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Wisdom Killed Al Capone
In the common civilized compliments of life, there is no falsehood uttered, because there is no intention to deceive. And polite language is always agreeable to the ears, and lends a soothing influence to the heart, while unkind and rough words and actions, harshly uttered and displayed are just the reverse. Has someone you used to care about done you so wrong that you forget you every cared about them and that they are human, forget they have feelings, and just generally cannot find it in your heart to ever forgive the person? Tonight, I was listening to a song by E40 and it was very vulgar and explicit, and I could really feel where he is coming from, but I am getting older and growing up and do not want to set a bad example, so I turned on Messed Up and Read Between the Lines by Aaliyah. And it makes me think that I no longer think of a particular person and some other individuals as humans, I have truly started to look at them as monsters and do not even care about them. Because no matter how many times I forgive them, or try to be nice to them, and try to show them the right way of how to do things, they never change and their bad behavior just increases and they get even more bold. So that is not the kind of people nor energy I want in my life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Generally, in spirituality, the central ideas which hold the group together are commonly those of love and peace. Etiquette has been defined as a code of laws which binds society together—viewless as the wind—and yet exercising a vast influence upon the well-being of human kind. Where we are not permanent. God has extraordinary blessings in the future. Blessings that will propel those who have faith to a higher level. Immeasurable, limitless, surpassing favor is coming that will take children of God beyond previous limitations. And manners are of more importance than laws, for upon them in a great measure the laws depend. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform and insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality they assist morals, they supply the, or they totally destroy them. It is often said that such a person’s pleasant, affable manners made one’s fortune. And it is a truth that politeness and good-breeding go far towards forming both a man and a woman’s reputation, and stamp upon them, as it were their current value, in the circles wherein they move. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Philosophic intention is clearer insight into the ultimate structure of facts, and philosophic progress does not consist in acquiring new knowledge of new facts, but in acquiring new knowledge of facts. Virtue and knowledge are one, and if people fail to live well, it is through ignorance of what virtue really is. If people knew what virtue was, they would embody it in their conduct. Agreeable manners are very frequently the products of a good heart, and then they will surely please, even though they may lack somewhat of graceful, courtly polish. There is hardly anything of greater importance to children of either gender than good-breeding; and if parents and teachers would perform their duties faithfully, there would not be so much complaint concerning the manners of the American child of the period. Be courteous, it is an apostolical injunction which we should ever bear in mind. Let us train up our children to behave at the house as we would have them act abroad; for we may be certain that, while they are children, they will conduct themselves abroad as they have been in the habit of doing under similar circumstances at the house. Train up a child in the way he or she should go, and when he or she is old, they will go on reflectiveness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
By reflectiveness is meant the habit of considering events and beliefs in the light of their grounds and consequences. Conduct prompted merely by impulse or desire is notorious likely to be misguided, and this holds true of both intellectual and practical conduct. Whether a belief is warranted must be decided by the evidence it rests on and the implications to which it leads, and one can become aware of these only by reflection. Similarly, whether an action is right or wrong depends, at least in part, on the results that is produces in the way of good and evil, and these results can be taken into account only by one who look carefully considers one’s actions and thinks about the outcome. Common sense, with its rules and proverbs, no doubt helps, but it is too rough and general a guide to be relied on safely, and the reflective person will have at his or her command a broader view of grounds and consequences, causes and effects. One will more readily recognize the beliefs of superstition, charlatanism, and bigotry for what they are because one will question the evidence for them and note that when reflectively devolved, they conflict with beliefs known to be true. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
In the same way, one will be able to recognize some proposals for action as rash, partisan, or shortsighted because certain consequences have been ascribed to them falsely and others have been ignored. In some activities wisdom consists almost wholly of such foresight. A general, for example, is accounted wise if he can foresee in detail how each of the courses open to him will affect the prospect of victory. Enter a house where the parents are civil and courteous towards all within the family circle—whether guests or constant inmates—and you will see that their children are the same; that good manners are learned quite as much by imitation as by fixed rules or principles. Go into a family where the parents are rude, illbred and indulge in disputations and unkind remarks, and you will find the children are rough, uncouth, and bearish. Good manners are not merely conventional rules, but are founded upon reason and good sense and are, therefore, the most worthy of the consideration of all; and there are many point of good-breeding which neither time nor place will ever change, because they are founded upon a just regard of human for human. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
There is a wisdom of ends as well as means, which is here denoted by judgment. The goal of the general—namely victory—is laid down for him, but the ordinary man needs the sort of wisdom that can appraise and choose one’s own ends. The highest wisdom is self-sacrificing love. Judgments of good and bad are not expressions of knowledge at all but only of desire and emotion. And emotions are not necessarily a bad thing nor something to be ashamed of. One may be certain that pleasure is better than pain and yet be at a loss to prove it; the insight seems to be immediate. We frequently hear these questions asked: “Who is a lady? and who is a gentleman?” The answers may be difficult to supply on account of the great differences of opinion in various classes of society, upon this subject. Some would declare that position, advantageous surroundings, great riches, high birth, or superior intelligence and education, give requisites; but all of our readers know of persons who possess some one or more of these advantages, and yet they cannot lay true claims to this desirable and distinctive appellation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
Hence we frequently hear these words—“Ah! she is no lady!” or, “Indeed, he is no gentleman!” applied to those whose standing is high; who possess much wealth; or are endowed with genius; but have neglected to ass to their other advantages the touchstone of politeness and good-breeding. Our reply to the question is that a well-bred lady is one who to true modesty and refinement, adds a scrupulous attention to the rights and feelings of those whom she associates, whether they are rich or poor, and who is the same both in the kitchen or parlor. Whoever is true, loyal, and sincere; whoever is of humane and affable demeanor, and courteous to all; whoever is honorable in oneself, and in one’s judgment of others, and requires no law but one’s words to hold one to one’s engagements;–such a person is a gentleman,–whether he be dressed in broadcloth and in fine linen or be clad in a blue homespun frock;–whether his hands are white and soft, or hardened and stained with drudgery. Just like you see a woman in the parlor, we see her in the kitchen. Never a cross word passes her lips, be it rich or poor, servant or friend. This is a high meed of praise—and when a country address and ease of manner are added to it, we behold a true lady. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Enlarge your vision and make room for the things God wants you to do. The economy maybe down, but I know God still sits on the throne. Good and mercy are following me this year, I know it will be great. Differences about intrinsic goods may be due to mere lack of knowledge on one side or the other. The Puritans who condemned music and drama as worthless could hardly have excluded them if they had known what they were excluding; in these matters, wider experience brings an amended judgment. Also, what appears to be intuitive insight may express nothing more than a confirmed habit or prejudice. Where deep-seated feelings are involved, as in matters of gender, race, or religion, the certainty that belongs to clear insight may be confused with the wholly different certainty of mere confidence or emotional conviction. Fortunately, these irrational factors can be tracked down and largely neutralized. Human’s major goods are at the foundation of their major needs, and since the basic needs of human nature are everywhere the same, the basic goods are also the same. No philosophy of life that denied value to the satisfactions of food or drink or the sex or friendship or knowledge could hope to commend itself in the long run. