any conditions except those that they have established themselves. They thus become worthy of close scrutiny. It is for reasons of this sort that the following discussion deals entirely with our experiences in these workshops. I hope, by describing these activities, which are also social experiments, that the basic organic form and process can emerge more clearly. We have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with groups very diverse in nature and widely scattered in geography. Of course explaining the information with take several weeks. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
In trying to think about the process, I am drawing on experiences with groups of varying sizes, from groups held in various parts of the United States of American, especially the two coasts, and from groups in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Japan, England and Spain, where 170 participants came to an exciting intercultural workshop from 22 different countries. We have found that by being as fully ourselves as we are able—creative, diverse, contradictory, present, open, and sharing—we somehow become turning forks, finding resonances with those qualities in the members of the workshop community. In the relationships we form with the groups and its members, the powered is shared. We let ourselves “be” and we let other “be.” At our best, we have little desire to judge or manipulate the other’s thoughts or actions. When persons are approached in this way, when they are accepted as they are, we discover them to be highly creative and resourceful in examining and changing their own lives. While we do not persuade, interpret, or manipulate, we are certainly not laissez-faire in our attitude. Instead we find that we can share ourselves, our feelings, our potentialities, and our skills in active ways. We are each free to be as much of ourselves as it is possible for us to be. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Part of that way of being has become ingrained: it is our desire to hear. During periods of chaos, or criticism of staff, or expression of deep feelings, we listen intently, acceptantly, or criticism of staff, or expression of deep feelings, we listen intently, acceptantly, occasionally voicing our understanding of what we have heard. We listen especially to the contrary voices, the soft voices, those that are expressing unpopular or unacceptable views. We may a point of responding to a person if one spoke openly, but no one responded. We thus tend to validate each person. We do not stop here. We as a staff are continually exploring new facets of our own experiences as individuals. Recently, this has meant uncovering the learnings we are gaining from our intimate relationships in our differing lifestyles. It has meant facing openly the increasingly intuitive and psychic aspects of our lives. As we push on into these unknow inner areas, we seem better able to help each new workshop community—individually and collectively—to probe more deeply into their own Worlds of shadows and mystery. In turn, each workshop has brought us learnings we did not anticipate. One striking example is that the workshop community has an almost telepathic knowledge of where the staff is, in its own process. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
I can relax and simply be whatever I am at the moment. My trust in the collective wisdom of the staff has now become a deep trust in the collective wisdom of the whole workshop community. I have felt tremendously released by having a human environment where I can completely let go. In the three or four says of staff meetings prior to a workshop, I pour out my problems, my predicaments, my feelings. I can have discussions. I can brag and rejoice. I can be utterly baffled and hopeless. I can be full of creative ideas. I can be critical of others in the group. I can be close and loving. This goes for each of us: we share as deeply as we are able. This process is restorative, therapeutic; it gives an incredible security. During the workshop, this kind of sharing continues in our staff meetings and makes it possible for us also to share deeply with the larger community. We give one another helpful feedback. We astonish one another with our creativity and ingeniousness. We anger one another by the way we have handled relationships and situations. We are sometimes critical of one another, and at other times, proud. We learn from one another and we work out feelings together. We are a marvelous support group for one another. We have become a catalytic force. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The sense of community does not arise out of collective movement, nor from conforming to some group direction. Quite the contrary. Each individual tends to use the opportunity to become all that one can become. Separateness and diversity—the uniqueness of being “me”—are experienced. This very characteristic of a marked separateness of consciousness seems to raise the group level to a oneness of consciousness. We have found that each person not only perceives the workshop as a place to meet personal needs, but actively forms the situation to meet those needs. One individual finds new ways of meeting a difficult transition in marriage or career. Another learns new ways of building community. Still another gains improved skills in interpersonal relationships. Others find new means of spiritual, artistic, and aesthetic renewal and refreshment. Many move toward more informed and effective action for social change. Others experience combinations of these learnings. The freedom to be individual, to work toward one’s own goals in a harmony of diversity, is one of the most prized aspects of the workshop. One participant catches beautifully, in poetic form, both the separateness and the closeness that develop. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
“For the first time in my life, I feel I am a truly special person. For the first time in my life, I feel that who I am is all I need to be. It is the knowledge that at the tender core and naked center, where I am, there need be no more. There is enough. I have never felt so validated, or so affirmed, as a person. I have never known real self-esteem. You have empowered me to live in openness, to ouch your realness. I have never known another human being, before this week. I have never known such peace, or strength. Nor have I ever grown so fast, or learned so much. I have never felt so rich in love of self and love of you.” Another participant, writing at a point some months following the workshop, states very well the way in which community develops out of separateness. “Each moment of the nine days seemed to add more threads to a kind of complicated tapestry that was unfolding before our eyes and being woven by participants, some using strong threads, others bold colours, others delicate touches. For me it became so awesome, so complicated a masterpiece of artwork, that until I could stand back from a distance and view this entire tapestry against an uncluttered background, it could not be fully understood or appreciated. Even then, in its fullness, it would still appear to change each day and never be completely finished. The still unfinished part is all the insights that are hitting me at the most unexpected times.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
The diversity of threads in this tapestry can be explained by the incredible variety that exists among the participants: a youth of eighteen and a woman of seventy-five in the same group; ardent Capitalist and conservative business and professional people in the Spanish workshop; devoutly religious persons of many faiths, and those who scoff at religion; athletic men and women, and paralyzed persons whose lives are spent in wheelchairs. All of these differing persons have been active participants, and each has contributed one’s distinctive self in the process. One will be limited to some extent by a consciousness of the difficulty of securing adequate loyalty to a teacher who refuses to surround oneself with all the paraphernalia of ashrams and all the trappings of guru-worship—both of which are repugnant to one. There are excellent reasons in the student’s own interest—and perhaps to some degree in the teacher’s, too—why in this case such personal loyalty must be emphatically insisted on. The pupil’s allegiance will sooner or later be subjected to the unexpected strain of severe tests. The adept possesses far too sensitive a temperament and far too strong an independence to endure with indifference the telepathic reflections of this strain, which are invariably produced when the relationship effectively exists with the profound obligations on both sides which it entails. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
One may be philosophic enough to smile at misunderstanding or desertion but one will also be human enough to be sensitive to them. For even were a student to break with one one could never break with the student. One’s own conception of loyalty embraces a wider stretch than the frail seekers are likely to understand. Some indeed have been so deceived by the compulsion of personal karma and the logical of mere appearances as to imagine that one is devoid of human sympathy and indifferent to human feeling. The Master is well aware of the bitter and painful lessons the aspirant must learn before attaining maturity and balance, and wishes it were possible to stretch out a helping hand. During these difficult times, outer lines of communication should be kept open for they are helpful and, indeed, are necessary until the individual becomes sufficiently intuitive. The Master never closes the inner lines, but they need maintenance on both sides if they are to be effective. One may wonder why one receives so little direct help and personal encouragement from one’s teacher during the first few years of their relationship. One has to reach a certain point in one’s mental development first and this cannot be until one has experienced events which are like tests. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
For anyone to try to lose one’s personality in someone else’s, even in a guru’s, is a desertion of one’s own divine powers. Nevertheless, in the case of beginners it cannot be helped—where they are seeking a guru’s assistance. However, the sooner the guru makes them ready or instructs them to stop this practice and to lose their personality in their own higher self, the better for them. It is a question of direction. In merging in someone else’s personality they are going outside of themselves; in merging in their own higher being they are going inside. In Pythagoras’ school at Cortona, the pupils passed through a series of three grades, and were not allowed personal contact with Pythagoras himself until they reached the highest or third grade. In matters of faith, God communicates with human beings by stimulating the human spirit directly. The spirit put into motion roused the imagination and the direct effects were visions, dreams, parables, and similitudes. Many are convinced of a “Prophetick Spirit” that in communicating with humans it makes its first Impression on the Imagination, by sensible and material Representment. The inspiration through the intellect is from a Light immediately infused into the Understanding, as when God spoke face to face with Moses. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The images thus are inspired and revealed gave the understanding something firm to grasp and the reason something to interpret and explain. The materials, furthermore, become luminous, a condition that helps the understand, which is weak and casts a dim light. The imagination, stimulated to activity, made the light strong and clear. The informations of the revelation and of sense differ no doubt both in matter and in the manner of entrance and conveyance; but yet the human spirit is the same; and it is but as if different liquors were poured through different funnels into one and the same vessel. Adam fell from wisdom and grace, but he kept the seed of perfect truth and morality. And in this latter sense chiefly does the soul partake of some light to behold and discern the perfection of the moral law; a light however not altogether clear, but such as suffices rather to reprove the vice in some measure, than to give full information of the duty. Through one’s faculties, humans make available the fill information of themselves and for others. So the intellectual movement from a product of reason to a product of imaginative reason is illuminated somewhat by the process of receiving a parable, a type, a similitude from on high. In such forms God presented his inspirations to open our understanding. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The Truth of Revelation cleared our Understandings. This process is insinuative; it is as the form of the key to the ward of the lock. The parable is a key fitted to the understanding. The product of creative activity likewise fits the understanding. Just as the divine spirit uses the imagination to give body and shape to inspiration, reason and imagination transmutes an abstract idea into an image. Among the humans of these days, many were not along in speculating what the mind was doing when reason and imagination unites in invention. We can appeal to others to amplify insights and illustrations some may be unaware of in an effort to wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts. When imagination works creatively with reason it not only brings with it a multiplicity of object-images, but it quickens and raises the mind with a kind of heat and rapture proportionable in the inferior part of the soul, to which in the superior, Philosophers call ecstasy. That strong delight always attendant upon the discovery of something, stirs in imagination and anticipation or expectancy felt as restlessness and impatience. Such motions help give form to the response, or product. The quickness of apprehension, though it may seem to be the most peculiar work of reason, yet the imagination hath indeed the greatest interest. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknow. These same thoughts, people, this little World for though the act of apprehending be the proper work of understanding, yet the from and quality of that act, namely, the lightness, volubility, suddenness thereof, proceeds from the immediate restlessness of the imagination. The imagination joins reason in exercising judgment. At the propositional level of thought, the mind combines two simple intellections, or apprehensions. If the apprehensions are of the distinctions or identities of objective representations, id est, if they are images of material objects, the judgment is made by the imagination. If the apprehensions are immaterial the understanding performs the operation. In handling simple images at the judgment level, the imagination is engaged in compositions, divisions, and applications. So in moving from the proposition, “This will be evil for you,” to “You enemies will be glad of this,” we attribute the translation primarily to the imaginative faculty. The statement, “Randolph is wealthy,” has an image corresponding to it in the phantasy (imagination), but the sentence, “Extension is immaterial,” evokes no image. It is the work of the “pure understanding.” The distinguishing feature of the image is magnitude. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The magnitude which can most easily and most distinctly be depicted in the imagination is the real extension of a body abstracted from everything else save only its shape, id est, its figures. Extensions entails length, breadth, and depth; it involves dimension, number, and measurement. These the imagination becomes aware of only in real objects; it cannot grasp philosophical entities. Philosophical imagination and artistic imagination are two concepts to be considered. The first works closely with the understanding, correlating ideas and abstract thought, and the second is associated with the emotions and senses, translating abstract ideas into concrete symbolism. An example of this is when Jesus says, “Whom do you say that I am?” That is the question which is put before every Christian at every time. It is the question which is put before the Church as a whole, because the Church is built upon the answer to this question, they reply of Peter: “Thou art the Christ.” Peter did not simply add another, and more lofty, name to the names given by the people. Peter said, “Thou art the Christ.” In these words he expressed something which was entirely different from what the people had said. He denied that Jesus was a forerunner; he denied that somebody else should be expected. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Peter asserted that the decisive thing of history had appeared, and that the Christ, the bearer of the new, had come in this Man Jesus, Who was walking with him along a dusty village road north of Palestine. Can we still feel the meaning of Peter’s statement? It is hard for us, because the word “Christ” has become the second name for Jesus. However, when Peter called Jesus the Christ, the word “Christ” was still a vocational title. It designated Him, Who was to bring the liberation of Israel, the victory of God over the nations, the transformation of the human heart, and the establishment of the Messianic reign of peace and justice. Through the Christ history would be fulfilled. God would again be changed into a place of blessedness. All this was implied in Peter’s words, “Thou art the Christ.” The greatness and tragedy of the moment in which Peter uttered these words are visible in the reason of Jesus: He forbade them to tell anyone about Him. The Messianic character of Jesus was a mystery. It did not mean to Him what it meant to the people. If they had heard Him call Himself the Christ, they would have expected either a great political leader or a divine figure coming from Heaven. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Peter did not believe that a political action, the liberation of Israel and the crushing of the Empire, could create a new reality on Earth. And He could not call Himself the Heavenly Christ without seeming blasphemous to those who, by necessity, misunderstood Him. For Christ is neither the political “king of peace” whom the nations of all history expected, and whom we expect today just as ardently; nor is He the Heavenly “king of glory” whom the many visionaries of His day expected, and whom we also expect today. His mystery is more profound; it cannot be expressed through the traditional names. It can only be revealed by the events which were to come after Peter’s confession: the suffering, death, and rising again. Perhaps if He should appear today, He would forbid the ministers of the Christian Christ to speak of Him for a long time. “My son, give ear to my words, for I say unto you, even as I said unto Helaman, that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep the commandments of God ye shall be cu off from his presence. And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed in one that endureth to the end. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“I say unto you, my son, that I have had great joy in thee already, because of thy faithfulness and thy diligence, and thy patience and thy long-suffering among the people of the Zoramites. For I know that thou wast in bonds; yea, and I also know that thou wast stoned for the word’s sake; and thou didst bear all these things with patience because the Lord was with thee; and now thou knowest that the Lord did deliver thee. And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day. Now, my son, I would not that ye should think that I know these things of myself, but it is the Spirit of God which is in me which maketh these things known unto me; for if I had not been known these things. However, behold, the Lord in his mercy sent his angel to declare unto me that I must stop the work of destruction among his people; yea, and I have seen an angel face to face, and he spake with me, and his voice was a thunder, and it shook the whole Earth. And it came to pass that I was three days and three nights in the most bitter pain and anguish of soul; and never, until I did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy, did I receive a remission of my sins. However, behold, I did cry unto him and I did find peace to my soul. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“And now, my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby humans can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the World. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness. And now, as ye have begun to teach the word even so I would that ye should continue to teach; and I would that ye would be diligent and temperate in all things. See that ye are not lifted up unto pride; yea, see that ye do not boas in your own wisdom, nor of your much strength. Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness. Do not pray as the Zoramites do, for ye have seen that they pray to be hear of humans, and to be praised for their wisdom. Do not say: O God, I thank thee that we are better than our brethren; but rather say: O Lord, forgive my unworthiness, and remember my brethren in mercy—yea, acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times. And may the Lord bless your soul, and receive you at the last day into his kingdom, to sit down in peace. Now go, my son, and teach the word unto this people. Be sober. My son, farewell,” reports Alma 38.1-15. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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God, please come to us in the fire on our hearth; consume the logs gladly. Please come to our home, God of Protection; consume the logs gladly. Triple fire shining in the hearth of our home, God you are the healer, to you our worship, to you our hearts calling. Triple blaze leaping in the hearth of our souls, God, to you our worship, to you our hearts calling, triple tongue speaking, to you we listen. Be with me, God, whether I am moving or standing still, whether at home or abroad, whether at work or at rest. Be my strength and my counselor, providing both the judgment to choose the right path and the courage to walk it boldly. If he really thinks there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons. There is no failure that can alter the course of human events more than failing a family. #CresleighHomes
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth is Certainly Quite Inadequate!