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Build faith in God and treat others how you want to be treated. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. Judgement of a wise person carries a weight out of all proportion to that of anything explicit in one’s thought or argument. The decisions of a wise judge many be implicitly freighted with experience and reflection, even though neither may be consciously employed in the case before one. Experience, even when forgotten beyond recall, leaves its deposit, and where this is the deposit of long trial and error, of much reflection, and of wide exposure in fact or imagination to the human lot, the judgment based on it may be more significant than any or all of the reasons that the judge could adduce for it. That is why age is credited with wisdom; years supply a means to it whether or not the means is consciously used. Again, the individual may similarly profit from the increasing age of the race; since knowledge is cumulative, one can stand on the shoulders of one’s predecessors. Whether individual wisdom is on the average increasing is debatable, but clearly the opportunity for it is. A philosopher whose wisdom is the highest rapture, remarked, “We are the true ancients.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
The Secrets of Your Heart are Mine
God sees, in one eternal glance, all the decisions of each soul, now and to come. The omnipotence of God and his absolute freedom are the two articles of Christian belief that we must never lose sight of. The articles of faith are justification and prove that God is not bound or obligated by the order of nature he has established, so he is not bound or obligated by the order of grace he has established as the common way of salvation of souls. Salvation or the deliverance of humankind from such fundamentally negative or disabling conditions as suffering, evil, finitude, and death entails the restoration or raising up of the natural World to a higher realm or states. There is one supreme being, and this being is the cause of the movements and order of the World. The being is of an intellectual nature. However, in present life, not everyone has an intuitive cognition of God. The intellective soul is an immaterial and incorruptible form that exists as a whole in the whole body and as a whole in each part, it cannot be evidently known by reason or experience that such a form exists in us, nor that the understanding proper to such a substance exists in us, nor that such a soul is a form of the body. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The soul has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in the eyes. The soul of humans seems to have been constructed for another sphere of existence. The human intellective soul (mind is a close synonym) might be defined as the source of a person’s thoughts and actions; it is not a material part of a person, but something that is higher and thought to be immortal, part of a realm of immaterial matter. You cannot hide the soul. The individual must receive sense images and must abstract Universal content from them. However, the soul can be killed. There is poison that can kill the body and the soul when a person commits the gravest of crimes. A sickness in your spirit has immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Pain, imperceptible psychic and emotional pain, can be felt by the soul having made an immoral decision that cannot be undone. The pain is less bodily and more mental. This higher mental pain is associated with not finding the pleasure one seeks. There is a dark cloud of negative thoughts filled with anger, hatred, bitterness, resentment, or sadness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
The liberty of will is the basis of human dignity and of moral goodness and responsibility, more than the power of thinking—although the two are mutually involved. The seat of morality is the will itself because every act other than the act of will, which is the power of the will, is only good in such a manner that it can be a bad act, because it can be done for evil and from an evil intention. Also, every action, other than the act of willing itself, can be performed by reason of natural causes and not freely, and every such action could be caused in us by God alone instead of by our will; consequently, the action in itself is neither virtuous nor vicious, except by the denomination from the act of the will. The problem of how God knows, with certainty and from all eternity, the contingent and free decisions of the human will is an insoluble problem; for both the freedom of the human will and the power of God to know all contingent acts of created beings must be conceded. It is impossible for any [created] intellect, in this life, to explain or evidently know how God knows all future contingent events. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
While recognizing the conception of natural good and of virtuous choices in accordance with right reason, humans are obligated to love and obey God above all else. Thus, what God wills humans to do of human’s free will defines the right, and disobedience to God’s will defines sin. Moral evil is doing of the opposite of what one is obligated to do, and since God is not obligated to any act, it is impossible for God to sin by his causal concurrence in the production of an act sinfully willed by the creature. To obey God is to love God, and to love God is to do his will. I once knew someone I would talk to and would tell when I would do bad things. And this person told me the people probably deserved it, which is a way of justifying sin and will lead one to sin more because you think if a person invokes a bad reaction from you that they deserve it. However, it is not up to me or anyone else to decide what a person deserves. I was raised to be kind and tolerate as much as I can from other people and if they do not bring out the best in me to leave them alone. We should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities instead of God’s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
As Christ did not come into the World in order to take away from people their goods and rights, so Christ’s vicar, who is inferior and in no way equal to him in power, has no authority or to deprive others of their goods and rights. God has established laws binding the Christian to live in a certain way as a member of the church, participant in its sacraments, and believer in its articles of faith, this fact imposes no obligation on God to either bestow eternal life on the Christian who obeys God’s precepts and loves him above all else, or to withhold eternal life from those who do not follow God’s laws and love him above all else. It is not impossible that God could ordain that a person who lives according to right reason, and does not believe anything except wat is conclusive to him or her by natural reason, should be worthy of eternal life. God always contingently and freely and mercifully and of his own graciousness beatifies whomsoever he chooses with eternal life, purely from his kindness he will give eternal life to whomsoever he will give it. God’s gift of existence to creatures and of freedom of choice to humans is perfectly free gift with no clauses attached. God is the law of liberty and not one of oppression nor coercion. The law of the Gospels is not supposed to be a law of slavery. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
We know what it is to believe, opine, and wonder, and we know when we know. We know, noninferentially, that there are other persons. Possibly through religious experience, and in particular the experiences of solemn awe, we know that God exists. Our battles are won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the World. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get along with God. We do not want merely inferred friends. Could be possibly be satisfied with an inferred God? Sometimes instruction is taught visibly and not always verbally. The pastor told me not to get too familiar with people, and I took heed to his words. Every time I would see him, he would say kind things like, “Hey, young man. I appreciate what you do around here,” and “it is good to see you.” These comments made me feel good, but as I watched him more I realized he says these things to everyone, it is part of his script. He may not actually, personally, being paying attention to what you are doing. So, make sure your friends are real and not just inferred and being nice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
Theoretical judgments are judgments of action and are always beneficial; their purpose is to extend the limits of knowledge in a given science, whether it be social, physical or biological. Philosophy examines the relations between the ability of individual consciousness to render judgments and that consciousness in general. Philosophy has its own proper field and its own problem in those values of Universal validity which are the organizing principles for the functions of culture and civilization for all the particular values of life. What I have learned in the business World is not to trust people, never tell too much about your personal life, and be care of people who act like they already know you. Also, proceed with caution when a conversation seems out of context. Generally, when you do not know someone you ask them how they are doing, talk about sport, weather, TV or their plans for the weekend. Never tell anyone you do not know about your family, life, or even where you work. Critical judgments, then, are rendered in respect not what is but of what ought to be; in accordance, not with laws but with norms. This is a normative consciousness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
The essence of who you are should be closed to the public’s knowledge; they should never know more than a few fragments of it, and there is no prospect of their every being able to patch it together out of scraps they gather. Life is not a talk show, it is not to air your business to strangers. The goal of life is to keep your business behind closed doors and when in public give off the impression that everything is perfect and beautiful. Society has become so loose. People often speak of good manners as an accomplishment. I see them as a duty. Such manners are the usages of society to be recognized as agreeable and take away the rudeness, and remit to the brute creation all coarseness. There are a great many who feel that good manners are effeminate. They have a feeling that rude bluntness is a great deal more manly than good manners. It is a great deal more beastly. However, when we live in crowded communities, the art of living together is no small are. How to diminish friction; how to promote ease of association; how to make human life contribute to the welfare and satisfaction of those around us; how to keep down offensive pride is essential to life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
How to banish the rasping of selfishness from the intercourse go human life; how to move among people inspired by various and conflictive motives, and yet have no collisions—the is the function of good manners. Not only is the violation of good manners inexcusable on ordinary grounds, but it is sinful. When, therefore, parents and guardians and teachers would inspire the young with a desire for the manners of society, it is not to be though that they are accomplishments which may be accepted or rejected. Every person is bound to observe the laws of politeness. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the person who possess it, and happiness in those who are about the individual. It is a religious duty, and should be part of religions training. The reason of etiquette might be ridiculed, but the main reason for etiquette is the avoidance of offense. There is reason in comfort and happiness. And no one can afford to violate the unwritten customs of etiquette who wishes to act as a good Christian. Etiquette governs social intercourse, and is desirous of cultivating both politeness and good-breeding. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
God is Not in His Heaven: All is Wrong with the World!
We are overhasty to speak as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours. I think that our Universe must be like a sea walnut. Sea walnuts are a jelly fish type creature and they live in the ocean, they are actually shaped like a walnut, and they produce their own light. Some scientist think they produce their own light to scare off predators, but others disagree. It is possible that sea walnuts are a microcosm, like a living organism, with other organism that live inside of it, and it produces light for them to see and grow food. Of course, these organisms inside of the sea walnut would probably microscopic. So, I wonder if the Universe is like a sea walnut and we are encased inside of another Universe? Because something about the creation myths is baffling to me. Human behavior is response to desire or aversion. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. Will is the very nature or essence of human beings and indeed of everything, identifying it with the thing-in-itself that underlies all phenomena. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Human life partakes of the unravelable inscrutableness of God. All people ideally perceive certain ends or goals by their reason and then direct their wills to the attainment of these ends or goals. This is why no human can knowingly will evil. So, then why is their evil on Earth? Either God can remove evil from the World and will not; or being willing to do so, cannot; or he neither can nor will; or he is both able and willing. If he can but will not, he is not benevolent. If he is neither willing nor able, he is neither omnipotent nor benevolent. If he both wants to and can, whence comes the evil over the face of the Earth? God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to hum for not recognizing that he had ordained the situation. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, he will change them for the better very quickly if he so chooses. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
What are the comprehensible terrors of humanity compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! The ascent of the soul is traced towards higher and higher ends, the supposition being that these ends are apprehended first by the senses and then ultimately by the pure or unfettered intelligence, which enlists the will or desire for their pursuit. The corruption of a human was precisely the dominance of the will, that is, of human’s appetites or desires, this being a deviation from what human nature ideally should be. The understanding first grasps certain ideas or presents certain ends to the mind and the will then either assents or withholds its assent, thus following rather than directing the understanding. Ends and goal become such only because they are willed; they are not first perceived as ends and then willed. Reason is concerned entirely with demonstrations (dedication) or with the relations of cause and effect (induction). In neither case can it give us ends or goals. Mathematics is used in mechanical arts and the like, but always as a means of attaining something that has nothing to do with reason. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
As we know not what purpose any event is ultimately directed, so neither can we affirm from what causes it originally sprung. The computations of a merchant, for example, can be fallacious, but the ends for which they are undertaken can in no sense be fallacious or irrational. They can only be wise or foolish, that is, such as to promote or to frustrate other ends that are again products of the will. Similarly, no discovery of casual connections in nature can by itself have the least influence on the will. Such discoveries can only be useful or useless in enabling people to choose appropriate means to certain ends, which are in no way derived from reason. It can never in the least concern us to know that such objects are causes, and such other effects, if both causes and effects be indifferent to us. Reason therefore can never produce actions or impulses, nor can it oppose them. An impulse to act can be opposed only by a contrary impulse, not by reason. There can, accordingly, be no such thing as a conflict between reason and passion, and the only way in which willed behavior can be irrational is for it to be based upon some misconception—for instance, on some erroneous conception of what is a fit means to the attainment of an end which I entirely the product of will. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside. All agree that people are moved by their impulses, appetites, passions, or wills and that these are incapable of fallacy or error. There is thus no such thing as a rational or irrational will, although one may will imprudently in relation to other things that one wills. A free being wills because it wills, and the willing of an object is itself the last ground of such willing. Human nature contains implications of the highest importance for ethics. If ends or goals are entirely products of the will and the will is neither rational nor irrational, then ends themselves cannot be termed either rational or irrational and it becomes meaningless to ask whether this or that end is really good or bad independently of its being willed. To say something is good, is to say nothing more than it is an object of one’s appetite, and to say that something is bad is only to say that one has an aversion to it. Good and bad are thus purely relative to desires and aversions, which are, of course, sometimes quite different in different people. Wise behavior, on this conception, can be nothing other than prudence, that is, the selection of appropriate means to the attainment of whatever goals one happens to have. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