God has never explained to humans the secret of physical birth—then why should we hesitate to accept the birth of the spiritual human? Both come from God. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any human have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
“However, if the Spirit of one that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, one that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we say, Abba, Father. The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God…Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And one that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is in the mind of the spirit, because one maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God,” reports Romans 8.1-16, 26-27. This sounds difficult to our modern ears, strange and almost unintelligible. Words like “spirit” and “flesh,” “sin” and “law,” “life” and “death,” in their various combinations, appear to us as philosophical abstractions, rather than as concrete descriptions of Christian experience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
For Paul, however, they express the most real and the most concrete experience of his life. This eighth chapter of his letter to the Christians in Rome is like a hymn praising, in ecstatic words, the new reality which has appeared to him, which was revealed in history and had transformed his whole existence. Paul calls this new being “Christ,” in so far as it has first become visible in Jesus the Christ. And he calls it “Spirit,” in so far as it is a reality in the spirit of every Christian, and in the spirit which constitutes the assembly of Christians in every place and time. Both names designate the same reality. Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. A Christian is one who participates in this new reality, that is, one who has the Spirit. “If any human have not the Spirit of Christ, one is none of one’s life.” To be a Christian means to have the Spirit, and any description of Christianity must be a description of the manifestations of the Spirit. Let us follow the description that Paul gives us of the Spirit; and let us compare our own experience with it. In so doing we may discover both how far away we are from the experience of Paul, and, at the same time, how similar our experience is to his. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
These strange words of his may reveal more to us about our lives than anything our contemporaries may think and write about the nature of humans, their lives, and this destiny. “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” These words imply that our spirit is unable to give us such assurance. Our spirit, that is, our natural mind, our though, our will, our emotions, the whole of our interior life, cannot give us the certainty that we are the children of God. This does not mean that Paul depreciates human nature and spirit. On the contrary in speaking of our spirit, he acknowledges the creativity of humans, their similarity to God Who is Spirit, their ability to be free oneself, and to liberate all nature, from vanity and the bondage of corruption by one’s own liberation. “For we are also his offspring,” he told the Athenians in his famous speech on the Areopagus, thus confirming their own philosophers. Paul thinks as highly of humans as any modern could do. A famous Renaissance philosopher describes, in lyrical words, the position of humans at the center of nature, one’s infinity and creativity, the unity and fulfillment in one of all natural powers. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Paul would agree. However, Paul knew something more than the Greek philosophers knew, something which the Renaissance philosophers had forgotten, namely, that human spirit is bound to human flesh, and that human flesh is hostile to God. “Human flesh” does not mean human body. Human’s body, according to Paul, can become a temple of the Spirit. However, “human flesh” means the natural human inclinations, human’s desires, their needs, their way of thinking, the aim of their will, the character of their feeling, in so far as it is separated from the Spirit and is hostile to it. “Flesh” is the distortion of human nature, the abuse of its creativity—the abuse, first of all, f its infinity, in the service of its unlimited desire and its unlimited will to power. This desire, of which we know something through recent psychology, and this will to power, of which we have learned much from modern sociology, are rooted in our individual existence in time and space, in body and flesh. This is what Paul calls the power of distorted flesh. He describes the will of flesh with a profundity which cannot be equalled. “The carnal mind (mind of the flesh) is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
If we receive a law which we must acknowledge and which, on the other hand, we cannot fulfill, our soul inevitably develops hatred against one who has given the law. The father, being the representative of the law which stands against the child’s desire, necessarily becomes the object of the unconscious hate, which may become conscious and may appear with tremendous force. If the law against its unordered and unrestricted desire were felt by the child to be arbitrary and unjustified, this would not be so. However, it is felt to be justified. It has become part of the child’s “super-ego,” as recent psychology would say; or, in the language of traditional ethics, it has become a demand of one’s conscious. Because the law given by the father is good, and the child cannot help recognizing this, and therefore because the law is inescapable, the child must hate the father; for he seems to be the cause of the torturing split in the child’s soul. That is the situation of humans before God. The natural human hates God and regards Him as the enemy, because He represents for humans the law which one cannot reach, against which one struggles, and which at the same time, one must acknowledge as good and true. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
There is no difference, at this point, between the theist and the atheist. Atheism is only a form of enmity against God, namely, that God Who represents the law, and, with the law, the split and the despair and the meaninglessness of our existence. The atheist as well as the theist hates to be confronted with what one ought to be, with the ultimate meaning and good which one cannot deny and yet which one cannot reach. The atheist gives other names to God, Whom one hates, but one cannot escape Him, any more than one can escape one’s hatred of Him. This is the reason Paul does not say: “Our own spirit witnesses to us that we are the children of God.” Our own spirit only witnesses that we are his enemies! Always when Christianity speaks of God and of our loving God in our daily life, it should remember that. The majesty of God is challenged, when we make Him the loving Father before we have recognized Him as the condemning law, Whom we hate in the depths of our hearts. “The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” Something new has come, a new reality, a new being, a Spirit distinguished from our spirit, yet able to make itself understood to our spirit, beyond us and yet in us. The whole message of Christianity is contained in this statement. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Christianity overcomes law and despair by the certainty that we are the children of God. There is nothing higher than this. For although we are in the flesh and under the law and in the cleavage of our existence, we are, at the same time, in the Spirit and in the fulfillment and unity with the ultimate meaning of our life. This paradox, for Paul, is the astonishing and, humanly speaking, the incredible content of Christianity. This certainty gave him the impulse to preach his message to the whole World, and to conquer it. It gave him the power to break with his caste and his nation, and to take upon himself an abundant among of suffering and struggle, and finally, martyrdom. Christ has overcome the law, the system of command which makes us slaves because we cannot escape it, and which throws us into despair because it makes us enemies of our own destiny and our own ultimate good. Having this certainty that we are the children of God means, for Paul, “having the Spirit.” Out of this certainty follows everything that makes Christian existence what it is. First of all, it gives us the power to cry, “Abba, Father!” that is the power to pray the Lord’s prayer. Only one who has the Spirit has the power to say “Father” to God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
The mind plays an important role in determining what a person is able to see, will, feel, and desire. If this is true, then intellectual development can pay rich dividends in the changes that result in one’s other faculties. In order to focus our thoughts about this topic, let us consider the mind’s role in the process of seeing. Philosophers distinguish three different kinds of seeing. Consider an ordinary case of seeing a dog. First, there is simple seeing: having the dog directly present to you in your visual field and noticing the dog. You do not need to have a concept of what a dog is to see one. For example, a little child could see a dog without having a concept of what a dog is supposed to be. In fact, you do not even need to be thinking about a dog to see it. I could see a dog while looking out my window as I ponder the topic of this essay. Even though I would not be thinking about the dog, I could still see it and, later, recall from memory the dog’s colour. In simple seeing, a person sees merely by means of the soul’s faculty of sight. Second, there is seeing as. Here I see an object as being something or other. I may see the dog as a dog. I may even see the dog as a cat if the lighting is poor and I have been led to believe that only cats, but no dogs, live in the area. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
I can see the dog as my neighbour’s favourite pet. An act of seeing as involves classifying the object of sight as an example of a mental concept, and concepts are located in the mind. Thus, an act of seeing as requires both the faculties of sight and mind working together. When I see a dog as a dog, I must have some concept of what it is to be a dog and apply this concept to the object I am seeing. I could not see a dog as a dog the first time I saw one since I would not have the relevant concept yet. Likewise, to see a dog as my neighbour’s favourite pet, I need the concept of a neighbour, a pet, and being a favourite. Third, there is seeing that. Here one judges with the mind that some perceptual belief is true. If I see that the dog is my neighbour’s favourite pet, I judge that this belief is true of the object I am seeing. If I merely see the dog as my neighbour’s favourite pet, I do not really have to think this is true. I may just be playing with different concept in my mind. I may be thinking, What would it be like to see his dog as my neighbour’s favourite pet? even though I do not think it really is. A developed mind helps us see, but how? Simple seeing only involves the faculty of sight. However, seeing as and seeing that involves the mind. This is why the more one knows, the more one can see. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
A doctor and I can look at the same skin condition (a case of simple seeing), but he observes more than I do because his mind is filled with medical concepts and beliefs I do not have, which enable him or her to notice things I fail to observe. One can see the sore as a basal cell or as a squamous cell carcinoma—that is, he or she can look at the skin area in both ways to be in a position to look for the right things, so that one can identify it, or “see it as,” a basal cell. I cannot do this because my mind lacks the relevant intellectual categories the doctor possesses. I can stare at the same sore all day long and not see what the doctor sees. Consider another example. Last week the news covered a march on Washington in favour of children’s rights. A congresswoman made the following argument: “Governments should honour children’s rights. Therefore, just as the government should vouchsafe a child’s right not to be molested and stalked, so it should do so for a child’s right to government-sponsored day care.” Now, what is wrong with this argument as it stands? Do you see what I see in this piece of reasoning? If I pace a mental distinction in your mind, it may help your seeing: the distinction between negative and positive rights. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
A negative right is a right to be protected from some sort of harm. Negative rights place a duty on the government to keep others from doing something to me. A positive right is a right to have something provided for me. Positive rights place a duty on the government to force others (for instance by taxation) to do something for me. For example, if health care is a negative right, the government must see to it that I can get whatever health care I can afford by my own labour unhindered by unfair limitations based on race, creed, or gender. However, if health care is a positive right, the government has a duty to raise the taxes sufficient to provide me with health care. In the congresswoman’s argument about children’s rights, she fails to make this distinction. Moreover, many people believe that New Testament teaching on the state implies that it is responsible for protecting negative rights, not for providing positive ones. The issue here is not that these people (conservatives) are correct in this regard (though I think they). The issue is that, for a long time, the distinction between negative and positive rights has been recognized, and many informed political philosophers have raised arguments against positive rights. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
This conflict means that a person cannot simply assert that because the government should guard a child’s negative right to be protected against abuse, it is also the government’s duty to provide day care for children. A person could read the congresswoman’s statement several times and not see this issue is he or she did not have the intellectual concepts and beliefs already in mind. This example illustrates the way knowledge helps one see things unavailable to one who has not developed his or her intellect in the relevant area of study. We often read the Bible, hear the news, listen to a sermon, or talk to friends, yet we do not get much out of it. One central reason for this may be our lack of knowledge and intellectual growth. The more you know, the more you see and hear because your mind brings more to the task of “seeing as” or “seeing that.” In fact, the more you know about extrabiblical matters, the more you will see in the Bible. Why? Because you will see distinctions in the Bible or connections between Scripture and an issues in another area of life that would not be possible without the concepts and categories placed in the mind’s structure by gaining the relevant knowledge in those extrabiblical areas of thought. Thus, general intellectual development can enrich life and contribute to Bible study and spiritual formation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There is a closely related reason why intellectual development can enhance spiritual development: The mind forms habits and falls into ruts. One day at a chapel meeting, a missions professor showed a film clip of a foreign culture unfamiliar to most of us. He asked us to write down everything we noticed. He then showed the clip a second time and asked us to repeat the exercise. Everyone in the chapel meeting compared his or her first and second lists and, in every cause, they were virtually identical! The professor’s lesson: our minds get into ruts in which we tend to look for things we have already seen in order to validate our earlier perceptions. We seldom look at things from entirely fresh perspectives! If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we get into ruts in our thinking and develop habits of thought that can grow stale after a while. This is where renewing the mind comes in. A life of study can give us a constant source of new categories and beliefs that will lead to fresh new insights and stave off intellectual boredom. Many people become bored with Bible precisely because their overall intellectual growth is stagnant. They cannot get new insights from Scripture because they bring the same old categories to Bible study and look to validate their old habits of thought. How does the mind interact with other parts of the person? Space forbids me to develop in depth the mind’s role in shaping our willing feeling, and desiring. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
However, it should be easy to apply our discussion of the mind’s role in seeing to these other areas of human functioning. If I do not know what or how it works, I cannot choose to do something. If I do not believe it is good, valuable, and desirable, I cannot desire something. If my thoughts and beliefs about someone run in the opposite direction, I cannot feel tender toward that person. It is true that the other faculties of the soul affect the mind too. And an overall strategy for personal growth should work on developing and integrating every facet of human personality under Christ’s lordship. Still, I think the mind stands out for special emphasis because it is so neglected today by many Christians. The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small, impoverished souls. The hierarchy of basic needs is prepotent to the metaneeds. Basic needs and metaneeds are in the same hierarchical-integration, id est, on the same continuum, in the same realm of discourse. They have the same basic characteristic of being “needed” (necessary, good for the person) in the sense that their deprivation produces “illness” and diminution, and that their “ingestion” fosters growth toward full humanness, toward greater happiness and joy, toward psychological “success,” toward more peak-experiences, and in general toward living more often at the level of being. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
That is, the metaneeds are all biologically desirable, and all foster biological success. And yet, they are also different in definable ways. First of all, it is clear that the whole hierarchy of the basic needs is prepotent to the metaneeds, or, to say it in another way, the metaneeds are postpotent (less urgent or demanding, weaker) to the basic needs. I intend this as a generalized statistical statement because I find some single individuals in whom a special-talent or a unique sensitivity makes truth or beauty or goodness, for that single person, more important and more pressing than some basic need. Secondly, the basic needs can be called deficiency-needs, having the various characteristics already described for deficiency-needs, while the metaneeds seems rather to have the special characteristics described for “growth-motivations.” The metaneeds are equally potent among themselves on the average—id est, I cannot detect a generalized hierarchy of prepotency. However, in any given individual, they may be and often are hierarchically arranged according to idiosyncratic talents and constitutional differences. The metaneeds (or B-values, or B-facts) so far as I can many out are not arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency, but seem, all of the, to be equally potent on the average. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Another way of saying this, a phrasing that is useful for other purposes, is that each individual seems to have one’s own priorities or hierarchy or prepotency, in accordance with one’s own talents temperament skills, capacities, et cetera. Beauty is more important than truth to one person, but for one’s brother it may be the other way about with equal statistical likelihood. It looks as if any intrinsic or B-value is fully defined by most or all of the other B-values. Perhaps they form a unity of some sort, with each specific B-value being simply the whole seen from another angle. That is, truth, to be fully and completely defined, must be beautiful, good, perfect, just, simple, orderly, lawful, alive, comprehensive, unitary, dichotomy-transcending, effortless, and amusing. (The formula, “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” is certainly quite inadequate.) Beauty, fully defined, must be true, good perfect, alive, simple, et cetera. He it is who appears suddenly; he does not give me time to prepare. And how would I prepare, anyway, against one such as him? Nothing can withstand him, if that be his wish: he is the unconquered one, the victor, inexorably advancing. Lord of Radiance, I wait for you. I will not resist. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Come like a blasting wind; even then I will be here with mind open before you, even then I will be here with heart open before you, even then I will be here with hands open before you, awaiting your arrival. “Now it came to pass that after Amulek had made an end of these words, they withdraw themselves from the multitude and came over int the land in Jershon. Yea, and the rest of the brethren, after they had preached the word unto the Zoramites, also came over into the land of Jershon. And it came to pass that after the more popular part of the Zoramites had consulted together concerning the words which had been preached unto them, they were angry because of the word, for it did destroy their craft; therefore they would not hearken unto the words. And they sent and gathered together throughout all the land all the people, and consulted with them concerning the words which had been spoken. Now their rulers and their priests and their teachers did not let the people know concerning their desires; therefore they found out privily the minds of all the people. And it came to pass that after they had found out the minds of all the people, those who were in favour of the words which had been spoken by Alma and his brethren were cast out of the land; and they were many; and they came over also into the land of Jershon. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“And it came to pass that Alma and his brethren did minister unto them. Now the people of the Zoramites were angry with the people of Ammon who were in Jershon, and the chief ruler of the Zoramites, being a very wicked man, sent over unto the people of Ammon desiring them that they should cast out of their land all those who came over from them into their land. And he breathed out many threatenings against them. And now the people of Ammon did not fear their words; therefore they did not cast them out, but they did receive all the poor of the Zoramites that came over unto them; and they did nourish them, and did clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance; and they did administer unto them according to their wants. Now this did stir up the Zoramites to anger against the people of Ammon, and they began to mix with the Lamanites and to stir them up also to anger against them. And thus the Zoramites and the Lamanites began to make preparations for war against the people of Ammon, and also against the Nephites. And thus ended the seventeenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
And the people of Ammon departed out of the land of Jershon, and came over into the land of Melek, and gave place in the land of Melek, and gave place in the land of Jershon for the armies of the Nephites, that they might content with the armies of the Lamanites and the armies of the Zoramites; and thus commenced a war betwixt the Lamanites and the Nephites, in the eighteenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And the people of Ammon departed out of the land of Jershon, and came over into the land of Melek, and gave place in the land of Jershon for the armies of the Nephites, that they might contend with the armies of the Zoramites; and thus commenced a war betwixt the Lamanites and the Nephites, in the eighteenth year of the reign or the judges; and an account shall be given of their war hereafter. And Alma, and Ammon, and their brethren, and also the two sons of Alma returned to the land of Zarahemla, after having been instruments in the hands of God of brining many of the Zoramites to repentance; and as many as were brought to repentance were driven out of their land; but they have lands for their inheritance in the land of Jershon, and they have taken up arms to defend themselves, and their wives, and children, and their lands. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
“Now Alma, being grieved for the iniquity of his people, yea for the wars, and the bloodsheds, and the contentions which were among them; and having been to declare the word, or sent to declare the word, among all the people in every city; and seeing that the hearts of the people began to wax hard, and that they began to be offended because of the strictness of the word, his heart was exceedingly sorrowful. Therefore, he caused that his sons should be gathered together, that he might give unto them every one his charge, separately, concerning the things pertaining unto righteousness. And we have an account of his commandments, which he gave unto them according to his own record,” reports Alma 35.1-17. You who created light, both human and divine. You accompanied by angels and the Holy Ghost: both powerful and spiritual. You who sit upon the threshold: both in and out. You are the Lord of Heavens and Earth, to you I pray. I am here, Lord, beneath your over-reaching dome, calling to you from the World so far below you. I send my words up to you, building a road on which you might descend. See them there, glowing in the air, the straight road leading to me. Come to me, I ask, guiding yourself by my prayer, come without error, and without delay, to me. Between us there is a bond, strengthened by the thread of my prayer. Come to me, who worship you. Come, answer my prayer. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Cresleigh Homes
Buying a home can be a confusing experience for many. Today’s blog tackles closing costs: what are they, and what can you do to make the process go as smoothly as possible. Check it out at the link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/blog/
Tell me, Lord what your message is for me. I have tried to decide for some time just what it is that you have to teach me. Now, at the end of my resources, I finally do what I should have done first: ask yourself. Please speak to me, Lord, and I will listen. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-4/virtual-tour/
The Fate of Unborn Millions Will Now Depend, Under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this Nation!