The inconsistency so common in dreams. There is one goal, however, that is fairly common to all people: the goal of self-preservation. People can preserve themselves in safety and security within a commonwealth. People are the measure of all things. Things are good solely by virtue of the fact that they are demanded, this is, that someone wants them or lays claim to them, and such a demand might be for anything under the Sun. Considered apart from the demands of sentient beings, nothing in the Universe has any worth what so ever. The only proper ethical maxim is to satisfy as many demands as possible, no matter what these happen to be, but at the least cost, this is, with the minimum of frustration to other demands. It is clear that within the framework of theories like this, no meaning can be attached to asking what is truly worthy of one’s desires, unless this question is interpreted to mean, “What is in fact satisfying of one’s desires?”; nor does it make sense to see, any metaphysical principles of morals. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
People will dream; the most that can be asked of them is but that the dream be not in too glaring discord with the thing they know. Truth and falsity in ethics are exhausted in questions as to the truth and falsity of various opinions concerning the utility of proposed means to the achievement of ends, that is, to the satisfaction of appetite, desire, and demand. They have no relevance to any questions concerning ends themselves. Human reason or dialectic is worthless in theological maters, for the simple reason that the very laws of logic are valid only by the concurrence of God’s will. God is omnipotent and can therefore render true even those things which reason declares to be absurd or contradictory. It is thus idle for philosophers to speculate upon what must be true with respect to divine matters, since these depend only on God’s will. Faith is found in the very act of faith itself, which is an act of the will, rather than in rational proof. God has some type of powers that, as humans, we cannot even conceive. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
I believe in order that I may understand. The divine will is the only and the ultimate moral justification for any act. Strictly understood, this means that an action that might otherwise be deemed heinous is not so, provided it is commanded by God. The divine will, and not human or divine reason, is the ultimate standard of morality, that certain acts are sins other acts are meritorious only because they have been commanded by God. God does not forbid certain things because they are sins or commands certain things because they are virtues, for it seems that this would be a limitation upon God’s will. There can be no higher justification for any act than that God wills it, nor any more final condemnation of an act than that God forbids it. The moral law is simply a matter of God’s free choice, for God’s choice cannot be constrained by any moral law, being itself the sole source of that law. The concept of the will is crucial to the understanding of the law, ethics, and human behaviour generally; this is crucial to the understanding of reality itself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Dreamers see the Heavens open every day. The will is the underlying and ultimate reality and the whole phenomenal World is only the expression of will. Living things are the objectifications of their wills and explains not only the behaviour but also the very anatomical structures of planets, animals, and people. The will is a blind and all-powerful force that is literally the inexhaustible creator of every visible thing. The sexual appetite, which I considered to be fundamentally the same in all living things, is a blind urge to love and to perpetuate existence without any goal beyond that, and it has nothing whatever to do with reason or intelligence, being in fact more often than not opposed to them. The religious impulse found in all cultures at all times is similarly explained as the response to a blind and irrational will to possess endless existence. In the growth and development of all living things is the unfolding of the will in nature, wherein certain things appear and transform themselves in accordance with a fairly unvarying pattern and in the face of obstacles and impediments, solely in accordance with at is willed in a metaphysical sense but entirely without any rational purpose or goal. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
Strong drink makes every hidden seed sprout up in the soul and show itself. The feelings of self-love, malice, and compassion, all of which are expressions of the will, may have nothing to do with reason or intelligence. People have free will only in the sense that every person is the free or unfettered expression of a will and people are therefore not the authors of their own destinies, characters, or behavior. The irrational factors in human behaviour is now taken for granted in those sophisticated circles that have come under the influence of modern psychological theories. Moral laws cannot guide human conduct successfully, because they are rational rules directed to the conscious will and are defeated by the irrational antagonism that stems from the human’s subconscious. For moral ideals to be significant and effective they must take possession of the subconscious, which they can do only if they are reached through the sublimation of subconscious impulses. Sublimation, operating through the imagination, transforms human’s lower impulses into higher ones and turns one’s inherent, arbitrary freedom into moral freedom that seeks the good. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
Such sublimation is assisted by divine grace and is possible only where the soul turns freely toward the Absolute. Christian ethics is not ethics of law, but the ethics of sublimation. Sublimate means to express potentially violent or socially unacceptable impulses in a modified, socially acceptable manner. Thus, my dear friend, I have briefly proposes the method which I judge proper for molding the soul into a holy frame; and the same means which serve to beget this divine temper, must still be practiced for strengthening and advancing it; and therefore I shall recommend but one more for that purpose, and it is the frequent and conscientious use of that holy sacrament, which is peculiarly appointed to nourish and increase spiritual life, when once it is begun in the soul. All the instruments of religion do meet together in this ordinance; and while we address ourselves unto it, we are put to practice all the rules which were mentioned before. Then it is that we make the severest survey of our actions, and they lay the strictest obligations on ourselves; then are our minds raised up to the highest contempt of the World, and every grace does exercise itself with the greatest activity and vigor. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
All the subjects of contemplation do there present themselves unto us with the greatest advantage; and then, if every does the soul make its most powerful sallies toward Heaven, and assaults it with a holy acceptable force. And certainly the neglect or careless performance of this duty, is one of the chief causes that bedwarfs our religion, and makes us continue of so low a size. And now, most gracious God, Father and fountain of mercy and goodness, who has blessed us with the knowledge of our happiness, and the way that leads unto it! Excite in our souls such ardent desires after the one. Let us nether presume on our own strength, nor distrust thy divine assistance: but while we are doing our utmost endeavours, teach us still to depend on thee for success. Open our eyes, God, and teach us out of thy law. Bless us with an exact and tender sense of our duty, and a knowledge to discern perverse things. That our ways were directed to keep thy statues, then shall we not be ashamed when we have respect unto all thy commandments. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Possess our hearts with a generous and holy disdain of all those poor enjoyments which this World holds out to allure us, that they may never be able to inveigle our affections, or betray us to any sin: turn away our eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken us in thy law. Fill our souls with such a deep sense, and full persuasion of those great truths which you have revealed in gospel, as may influence and regulate our whole conversation; and that the life which we henceforth live in the flesh, we may life through faith in the Son of God. That the infinite perfections of thy blessed nature, and the astonishing expressions of thy goodness and love, may conquer and overpower our hearts, that they may be constantly rising toward thee in flames of devoutest affections, and enlarging themselves in sincere and cordial love towards all the World for thy sake; and that we may cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in thy fear, without which we can never hope to behold and enjoy thee. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