I am not of your World. I have spent all my life in prison when I was a child. I was an orphan and too ugly to be adopted. Now I am too beautiful to be set free. I am Earth. I am pro-eternal life and I want us all to end up in Heaven together someday. Every society faces not merely a succession of probable futures, but an array of possible futures, and a conflict over preferable futures. If both rich and poor are giving up life itself and yet both are deeply dissatisfied, even suffering, they will never feel paid enough for their lot in life: what has gone on is not a trade or exchange, but a sacrifice. Social and structural institutions including Law, economy, government/state, family, communities and community organizations, and social groups, among others, provide the space in which we institute popular, secular, religious, and personal notions of justice. Governance and Law are often bureaucracies and institutions that are formed to represent and uphold particular notions on justice. It is, therefore, not coincidental that much civil disobedience is aimed at these state institutions. Often, these institutions support, constrict, and conflict with personal ideologies about justice. Just as with ideas about political and social institutions, theorists of justice have grappled with many ways that economies both reinforce oppression and domination, as well as liberation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Justice is not just the province of states or institutions or structures, but rather a feature of our everyday lives. We live with justice, and contend with the question of justice. With each act of kindness, compassion, love, caring, and empathy, we create and regenerate these in our everyday lives with others. The study of justice is misleading because rather than focusing on justice we frequent are forced to engage with the study of injustice instead. Justice is not so much a problem to be “solved” as it is a set of questions or issues that we live with and struggle with. By providing you with a vision of the World that has many intersecting, overlapping forms of domination and oppressions, we often raise more questions than we can answer, but we encourage further inquiry with the many visions of justice. It is a fact of great analytic importance that life is complicated. That life is complicated may seem a banal formulation of the obvious, but it is actually a significant theory. Dimension dealing with power relations that characterize any society are never as transparently clear as the names we give to them suggest. Power can be invisible, it can be fantastic, it can be dull and routine, it can be grand and obvious. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Power can reach you by a pay check being deposited in your bank account, it can speak the language of your own thoughts and desires. It can feel like a remote control, it can exhilarate like liberation. It can travel through time and it can drown you in the present. It is dense and superficial, it can cause bodily injury, and it can injury you without seemingly ever touching you. It causes dreams to live and dreams to die. It is systematic and it is particularistic. We can and must can it by names like racism, for example, but also we need to understand that power arrives in forms that can range from blatant supremacy of one’s culture, formal education, the decision to buy a home, or it can even be life being looked at without fear. Our ability to speak is just one aspect of the evolutionary drive to create a more accurate World in our heads. Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. Complex personhood means that all people, albeit in specific forms, are beset by contradiction, remember and forget, and recognize and misrecognize themselves and others. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Complex personhood means that people suffer graciously and selfishly too, get stuck in what symptomizes their troubles and also transform themselves. Complex personhood means that even those who haunt the dominant society are haunted too by things they sometimes have names for and sometimes do not. Complex personhood means that groups of people will act together, that they will vehemently disagree with and sometimes harm each other, and that they do both at the same time and expect the rest of us to figure it our for ourselves, intervening and withdrawing as the situation requires. At the very least, complex personhood is about conferring the respect on others that comes from presuming that life and people’s lives are straightforward and full of enormously complex meaning. Understanding that life is complex may allow us to see deep into the heart and soul of American life and culture, to track events, stories, anonymous and history-making actions to their destiny, to the point where we might catch a glimpse of the vast networking of society and imagine otherwise. Civilization can be defined at once by the basic questions it asks and by those it does not ask. We should not give some real thought to the possibility of reforming our technology in the directions of smallness, simplicity, and nonviolence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Most significantly theoretical thinking and intellectual largesse are the activities most denied to those who are powerless. Denied because the powerless are not presumed to posses the “mind” that could produce generalizable imaginations for all of us; denied because the division between mental and manual labour takes all kinds of forms, including this one; denied because this privilege belongs to those to whom the institutions of higher learning belong. The denial, in itself, would be reason enough for me to agree that, at the very least, it is an act of historical reparation to invite some folks to spend a lot of time doing what is often considered “useless” intellectual work. Of course, you see I do not think it is useless, but its economy of use is a different and not necessarily tied to immediate service work for others. One of the goals of the society I would rather live in consists in making available to all the pleasures (and challenges and the range of other emotions and outcomes) of thinking, of learning, of reading aimlessly of “wasting” your time by filling your head with “useless stuff,” as I was always described to be as a kid. Why? Because knowledge in its own right, of all kinds, is a great gift of culture and something too long hoarded and manipulated and forcibly withheld from people. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Giving away knowledge without having to earn it seems like a good idea to me. However, it has been frowned upon because if people do not earn the knowledge, they may misuse it. A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred people with guns. I shall think of intuitionism in a more general way than is customary: namely, as the doctrine that there is an irreducible family of first principles which have to be weighed against one another by asking ourselves which balance, in our considered judgment, is the most just. Once we reach a certain level of generality, the intuitionist maintains that there exist no higher-order constructive criteria for determining the proper emphasis for the competing principles of justice. While the complexity of the moral facts requires a number of distinct principles, there is no single standard that account for them or assigns them their weights. Intuitionist theories, then, have two features: first, they consist of a plurality of first principles which may conflict to give contrary directives in particular types of cases; and second, they include no explicit method, no priority rules, for weighing these principles against one another: we are simply to strike a balance by intuition, by what seems to us most nearly right. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Or if there are priority rules, these are thought to be more or less trivial and of no substantial assistance in reaching a judgement. Various other contentions are commonly associated with intuitionism, for example, that the concepts of the right and the good are unanalyzable, that moral principles when suitably formulated express self-evident propositions about legitimate moral claims, and so on. However, I shall leave these matters aside. These characteristic epistemological doctrines are not a necessary part of intuitionism as I understand it. If we were to speak of intuitionism in this broad sense as pluralism, perhaps it would be better. Still, s conception of justice can be pluralistic without requiring us to weigh its principles by intuition. It may contain the requisite priority rules. To emphasize the direct appeal to our considered judgment in the balancing of principles, it seems appropriate to think of intuitionism in this more general fashion. How far such a view is committed to certain epistemological theories is a separate question. Now so understood, there are many kinds of intuitionism. Not only are our everyday notions of this type but so perhaps are most philosophical doctrines. One way of distinguishing between intuitionist views is by the level of generality of their principles. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Common sense intuitionism takes the form of groups of rather specific precepts, each group applying to a particular problem of justice. There is a group of precepts which applies to the question of fair wages, another to that of taxation, still another to punishment, and so on. In arriving at the notion of a fair wage, say, we are to balance somehow various competing criteria, for example, the claims of skill, training, effort, responsibility, and hazards of the job, as well as to make some allowance for need. No one presumably would decide by any one of these precepts alone, and some compromise between them must be struck. The determination of wages by existing institutions also represents, in effect, a particular weighting of these claims. This weighting, however, is normally influenced by the demands of different social interests and so by relative positions of power and influence. It may not, therefore, conform to any one’s conception of a fair wage. This is particularly likely to be true since persons with different interests are likely to stress the criteria which advance their ends. Those with more ability and education are prone to emphasize the claims of skill and training, whereas those lacking these advantages urge the claim of need. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
However, not only are our everyday ideas of justice influenced by our own situation, they are also strongly coloured by custom and current expectations. And by what criteria are we to judge the justice of custom itself and the legitimacy of these expectations? To reach some measure of understanding and agreement which goes beyond a mere de facto resolution of competing interests and a reliance on existing conventions and established expectations, it is necessary to move to amore general scheme for determining the balance of precepts, or at least for confining it within narrower limits. Thus we can consider the problems of justice by reference to certain end of social policy. Yet this approach also is likely to rely on intuition, since it normally takes the form of balancing various economic and social objectives. For example, suppose that allocative efficiency, full employment, a larger national income, and its more equal distribution are accepted as social ends. Then, given the desired weighting of these aims, and the existing institutional setup, the precepts of fair wages, just taxation, and so on will receive their due emphasis. In order to achieve greater efficiency and equity, one may follow a policy which has the effect of stressing skill and effort in the payment of wages, leaving the precept of need to be handled in some other fashion, perhaps by welfare transfers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
An intuitionism of social ends provides a basis for deciding whether the determination of fair wages makes sense in view of the taxes to be imposed. How we weigh the precepts in one group is adjusted to how we weigh them in another. In this way we have managed to introduce a certain coherence in our judgments of justice; we have moved beyond the narrow de facto compromise of interests to a wider view. Of course we are still left with an appeal to intuition in the balancing of the higher order ends of policy themselves. Different weightings for these are not by any means trivial variations but often correspond to profoundly opposed political convictions. The principles of philosophical conceptions are of the most general kind. Not only are they intended to account for the ends of social policy, but the emphasis assigned to these principles should correspondingly determine the balance of these ends. For purposes of illustration, let us discuss a rather simply yet familiar conception based on the aggregative-distributive dichotomy. It has two principles: the basic structure of society is to be designed first to produce the most good in the sense of the greatest net balance of satisfaction, and second to distribute satisfactions equally. Both principles have, of course, ceteris paribus clauses. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The first principle, the principle of utility, acts in this case as a standard of efficiency, urging us to produce as large a total as we can, other things equal; whereas the second principle serves as a standard of justice constraining the pursuit of aggregate well-being and evening out of the distribution of advantages. This conception is intuitionist because no priority rule is provided for determining how these two principles are to be balanced against each other. Widely different weights are consistent with accepting these principles. No doubt it is natural to make certain assumptions about how most people would in fact balance them. For one thing, at different combinations of total satisfaction and degrees of equality, we presumably would give these principles different weights. For example, if there is a large total satisfaction but it is unequally distributed, we would probably think it more urgent to increase equality than if the large aggregate well-being were already rather evenly shared. This can be put more formally by using the economist’s device of indifference curves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Assume that we can measure the extent to which particular arrangements of the basic structure satisfy these principles; and represent total satisfaction on the positive X-axis and equality on the positive Y-axis. (The latter may be supposed to have an upper bound at perfect equality.) The extent to which an arrangement of the basic structure fulfills these principles can now be represented by a point in the plane. Now clearly a point which is northeast of another is better arrangement: it is superior on both counts. For example, the point B: is better than the point A in figure 1. Indifference curves are formed by connecting points judged equally just. Thus curve I in figure 1 consists of the points rated equally with point A which lies on that curve; curve II consists of the points ranked along with point B, and so on. We may assume that these curves slope downward to the right and also that they do not intersect, otherwise the judgment they represent would be inconsistent. The slope of the curve at any point expresses the relative weights of equality and total satisfaction at the combination the point represents; the changing slope along an indifference curve shows how the relative urgency of the principles shifts as they are more or less satisfied. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Thus, moving along either of the indifference curves in figure 1, we see that as equality decreases a larger and larger increase in the sum of satisfactions is required to compensate for a further decrease in equality. Moreover, very different weightings are consistent with these principles. Let figure 2 represent the judgments of two different persons. The solid lines depict the judgments of the one who gives a relatively strong weight to total welfare. Thus while the first person ranks arrangement D equal with C, the second judges D superior. This conception of justice imposes no limitations on what are the correct weightings; and therefore it allows different persons to arrive at a different balance of principles. Nevertheless such an intuitionist conception, it is were to fit our considered judgments on reflection, would be by no means without importance. At least would single out the criteria which are significant, the apparent axes, so to speak, of our considered judgments of social justice. The intuitionists hopes that once these axes, or principles, are identified, humans will in fact balance them more or less similarly, at least when they are impartial and not moved by an excessive attention to their own interests. Or if this is not so, then at least they can agree to some scheme whereby their assignment of weights can be compromised. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
It is essential to observe that the intuitionist does not deny that we can describe how we balance competing principles, or how any one human does so, supposing that we weigh them differently. The intuitionists grants the possibility that these weights can be depicted by indifference curves. Knowing the description of these weight, the judgments which will be made can be foreseen. In this sense these judgments have a consistent and definite structure. Of course, it may be claimed that in the assignment of weights we are guided, without being aware of it, by certain further standards or by how best to realize a certain end. Perhaps the weights we assign are those which would result if we were to apply these standards or to pursue this end. Admittedly any given balancing of principles is subjects to interpretation in this way. However, the intuitionist claims that, in fact, there is no such interpretation. One contends that there exists no expressible ethical conception which underlies these weights. A geometrical figure or a mathematical function may describe them, but there are no constructive moral criteria that establish their reasonableness. Intuitionism holds that in our judgments of socials justice we must eventually reach a plurality of first principles in regard to which we can only say that it seems to us more correct to balance them this way rather than that. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Now there is nothing intrinsically irrational about this intuitionist doctrine. Indeed, it may be true. We cannot take for granted that there must be a complete derivation of our judgments of social justice from recognizable ethical principles. The intuitionist believes to the contrary that the complexity of the moral facts defines our efforts to give a full account to our judgments and necessitates a plurality of competing principles. One contends that attempts to go beyond these principles either reduce to triviality, as when it is said that social justice is to give every human one’s due, or else lead to falsehood and oversimplification, as when one settles everything by the principle of utility. The only way therefore to dispute intuitionism is to set forth the recognizably ethical criteria that account for the weights which, in our considered judgments, we think appropriate to give to the plurality of principles. A refutation of intuitionism consists in presenting the short of constructive criteria that are said not to exist. To be sure, the notion of a recognizably ethical principle is vague, although it is easy to give many examples drawn from tradition and common sense. However, it is pointless to discuss this matter in the abstract. The intuitionist and one’s critic will have to settle this question once the latter has put forward one’s more systematic account. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
It may be asked whether intuitionistic theories are teleological or deontological. They may be of either kind, and any ethical view is bound to rely on intuition to some degree at many points. For example, one could maintain, as Moore did, that personal affection and human understanding, the creation and the contemplation of beauty, and gaining and appreciation of knowledge are the chief good things, along with pleasure. And one might also maintain (as Moore did not) that these are the sole intrinsic goods. Since these values are specified independently from the right, we have a teleological theory of a perfectionist type if the right is defined as maximizing the good. Yet in estimating what yields the most good, the theory may hold that these values have to be balanced against each other by intuition: it may say that there are no substantive criteria for guidance here. Often, however, intuitionist theories are deontological. In the definitive presentation of Ross, the distribution of good things according to moral worth (distributive justice) is included among the goods to be advanced; and while the principle to produce the most good ranks as a first principle, it is but one such principle which must be balanced by intuition against the claims of the other prima facie principles. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
The distinctive feature, then, of intuitionistic views is not their being teleological or deontological, but the especially prominent place that they give to the appeal to our intuitive capacities unguided by constructive and recognizably ethical criteria. Intuitionism denies that there exists any useful and explicit solution to the priority problem. The full definition of the person or of human nature must then include intrinsic values, as part of human nature. If we then try to define the deepest, most authentic, most constitutionally based aspects of the real self, of the indemnity, or of the authentic person, we find that in order to be comprehensive we must include not only the person’s constitution and temperament, not only anatomy, psychology, neurology, and endocrinology, not only one’s capacities, one’s biological style, not only one’s basic instinctoid needs, but also the B-values, which are also one’s B-values. These intrinsic values are instinctoid in nature, id est, they are needed (a) to avoid illness and (b) to achieve fullest humanness or growth. The “illnesses” resulting from deprivation of intrinsic values (metaneeds) we may call metapathologies. The “highest” values, the spiritual life, the highest aspirations of humankind are therefore proper subjects for scientific study and research. They are in the World of nature. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
These “illnesses” (which come from deprivation of the B-values or metaneeds or B-facts) are new and have not yet been described as such id est, as pathologies, except unwittingly, or by implication, or in a very general and inclusive way, not yet teased apart into researchable form. In general they have been discussed through the centuries by religionists, historians, and philosophers under the rubric of spiritual or religious shortcomings, rather than by physicians, scientists, or psychologists under the rubric of psychiatric or psychological or biological “illnesses” or stuntings or diminutions. To some extent also there is some overlap with sociological and political disturbances, “social pathologies,” and the like. I will call these “illnesses” (or, better, diminutions of humanness) “metapathologies” and define them as the consequences of deprivation of the B-values either in general or of specific B-values. The metapathologies of the affluent and indulged young come partly from deprivation of intrinsic values, frustrated “idealism,” from disillusionment with a society they see (mistakenly) motivated only by lower or animal material needs. My hypothesis is that this behaviour can be a fusion of continued search for something to believe in, combined with anger at being disappointed. (I sometimes see in a particular young man total despair or hopelessness about even the existence of such values.) #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Of course, this frustrated idealism and occasional hopelessness is partially due to the influence and ubiquity of stupidly limited theories of motivation all over the World. Leaving aside behaviouristic and positivistic theories—or rather non-theories—as simple refusals even to see the problem, id est, a kind of psychoanalytic denial. Then what is available to the idealistic young man and woman? Not only does the whole of official nineteenth-century science and orthodox academic psychology offer one nothing, but also the major motivation theories by which most humans live can lead one only to depression or cynicism. The Freudians, at least in their official writings (though not in good therapeutic practice), are still reductionistic about all higher human values. The deepest and most real motivations are seen to be dangerous and nasty, while the highest human values and virtues are essentially fake, being not what they seem to be, but camouflaged versions of the “deep, dark, and dirty.” Our social scientist are just as disappointing in the main. A total cultural determinism is still the official, orthodox doctrine of many or most of the sociologists and anthropologists. This doctrine not only denies intrinsic higher motivations, but comes perilously close sometimes to denying “human nature” itself. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The economists, not only in the West but also in the East, are essentially materialist. We must say harshly of the “science” of economics that it is generally the skilled, exact, technological application of a total false theory of human needs and values, a theory which recognizes only the existence of lower needs or material needs. How could young people not be disappointed and disillusioned? What else could be the result of getting all the material and animal gratifications and then not being happy, as they were led to expect, not only by the theorists, but also by the conventional wisdom of parents and teachers, and the insistent gray lies of the advertisers? What happens the to the “eternal verities”? to the ultimate truths? Most sections of society agree in handing them over to the churches and to dogmatic, institutionalized, conventionalized religious organizations. However, this is also a denial of high human nature! It says in effect that the youngster who is looking for something will definitely not find it in human nature itself. One must look for ultimates to a non-human, non-natural source, a source which is definitely mistrusted or rejected altogether by many intelligent young people today. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Now after Alma had spoken these words, they are sent forth unto him desiring to know whether they could believe in one God, that they might obtain this fruit of which he had spoken, or how they should plant the seed, or the word of which he had spoken, which he said must be planted in their hearts; or in what manner they should begin to exercise their faith. And Alma said unto them: Behold, ye have said that ye could not worship your God because ye are cast out of your synagogues. However, behold, I say unto you, if ye suppose that ye cannot worship God, ye do greatly err, and ye ought to search the scriptures; if ye supposed that they have taught you this, ye do not understand them. Do ye remember to have read what Zenos, the prophet of the old, has said concerning prayer or worship? For he said: Thou art merciful, O God, for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness; yea, thou wast merciful when I prayed concerning those who were mine enemies, and thou didst turn them to me. Yea, O God, and thou wast merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field; when I did cry unto thee in my prayer, and thou didst hear me. And again, O God, when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me in prayer. And when I did turn unto my closet, O Lord, and prayed unto thee, thou didst hear me. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of humans, and thou wilt hear them. Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me, and heard my cries in the midst of thy congregations. Yea, and thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out and have been despised by mine enemies; yea, thou didst hear my cries, and wast angry with mine enemies, and thou didst visit them in thine anger with speedy destruction. And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son. And now Alma said unto them: Do ye believe what Zenos said; for, behold he said: Thou hast turned away thy judgments because of thy Son. Now behold, my brethren, I would ask if ye have read the scriptures? If ye have, how can ye disbelieve on the Son of God? For it is no written that Zenos alone spake of these things—for behold, he said: Thou angry, O Lord, with this people, because they will not understand thy mercies which though hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son. And now, my brethren, ye see that a second prophet of old has testified of the Son of God, an because the people would not understand this words they stoned him to death. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“However, behold, this is no all; these are not the only ones who have spoken concerning the son of God. Behold, he was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live. And many did look and live. However, few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts. However, there were many who were hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished. Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them. O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that might perish? If so, who shall come upon you; but if not so, then cast about your eyes, and begin to believe in the Son of God, that we will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins; and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection, that all humans shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will. Amen,” reports Alma 33.1-23. I call to the Holy Ones with open hands asking that they come, that they grant me their presence. Mighty and Shining One, worthy of worship, I stand before you with welcoming words. Come to me that we might feast together again. With this small flame I send a message—it is my burning beacon fire. May you see it, Shining Ones, and draw near to me. Filled with holy power of God send to those they love I rise up in ecstasy, taken by them to the Land of Blessings. Fill me, carry me, lift me in glory; welcome me to your home. I pour out this libation to you, as has been done since ancient times. Come and accept your due. Can you hear my prayers as they go up in your honour? I am the one who wait for you, praising you, even in your absence. Do not withhold yourself from me, from one who brings you gifts, from one who awaits you patiently. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the World from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information piled on my desk. The concept of a team allows us to think of performances that are given by one or more than one performer; it also covers another case. It has been suggested that a performer may be taken in by one’s own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which one fosters is the one and only reality. In such cases the performer comes to be one’s own audience; one comes to be performer and observer of the same show. Presumably one intracepts or incorporates the standards one attempts to maintain in the presence of others so that one’s conscience requires one to act in a socially proper way. It will have been necessary for the individual in one’s audience capacity the discreditable facts that one has had to learn about the performance; in everyday teams, there will be things one knows, or has known, that one will not be able to tell oneself. This intricate maneuver of self-delusion constantly occurs; psychoanalysts have provided us with the beautiful field data of this kind, under the headings of repressions and dissociation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Individualistic modes of thought tend to treat processes such as self-deception and insincerity as characterological weaknesses generated within the deep recesses of the individual personality. It might be better to start from outside the individual and work inward than to star from inside the individual and work out. We may say that the starting point for all that is to come later consist of the individual performer maintaining a definition of the situation before the audience. The individual automatically becomes insincere when one adheres to the obligation of maintaining a working consensus and participates in different routines or performs a given part before different audiences. Self-deception can be seen as something that results when two different roles, performer and audience, come to be compressed into the same individual. Perhaps here we have a source of what has been called “self-destantiation,” namely, that process by which a person comes to feel estranged from oneself. When a performer guides one’s private activity in accordance with incorporated moral standards, one may associate these standards with a reference group of some kind, thus creating a non-present audience for this activity. This possibility leads us to consider a further one. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