God, grant that the consideration of what you are, and what we ourselves are, may both humble and lay us low before thee, and also stir up in us the strongest and most ardent aspiration towards thee. We desire to resign and give up ourselves to the conduct of the Holy Spirit; lead us in thy truth, and teach us, for you are the God of salvation; guide us with thy counsel, and afterwards receive us unto glory, for the merits and intercessions of thy blessed Son and Saviour. If you are sensitive to God’s way, your message as his servant will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message to the house so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide, but must apply its truth. Deal with people where they are until they begin to realize their true need. Then hold high the standard of Jesus Christ for their lives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually, it is a state of awareness, a way of being in the World, a way of seeing oneself and others. The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality! Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond one’s own grasp. However, it is God who draws me, and my relationship to God in the first place is an inner personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life. Wisdom brings with it peace, balance, and wholeness, but to benefit from this wisdom, we must first learn to feel the Source of truth. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
Love for God or nature and animals opens the doors to spiritual inspiration. There comes a time when one falls in love with everything and everyone they meet. This tendency to be intensely loving has to be curtailed because love, curiously enough, frightens many people. Many people cannot look fully into another person’s eyes for more than a brief second, if at all. This is especially so if the one looking at them radiates lovingness. Some people even panic when exposed to love. I believe one reason I have seen God’s favor in my life is that I have learned to ask big. When my father died and I was left with nothing, I prayed an extraordinary prayer asking God to help me not only to maintain what my parents have built, but also for God to let me excel in life. It was a bold prayer when I walked in that jewelry store, met Michelle for the first time, and prayed: “God, please let her see how good-looking I am!” Ask God for your dreams. Your Father owns it all. He created the Universe. If you want to see the fullness of what he has in store, you should learn to ask big. Love leads to God, through art or in acts. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
May God, if there is One, Save my Soul, if I have One
Have you not reflected that Christ was a singer? At the Last Supper, they sang a hymn. He liked to describe himself as a just man, lacking in grace. God is able to communicate thought to organized matter, that thinking is the function of the brain just as walking is the function of the feet, was to have important repercussions throughout the future. After being crucified, Christ gazed in admiration at those vast globes of light which appeared to our eyes as so many little sparks, while Earth, which is in truth nothing but an imperceptible point in nature, appears so great and so noble to our fond imaginations. He looked on humans are they truly are, insects devouring one another on a little atom of mud. This true picture seemed to annihilate his misfortunes, by showing him the nothingness of his own being. An abiding awe of the majesty of the Heavens, in comparison with the pettiness of our planet, and an unshakable belief in a supreme intelligence, the Creator of the Universe, the Heavens declared the glory of God. And a mystical sense of cosmic awe occurred. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
His soul reached up into infinity and, detached from his senses, contemplating the unchanging order of the Universe. Having endowed humans with reason and social instincts, God was beyond good and evil. Since materialists cannot disprove the immortality of the soul and spiritualists cannot approve it, social utility weighs the scales in favor of the doctrine of future rewards and punishment. Theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity substitute faith in human ability to settle their own problems, hope for a better society, and love of one’s fellow citizens. Christ said, according to truth as old as creation: Love God and your neighbor. A religion is an organ of human beings in society which helps them to cope with the problems of nature and their destiny—their place and role in the Universe. God Almighty is just and gracious, and gives not his assent to rash and inhuman curses. God did endow humans with reason and feelings of benevolence, which, if properly directed, were all that was needed for humans to gain happiness in life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
General providence would be described today as a benevolent Universe. We lie in nature very close to God; and through, further on, the stream may be corrupted by the banks it flows through; yet at the fountain’s rim, where humankind stand, there the stream infallibly bespeaks the fountain. Religion always involves the sense of sacredness or mystery and of participation in continuing enterprise; it is always concerned with the problems of good and evil and with what transcends the individual self and the immediate and present facts of everyday. Once we are convinced that there is a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it is surely folly in the extreme to think of anything except him. The common sense of the eighteenth century acted on the World like a bath of moral cleansing. I hate cruelty, I hate senseless repression, and I hate hocus-pocus. Furthermore, when I see them, I know them. If God did not exist, we would have to invent him. The good are often punished, and the wicked rewarded. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, but our limited and not entirely submissive reason is often indignant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Many people on Earth neither have an enlightened mind nor a humanitarian heart. They are virtually obsessed with the misery of the human condition, and believe the doctrine of original sin is psychologically the most satisfactory interpretation of human nature that has ever been devised. I dare to take the side of humanity against this sublime misanthropist and affirm that we are neither so wicked nor so unhappy as we are depicted on the Television and in the newspaper. Why try to make us disgusted with life? To look upon the Universe as a prison cell and all the people as criminals about to be executed is a fanatic’s idea. To believe that the World is a land of bliss is a dream of a Sybarite. To think that Earth, humans, and animals are what they created to be, is the opinion of a sage. Turmoil of civil and religious wars, has sought refuse in meditative cultivation of individual humans through self-knowledge. However, there is value found in the sufferings of human’s terrestrial existence as a painful preparation for the glories of life to come. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
There is a purpose for human existence explained in the terms of divine purpose through the theological doctrines of the Fall and the redemption, predestination, and grace of God. Such doctrines can be accepted only as revealed truths, not as reasoned truths. God as First Cause, Prime Mover, and the Supreme Intelligence created the Universe with certain ends in view. I can assert this by saying, the existence of a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker. The beautiful fables of antiquity have this great advantage over history (news), they present a comprehensible morality: they are lessons in virtue, whereas almost all history (news) is a succession of crimes. History (news) teaches us what human beings are; literature teaches us what they should be. People are born, and remain, free and equal before the law. The principle of all sovereignty resides in the Nation. No body, no individual, can exercise authority which does not emanate expressly therefrom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
No ecclesiastical law should be of any force until it has received the express sanction of government. Everything relating to marriages depends solely upon the magistrate; all ecclesiastical persons should be under the perfect control of government, because they are subjects of the state; magistrates, cultivators, and priests, should alike contribute to the expenses of the state. Legislation has succeeded in restoring to each individual one’s natural rights, of which nearly all monarchies have deprived them. These rights are: entire freedom of person and property; freedom to speak to the nation in one’s writings, to be judged in criminal cases by a jury of independent citizens, to be judged according to the precise terms of the law, and to profess peacefully the religion of one’s choice. People should be fully conscious of their dignity and toward effecting the social reforms essential to that end. It is a pleasure for me when my mason, my carpenter, my blacksmith, my mechanic, all lift themselves above their trade and know more about public interest than some gossip. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Wisdom Begins in Wonder—God Makes an Impact in His Kingdom!
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. Art is a protest against self-alienation, not as a temporary situation to be overcome in history, but as the permanent human condition. It is a symbol of a human soul. Human societies pass through determinate stages of growth and decay. There is first a purely bestial condition, from which emerges the age of the gods, when the basic social unit is the patriarchal family. In the age of the gods, other of a kind prevails, the brutal instincts of humans being curbed by fear of supernatural powers—the beginnings of religion. The next stage, the age of the heroes, appears as a consequence of the alliances formed between the fathers of families to meet the challenge provided both by internal dissidence among their own dependents (or famuli) and by external attack from lawless vagrants. Oligarchies are established through these alliances, and society is rigidly divided between patrician rulers and plebeian serfs or slaves. Laws are necessarily cruel and inequitable, and the life and poetry of the heroic age is imbued with ferocious and predatory ideals. This stage is followed by the age of men, which is engendered not by abstract reverence for reason and natural law, but by class conflict. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows what is best, what is good for us. The plebeian class demands and gradually achieves equal rights and a legal system that respects its interest. However, the weakening of traditional ties and the questioning of accepted customs and values that results from the establishment of free democratic republics leads inevitably to eventual corruption and dissolution. The end cycle comes either through conquest from without or through inner disintegration and a reversion to primitive barbarism, and a new cycle begins. One example of such a cycle is an instance of the ideal eternal history whose course is run in time by the histories of all nations, and this can be found in the history of Roman civilization. Thus, the mythical figure of Romulus is seen as giving symbolic expression to a period when rebellions among the famuli against the Vichian fathers resulted in the emergence of an essentially feudal society: agrarian clientships were established, and a sharp division, maintained by force, was set between the patrician and plebeian classes. However, in the course of time pressures from below once again forced a change in social and political organization. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the World around us. As progress was made, rights and privileges, previously reserved for the nobility, were extended to the population as a whole, and a system of civil sovereignty was instituted; in contriving such a system, the Roman people went beyond all others in the World and created a truly free popular commonwealth. Yet, the prospects of acquiring personal wealth and power which the system opened up, together with the spread of destructive skeptical doctrines, led in their turn to discontent and unrest among the people. A period of strong authoritarian rule under the Caesars succeeded in temporarily arresting the process of disintegration, but the forces of unbridled individualism and intellectual corruption (called by the barbarism of reflection) proved in the end to be too powerful and Rome finally collapsed under the blows of its enemies. So, what president Trump is trying to do with this travel ban is keep American from collapsing from the blows of our enemies. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
This is no longer the 1970s, we can no longer sit around, bare foot, playing the guitar and singing kumbaya, while women and men dance naked around lily pads. At least 22 people were killed and an estimated 50 others were injured on 2017 May 5, when a fiery eruption of light, followed by an incredible loud noise, blew away everything in its path at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. Then people started hollering and screaming like they lost their minds, and running for safety, while a giant cloud of dust clouded their vision. The explosion occurred around 10.30pm, and some said it looked like the gates of Hell opening up. Several people are possible paralyzed as shrapnel hit their spine. The cunning reason, whereby the petty motives of these individuals are used to serve ends that lie beyond the comprehension of the agents concerned, is unknown and currently treated as a terrorist incident. Dear God, filled with compassion for those who love you, and with the love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of these troubles, we cast ourselves to your feet and humbly beg of you to take the present affair which under your special protection. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Music is art, and art was given precedence second only to philosophy and was distinguished much more sharply from religion. Although in art consciousness moves in sensuous medium and not yet in the transparency of pure thought, it is able to circulate freely in this medium and to find itself in the appearances of the World. Music, as art, its essential object is the beautiful, the idea in the form of limited appearance. The beautiful object is the harmonized whole of things in microcosm, which is a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger. As the synthesis of the objectively beautiful in external reality and the subjectively beautiful in imagination, music is the sign of an ultimately reconciled World, despite the loss of a religiously grounded belief in World order and despite the overwhelming everyday experiences of a fragmentary and chaotic existence. Only God can know in the full sense the nature and workings of the Universe, since it was he who made it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued. Material reality can therefore never be transparent to human reason in the manner envisaged by rationalist philosophers. This does not mean, however, that it cannot be known at all, for in the investigation of the physical World, we are not confined to the role of passive spectators with no active part to play in forming the phenomena to be studied. Rather, through the construction of experiments performed in the light of hypothesis, we to some degree imitate nature, creating and re-creating the conditions under which natural processes of determinate kinds may be observed to occur. The things which are proved in physics are those to which we can perform something similar. Please bring this to a happy issue. Please continue to intercede for many of us until our requests are granted. So many people around the World are hurting and scared for their lives. They are scared to fly, go to concerts, a nightclub, drive, or even go for a walk in the park. Above all things, we would like to obtain the grace of God and his blessings for all eternity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live. Many are afraid that when their kids walk out the door that they may never come back to the house, or that their parents are in danger. God, do not hide your light under a basket, but let it shine for the whole World, for all the centuries to see. We may not suffer torture the way Jesus Christ did, but are still called to let the light of our Christianity illumine our daily lives. Please help us to have the courage to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation—every corner of our day. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God praying always. If we cannot express ourselves well on each of our beliefs, we must work and study until we can. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be slowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else. Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. God makes in impact in his kingdom. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Monday Morning Quarterbacking Following Absentee Ownership
No matter how healthy, intelligent, or affluent we may be, if our minds are weak, then our happiness will also be a frail and brittle thing. We cannot be manned by mental defectives whose business it is to promise everything and deliver nothings. No meaning can properly be attached to the probability of a single event, and the notion becomes equally inapplicable to the large range of judgments expressing partial belief (in theories and the like) which have hitherto been dealt with under this head. There are difficulties, moreover, in assuming that observed frequencies are a reliable clue to long-run or limiting frequencies—that is it possible, in effect, on inductive grounds to arrive at such long-run frequencies by means of sample observations, however, extended. Thus, a knowledge of statistical frequency, even if obtainable, would be no sufficient ground for preferring one expectation to another. A miracle is the supernatural intervention of God. God created this World and everything physical around us, and the physical World is orderly. God’s desire is for you to prosper. God’s will is for you to be healthy. Probability is clearly not a guide to life. You are the one who controls God’s ability on your life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