The individual may privately maintain standards of behaviour which one does not personally believe in, maintaining these standards because of a lively belief that an unseen audience is present who will punish deviation from these standards. In other words, an individual may be one’s own audience or may imagine an audience to be present. (In all of this we see the analytical difference between the concept of a team and that of an individual performer.) This should make us go on to see that a team may stage a performance of an audience that is not present n the flesh to witness the show. Some people live lives of isolation and loneliness in modern society. This loneliness can develop to a tragic point. There are many ways of looking at loneliness. The first is the estrangement of humans from oneself, from one’s experiencing organism. In this fundamental rift, the experiencing organism senses one meaning in experience, but the conscious self clings rigidly to another, since that is the way it has found love and acceptance from others. Thus, we have potentially fatal division, with most behavior being regulated in terms of meanings perceived in awareness, but with other meanings sensed by the physiological organism being denied and ignored because of an inability to communicate freely within oneself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
The other element in our loneliness is the lack of any relationship in which we communicate our real experiencing—and hence our real self—to another. When there is no relationship in which we are able to communicate both aspects of our divided self—our conscious façade and our deeper level of experiencing—then we feel the loneliness of not being in real touch with any other human being. Is this loneliness contemporary only? Perhaps. In earlier times, the individual also distrusted or ignored one’s experiencing in order to keep the regard of significant others. However, the façade one adopted, the meaning one now felt one had found in one’s experiences, became a unified and strongly supportive set of beliefs and meanings. One’s whole social group tended to perceive life and experience in the same way, so that while one had unwittingly given up one’s deepest self, at leas one had taken on a consistent, respected, approved self by which one could live. An early Puritan, for example, must have experienced much inward strain as one denied vast areas of one’s organismic experiencing. It is doubtful, however, if one experienced as much isolation and aloneness as our client today. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
Modern humans, like the members of earlier and more homogeneous groups, deserts one’s own experiencing to take on the way of being that will being love. However, he façade one adopts is taken over only from parents or a few others, and one is continually exposed to the knowledge that although that façade is approved by some, others see life in very different fashions. There is no security in any single façade. Hence, to a degree probably unknow before, modern humans experiences one’s loneliness, one’s cut-off-ness, one’s isolation both from one’s own deeper being and from others. Some people become estranged from themselves, who initially start off as with promise because their parent’s feelings conflict with their own. There was a young lady who was engaged to a young man, but her father wished for her to break the engagement off. There was a lack of protest on her part, probably because she adopted her father’s feelings as if they were her own. If we put this episode in schematic form, her realization would be something like this: “I thought my feelings meant that I was in love. I felt I was doing the beneficial and meaningful thing to get engaged. However, my engagement was not a meaningful commitment. I cannot be guided by what I experience. To do so would be to act wrongly, and to lose my father’s love. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
Within a few weeks of developing an Electra Complex, the young lady starts eating too much and growing above average weight—the first appearance of what was to become her major symptom. It I perhaps indicative of the beginnings of her lack of trust in herself that she begins to diet only when teased by her companions. She feels an increasing need to live her life in terms of the expectations of others, since her own impulses are unreliable. It is not difficult to see why she begins to despise herself shortly after this time, and even to perceive death as a “glorious woman.” After all, she is an untrustworthy organism, a misleading cluster of experiencings, deserving to be despised. Her diary reports “shadows of doubts and of dread,” which soon translate into dread of getting fat. Nor is it surprising that she is frightened at the “evil spirits” in her—the unaccepted and denied feelings that haunt her. I am sure this was not the first real estrangement between her self and her underlying feelings, but there seems little doubt that it was a deeply significant one. It went a long way in destroying her confidence in herself as a being capable of autonomy. Even though her good spirits return, and she has happy periods, she has given up a part of herself and introjected as her own feelings of her father. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
During this period she is full of fluctuations. She wants to do something great; she hopes for a social revolution; she works very hard as a student; she established reading rooms for children. However, at times she is “a timid, Earthly worm”; she longs for death and has her tutor reread the sentence, “The good die young.” Occasionally, “life had triumphed again.” She has an “unpleasant affair with a teacher.” She has a “breakdown.” She is very overconcerned with her weight. When she is twenty-four, there is another point at which she even more fully loses confidence in herself. Though she still is unsure enough or herself to need her old governess with her, she is nevertheless happy in her studies. “The diary breathes joy of life and sensuality.” She falls in love with a student. This was evidently a deep commitment, judging by its lasting and pervasive qualities. She becomes engaged, but again her parents insist that her experiencing is erroneous. They demand a temporary separation. So to her it must deem that the relationship is not real, is not wise, is better given up. Once more, she distrusts and disregards her own experience and introjects her parents’ feelings. She gives up the relationship and, with it, any trust in herself as capable of wise self-direction. Only the experience of others can be trusted. At this time, she turns to her doctor for help. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Had she rebelled at this point, had she possessed the strength to fight for her own experiencing of her own World, she would have been true to her deeper feelings and would, quite literally, have saved her potentially autonomous self. However, instead of rebellion there is only a terrible depression and a hatred of her body, which is obviously a totally untrustworthy organism for dealing with life. The extent to which she has surrendered her self is indicated by her tragic dieting. As she says later, “Something in me rebels against becoming fat. Rebels against becoming healthy, having plump red cheeks, becoming a simple, robust woman, as corresponds to my true nature.” In other words, if she were to trust her own feelings, desires, experiences, she would become a robust, plump, young woman and marry the student she loves. However, her feelings have been proven completely unreliable, her desires and experiences totally untrustworthy guides. So she must not only deny her feelings for loved one; she also must starve and coerce her body into a form approved by others but completely opposite from her own tendencies. She has lost, completely, her trust in her own experiencing as the basis for living. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
She finds her employee to be a possible mate, and this choice for her is approved by her family. They plan to marry. However, for more years, until age twenty-eight, she vacillates between her employee and the student she has loved. She goes to see the student and breaks off with him, leaving, in her words, an “open wound.” We know nothing of the content of this most crucial interaction, but I would speculate that her psychological life hung in the balance here. Should she trust her own experiencing and choose the person she loves, or should she choose her employee? Her won feelings are cooler toward the employee, but for him she should feel all the approved feelings she is supposed to feel. I suspect that she realized dimly that is she chose the student, she would be choosing the uncharted path of autonomous selfhood. If she chose her employee, she would be living the life expected of her by others, but it would be a safe and approved pretense. She chooses her employee and married him, thus renouncing still further any trust in herself. By the age of thirty-two, she is totally obsessed with the idea that she must make herself thin. To this end she starves herself and takes sixty laxative pills a day! Not surprisingly, she has little strength. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
She tires psychoanalysis but she feels she is not helped. She says, “I analyzed with my mind, but everything remained theory”; and, “The analyst can give me discernment, but not healing.” However, when the analysis is broken off by circumstances, she becomes worse. During this period she speaks of her ideal love, the student. She says to her husband in a letter, “At that time you were the life I was ready to accept and to give up my ideal for. But it was…a forced resolve.” She appears to be trying desperately to have the feelings that others want her to have, but she has to force herself. From here on, the estrangement within herself leads to more estrangement and to more and more feelings of isolation from others. It is not surprising that her first attempt at suicide comes at a point when her second analyst, working with her in the hospital to which she was sent, repeats the now familiar pattern. Her husband is not allowed to be by herself because he is deemed to not be helpful, as he would destroy any lingering confidence she might have in herself as a self-directing person. Several analysts and psychiatrist diagnose her and argue over what is a correct diagnosis for her. They consider things like sever obsessive neurosis combined with manic-depressive oscillations, psychopathic constitutions progressively unfolding. While others say she is not schizophrenic, because there is no mental defect. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
However, two other doctors agree that she is suffering from progressive schizophrenic psychosis (schizophrenia simplex). They see little hope for her and say, “It was clear that a release from the institution meant certain suicide.” The young woman is aware of a number of these discussions, and she became to see herself not as a person, but as some strange abnormal mechanism, completely out of her control, going its own way to destruction. One looks in vain through all these diagnoses for any trance of recognition that the doctors were dealing with a human person! It is not hard to understand her words: “I confronted myself as a strange person. I am afraid of myself.” Or, at another time: “On this one point I am insane—I am perishing in the struggle against my nature. Fate wanted to have me fat and strong, but I want to be thin and delicate.” Indeed, she is perishing in the struggle with her nature. Her organism wants to be healthy and strong, but the introjected “I”—the false self she has taken on to please others—wants to be, as she says at one point, thing and “intellectual.” The wise doctors, in spite of the risk of suicide come to the conclusion: “No definitely reliable therapy is possible. We therefore resolved to give in to the patient’s demand for discharge.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
She left the hospital. Three days later, she seemed well and happy, ate well for the first time in years, and then tool a lethal dose of poison. She was thirty-three. Her epitaph might well be her own words: “I feel myself, quite passively, the stage on which two hostile forces are mangling each other.” What went fatally wrong in the life of this young lady? She was made to feel that her own experiencing was invalid, erroneous, wrong, and unsound, and that what she should be feeling was something quite different. Unfortunately for her, her love for her parents, especially her father, was so strong that she surrendered her own capacity for trusting her experience and substituted theirs, or his. She gave up being her self, and is completely dependent on what others think. She has no way of knowing what she feels or what her opinion is. This is the loneliest state of all—an almost complete separation from one’s autonomous organism. The greatest weakness in her treatment was that no one involved seems to have related to her as a person—a person worthy of respect, a person capable of autonomous choice, a person whose inner experiencing is precious resources to be drawn upon and trusted. Rather, she seems to have been dealt with as an object. She is simply following the pattern which has already isolated her—distrusting her own experiencing and trying to believe and feel what she should feel, what the expect tells her she feels. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
Her parents and the two analysts and the physicians never seem to have respected her enough to hear her deeply. They did not deal with her as a person capable of meeting life, a person whose experiencing is trustworthy, whose inner feelings are worthy of acceptance. How, then could she listen to herself or respect the experiencing going on within her? “I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.” What a desperate cry for a relationship between two persons. She never experienced healing through meeting. There was no one who could meet her, accept her, as she was. This was a tragic case. One should feel angry at the tragic waste of a human being. A person needs to be taught that it is okay to experience love and resentment toward family members. They need to discover it is okay to both fear independent living and to be eager for independent living. It is okay to listen to your heart about gender identity, body image, intelligence, and social ideas. And that it is okay to eat, but it is also a good idea to get a fitness trainer and talk to a nutritionist. So many people are afraid of themselves, but they are ways to be the person you want to be and do some of the things you want to do, and achieve your dreams and goals. Little by little, we have to learn to experience our feelings and some of them are frightening indeed. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
To explore and experience both the risk and the excitement of being an independent person is one of those fearful elements in life. As one experiences these different hidden facets of oneself, one would find oneself changing. This time the changed self that emerged would be based on one’s organismic reactions, one’s inner experiencing, and not on the values and expectations of others. One does not have to struggle against one’s nature, against one’s feelings. Rather, one will find that when one can be open to all one’s experiencing—both one’s inner experiencing, and one’s experiencing of the demands and attitudes of others—one would have a basis by which to live. If one can learn to be open and listen sensitively for life’s meaning, it would provide a constructive guide for one’s behaviour and for one’s life. This is not to say that this process would be smooth or comfortable. To be a person—sometimes opposing one’s parents, sometimes standing against social pressures, often choosing to act even though uncertain of the outcome—this is painful, costly, sometimes even terrifying. However, it is very precious: to be oneself is worth a high price. It also has many other valuable aspects. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
In a therapeutic relationship, where all of oneself is accepted, one can discover that it is safe to communicate oneself more completely. There is no need to be lonely and isolated, there are others who can understand and share the meaning of one’s experience. During this process is usually when a person makes friends with oneself—and learns that one’s body, feelings, and desires are not enemy aliens but friendly constructive parts of oneself. It is unnecessary to utter, I am perishing in the struggle against my nature.” One will be in a good and communicative relationship with oneself. One will also have found it safe to be oneself full in a relationship. As a consequence, one will find oneself relating with more of oneself to others, and again discovering that it is not dangerously unsafe, but rather far more satisfying, to be one’s real self in relating to others. It is by a process that the glass wall would dissolve. One will go on to find that life is adventurous, often painful. It will be a never ending puzzlement to discover the behaviour that would best harmonize with one’s complex and contradictory feelings. However, one will be vital and real and in relationship to oneself and others. One would have resolved for oneself the great loneliness of contemporary humans. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
In every respect in which we make an object of the person—whether by diagnosing one, analyzing one, or perceiving one impersonally in a case history—we stand in way of our therapeutic goal. To make an object of a person has been helpful in treating physical ills; it has no been successful in treating psychological ills. We are deeply helpful only when we relate as persons, when we risk ourselves as persons in the relationship, when we experience the other person as a person in one’s own right. Only then is there a meeting at a depth that dissolves the pain of aloneness in both client and therapist. “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” reports Romans 14.17. Feelings are a primary blessing and a primary problem for human life. We cannot live without them and we can hardly live with them. Hence they are also central for spiritual formation in the Christian tradition. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desire,” reports Galatians 5.24. In the restoration of the individual God, feelings too must be renovated: old ones removed in many cases, or at least thoroughly modified, and new ones installed or at least heightened into a new prominence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Our first inquiry as we greet people for the day is likely to be, “How are you feeling today?” Rarely will it be, “how are you thinking?” Feelings live on the front row of our lives like unruly children clamoring for attention. They presume on their justification in being whatever they are—unlike a thought, which by nature is open to challenge and invites the question, “Why?” The term “feeling” indicated a kind of “contact,” a “touch,” that is at once blind and powerful—in allure as well as in revulsion. A “touching” scene is one that evokes feelings, that “touches” us. In feelings we really know that something is “there,” and solidly so. However, it is and why it is remains obscure—though hauntingly present. This aspect of “blind power” has famously led to the description of emotions as “human bondage.” However, the quality of blind power equally extends to mere sensations or desires, which as well as emotions, can be simply overwhelming. The attraction of feeling to human minds is so great that we project it into angels. One of the most common themes found in literary and artistic portrayals of angels is how they desire to feel what human beings feel and, mainly, what they are capable of feeling because they have flesh bodies. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
Of course, the idea is, angels would have irreversibly given up their angel status to have what they desire, and as the stories go, they sometimes do give it up. However, there is also an element of responsibility at work here. Angels protect of because they know they have more power than we do, and this gives them a certain responsibility. They will help us, because they know it is right for them to do so. And if prayer is a conversation with divine beings, it is only right that we should occasionally let them speak, too. I sit still, that my motion may not hide your presence. I do not speak, that my words may hide your voice. I will still my thoughts, that my thinking might not block your arrival. God of old, long have you waited, seemingly forgotten and outgrown, waiting with patience born of wisdom, for your children to remember you and to come to you with open hearts. Awake, come, that day is here. One more we thank you, once more the old songs rise, once more the dance steps are traced, once more your name is spoken. Never more will the altars be unattended. Never again the time of waiting. Your children look to you once again and pledge to you their faith. The author of the “Cathedral” likes the thoughts which the Sunday Collect brings to, “healthful founts in Elim green, casting a freshness over the week.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Nor is it a small advantage which the Collect-type of prayer secures to any community that adopts it, that it answers the end which, as Hooker, quoting S. Augustine, tells us, the Egyptian monks proposed to themselves—namely, to preserve “that vigilant and erect attention of monks proposed to themselves—namely, to preserve “the vigilant and erect attention of mind, which in prayer is very necessary, from being wasted or dulled through continuance, if their prayers were few or long:” for which the purpose,–or, as Cassin expressed it, “both to solicit God more earnestly by frequent addresses, and to avoid the temptations of Satan drawing them into lassitude and weariness,”—they resolved that their prayers should be man and brief, like darts cast forth with energy. This is doubtless chiefly realized by many. “Now it came to pass that after the end of Korihor, Alma having received tidings that the Zoramites were perverting the ways of the Lord, and that Zorman, who was their leader, was leading the hearts of the people to bow down to dumb idols, his heart again began to sicken because of the iniquity of the people. For it was the cause of great sorrow to Alma to know of iniquity among his people; therefore his heart was exceedingly sorrowful because of the separation of the Zoramites from the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
“Now the Zoramites had gathered themselves together in a land which was east of the land of Zarahemla, which lay nearly bordering upon the seashore, which was south of the land of Jershon, which also bordered upon the wilderness south, which wilderness was full of the Lamanites. Now the Nephites greatly feared that the Zoramites would enter into a correspondence which the Lamanites, and that it would be the means of great loss on the part of the Nephites. And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God. Therefore he took Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner; and Himni he did leave in the church in Zarahemla; but the former three he took with him, and also Amulek and Zeesrom, who were at Melek; and he also took two of his sons. Now the eldest of his sons he took not with him, and his name was Helaman; but the names of those whom he took with him were Shiblon and Corianton; and these are the names of those who went with him among the Zoramites, to preach unto the word. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“Now the Zoramites were dissenters from the Nephites; therefore they had had the word of God preached unto them. However, they had fallen into great errors, for they would not observe to keep the commandments of God, and his statutes, according to the law of Moses. Neither would they observe the performances of the church, to continue in prayer and supplication to God daily, that they might not enter into temptation. Yea, in fine, they did pervert the ways of the Lord in very many instances; therefore, for this cause, Alma and his brethren went into the land to preach the word unto them. Now, when they had come into the land, behold, to their astonishment they found that Zoramites had built synagogues, and that they did gather themselves together on one day of the week, which day they did call the day of the Lord; and they did worship after a manner which Alma and his brethren had never beheld. For they had a place built up in the center of their synagogue, a place for standing, which was high above the head; and the top thereof would only admit one person. Therefore, whosoever desired to worship must go forth and stand upon the top thereof, and stretch forth his hands towards Heaven and cry with a loud voice, saying: Holy, holy God; we believe that thou art God, and we believe that thou art holy, and that thou wast a spirit, and that thou art a spirit, and that thou wilt be a spirit forever. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from our brethren; and we do not believe the tradition of our brethren, which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children; and also thou hast made it known unto us that there shall be no Christ. However, thou art the same yesterday, today, and forever; and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may no be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren, which doth bind them down to a belief of Christ, which doth lead their heart to wander far from thee, our God. And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people. Amen. Now it came to pass that after Alma and his brethren and his sons had heard these prayers, they were astonished beyond all measure. For behold, every human did go forth and offer up these same prayers. Now the place was called by them Rameumptom, which, being interpreted, is the holy stand. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“Now, from this stand they did offer up, every human, the selfsame prayer unto God, thanking their God that they were chosen of him, and that he did not lead them away after the tradition of their brethren, and that their hearts were not stolen away to believe in things to come, which they knew nothing about. Now, after the people had all offered-up thanks after this manner, they returned to their homes, never speaking of their God again until they had assembled themselves together again to the holy stand, to offer up thanks after their manner. Now when Alma saw this his heart was grieved; for he saw that they were a wicked and a perverse people; yea, he saw that their hearts were set upon gold, and upon silver, and upon all manner of fine goods. Yea, and he also saw that their hearts were lifted up unto great boasting, in their pride. And he lifted up his voice to Heaven, and cried, saying: O, how long, O Lord, wilt thou suffer that thy servants shall dwell here below in the flesh, to behold such gross wickedness among the children of human? Behold, O God, they cry unto thee, and yet their hearts are swallowed up in their pride. Behold, O God, they cry unto thee with their mouths, while they are puffed up, even to greatness, with the vain things of the World. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“Behold, O my God, their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold, their hearts are set upon them, and yet they cry unto thee and say—We thank thee, O God, for we are a chosen people unto thee, while others shall perish. Yea, and they say that thou hast made it known unto them that there shall be no Christ. O Lord God, how long wilt thou suffer that such wickedness and infidelity shall be among this people? O Lord, wilt thou give me strength, that I may bear with mine infirmities. For I am infirm, and such wickedness among this people doth pain my soul. O Lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful; wilt thou comfort my soul in Christ. O Lord, wilt thou grant unto me that I may strength, that thy servants shall dwell here below in the flesh, to behold such gross wickedness among the children of humans? Behold, O God, they cry unto thee, and yet their hearts are swallowed up in their pride. Behold, O God, they cry unto thee with their mouths, while they are puffed up, even to greatness, with the vain things of the World. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“Behold, O my God, their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold, their hearts are set upon them, and yet they cry unto thee and say—We thank thee, O God, for we are a chosen people unto thee, while others shall perish. Yea, and they say that thou hast made it known unto them that there shall be no Christ. O Lord God, how long wilt thou suffer that such wickedness and infidelity shall be among this people? O Lord, wilt thou give me strength, that I may bear with mine infirmities. For I am infirm, and such wickedness among this people doth pain my soul. O Lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful; wilt thou comfort my soul in Christ. O Lord, wilt thou grant unto me that I may have strength, that I may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come upon me, because of the iniquity of this people. O Lord, wilt thou comfort my soul, and give unto me success, and also my fellow labourers who are with me—yea, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and also Amulek and Zeezrom, and also my two sons—yea, even all these wilt thou comfort, O Lord. Yea, wilt thou comfort their souls in Christ. Wilt thou grant unto them that they may have strength, that they may bear their afflictions which shall come upon them because of the iniquities of this people. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
“O Lord, wilt thou grant unto us that we may have success in bringing them again unto thee in Christ. Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee. Now it came to pass that when Alma had said these words, that he clapped his hands upon all them who were with him. And behold, as he clapped his hands upon them, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And after that they did separate themselves one from another, taking no thought for themselves what they should eat, or what they should drink, or what they should put on. And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of affliction, save it were swallowed up in joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith,” reports Alma 31.1-38. Love is more important than what we can take. Please say with me, three times—Love! Love! Love! There exists in the World today a gigantic reservoir of good will toward us, the American people. Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love one’s neighbour on an empty stomach. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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As Pure in thought as Angels are, to Know Her was to Love Her!
Life experiences become acting experiences, which in turn become life experiences. Today I saw her for the first time at Mrs. Jansen’s. I was introduced to her. Oh! She was good as she was fair. None—none on Earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are, to know her was to love her. She did not seem to make anything of it or pay any attention to me. I kept myself as unobtrusive as possible in order to observe her all the better. She stayed only a moment; she had come only to fetch the daughters, who were to go to the royal kitchen. While the two Jansen girls were putting on their coats, we two were alone in a room, and I, with a cold, almost supercilious apathy, said a few casual words to her, to which she replied with undeserved politeness. Then they went. I could have offered to accompany them, but that already would have sufficed to indicate the gallant suitor, and I have convinced myself that she is not to be won that way. –On the contrary, I chose to leave right after they had gone and to walk faster than they, but along other streets, yet likewise heading toward the royal kitchen so that when they turned onto Store Kongensgade I passed them in the greatest haste without greeting them or anything. It is necessary for me to gain entrance to the house, and for that, as they say in military language, I am prepared. It looks, however, as if that will be a fairly protracted and difficult matter. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
I have never known any family that lived so much apart. It is only she and her aunt—no brothers, no cousins, not a thread to grab onto, no far-removed connection to contact. I walk around continually with one arm available. Not for anything in the World would I walk with someone on each arm at this time. My arm is a grappling hook that must always be kept in readiness; my arm is intended for the potential yield—if far off in the distance a very distant relative or friend should appear whom I from afar could catch hold of, then I make a grab. Moreover, it is not right for a family to live so isolated; the poor young lady is being deprived of the opportunity to learn to know the World, to say nothing of the other possible dangerous consequences it may have. That always has its revenge. It is the same with proposing. To be sure, such isolation does protect one from petty thievery. In a very sociable house, opportunity makes the thief. However, that does not matter greatly, for there is not much to steal from such young women; when they are twenty-eight years old, their hearts are already a filled autograph album, and I never care to write my name where many have already written. It never occurs to me to scratch my name on a window pane or in a tavern, or on a tree or a bench in Frederiksberg gardens. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Beliefs are the rails upon which our lives run. We almost always act according to what we really believe. It does not matter much what we say we believe or what we want others to think we believe. When the rubber meets the road, we act out our actual beliefs most of the time. That is why behaviour is such a good indicator of a person’s beliefs. Let us look, then, at five aspects of belief that are critical to the shape of our minds. The content of a belief. A belief’s impact on behaviour I a function of three of the belief’s traits: its content, strength, and centrality. The content of a belief helps determine how important the belief is for our character behaviour. What we believe matters—the actual content of what we believe about God, morality, politics, life after death, and so on will shape the contours of our lives and actions. In fact, the contents of one’s beliefs are so important that, according to Scripture, our eternal destiny is determined by what we believe about Jesus Christ. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content. As long as we believe something honestly and strongly, we are told, then that is all that matters. Nothing can be further from the truth. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
I can believe with all my might that my Ultimate Driving Machine will fly me to Japan or love is caused solely by the brain, but that fervency does not change a thing. As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act. The strength of a belief. There is, however, more to a belief than its content. There is also strength and centrality for the person who believes it. We are all familiar with the idea of a belief having strength. If you believe something, that does not mean you are certain that it is true. Rather, it means that you are at least more than 50 percent convinced the belief is true. If it were fifty-fifty for you, you would not really have the belief in question. Instead, you would still be in a process of deciding whether or not you should adopt the belief. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you. It may start off as plausible and later become fairly likely, quite likely, beyond reasonable doubt, or complete certain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The more certain you are of a belief, the more it becomes a part of your very soul, and the more you rely on it as a basis for action. The centrality of a belief. You may be less familiar with this concept than with the previous two, but with a little reflection the idea of centrality is easy to grasp. The centrality of a belief is the degree of importance the belief plays in your entire set of beliefs, that is, in your Worldview. The more central a belief is, the greater the impact on one’s Worldview were the belief given up. My belief that prunes are good for me is fairly strong (even thought I do not care for that belief!), but it is not very central for me. I could give it up and not have to abandon or adjust very many other beliefs I hold. However, my beliefs in absolute morality, life after death, or the Christian faith are very central for me—more central now, in fact, than just after my conversion in 2020. If I were to lose these beliefs, my entire set of beliefs would undergo a radical reshuffling—more so now than in 2021. As I grow, some of my beliefs come to play a more central role in the entire way I see life. How do we change beliefs? The content, strength, and centrality of a person’s beliefs plays a powerful role in determining the person’s character and behaviour. However, there is an apparent paradox about one’s beliefs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
On the one hand, Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort. For example, if someone offered you $100,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this in spite of having a good motive to do so! Happily, there is a way out of this paradox: we can change our beliefs indirectly. If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question. More generally, by choosing to undertake a course of study, meditation, and reflection, I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in the content, strength, and centrality of my beliefs. (We will look more at these truths later.) And if these kinds of changes in belief are what caused a change in my character and behaviour, then I will be transformed by these belief changes. That is exactly why Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, because it is precisely activities of the mind that change these three aspects of belief, which, in turn, transform our character and behaviour. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
How beliefs form the plausibility structure of a culture. There is a critical corollary of this insight. If I cannot even entertain the belief needed to bring about that change, I will never be able to change my life. By “entertain a belief” I mean to consider the possibility that the belief might be true. If you are hateful and mean to someone at work, you will have to change what you believe about the person before you will treat one differently. However, if you cannot even entertain the thought that one is a god person worthy of kindness, you will not change. There is a straightforward application here for evangelism. A person’s plausibility structure is set of ideas the person either is or is not willing to entertain as possibly true. For example, no one would come to a lecture defending a flat Earth because this idea is just not part of our plausibility structure. We cannot even entertain the idea. Moreover, a person’s plausibility structure is a function of the beliefs one already has. God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favourable conditions for the receptions of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
We may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the World to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. If a culture reaches the point where Christian claims are not even part of its plausibility structure, fewer and fewer people will be able to entertain the possibility that they might be true. Whatever stragglers do come to faith in such a context would do so on the basis of felt needs alone, and the genuineness of such conversions would be questionable to say the least. This is why apologetics is so crucial to evangelism. It seeks to create a plausibility structure in a person’s mind, favourable conditions, so the gospel can be entertained by a person. To plant a seed in someone’s mind in pre-evangelism is to present a person with an idea that will work on one’s plausibility structure to create a space in which Christianity can be entertained seriously. If this is important to evangelism, it is strategically crucial that local churches think about how hey can address those aspects of the modern Worldview that place Christianity outside the plausibility structure of so many. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Our modern post-Christian society is perilously close to regarding Christian claims as mere figments in the minds of the faithful. Speaking of fundamentalists after the Scopes trial in 1925, historian George Marsden observes that they could not “raise the level of discourse to a plane where any of their arguments would be taken seriously. Whatever they said would be overshadowed by the pejorative associations attached to the movement by the seemingly victorious secular establishment.” Tragically, as we approach the twenty-first century, our current context for proclaiming Christian truth is even worse than it was in the decades following 1925. During those decades, at least argumentation was considered relevant to making or accepting religious claims. However, now religious assertions are regarded as mere expressions of private belief or emotion, far below the level needed for argument itself to be considered at all relevant. The plausibility, content, strength, and centrality of our beliefs play a key role in determining our character and behaviour. And various activities of thought and study affect our beliefs and thereby impact our character and behaviour. Because thoughts and beliefs are contained in the mind, intellectually development and the renewal of the mind transform our lives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
James’ words are consistently surgical. However, none are so penetrating as these: “If anyone considers oneself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on one’s tongue, one deceives oneself and one’s religion is worthless,” reports James 1.26. An exercise in futility! This is a spiritually terrifying statement, to say the least, for it cuts like a hot knife through warm butter, dissecting the cant and piety of the self-satisfied religious. An out-of-control tongue suggests bogus religion, no matter how well one’s devotion is carried out. The true test of a human’s spirituality is not one’s ability to speak, as we are apt to think, but rather one’s ability to bridle one’s tongue. The Lord Jesus Himself explained this in no uncertain terms in a heated exchange with the Pharisees: “Make a tree god and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” reports Matthew 12.33, 34). The tongue will inevitably reveal what is on the inside. This is especially true under stress, when the tongue is compulsively revealing. A preacher with a hammer in hand, doing some work on a church workday, noticed that one of the men seemed to be following him around. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Finally the preacher asked this man why he was following him around. The man answered, “I just want to hear what you say when you hit your thumb.” The curious parishioner understood that would be of the home, where the mouth unfailingly trumpets one’s essence. James does not mean that those who sometimes fall into this sin have a worthless religion, for all are guilty at times. Rather, he is saying that if anyone’s tongue is habitually unbridled, though one’s church attendance be impeccable, one’s Bible knowledge envied, one’s prayers many, one’s tithes exemplary, and though one considers oneself religious…one deceives oneself and one’s religion is worthless. The ever practical James has cut through all the religious decorum, but it is not butter that glistens under one’s knife, but the marrow of our souls. True religion controls the tongue. Humans, how is your religion? How is mine? Do you talk too much? Do you pass along choice morsels for others to gleefully take in? Do you pass along choice morsels for others to gleefully take in? Do you say to people’s faces what you would never say behind their backs? Do you have a “gift” of a sharp tongue? Are people elevated or diminished through your words? #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
From the time when one begins to take instruction from one’s teacher, the disciple also begins a period of probation in one’s inner career and of separation from one’s inner weaknesses. The probation will enable one gradually to show forth all the different aspects of one’s personality and will indicate how receptive one really is to the teacher’s influence. During this process, qualities which are lying latent beneath the surface will arise above it; situations will arrange themselves in such a way as to force one to express them. In short, what is hidden will become open. Thus one will be given the chance to look to one’s moral foundations before one advances to the intensive mystical training which places hidden power and hidden knowledge in one’s hands. Without first getting such a foundation, one who gets possession of these powers may soon fall into overpowering temptations, with disastrous results to oneself and others. The inner conflict which results from the probation will force one to face oneself, to look at the weaknesses which are present within one and to try to conquer them. If there is no other way to get one to do so, then one will have to take the way of suffering their consequences so as to have them brought home to one. Such a phase of the disciple’s career will naturally be filled with strains for oneself and with misunderstandings about oneself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
The term of probation is a period of severe trials and strong temptations. However, the principle of probation is a sound one. Out of the vortex of its tests and stresses and upheavals, one has the chance to emerge a stronger and wiser being. One’s probationary period is concerned with the general purification of character from egoism and animality as well as with its sensitization to intuition and instruction. Without such a basis to work upon, it would be dangerous for one to venture into mystical work or public service. Nor would the teacher permit one to do so, as there are inexorable laws, not of one’s making, which govern the matter. One must be on guard and not mistake psychism for spirituality, pseudo-intuition for the real thing, mix personal motives with altruistic service, nor lose oneself in dreams and fantasies instead of finding oneself in inspired action. These faults are common to most mystical aspirants. The Quest for God is deadly serious and demands so much. It is far easier to go astray from it than to keep on it. A householder is responsible for all who dwell in the house, but especially for guest. Treat anyone who has safely passed the borders of your land with respect, unless they perform some act to offend the spirit of God. Even then, treat them with kindness until you have escorted them off your property. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
It is your responsibility to restore the harmony to your house. This obligation holds for the uninvited as well as the invited guest—the neighbourhood children, the sales person, the evangelist at your door. Greet them pleasantly. Offer them hospitality. If you invite them in, offer them something to ear or drink. Your Cresleigh Home will develop a reputation for hospitality, which will please God no end. Lord who sits at the edge of my land, sits at the edge of all I own. Watchful Jesus Christ guards my space. About my Cresleigh Home, establish your place of warding. Stand watchfully at the corners. Be a shield between our house and all that would work evil. Guard our land and all who claim its protection. Here on the border, you stand your watch. I have come out here to assure you that your attention to duty is appreciated, bringing not only words, but gifts to place before your maker. Watcher on the Borders, the steward of this land offers to you. This grain is for you, and the atmosphere is for you. “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the Earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
“However, behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto humans according to their desires, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto humans, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction. Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all humans; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but one that knoweth good and evil, to one it is given according to one’s desires, whether one desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience. Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called? Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the Earth? For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
“I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me. Yea, and I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I surely do know that the Lord did deliver them out of bondage, and by this did establish his church; yes, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did deliver them out of bondage. Yea, I have always remembered the captivity of my fathers; and that same God who delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians did deliver them out of bondage. Yea, and that same God did establish his church among them; yea, and that same God hath called me by a holy calling, to preach the word unto this people, and hath given me much success, in the which my joy is full. However, I do not joy in m own success alone, but my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren, who have been up to the land of Nephi. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
“Behold, they have laboured exceedingly, and have brought forth much fruit; and how great shall be their reward! Now, when I think of the success of these my brethren my soul is carried away, even to the separation of it from the body, as it were, so great is my joy. And now may God grant unto these, my brethren, that they may sit down in the kingdom of God; yea, and also all those who are the fruit of their labours that they may go no more out, but that they may praise him forever. And may God grant that it maybe done according to my words, even as I have spoken. Amen,” reports Alma 29.1-17. When we understand what humans are, we do not forthwith understand other things which belong to them, but we understand them one by one, according to a certain succession. On this account the things we understand as separated, we must reduce to one by way of composition or division, by forming an enunciation. Now the species of the divine intellect, which is essences of all things, and also whatever can accidental to them. Enunciatory composition signifies some existence of a thing; and thus God by His existence, which His essence, is the similitude of all those things which are signified by enunciation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Seeing that I have no confidence in anything but Thy mercy, do Thou endue my mouth with power to proclaim Thy truth, and sanctify my work with more abundant richness of grace, that Thou mayest both save my unworthy self, and justify in Thy loving-kindness the flock entrusted to me. Whatever Thou seest corrupt in them, do Thou make sound; and whatever Thou discernest vicious in me, do Thou cure; whatever guilt they have contracted or do contract, through my sinful lukewarmness or carelessness, do Thou put away. If in anything they have fallen into sin, whether with or without my knowledge, or have fallen by the stumbling block of my example, pardon them, and render not to my unhappy self the punishment which such a fault deserves. However, let the rebukes which I have administered in censure of others conduce to their salvation; and let the pleading of this prayer recall them from the error they have committed, that they may not endure the torments of hell:–so that Thou mayest vouchsafe pardon to their iniquities, and wash away the offence of which I have become guilty by my own unfitness to bear rule. Incline Thine ear, O God, to our sacrifices, and write me, and those who are committed to me, in Thy books; whereby, together with the flock entrusted to me, I may both be cleansed from all sin, and be enabled to attain to Thee in peace. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.
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Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat—God Moves in a Mysterious Way, Survival of the Fittest!