All of our wickednesses and imperfections, all of our follies and our sins, may help to pull down that fond and overweening conceit which we are apt to entertain of ours. That which makes anybody esteem us, is their knowledge or apprehension of some little good, and their ignorance of a great deal of evil that may be in us; were they thoroughly acquainted with us, they would quickly change their opinion. The thoughts that pass in our hearts, in the best and most serious day of our life, being exposed unto public view, would render us either hateful or ridiculous. And now, however we conceal our failings from one another, yet sure we are conscious of them ourselves, and some serious reflections upon them would much qualify and allay vanity of our spirits. Thus, holy people have come really to think worse of themselves, than of any other person in the World: not but that they knew that gross and scandalous vices are, in their nature, more heinous than the surprises of temptations and infirmity; but because they were much more intent on their own miscarriages than on those of their neighbours, and did consider all the aggravations of the one, and everything that might be supposed to diminish and alleviate the other. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
How should acts be judged? Often times, reason deceives us more often than the heart. Thoughts of God give us the lowest thoughts of ourselves because there are things many of us have done that we have never forgiven ourselves for, and also because we know that God sees everything and knows everything. However, to make progress and to change takes more effort than feeling guilty, but it is a more appropriate response. On the scale of consciousness, guilt is one of the lowest levels, whereas God is the highest level. Consequently, wallowing around in guilt will not help of progress. Humility means that we see our own life as the evolution of spiritual consciousness. We learn from our mistakes. Ideals clash and choices are usually between alternatives that contain some evil. An ethically sensitive person therefore is more subject than others to doubt, crisis, and remorse satisfied conscience is more readily found in those who have a narrow awareness and ready formulas. However, an ethically sensitive person may exemplify the perfection of individual morality, in which are combined a feeling for each individual act and a care for all possible results. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
A lot of times things we do in the past seem like a good idea at the time. Yet, later on, in retrospect, when we place or consider the situation in a different context, by doing some Monday morning quarterbacking, and we criticize the actions and decision we made or others made, after the fact, we use hindsight to assess situations and specify more better alternative solutions, the errors become crystal clear. Along with giving up the guilt, it is also very helpful to give up the sin as reality, we have to change our ways and make atonements for our mistakes. There has been moral progress in the course of history: Ideals have been added from time to time, more persons now share to some degree in all ideals, and there is greater resistance to evil. More people have their principle in the love of being [and desire for its] perfection, or in the feeling of its imperfection or withering. However, we must be warned against submitting to a single dominating passion. The feeling of our imperfection makes our eternal torture. Our need for greatness and importance is laudable, and we should also respond with charity to the needs of others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Error is usually correctable; sin is typically a mistake, and generally can be forgiven. It is also well observed by a pious individual, that the deepest and most pure humility does not so much arise from the consideration of our own faults and defects, as from a calm and quiet contemplation of the divine purity and goodness. Our spots never appear so clearly, as when we place them before this infinite light; and we never seem less in our own eyes, than when we look down upon ourselves from on high. O how little, how nothing, do all these shadows of perfection then appear, for which we are wont to value ourselves! That humility, which comes from a view of our own sinfulness and misery, is more turbulent and boisterous; but the other layer is full and low, and want nothing of that anguish and vexation wherewith our souls are apt to boil, when they are nearest objects of our thoughts. Instead of hurting someone for fun, spiritual values replace Worldly ones, temptations diminish and error is less likely to occur. There remains yet another means for begetting a holy and religious disposition in the soul, and that is, fervent and hearty prayer. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Holiness is the gift of God—indeed the greatest gift he does bestow, or we are capable to receive; and God has promised his Holy Spirit to those who ask it of him. In prayer, we make the nearest approaches to God, and are open to the influences of Heaven; then it is that the Sun of Righteousness does visit us with his directest rays, and dissipates our darkness, and imprints his image on our souls. I shall only tell you, that as there is one sort of prayer wherein we make use of the voice, which is necessary in public, and may sometimes have its own advantages in private; and another, wherein though we utter no sound, yet we conceive the expressions, and forms the words, as it were, in our minds; so there is a third and more sublime kind of prayer, wherein the soul takes a higher flight, and having collected all its forces by long and serious meditation, it darts itself (if I may so speak) towards God in sighs and groans, and thoughts too big for expression. As when, after a deep contemplation of the divine perfections appearing in all his works of wonder, it addresses itself unto him in the profoundest adoration of his majesty and glory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
For, when after sad reflections on its vileness and miscarriages, it prostrates itself before God with the greatest confusion and sorrow, not daring to lift up its eyes, or utter one word in his presence; or when, having well considered the beauty of holiness, and the unspeakable felicity of those that are truly good, it seeks God, and sends up such vigorous and ardent desires as no words can sufficiently express, continuing and repeating each of these acts, as long as it finds itself upheld by the force and impulse of the previous meditation. This mental prayer is of all others the most effectual to purify the soul, and dispose it unto a holy and religious temper, and may be termed the great secret of devotion, and one of the most powerful instruments of the divine life; and, it may be, the apostle has a peculiar respect unto it, when he says, that the Spirit helps our infirmities, making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered, or that cannot be worded. Yet, I do not so recommend this sort of prayer, as to supersede the use of the other. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
For we have so many several things to pray for, and every petition of this nature requires so much time, and so great an attention of spirit, that it is not ease therein to overtake them all: to say nothing, that the deep sighs and heavings of the heart, which are wont to accompany it, are something oppressive to nature, and make it hard to continue long in them. However, certainly a few of these inward aspirations will so more than a great many fluent and melting expressions. The phase to accomplish all spiritual progress as well as success in the World, means we have to tune into the awareness of the presence of God. There is a sudden release of enormous energy, an emergence into an almost enlightened state in which all is happening of its own. There is a peace, a serenity, and a stillness. Acceptance is the great healer of strife, conflict, and upset. It also corrects major imbalances of perception and precludes the dominance of negative feelings. Everything serves a purpose. Self-interest is naturally good, and we also must preserve the ethical character of acts. The realization of spiritual progress is the result of God’s grace and not the results of one’s personal endeavors. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
We are allowed to seek happiness outside ourselves: One is not one’s own unique object. Not all acts are motivated by self-interest, and it is absurd to call sacrifice of life, for example, an act of self-interest, for in such an act we consider ourselves as the least part of the whole and lose everything. Jesus Christ, law enforcement, fire department, people in the army, military, veterans, and emergency medical services constantly risk their lives to save others and make the World a better place. The criterion of acts is their effect on others; acts are virtuous of they tend to the good of all, even if they also satisfy self-interest. Activity, courage, glory, and ambition summarize the ideal of life and concept of virtue. Greatness of soul depends on character and education. The great soul does not care about public esteem; true glory is an intimate feeling, self-satisfying to the point where it may paradoxically disdain actions. People are not naturally, politically or socially equal. A good person is one thing; enlightenment is another. One is responsible for the effort and not the results, which is up to God in the Universe. Law cannot make people equal in spite of nature. Hierarchy, in all respects, is inevitable. Although there may be deficiencies in our lives, it is important to have a proud, heroic soul. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit. Any problem that comes while I obey God increases my delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how he will unravel my problems. We must be lovers of peace. Greatness of soul and action are absolute virtues. We should be resolutely optimistic about life. History records more frequent and more spectacular instances of the triumph of imbecile institutions over life and culture than of peoples who have saved themselves alive out of a desperately precarious institutional situation, such, for instance, as now faces the people of Christendom. “Peace I leave you with, my peace I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14.27). God, you are wonderful providence. Grant, we beg you, that we may be worthy for our intercessor in Heaven, whom we venerate on Earth as our protector. You who live and reign forever and Ever. Bless it be. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