Half of the reporters in town are looking on you as a Pulitzer Prize waiting to be won. The word norm means an authoritative standard, and correspondingly, normal means abiding by such a standard. It follows that a normal personality is one whose conduct conforms to an authoritative standard, and an abnormal personality is one whose conduct does not do so. However, having said this much we immediately discover that there are two entirely different kinds of standards that may be applied to divide the normal from the abnormal: the one statistical, the other ethical. The one pertains to the average or usual, and the other to the desirable or valuable. These two standards are not only different, but in many ways they stand in flat contradiction to one another. It is, for example, usual for people to have some noxious trends in their natures, some pathology of tissues or organs, some evidences of nervousness and some self-defeating habits; but though usual or avege, such trends are not healthy. Or again, society’s authoritative standard for a wholesome love life may be achieved by only a minority of American males. Here too the usual is not the desirable; what is normal in one sense is not normal in the other sense. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Certainly, unless they are taught what is legal, ethical, moral and Godly, no system of ethics in the civilized World holds up as a model for its children becoming productive members of society. It is not the actualities, but rather the potentialities, of human nature that somehow provide us with a standard for a sound and healthy personality. One hundred years ago this double meaning of norm and normal did not trouble psychology so much as it does today. In those days psychology was deeply involved in discovering average norms for every conceivable type of mental function. Means, modes, and sigmas were in the saddle, and differential psychology was riding high. Intoxicated with the new-found beauty of the normal distribution curve, psychologists were content to declare its slender tails as the one and only sensible measure of “abnormality.” Departures from the means were abnormal and for this reason slightly unsavory. In this era there grew up the concept of mental adjustment, and this concept held sway well into the decade of the 1920s. While not all psychologists adjustment with average behaviour, this implication was pretty generally present. It was, for example, frequently pointed out that an animal who does not adjust to the norm for one’s species usually dies. It was not yet pointed out that a human being who does so adjust is a bore and a mediocrity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Now time have changed. Our concern for the improvement of average human behaviour is deep, for we now seriously doubt that the merely mediocre human can survive. As social anomie spreads, as society itself becomes more and more sick, we doubt that the mediocre human will escape mental disease and delinquency, or that one will keep oneself out of the clutch of dictators or succeed in preventing atomic or biological warfare. The normal distribution curve, we see, holds out no hope of salvation. We need citizens who are in a more beneficial and optimistic sense of normal, healthy and sound. And the World needs them more urgently than it ever did before. It is for this reason, I think, that psychologists are now seeking a fresh definition of what is normal and what is abnormal. They are asking questions concerning the valuable, the right, and the good as they have never asked them before. At the same time psychologists know that in seeking for a criterion of normality in this new sense they are trespassing on the traditional domain of moral philosophy. They also know that, by and large, philosophers have failed to establish authoritative standards for what constitutes the sound life—the life that educators, parents, and therapist should seek to mold. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
And so psychologist, for the most part, wish to pursue the search in a fresh way and if they can, avoid the traditional traps of axiology. During the past few months two proposals have been published that merit serious attention. Both are by social scientists, one a psychologist in the United States of America, the other a sociologist in England. Their aim is to derive a concept of normality (in the value sense) from the condition of humans (in the naturalistic sense). Both seek their ethical imperatives from biology and psychology, not from value-theory directly. In short, they boldly seek the ought (the goal to which teachers, counsellors, therapists should strive) from the is of human nature. Many philosophers tell us that this is an impossible undertaking. However, before we pass judgment let us see what success they have had. Humans are expected to maximize those attributes that are distinctively human. The first is human’s capacity for the use of propositional language (symbolization). From this particular superiority over animals derives several specific guidelines for normality. With the assistance of symbolic language, for example, humans can delay their gratifications, holding in mind a distant goal, a remote reward, an objective to be reached perhaps only at the end of one’s life or perhaps never. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
With the assistance of symbolic language, one can imagine a future for oneself that is far better than the present. One can also develop an intricate system of social concepts that leads one to all manner of possible relations with other human beings, far exceeding the rigid symbiotic rituals of, say, the social insects. A second distinctive human quality is related to the prolonged childhood in the human species. Dependence, basic trust, sympathy and altruism are absolutely essential to human survival, in a sense and to a degree that is maybe not always true for animals. The conception of normality has to do with a model of integrative adjustment. It follows that a sense of personal responsibility marks the normal human, for responsibility is a distinctive capacity derived from holding in mind a symbolic image of the future, delaying gratification, and being able to strive in accordance with one’s conception of the best principles of conduct for oneself. Similarly social responsibility is normal; for all these symbolic capacities can interact with the unique factor of trust or altruism. Closely related is the criterion of democratic social interest which derives from both symbolization and trust. Similarly, the possession of ideals and the necessity for self–control follow from the same naturalistic analysis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
A sense of guilt is an inevitable consequence of human’s failure to live according to the distinctive human pattern, and so in our concept of normality we must include both guilt and devices for expiation. Every psychologist who wishes to make minimum assumptions and who wishes to keep close to empirical evidence, and who inclines toward the naturalism of biological science prefers fact-based evidence that has not been manipulated. Manipulated and prejudice science is worthless junk. It is must like fake news and has no value other than propaganda. Nonetheless, our philosopher friends will arise to confound us with some uncomfortable questions. Is it not a distinctively human capacity, they will ask, for a possessive mother to keep her child permanently tied to her apron strings? Does any lower animal engage in this destructive behaviour? Likewise, is it not distinctively human to develop fierce in-group loyalties that lead to prejudice, contempt, and war? Is it not possible that the burden of symbolization, social responsibility, and guilt may lead a person to depression and suicide? Suicide, along with all the other destructive patterns I have mentioned, is distinctly human. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
A philosopher who raises these questions would conclude, “No, you cannot derive the ought from the is of human nature. What is distinctively human is not necessarily distinctively good.” What are the minimum conditions for survival? When we know these minimum conditions we can declare that any situations falling below this level will lead to abnormality, and tend toward death and destruction, which COVID-19 could be symbolic of—humanity falling below minimum conditions needed to sustain a developing nation like America, and others around the World. This criterion is called the abnorm and we can define it, even if we cannot define normality, because people in general agree more readily on what is bad for humans than on what is good for them. They agree on the bad because all mortals are subject to the basic imperative of survival. The need for survival is connected to our need for growth and the need for social cohesion. These two principles are the universal conditions of all life, not merely of human life. Growth means autonomy and the process of individuation. Cohesion is the basic fact of social interdependence, involving, at least for human beings, initial trust, heteronomy, mating and the founding of family. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
By taking an inventory of conditions deleterious to growth and cohesion we may establish the “abnorm.” As a start, the first and foremost disorders of child training is the continued or repeated interruption of physical proximity between mother and child and emotional rejection of the child by the mother are conditions that harm survival of the individual and the group. In the first criterion of abnormality lies in a rupture in the transmutation of cohesion into love. Most of what is abnormal can be traced to failures in the principle of cohesion, so that the child becomes excessively demanding and compulsive. It is abnormal (inimical to survival) if repetition of conduct occurs irrespective of the situation and unmodified by its consequences; also when one’s accomplishments constantly fall short of one’s potentialities; likewise when one’s psychosexual frustrations prevent both growth and cohesion. Normality requires a balance between individuation and socialization, between autonomy and heteronomy. When an individual identifies oneself to an extreme degree with a group, the effect is that one loses one’s value. On the other hand, a complete inability to identify has the effect that the environment loses its value for the individual. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In both extreme cases the dynamic relationship between individual and environment is distorted. An individual behaving in such a way is called neurotic. In a normal group each member preserves one’s individuality but accepts one’s role as participator also. While there is much agreement that the normal personality must strike a serviceable balance between growth as an individual and cohesion with society, we do not yet have a clear criterion for determining when these factors are in serviceable balance and when they are not. However, Philosophers, I fear, would shake their heads at us and ask us, “How do you know that survival is a good thing?” Further, “Why should all people enjoy equal rights to the benefits of growth and cohesion?” And, “How are we to define the optimum balance between cohesion and growth within the single personality?” We also have to worry about the relationship between abnormality and creativity. It was Nietzsche who declared, “I say unto you: a human must have chaos yet within one to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Have not many meritorious works of music, literature, and even of science draw their inspiration not from balance but from some kind of psychic chaos? In effect that creativity and normality are not identical values. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
On the whole the normal person will be creative, but if valuable creations come likewise from people who are slipping away from the norm of survival, this fact can only be accepted and valued on the scale of creativity, but not properly on the scale of normality. In this day of existentialism I sense that psychologist are becoming less and less content with the concept of adjustment, and correspondingly with the concepts of tension reduction, restoration of equilibrium, and homeostasis. We wonder if a human who enjoys these beatific conditions is truly human. Growth we know is not due to homeostasis but to a kind of “transiistasis.” And cohesion is a matter of keeping our human relationships moving and not in mere stationary equilibrium. Stability cannot be a criterion of normality since stability brings evolution to a standstill, negating both growth and cohesion. Dr. Freud once wrote to Dr. Fliess that he finds “moderate misery necessary for intensive work.” When people have a zero correlation between self and ideal self, it is too low for normality; it leads to such anguish that the sufferer seeks therapy. At the same time normal people are by no means perfectly adjusted to themselves. There is always a wholesome gap between self and ideal self, between present existence and aspiration. On the other hand, too high a satisfaction indicates pathology. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
When individuals reach an extremely high coefficient for self-satisfaction, it is clear that one is pathological. Perfect correlations we might expect only from smug psychotics, particularly paranoid schizophrenics. And whatever our definition of normality turns out to be it must allow for serviceable imbalances within personality, and between person and society. There is an approach dear to the psychologist’s heart. The established criterion of normality or otherwise known as soundness, leads us to identify people who are “sound.” Teachers of graduate students in the University of California nominated a large number of people whom they considered sound, and some of the opposite trend. In testing and experimenting with these two groups, whose identities were unknow to the investigators, certain significant difference appeared. For one thing the sounder human had more realistic perceptions; they were not thrown off by distortions or by surrounding context in the sensory field. Further, on adjective check-lists they stood high on such traits as integrated pursuit of goals, persistence, adaptability, good nature. On the Minnesota Personality Inventory they were high in equanimity, self-confidence, objectivity and virility. Their self-insight was superior, as was their physical health. Finally, they came from homes where there was little or not affective rupture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
A healthy person will be able to “love” and to “work.” On the schedule of other qualities a healthy person possesses include among others: efficient perception of reality, philosophical humour, spontaneity, detachment, and acceptance of self and others. A normal person has a strong ego, an abnormal person has a weak ego. Whether one is normal or abnormal depends on the degree to which one can manage one’s relationships successfully. Furthermore, the earlier enthusiasm of psychologist for the normal distribution curve helps to entrench the theory of continuum. Extreme withdrawal and escape constitute psychosis. However, you may ask, do no we all do some escaping? Yes, we do, and what is more, escapism may provide not only recreation but may sometimes have a certain constructive utility, as it has in mild daydreaming. Only if the dominant process is confrontation, the process of escape can still be harmless. Left to itself escapism spells disaster. In the psychotic this process has the upper hand; in the normal person, on the contrary, confrontation has the upper hand. Following this line of reasoning we can list other processes that intrinsically generate abnormality, and those that generate normality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The first list deals with catabolic (energy used to break down) functions. I would mention: Escape or withdrawal (including fantasy), repression or dissociation, other “ego defences,” including rationalization, reaction formation, projection, displacement, impulsivity (uncontrolled), restriction of thinking to concrete level, fixation of personality at a juvenile level, all forms of rigidification. The list is not complete, but the process in question, I submit, are intrinsically catabolic. They are as much so as are the disease mechanisms responsible for diabetes, tuberculosis, hyperthyroidism, or cancer. A person suffering only a small dose of these mechanisms may appear to be normal, but only if anabolic (requires energy to grow and build) mechanisms predominate. Among the latter I would list: Confrontation (or, if you prefer, reality testing) availability of knowledge to consciousness, self-insight, with its attendant humour, integrative action of the nervous system, ability to think abstractly, continuous individuation (without arrested or fixated development), functional autonomy of motives, frustration of tolerance. I realize that what I have called processes, or mechanisms, are not in all cases logically parallel. However, they serve to make my point, that normality depends on the dominance of one set of principles, abnormality upon the dominance of another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The fact that all normal people are occasionally afflicted with catabolic processes does not alter the point. The normal life is marked by a preponderance of the anabolic functions; the abnormal by a preponderance of the catabolic. Investigations have told us much concerning the nature of human needs and motives, both conscious and unconscious. Much is known concerning the pathologies that result from frustration and imbalance of these needs. We know much about childhood conditions that predispose toward delinquency, prejudice, and mental disorder. A moralist might do well to cast one’s imperatives in terms of standards for child training. I can suggest, for example, that the abstract imperative “respect for persons” should be tested and formulated from the point of view for child training. The distinction between the anabolic and catabolic processes in the formation of personality represents a fact of importance. Instead of judging merely the end-product of action, perhaps the moralist would do well to focus one’s attention upon the process by which various ends are achieved. Conceivably, the moral law could be written in terms of strengthening anabolic functions in oneself and in others whilst fighting against catabolic functions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Apriorism, belief in a priori principles or reasoning specifically: the doctrine that knowledge rests upon principles that are self-evident to reason or are presupposed by experience in general, is a legitimate tool of philosophy. Up to now this method as yielded a wide array of moral imperatives, including the following: so act that maxim of thy action can become a universal law; be a respecter of persons; seek to reduce your desires; harmonize your interests with the interest of others; thou art nothing, thy folk is everything; thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…and thy neighbour as thyself. Psychologists who in their teaching and counselling follow the lines now laid down will not go far wrong in guiding personalities toward normality. “Do not speak evil against one another, brethren,” reports James 4.11. God forbids any speech (whether true or false) which runs down another person. Certainly no Christian should ever be a party to slander—making false charges against another’s reputation. Yet some do. However, even more penetrating is the challenge to refrain from any speech intends to run down someone else, even if it is totally true. Personally I can think of few commands that go against commonly accepted conventions more than this, for most people think it is okay to convey negative information if it is true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Some people have had to defend themselves because no one else would. Still, no innocent person should be physically attacked and terrorized by a violent mob and forced to defend themselves. We understand that lying is immoral. However, is passing along damaging truth immoral? It seems almost a moral responsibility! By such reasoning, criticism behind another’s back is thought to be all right as long as it is based on fact. Likewise, denigrating gossip (of course it is never called gossip!) is seen as okay if the information is true. Thus many believers use truth as a license to righteously diminish others’ reputations. Related to this, some reject running down another behind one’s back, but believe it is okay if done face to face. These persons are driven by a “moral” compulsion to make others aware of their shortcomings. Fault-finding is, to them, a spiritual gift – a license to conduct spiritual search-and-destroy missions. What people like this do not know is that most people are painfully aware of their own faults – and would like to overcome them – and are trying very hard to do so. Then someone mercilessly assaults them believing they are doing their spiritual duty – and, oh, the hurt! This destructive speaking down against others can also manifest itself in the subtle art of minimizing another’s virtues, and accomplishments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
After being with such people, your mental abilities, athletic accomplishments, musical skills, and domestic virtues seem not to be quite as good as they were a few minutes earlier. Some of this feeling came perhaps from their words about your Ultimate Driving Machine—“what a nice little BMW”—or from surprised exclamations about what you did not know. It was also the tone of the voice, the cast of the eye, and the surgical silences. There are many sinful reasons why humans in Christ talk down to one another. Revenge over some slight, real or imagined, may be the motivation of “Christian” slander. Others imagine that their spirituality and sensitivity equips them to pull others from their ivory towers and unmask their hypocrisies. Gideon once rightly cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” (Judges 7.20), and we may do the same, but in our case it is too often a sword of self-righteousness. Condescending words and actions may also come from the need to elevate oneself – like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other sinners “or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18.11). We thus enjoy the dubious elevation of walking on the bruised head of others, and coming down on innocent heads. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Sometimes this diminishing of others simply comes from too much empty talk. People do not have much to talk about, so they fuel the fires of conversation with the flesh of others. The abilities and motivations of the Body of Christ to run itself down could fill a library. We are all skillful in rationalizing such talk, but God’s Word still speaks: “Christians do not speak against one another.” Verbal cyanide comes in many forms. Gossip, innuendo, flattery, criticism, diminishment, are only a few of the venoms with which Christians inject each other. And the results are universal: toxic gastric juices a Devil’s feast – the swill of souls. Dear Lord in Heaven, please eat what is offered to you and transform it, as food is transformed, into blessings for me, and for all my household. The fire that burns on my hearth is the very heart of my Cresleigh Home. By feeding the fire with wood and with air, I am feeding my Cresleigh Home with what it needs most. I give you these things, fire on my hearth and more gifts will follow as we live our lives together. I light a fire on my family’s hearth and praise the God of our home. I pray to the Most High and praise the Ancestors. Hear my words, see me as I perform the rites, receive the gifts I offer you. Threshold Spirit, guardian and protector of my Cresleigh Home’s entrance, I honour you as I pass through the beautiful door. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
God of doorways, bless my goings out, bless my comings in. Lord of the threshold, of doors and gates Lord, place where inside and outside meet: God is my threshold. Please Guard my doors, God, keeper of the keys. Watch it with care, please keep my Cresleigh Homes safe. May the blessings of God guard this door. God it is who guards our doors. The Lord commands Ammon to lead the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi to safety—upon meeting Alma, Ammon’s joy exhausts his strength—the Nephites give the Anti-Nephi-Lehies the land of Jershon—they are called the people of Amon. About 90-77 Before Christ. “Now it came to pass that when those Lamanites who had gone to war against the Nephites had found, after their many struggles to destroy them, that it was in vain to seek their destruction, they returned again to the land of Nephi. And it came to pass that the Amalekites, because of their loss, were exceedingly angry. And when they saw that they could not seek revenge from the Nephites, they began to stir up the people in anger against their brethren, the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi; therefore they began again to destroy them. Now this people again refused to take their arms, and they suffered themselves to be slain according to the desires of their enemies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Now when Amon and his brethren saw this work of destruction among those whom they so dearly beloved, and among those who had so dearly beloved them—for hey were treated as though they were angels sent from God to save them from everlasting destruction—therefore, when Amon and his brethren saw this great work of destruction, they were moved with compassion, and they said unto the king: Let us gather together this people of the Lord, and let us go down to the land of Zarahemla to our brethren the Nephites, and flee out of the hands of our enemies, that we be not destroyed. However, the king said unto them: Behold, the Nephites will destroy us, because of the many murders and sins we have committed against them. And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go? And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren. However, the king said unto him: Inquire of the Lord, and if he saith unto us go, we will go; otherwise we will perish in the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And it came to pass that Ammon went and inquired of the Lord and the Lord aid unto him: Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them; therefore get thee out of this land; and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will preserve them. And now it came to pass that Ammon went and told the king all the words which the Lord had said unto him. And they gathered together all their people, yea, all the people of the Lord, and did gather together all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land, and came into the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla, and came over near the borders of the land. And it came to pass that Ammon said unto them: Behold, I and my brethren will go forth into the land of Zarahemla, and ye shall remain here until we return; and we will try the hearts of our brethren, whether they will that ye shall come into their land. And it came to pass that as Ammon was going forth into the land, that he and his brethren met Alma, over in the place of which has been spoken; and behold, this was a joyful meeting. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the Earth. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness. Now the joy of Alma in meeting his brethren was truly great, and also the joy of Aaron, of Omner, and Himni; but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength. And now it came to pass that Alma conducted his brethren back to the land of Zarahemla; even to his own house. And they went and told the chief judge all the things that that happened unto them in the land of Nephi, among their brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the chief judge sent a proclamation throughout all the land, desiring the voice of the people concerning the admitting their brethren, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: Behold, we will give up the land of Jershon, which is on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And behold, we will set our armies between the land Jershon and the land Nephi, that we may protect our brethren in the land of Jershon; and this we do for our brethren lest they should commit sin; and this their great fear came because of their sore repentance which they had, on account of their many murders and their awful wickedness. And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit the land Jershon; and we will guard them from their enemies with our armies, on condition that they will give us a portion of their substance to assist us that we may maintain our armies. Now, it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he returned to the people of Anti0Nephi-Lehi, and also Alma with him, into the wilderness, where they had pitched their tents, and made known unto them all these things. And Alma also related unto them his conversion, with Ammon and Aaron, and his brethren. And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon; and they were called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished by that name ever after. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“And they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards humans; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end. And they did look upon shedding the blood of their brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it. Therefore, they would suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them. And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a highly favoured people of the Lord,” reports Alma 27.1-30. O God, Whose will it runs down the order of all the ages; come to me, please look favorably on your servant’s sake. I try to live up to the order of Godly people and promote the messages in the scripture. You are the one and only God, and I approve of dedicating my service to you, Lord. Thank you for your gifts and take pity of me. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes
We might have found the coziest reading spot in #PlumasRanch. 😍📚
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Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.
Love Never Demands—Love is Unconditional Acceptance of One and One’s Feelings!
One that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are. We have built an imaginative account of how the World may come to be represented in the nervous system of the organism. Because of this, it becomes possible to extend the imagination toward an idea of the self as also represented there, in the nervous system of the organism. We can put the self on the map. Some self-imagery is on the map to start with; we are born with it. The cortex carries mapped representations of our bodies, often called homunculi (little persons). One set of nerve-endings, when traced into the brain, maps out the endings of the nerves which activate movement: these nerve-endings sketch out the motor-homunclus. Another set of nerve-endings delineates the nerves which transmit sensations from our skin: the sensory homunculus. The homunculi are ourselves as experienced in our muscles, our bones, our skins, our glands. Their cortical mappings look weird because motor and sensory nerve-endings do not arrive in the cortex in the same proportions as our optical nerve-endings do when we look in the mirror. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
The homunculi is the basis of the concern of the self as a place where things happen. This can be contrasted with the more personal self as an object, which refers to those regions which carry the memories of all the messages that ever reached us about what is happening to us. We are not only recipients of experience, however. Also mapped are records of what we have done, and of the impulses to action which we have experienced. This kind of self-imagery is also built into the map-imagery, of our selves as agents. Our self is on the map. It is usually also represented in the model of the situation in which we find ourselves. The model, it will be remembered, is that active part of the map which at each moment accounts for where we are in relation to our World as it is, and in relation to our World as we expect it to be, and in relation to good placed and bad places, allowing feedback processes to act gyroscopically. Thus our current sense of self (the model) is closely linked with the self on the map, giving a sense of identity and continuity, direction and value. The “model” self stands out in relation to the “map” self: “This is myself now,” “Here I am now” in relation to “This is the sort of person I am in general, with these experiences behind me, and with these hopes and fears about my well-being in general.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Thus self-imagery can have an evaluative, controlling function. Our image of ourselves in the situation, and our favourite self-imagery, influence what we do. I think of myself— “I am a person who gets up early” or “I am a person who runs towards trouble and not away from it.” This is continually confirmed when I behave “like myself.” The more I can do so, the more pleased I am to think of myself in particular ways. Whenever there is incongruity between what I am doing (which is represented in my model f my self in the situation) and the person I imagine myself to be, or the person I would prefer to be (represented on the map), I am under tension to reduce the incongruity. So now we have a map, with imagery about the self as well as about the World. When there is too great an incongruity between the self on the map and the running-ahead anticipating model self, feedback processes bring about a situation in which the model self and the self-imagery on the map may correspond more closely. To put this in everyday language, I steer myself by a sense of what is “me” and I avoid behaviour which is “not me.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
This gives us a picture of a person with all one’s experiences stored, including experiences of the self, meeting new events either by adapting to them or by taking steps to change the environment to suit the self. Here is a self that is active, has a memory, and has direction. Once such a continuous reproduction of the environment is maintained in the highest centers, it becomes the main function of the sensory impulses to keep this apparatus of orientation up to date and capable of determining the responses to particular stimuli in the light of the whole situation. How integrated is the self? One of the tings wrong with this picture, which is quite like the common-sense idea we have of ourselves as human beings, is that it may be too unified. For a description of the process by which linkages will gradually produce a map of the relations between the stimuli acting on the organism, the smile of the map soon becomes inadequate…The classifications with which we are concerned will occur on many successive levels. We have to think of the whole system of connexions as consisting of many superimposed sub-systems which in some respects may operate independently of each other. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Every subsystem of this kind constitutes a partial map of the environment Such partial maps at any level serve for the guidance of a relatively more limited set of information which could be on its way to other and perhaps “higher” centers. These are called “partial selves.” Geography books helps us to a useful analogy. In an atlas there will be a master-map of Europe. However, also filed away are partial maps which show only Britain, or only France – partial selves: myself as a student, myself as an uncle. And each of these partial maps can itself be substructured further: France in Europe, Paris in France, the Louvre in Paris. There are also other kinds of partial maps, whereby partial features are abstracted from the total information on other spatial principles. Instead of abstracting France from Europe, we can abstract annual rainfall from all areas in Europe, or proneness to earthquakes, or density of population or intensity of industrial output. From my map of myself, I can abstract not only partial selves but also the number of towns I have lived in, the illness I am prone to, the sort of people I am attracted to – all kinds of subsystems. It will become important to keep in mind that there may be several subsystems, each to do with a partial view of the self, and each able to give an account of what is going on, from the perspective of that particular partial map. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
If there is little intercommunication between these subsystems, the result would be that a person has several “partial selves,” moods, one might say, or roles. The concept of subsystems is also important when we think of psychical systems as not necessarily hierarchical, but as parts of a system in the making—of parts of the personality with some organization but not (yet) integrated with other parts. We must not think of the personality as more integrated than it is. Nor must we think of the personality as more widely conscious than it is. While the full and detailed classification of sensory impulses, corresponding to the order of sensory qualities which we know from conscious experience, is effected mainly at the highest centers, we must assume a more limited classification on somewhat similar principles to take place already at the lower levels, where certainly no conscious experience is associated with it. When we consider the development of consciousness in the mental order, we must ask ourselves what might be the criteria of consciousness. What are those special attributes of conscious behaviour by which we distinguish it from behaviour which also appears to be co-ordinated and purposive but of which the person is not “aware?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
In conscious behaviour a person will be able to gibe an account of what one is doing, be able to take account in one’s actions of other simultaneous experiences of which one is also conscious, and, be guided to a large extent not only by one’s current perceptions but also by images which might be evoked by the existing situation. This is very attractive and easily understood idea, that we are conscious when we can tell the story of what is happening to us. When we say that a person is able to give an account of one’s mental processes, we mean by this tat one is able to communicate them to other people by means of symbols. Symbols are concepts that can stand for other concepts. The symbols we mostly learn to use to communicate with are words, and most ordinary states of consciousness depend on words for symbol-formation and symbol use, though there are (in my view enviable) people who can also communicate to others in painting or music or dance, and there are also (in my view pitiable) people who can communicate only in these ways. To express in symbol-form what I experience myself to be can be a lifetime’s occupation. However, to sum it up simply, our sense of identity comes from the imagery of ourselves that we have on our maps—selves as objects, selves as agents, selves as seen in the mirror, and so on. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
And we have to be able to say something about ourselves to give an account of ourselves’ to be self-conscious. So the sense of identity, at least the way I shall think of it, requires self-consciousness, an ability to use symbols, and an ability to stand back from phenomena to some extent and see them in some way as separate from one’s own stream of existence. It is, incidentally, with the latter achievement, that most of the present narrative is concerned. We are considering processes which take place long before verbal concepts have evolved. Still, his is the point at which it may be salutary to consider the place of words in the development of the personality. Because considering is a process which is done in words, and for many related reasons, it is easy to have a rather simple unquestioning belief in the validity of the words we use. A reminder is needed that words not only symbolize but also falsify our inner experiences. The use of words drastically affects our capacity to give an account of ourselves, our consciousness, and our self-consciousness. For better, and for worse, it sets the growing child a number of problems to surmount. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Consider, for instance, how a child learns to use sentences in which “I” is used correctly to refer to itself, and “you” to refer to others; and consider the difficulties caused by the fact that the child is addressed by others as “you” and therefore has perhaps at first learnt to think of itself as “you.” Objects, such as tables, chairs, and cars, are much more easily correctly labelled. Words are given by people who mean something to the child; this has a strong effect on the concept to which it will be attaching their verbal label. The concepts the child has constructed from experience now acquire all sorts of additional elements, based on how others use the word-labels. Moreover, once people really start talking to the child in words, concepts ca also be acquired just from what other people say—the child is no longer dependent only on experience, as animals are. The child learns “Drinking all your milk is good” and “Getting your feet wet is bad.” Who know what moral ideas it gathers from this? Someone in a song is “mighty like a rose.” What does that mean to a child? With much useful and accurate information, all kinds of nonsense enters a child’s mind. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
We must keep remembering that the child’s concepts are not always in all respects what we think they are, though we use the same words. There must have been a time, for instance, when the child did not as yet have verbal concepts for “milk” and for “drinking.” In the very early days, messages directly to do with milk may come to be so inevitably associated with messages about comfort, warmth, arms, mouth, and so on, that the concept “milk,” which singles out the liquid bit, may not begin to be attained until the child has experienced of it in bottle or cup. We, the observers, know that the child is “drinking milk,” but the child does not, and is indeed not doing what we unthinkingly imagine it to be doing when we say “the child is drinking milk.” The general culture in which the child is brought up plays an important role in our learning to use the right words for our experiences. This particularly so when what the words refer to is not visible. The culture plays an important part in our learning to label emotional states so that they have meaning for ourselves and for others. For instance, the experience of distress is, at the beginning of life, a very undifferentiated one: not enough has happened yet for differentiation into more refined concepts. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
More experience (including verbal learning) has happen before distress become differentiated into anger, or rage, or fight, or aggression, or assertion, or fear, or flight, or panic, or anxiety, or worry, or embarrassment, or boredom, or hurt, and so on. Using such words correctly is not just a matter of increased skill in identifying feelings and in naming them correctly is not just a matter of increased skill in identifying feelings and in naming them correctly so that others understand us. It is not just the process by which “horsey” differentiates into “horse,” “cow,” and “donkey.” Feelings are private. We cannot point at them, the way we can point to donkeys. If we wish, we can certainly consent to a set of rigorous criteria which we have agreed shall determine the proper use of each disputed word. However, what are we in touch with at the end of that process? The effect which language has on the way we organize our experience is most easily seen when we compare cultures, even cultures as closely similar as the various European ones. This gives a very convincing demonstration of the extent to which our emotional experiences are organized by the words we use, which we have been taught by the grown-ups in the culture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Take a German word like fleissig, very frequently used, and compare it with its nearest English translation “industrious” – hardly ever met. Who ever speaks of an “industrious child?” (There must be some!) In Holland, many people are driftig, a state of mind frequently met and accepted among the Dutch. The nearest English translation, “hot-tempered,” is very rare and seems to me (Dutch by origin) to carry a tinge of disapproval. So early in my argument I would not wish to antagonize any potential reader by turning my eye to such technical words as “psychotic,” “narcissistic,” or “schizoid.” Though there be no such thing as Chance in the World; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion. There is certainly a probability, which arises from a superiority of chances on any side; and according as this superiority increases, ad surpasses the opposite chances, the probability receives a proportionable increase, and begets still a higher degree of belief or assent to that side, in which we discover the superiority. If a die were marked with one figure or number of spots on four sides, and with another figure or number of sports on the two remaining sides, it would be more probable, that the former would turn up than the latter. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Though, if the die had a thousand sides marked in the same manner, and only one side different, the probability would be much higher, and our belief or expectation of the event more steady and secure. This process of the thought or reasoning may seem trivial and obvious; but to those who consider it more narrowly, it may, perhaps, afford matter for curious speculation. It seems evident, that, when the mind looks forward to discover the event, which may result from the throw of such a die, it consider the turning up of each particular side as alike probable; and this is the very nature of chance, to render all the particular events, comprehended in it, entirely equal. However, finding a greater number of sides concur in the one event than in the other, the mind is carried more frequently to that event, and meets it oftener, in revolving the various possibilities or chances, on which the ultimate result depends. This concurrence of several views in one particular event begets immediately, by an inexplicable contrivance of nature, the sentiment of belief, and gives that event the advantage over its antagonist, which is supported by a smaller number of views, and recurs less frequently to the mind. If we allow, that belief is nothing but a firmer and stronger conception of an object than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, this operation may, perhaps, in some measure, be accounted for. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The concurrence of these several views or glimpses imprints the idea more strongly on the imagination; gives it superior force and vigour; renders its influence on the passions and affections more sensible; and in a word, begets that reliance or security, which constitutes the nature of belief and opinion. The case is the same with the probability of cases, as with that of chance. There are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in their operation. Fire has always burned, and water suffocated every human creature: The production motion by impulse and gravity is an universal law, which has hitherto admitted of no exception. However, there are other causes, which has always been found more irregular and uncertain; nor has rhubarb always proved a purge, or opium a soporific to every one, who has taken these medicines. It is true, when any cause fails of producing its usual effect, philosophers ascribe not this to any irregularity in nature; but supposed, that some secret causes, in the particular structure of parts, have prevented the operation. Our reasonings, however, and conclusions concerning the event are the same as if this principle had no place. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Being determined by custom to transfer the past to the future, in all our inferences; whereas the past has been entirely regular and uniform, we expect the event with the greatest assurance, and leave no room for any contrary supposition. However, where different effects have been found to follow from causes, which are to appearance exactly similar, all these various effects must occur to the mind in transferring the past to the future, and enter into our consideration, when we determine the probability of the event. Though we give the preference to that which has been found most usual, and believe that this effect will exist, we must not overlook the other effects, but must assign to each of them a particular weight and authority, in proportion as we have fond it to be more or less frequent. It is more probable, in almost every country of EUROPE, that there will be frost sometime in JANUARY, than that the weather will continue open throughout that whole month; though this probability varies according to the different climates, and approaches to a certainty in the more northern kingdoms. Here then it seems evident, that, when we transfer the past to future, in order to determine the effect, which will result from any cause, we transfer all the different events, in the same proportion as they have appeared in the past, and conceive one to have exited a hundred times, for instance, another ten times, and another once. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
As a great number of views do here concur in one event, they fortify and confirm it to the imagination, beget that sentiment which we call belief, and give its object the preference above the contrary event, which is not supported by an equal number of experiments, and recurs not so frequently to the thought in transferring the past to the future. Let any one try to account for this operation of the mind upon any of the received systems of philosophy, and one will be sensible of the difficulty. For my part, I shall think it sufficient, if the present hints excite the curiosity of philosophers, and make them sensible how defective all common theories are in treating of such curious and such sublime subjects. A sensation is a state of awareness or sentience, a mode of consciousness, for example, a conscious awareness of sound, colour, or pain. A visual sensation, like an experience of a tree, is a state of the soul, not a state of the eyeballs. The eyes do not see. I (my soul) see with or by means of the eyes. The eyes, and the body in general, are instruments, tools the soul uses to experience the external World. Some sensations are experiences of things outside me like a tree or a table. Others are awarenesses of other states within me like pains or itches. Emotions are a subclass of sensations and, as such, forms of awareness of things. I can be aware of something angrily or lovingly or fearful. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
A thought is a mental content that can be expressed in an entire sentence and that only exists while it is being thought. Some thoughts logically imply other thoughts. For example, “All dogs are mammals” entails “This dog is a mammal.” If the former is true, the latter must be true. Some thoughts do not entail but merely provide evidence for other thoughts. For example, certain thoughts about evidence in a court case provide evidence for the thought that a person is guilty. A belief is a person’s view, accepted to varying degrees of strength, of how things really are. If a person has a belief (for example, that it is raining), then that belief serves as the basis for the person’s tendency or readiness to act as if the thing believed were really so (for example, the person gets an umbrella). At any given time, one can have many beliefs that are not currently being contemplated. A desire is a certain felt inclination to do, have, or experience certain things. Desires are either conscious or such that they can be made conscious through certain activities, for example, through therapy. An act of will is a volition or choice, an exercise of power, and endeavouring to do a certain thing. Remember that you pray with deeds as well as words. God likes to be remembered, even when we are not in conscious prayer. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Light softly glowing in the heart of my home, God of the hearth, life of my dwelling, keep my family free from discord, free from want, free from fear, free from all that would disturb us and that would disturb your perfect peace. The light from the water is here. The light from the land is here. The light from the sky is here. From below, from about, from above, light has come here to my hearth: shine there, God of Clear Sight. A celestial light you are, God. A center point are you, God. A place of warmth are you, God. The heart of our home are you, God. To you, God, I dedicated my soul in your honour. The home’s central point is a glowing light, the heart of our home is shining brightly. God, created of the Universe, please bless all of your people, all who dwell in this house. Almighty and merciful God, we beseech Thy boundless loving-kindness, that at Thy humble servants’ entrance Thou wouldest be pleased to visit with Thy salvation this Thy servants on Earth who are laying, worn with uneasiness, on this Earth. “And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the and of Zarahemla that God would have granted into us such great blessings? And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell? #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instrument in the hands of God t bring about this great work. Behold, thousands of them do rejoice, and have been brought into the fold of God. Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labour; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners, that they are not wasted. Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them. However, behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his; and he will raise them up at the last day. Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice? Yes, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell. Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work. Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of human? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful as to have snatched us from our awful, sinful, and polluted state? Behold, we went for the even in wrath, with mighty threatenings to destroy his church. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Oh then, why did he not consign us to an awful destruction, yea, why did he not let the sword of his justice fall upon us, and doom us to eternal despair? Oh, my soul, almost as it were, fleeth at the thought. Behold, he did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls. Nd now behold, my brethren, what natural human is there that knoweth these things? I say unto you, there is none that knowth these things, save it be the penitent. Yea, one that repeneth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given t know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance. Now do ye remember, my brethren, that we said unto our brethren in the land of Zarahemla, we go up to the land of Nephi, to preach unto our brethren, the Lamanites, and they laughed us to scorn? For they said unto us: Do ye suppose that ye can bring the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth? #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites of the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers, as stiffnecked a people as they are; whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood; whose days have been spent in the grossest iniquity; whose ways have been the ways of a transgressor from the beginning? Now my brethren, ye remember that this was their language. And moreover they did say: Let us take up arms against them, that we destroy them and their iniquity out of the land, lest they overrun us and destroy us. However, behold, my beloved brethren, we came into the wilderness with the intent to destroy our brethren, but with the intent that perhaps we might save come few of their souls. Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. And now behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the World—not upon the mercies of the World alone but upon the mercies of God. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets; yea, and we have taught them upon their hills; and we have also entered into their temples and their synagogues and taught them; and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been stoned and taken and bound with strong cords, and cast into prison; and through the power and wisdom of God we have been delivered again. And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some. Now behold, we can look forth and see the fruits of our labours; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea, and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us. For behold, they had rather sacrifice their lives than even to take the life of their enemy; and they have buried their weapons of war deep in the Earth, because of their love towards their brethren. And now behold I say unto you, has there been so great love in all the land? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, there has not, even among the Nephites. For behold, they would take up arms against their brethren; they would not suffer themselves to be slain. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“However, behold how many of these have laid down their lives; and we know that they have gone to their God, because of their love and of their hatred to sin. Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were humans that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the World began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all the understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption for everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the three of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land. Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the Earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen,” reports Alma 26.1-37. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes
We are opting to call this #BrightonStation Residence 3 island an ‘ice cap’ after the hot weekend we Have had. 🥵 Do not worry, it still comes equipped with the undermount sink and quartz countertops you know and love. 😉
Watch a video walkthrough of this and other #CresleighRanch homes on our website. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-3/
May the Father bless thee, Who created all things in the beginning; May the Son of God heal thee; May the Holy Ghost enlighten thee, guard thy body, save thy soul, direct thy thoughts, and bring thee safe to the Heavenly country; Who liveth and reigneth God, in a perfect Trinity, throughout all ages. #CresleighHomes
May the Angel of Peace Come in—One’s Over-Great Hat to Repay an Obligation is a Kind of Ingratitude!
It is very peaceful to be able to live for your work alone. The self-denial, the sacrifices that our work demands are all compensated for by that lovely serenity of giving yourself up to dance. People also need to understand their existential freedom and their responsibility in exercising that freedom. One must develop the chance to experience one’s self as an entity separate from one’s environment, with the capacity to respond to one’s own initiative rather than merely reacting. Does emotion have a presence r identity independent of the person it is “in”? We talk as if it did. We commonly speak of expression, storing, getting in touch with, or even spreading and emotion. We speak of guilt as something that haunts us, or fear as something the grips, strikes, betrays, paralyzes, or overwhelms us. Fear, as we talk about is, is something that can lurk, hide, creep, look up, or attack. Love is something we fall into or out of. Anger is something that overtakes or overwhelms us. In this way of talking we use the fiction of some independent, outside agency in order to describe a contrasting inner state. It is important for a person to understand the sociohistorical precedence for the present attitudes one felt victim to. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates in the Memory—If Music be the Food of Love, Play on!
There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is very hungry for information…It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment. As a whole, the Democratic Republic of the Congo contains 615,942 square miles of forest. and it is known for its high levels of biodiversity, including more than 600 tree species and 10,000 animal species. Some of its most famous residents include forest elephant, gorillas, chimpanzees, okapi, leopards, hippos, and lions. Researchers has found that Central African forests generally have taller trees but lower density of small tress than forest in the Amazon or Borneo. That is because Elephants, gorillas, and large herbivores keep the density of small trees very low through predation, reducing competition for large trees. However, in areas where these animals have been depleted by hunting, forests tend to be shorter and denser with small trees. However, between 2000 and 2010, the country lost 14,331 square miles of forest. It risks being left in a fragmented and severely degraded state due to the growing threat of deforestation carried out to clear the illegal logging. If the current trend continues, the entire forest will be gone by the end of this century, 2100 A.D. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Understanding tropical deforestation is important because forests store vast amounts of carbon. Deforestation releases carbon to the atmosphere and prevents the forest from taking up more carbon, and this increases global temperatures and poor air quality. Deforestation also leads to the death of animals and makes it hard for the native to find much needed food. Also, the natives are not allowed to cut down trees because every tree that cut down costs them a fine that is ten times the minimum wages, and a jail sentence. However, since this country is poor, big corporations cannot be stopped from logging trees, and cut them down to plunder. The first inhabitants of these lands, the indigenous, are left forgotten in a corner, while the looters grow and become stronger. The natives have their history and try to defend themselves and their homes so they will not die. The threat to the rainforest seems like a joke because it is a single county, the country of money, put itself above all flags. When they utter, “Globalization,” many think it is absurd because it is an order in which money is the only country served and the borders are erased, not our of fraternity but because of the bleeding that fattens the powerful without nationality. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The lie of globalization became a universal coin, and for a few in the Congo, it wove a dream of prosperity above everyone else’s nightmare. Corruption and falsehoods are used to deceive the masses. Being poor, the people are dressed in the wealth of their scarcities, and because the lie is so deep and so broad, they end up mistaking it for truth. The people prepared for the great international forums and, by the will of the government, poverty was declared an illusion that faded before the development proclaimed by economic statistics. The people of the land became even more forgotten, and their history was not enough to keep the from dying, forgotten and humiliated. However, death did not hurt them as much as being forgotten did. They discovered that they no longer existed, and those who govern had forgotten about them in their euphoria of statistics and growth. A similar phenomenon is happening in the City of Sacramento with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on sports complexes and theater expansions, which cannot even be used, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but nothing being done to make sure people have affordable housing. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
A country that forgets itself is a sad country. A country that forgets its past cannot have a future. I have said that the original position is the appropriate initial status quo which ensures that the fundamental agreements reached in it are fair. This fact yields that name “justice as fairness.” It is clear, then, that I want to say that one conception of justice is more reasonable than another, or justifiable with respect to it, if rational persons in the initial situation would choose its principles over those of the other for the role of justice. Conceptions of justice are to be ranked by their acceptability to persons so circumstanced. Understood in this way the question of justification is settled by working out a problem of deliberation: we have to ascertain which principles it would be rational to adopt given the contractual situation. This connects the theory of justice with the theory of rational choice. If this view of the problem of justification is to succeed, we must, of course, describe in some detail the nature of this choice problem. A problem of rational decision has a definite answer only if we know the beliefs and interests of the parties, their relations with respect to one another, the alternatives between which they are to choose, the procedure whereby they make up their minds, and so on. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
As the circumstances are presented in different ways, correspondingly different principles are accepted. The concept of the original position, as I shall refer to it, is that of the most philosophically favoured interpretation of this initial choice situation for the purposes of a theory of justice. However, how are we to decide what is the most favoured interpretation? I assume, for one thing, that there is a broad measure of agreement that principles of justice should be chosen under certain conditions. To justify a particular description of the initial situation one shows that is incorporates these commonly shared presumptions. One argues from widely accepted but weak premises to more specific conclusions. Each of the presumptions should by itself be natural and plausible; some of them may seem innocuous or even trivial. The aim of the contract approach is to establish that taken together they impose significant bounds on acceptable principles of justice. The ideal outcome would be that these conditions determine a unique set of principles; but I shall be satisfied if they suffice to rank the main traditional conceptions of social justice. One should not be misled, then, by the somewhat unusual conditions which characterize the original position. The idea here is simply to make vivid to ourselves the restrictions that it seems reasonable to impose on arguments for principles of justice, and therefore on these principles themselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Thus it seems reasonable and generally acceptable that no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice of principles. It also seems widely agreed that it should be impossible to tailor principles to the circumstances of one’s own case. We should ensure further that particular inclinations and aspirations, and persons’ conceptions of their good do not affect the principles adopted. The aim is to rule out those principles that it would be rational to propose for acceptance, however little the chance of success, only if one knew certain things that are irrelevant from the standpoint of justice. For example, if a one knew that one was wealthy, one might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust; if one knew that one was poor, one would most likely propose the contrary principle. To represent the desired restrictions one imagines a situation in which everyone is deprived of this sort of information. One excludes the knowledge of those contingencies which sets humans at odds and allows the to be guided by their prejudices. In this manner the veil of ignorance is arrived at in a natural way. If we keep in mind the constraints on arguments that it is meant to express, this concept should cause no difficulty. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
At any time we can enter the original position, so to speak, simply by following a certain procedure, namely, by arguing for principles of justice in accordance with these restrictions. It seems reasonable to suppose that the parties in the original positions are equal. That is, all have the same rights in the procedure for choosing principles; each can make proposals, submit reasons for their acceptance, and so on. Obviously the purpose of these conditions is to represent equality between human beings as moral persons, as creatures having a conception of their good and capable of a sense of justice. The basis of equality is taken to be similarity in these two respects. Systems of ends are not ranked in value; and each human is presumed to have the requisite ability to understand and to act upon whatever principles are adopted. Together with the veil of ignorance, these conditions define the principles of justice as those which rational persons concerned to advance their interests would consent to as equals when none are known to be advantaged or disadvantage by social and natural contingencies. There is, however, another side to justifying a particular description of the original position. This is to see if the principles which would be chosen match our considered convictions of justice or extend them in an acceptable way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
We can note whether applying these principles would lead us to make the same judgments about the basic structure of society which we now make intuitively and in which we have the greatest confidence; or whether, in cases where our present judgements are in doubt and given with hesitation, these principles offer a resolution which we can affirm on reflection. There are questions which we feel sure must be answered in a certain way. For example, we are confident that religious intolerance and racial discrimination are unjust. We think that we have examined these things with care and have reached what we believe is an impartial judgment not likely to be distorted by an excessive attention to our own interests. These convictions are provisional fixed points which we presume any conception of justice must fit. However, we have much less assurance as to what is the correct distribution of wealth and authority. Here we may be looking for a way to remove our doubts. We can check an interpretation of the initial situation, then, by the capacity of its principles to accommodate our firmest convictions and to provide guidance where guided is needed. In searching for the most favoured description of this situation we work from both ends. We begin by describing it so that it represents generally shared and preferably weak conditions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
We then see if these conditions are strong enough to yield a significant set of principles. If not, we look for further premises equally reasonable. However, if so, and these principles match our considered convictions of justice, then so far well and good. However, presumably there will be discrepancies. In this case we have a choice. We can either modify the account of the initial situation or we can revise our existing judgments, for even the judgments we take provisionally as fixed points are liable to revision. By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances, at others withdrawing our judgments and conforming them to principle, I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted. This state of affairs I refer to as reflective equilibrium. It is an equilibrium because at last our principles and judgments coincide; and it is reflective since we known to what principles our judgments conform and the premises of their derivation. At the moment everything is in order. However, this equilibrium is not necessarily stable. It is liable to be upset by further examination of the conditions which should be imposed on the contractual situation and by particular cases which may lead us to revise our judgments. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Yet for the time being we have done what we can to render coherent and to justify our convictions of social justice. We have reached a conception of the original position. I shall not, of course, actually work through this process. Still, we may think of the interpretation of the original position that I shall present as the result of such a hypothetical course of reflection. It represents the attempt to accommodate within one scheme both reasonable philosophical conditions on principles as well as our considered judgments of justice. In arriving at the favoured interpretation of the initial situation there is no point at which an appeal is made to self-evidence in the traditional sense either or general conceptions or particular convictions. I do not claim for the principles of justice proposed that they are necessary truths or derivable from such truths. A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self-evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into one coherent view. We shall want to say that certain principles of justice are justified because they would be agreed to in an initial situation of equality. I have emphasized that this original position is purely hypothetical. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
It is natural to ask why, if this agreement is never actually entered into, we should take any interest in these principles, moral or otherwise. The conditions embodied in the description of the original position are ones that we do in fact accept. Or if we do not, then perhaps we can be persuaded to do so by philosophical reflection. Each aspect of the contractual situation can be given supporting grounds. Thus what we shall do is to collect together into one conception a number of conditions on principles that we are ready upon due consideration to recognize as reasonable. These constraints express what we are prepared to regard as limits on fair terms of social cooperation. One way to look at the idea of the original position, therefore, is to see it as an expository device which sums up the meaning of these conditions and helps us to extract their consequences. On the other hand, this conception is also an intuitive notion that suggests its own elaboration, so that led on by it we are drawn to define more clearly the standpoint from which we can best interpret moral relationship We need a conception that enables us to envision our objective from afar: the intuitive notion of the original position is to do this for us. When I am your president, I hope you will come see me. Please do not leave me up there in the White House all by myself. I grew up watching PBS, and still watch it. For enlightened news coverage, tune in to PBS. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Love must be aggressively translated into simple justice. “Each one should use whatever gift one has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms,” reports 1 Peter 4.10. Peter and Paul are saying the same thing. The spiritual gifts we have, and the ministries we perform are gifts of God’s grace. None of us deserves the gifts one has been given. They are given to us by God’s undeserved favour to us through Christ. This means the most “worthy” and the most “unworthy” of all Christians both receive their gifts and their ministries on the same basis. The “unworthy” person surely does not deserve one’s gift, but neither does the most “worthy.” They both receive them as unmerited favours from God. There are quotations marks around worthy and unworthy in above because in reality there is no such distinction in God’s sight. In His sight, we are all totally and permanently bankrupt spiritually. Paul’s statement, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.22-23), is just as true for believers as for unbelievers. We never earn our privileges of ministry because of our heard work or faithfulness in previous service to God. I taught adult Saturday school for many years in a small church before God launched me into a much wider sphere of ministry. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
However, I did not earn an enlarged ministry through my “faithful” teaching; rather, it was a gift of God’s grace. We are so accustomed to thinking of spiritual gifts in terms of abilities to minister that we lose sight of the ordinary meaning of the word. A gift is something given to us; something we do not earn. However, even our ordinary meaning fails to adequately convey the biblical sense. We tend to give gifts to people who, even though they have not earned them, in some sense deserve them because of their relationship to us or because they have done us a favour of some kind. However, God gives spiritual gifts to people who do not deserve them. None of us deserves to be in God’s service on some far away mission field. It is an awesome thing to attempt to speak on behalf of God. Yet that is exactly what we do when we teach, or preach, or write. It matters not whether our audience is one person or fifty thousand, whether they are kindergarten pupils or graduate theological students. Any time we say or write something that we hold out to be biblical truth, we are putting ourselves in the position of being God’s spokes-person. Peter said, “If anyone speaks, one should do it as one peaking the very words of God,” reports 1 Peter 4.11. I suspect that most people who these essays do teach the Scriptures occasionally if not regularly. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Do we appreciate the awesomeness of our responsibility, to be speaking on behalf of God? Do we consider the accountability that comes with being entrusted with the divine message? Paul himself was keenly conscious of his immense responsibility when he said, “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like humans sent from God,” reports 2 Corinthians 2.17. He said he spoke like a human sent from God, but he also said he spoke before God, or in the sight of God. That is, God not only sent him, but observed him. One Saturday as I stood up to teach my adult Saturday school class, to my dismay, I realized the president of our denominational seminary was sitting in the class. To make matters more intense, he also happened to be the professor of homiletics (the art of preaching). I was sure he was critiquing everything I said, both in content and delivery. Now if the presence of a seminary president in my class was an awesome experience, how much more awed should I be when I realize I speak, or write, in the very presence of God and on His behalf. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
What, then, will gives us the courage to undertake or continue to teach the Scriptures or, for that matter, to exercise any other spiritual gift? The heartfelt conviction that we have our ministry by God’s grace. Again, as Paul said, “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.1. It was a sense of God’s mercy that gave Paul courage or, as he expressed it, caused him not to lose heart. Mercy is God’s grace expressed specifically toward people who are viewed by Him as guilty, condemned, and helpless. It is generally expressed in terms of relieving the misery due to their sin. However, God not only relieved Paul’s misery, He elevated him to the office of apostle and gave him the ministry of proclaiming the richest of Christ. However, Paul never lost sight of his own unworthiness, even when exercising his office of apostleship. He never forgot he held that office by God’s mercy. Here we see the biblical relationship between a sense of one’s utter unworthiness on the one hand, and the courage to undertake a ministry for God on the other. To lose sight of our unworthiness is to risk exercising our gifts and fulfilling our ministries in a spirit of presumptuous pride, as if God were fortunate to have us on His team. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
However, to focus too much on our unworthiness, to the neglect of God’s grace, will effectively immobilize us for His service. That attitude is also an expression of pride because we are still focusing on ourselves and our worthiness or unworthiness, as if God were dependent on some innate quality within us to equip us for His service. Remember we did not declare temporary spiritual bankruptcy. Our bankruptcy is total and permanent. The only worthiness we have with which to come before God is in Christ. And the only worthiness we have to qualify us for ministry is in Christ. If we are to progress in any aspect of the Christian life, we must look outside ourselves and only to Christ. It is in Him that the grace of God is so abundantly poured out on us. God may be generous enough to accept us as we are, with our weaknesses and mistakes, but the law of Karma is above all human emotions, whether they be generous or ingenerous. It demands full payment and distributes to them the consequences of their actions. There is a strong similarity between this and law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated. We believe we are born where we should be, but that a just and loving Father in Heaven has decided where we can best perform in this mortal sphere of activity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
We believe we reap the rewards of our actions, but we also believe in the atonement of Jesus. Were it not for this merciful provision, we would be left with nearly the same doctrine as others who believe that karma cannot change. That is, we would be left to eternally pay the price of our sins. Christians are taught to be involved in the actions of others through doing good deeds and teaching the gospel. This is the doctrine of loving your neighbour as yourself. Spiritual insights surpass our mere powers of reason. We realize, however, that these moments of enlightenment are given to us by God through the power of the Holy Ghost and that we must study some things out for ourselves and then seek a spiritual confirmation. The gospel also teaches us to follow a wise, God-revealed health law. Physical care and conditioning have been taught since the early days of the Church. “Behold, now it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation among all this people, that they should not lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Mmner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God, in whatsoever place they should be, in any part of their land. Yea, he sent a decree among them, that they should not lay their hands on them to bind them, or to cast them into prison. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“Neither should they spit upon them, nor smite them, nor cast them out of their synagogues, nor scourge them; neither should they cast stones at them, but that they should have free access to their houses, and also their temples, and their sanctuaries. And thus they might go forth and preach the word according to their desires, for the king as been converted unto the Lord, and all his household; therefore he sent his proclamation throughout the land unto his people, that the word of God might have no obstruction, but that it might go forth throughout the land unto his people, that the word of God might have no obstruction, but that it might go forth throughout all the land, that his people might be convinced concerning the wicked traditions of their fathers, and that they might be convinced that they might be convinced that they were all brethren and that they ought not to murder, nor to plunder, nor to steal, nor to commit adultery, nor commit any manner of wickedness. And now it came to pass that when the kind had sent forth this proclamation, that Aaron and his brethren went forth from city to city, and from one house of worship to another, establishing churches, and consecrating priests and teachers throughout the land among the Lamanites, to preach and to teach the word of God among them; and thus they began to have great success. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“And thousands were brought to the knowledge of the Lord, yea, thousands were brought to believe in the traditions of the Nephites; and they were taught the records and prophecies which were handed down even to the present time. And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power of God working miracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away. For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren. Now, these are they who were converted unto the Lord: The people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Ishmael; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Middoni; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the city of Nephi; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Shemlon, and in the city of Lemuel, and in the city of Shimnilom. And these are the names of cities of the Lamanites which were converted unto the Lord; and these are they that laid down the weapons of their rebellion, yea, all their weapons of war; and they were all Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“And the Amalekites were not converted, save only one; neither were any of the Amulonites; but they did harden their heart, and also the hearts of the Lamanites in that part of the land wheresoever they dwelt, yea and all their villages and all their cities. Therefore, we have named all the cities of the Lamanites in which they did repent and come to the knowledge of truth, and were converted. And now it came to pass that the king and those who were converted were desirous that they might be distinguished from their brethren; therefore the king consulted with Aaron and many of their priests, concerning the name that they should take upon them, that they might be distinguished. And it came to pass that they called their names Anti-Nephi-Lehies; and they were called by this name and were no more called Lamanites. And they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephite; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them,” Alma 23.1-18. Our Lord Jesus Christ be near thee to defend thee, within thee to refresh thee, around thee to preserve thee, before three to guide thee, behind thee to justify thee, above thee to bless thee; Who liveth and reigneth, thank you for bestowing us with your grace. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Today’s blog features some inspiring houseplant ideas from plant and interior stylist @hiltoncarter! We are loving the unique decor hacks he has been featuring on his profile lately. Check it out at the link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/blog/
Bless us, O Lord, we welcome you in our house, and may you bless all that dwell in it, as we are graciously pleased to bless the house of Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; we dwell in the walls of an angel of light. As people enter our atmosphere, they feel the abundance of Jesus Christ residing. God gives us the dew of heaven, and the richness of Earth. Be glad for the peacemakers, and through the indulgence of grace bless the Earth with your presence.
God of the hearth, beat strong and pure in the heart of my home. Lord of the threshold, keep vigilant guard over the entrance of my home. Spirits of the land, keep watch throughout the yard of my home. God of the borders, stand ready to repulse all disorder from my home. #CresleighHomes
Randolph Harris II International Institute 