The Love of Earth is Recognition of God
Love leads to God, through art or in acts. Opinions, whether true of false, are always facts, and as such they deserve and require to be made the object of research and verification. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of humans more than the people of the Earth. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nations seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. We ought be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he looks down from Heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the Earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes their deeds. Experience and intuition give us the harmonious unity that the reason cannot supply. Philosophers are especially prone to torture themselves with unanswerable questions; the wise is content if life is successful on the level of practice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
My heart assures me, a want of faith is a want of nature. Religion is not only the belief in the kingdom of God, but the attempt to make it come about while recognizing its impossibility. This religion not only has a warmth and poetry, but also represents in its radical from the highest point to which the human mind, or rather the human hearts, is capable of raising itself. Religious doctrines govern practices such are: Beliefs in supernatural beings (God and angels). The demarcation of certain objects as sacred. Ritual acts focused around sacred objects. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by God. Characteristic feelings, such as awe and sense of mystery, which to be aroused in the presence of the sacred objects and which are associated with God. Prayer and other forms of communication with God. A world view, that is, a general of its over-all significance, and a picture of the place of the individual in the World. The individual’s more or less total organization of one’s life is based on a World view, and a social organization bound together by preceding characteristics. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island on the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We do not know the great depths of our being; therefore, we cannot measure ourselves. We start out thinking we can but soon realize that there is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator. To say that a word is vague is to say that there are cases in which there is no definite answer to whether it applies to something. Thus, middle-aged is vague, for it is not clear whether a person aged 40 or a person aged 59 is middle-aged. Of course, there are uncontroversial a areas of application and nonapplication. At age 5 or 80 one is clearly not middle-aged, and at age 45 one clearly is. However, on either side of the application of the area of clear application there are indefinitely bounded areas of uncertainty. To say that there is no definite answer to the question, is a person 40 middle-aged? is not to say that we have not yet been able to find the answer because of insufficient information. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Our inability to say whether a 40-year-old man is middle-aged is not the result of lack of information about such things as blood pressure and metabolic rate. No additional information would settle the matter, expect indirectly by leading us to tighten up the meaning of the word. The indeterminacy is due to an aspect of the meaning of the term rather than to the current state of our knowledge. Regardless, by the time a person is considered middle-aged, there are certain things that are expected of him or her from oneself and others. American values is a phrase that refers to what people think is right or obligatory and even to whatever they believe to be true. I have spent my life working towards a goal and am not on the path I thought I would be on, but have not let obstacles that have been in my way stop me from trying to reach my goal. However, because I am not seeing the kind of results that I would like and have no idea when I will reach my goal, this does cause anxiety daily. While many young and old adults are playing games, and wasting time, I stay focused on trying to fulfill my destiny. However, I had set of boundaries of when I wanted to accomplish my goals, and by the time I am considered middle-aged I want to be established. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
From time to time, I get worried because I fear I will be old and wrinkled before I reach my goals, and I certainly want to enjoy some of my youth. Many of my days are programed trying to develop my own business, looking at houses, and thinking about retirement, while others have fun. Even though I have no idea when I will reach my goals, I kept in mind that things are not paid for with money, we pay for things with time. For instance, when people take about a mortgage, they know they will pay it off in 10,15, or 30 years. When one wants to buy a vacation house, they think, “It will take me five year to save up enough money.” So, I feel that I am spending my time wisely. Another thing that keeps me going is faith. When you get in agreement with God and believe what he says about you, then what you believe can supersede any natural law. I prayer that we will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power through belief in him. The power of faith is only activated when we believe. When you believe, God will see that it is taken care of. Pleasure, knowledge, aesthetic experience, beauty, truth, virtue, harmony, love, friendship, justice, freedom, self-expression–let this be the foundation of your spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Thinkers may also regard such things as intrinsically good, but only is and because they are pleasant, self-realizing, or excellent. Satisfaction of a desire is the quality of being enjoyed or enjoyable. Being ontologically perfect, or being willed by God, our dreams have an individually dynamic frequency, and activity and novelty in the atom are reminders of the spirit. In the cellular order, internal purposes are introduced. Spirit is eminently creative, and its action follows structures, or a priori methods of logical inference for intellect, of values or norms for will, and of aesthetic unities for feelings. Our dreams may be found implications for both reality and the life of spirit. Our goals and dreams, an emotionally intuited image, observes principles which, although more lucid in the work itself, have general applications in reality. Faith is constructed by a believe out of the continuum of natural pitch from the spirit. The activity of building faith in God is similar to constructing a scale analogous to that of intelligence in separating and ordering the objects of sensation; the discontinuity of the chords of faith is similar to that of quantum phenomena in physics. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We cannot always understand them, but we have to trust them. Faith in God expressed the transformation of the spirit in the pursuit of value. It is formal and intellectual and a life can be saved from decay in gigantism or sensuality only by increasing our faith and living by the divine laws, as this is a mode pf passionate affirmation of the human will. Faith in God does not decline; passion either destroys the spirit or saves it by a change to religious ardor. Passion is directed from a temporal and human object to an eternal and divine object. Passion need not retreat from fate, it can be fully satisfied in the divine. It combines transcendence, emotional illumination, and infinite love. Christianity becomes an affirmation of life. You are a child of Almighty God, created to grow, move forward, increase, and constantly break the barriers of the past and advance God’s Kingdom. If you learn the principle of faith, you will see the fullness of what God has in store and make it all the way to dreams and goals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
And God Granted His Request—Courage can Only be Opened from the Inside
Eternal life in Heaven is promised to the believer that is sealed by the Holy Spirit. You can be sure you have a house of in Heaven when you know God. We shall find our hearts enlarged in charity toward humans; by considering the relation wherein they stand unto God, and the impressions of his image which are stamped upon them. They are not only his creatures, the workmanship of his hands, but such of whom he taken special care, and for whom he hath a very dear and tender regard, having laid the designs of their happiness before the foundations of the World, and being willing to live and converse with them in all the ages of eternity. The meanest and most contemptible person whom we behold is the offspring of Heaven, one of the children of the Most High; and however unworthy he might behave himself of that relation, so long as God hath not abdicated and disowned him by a final sentence, he will have us to acknowledge him as one of him, and as such to embrace him with a sincere and cordial affection. The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus Christ, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
You know what a great concernment we are wont to have for those that do any ways belong to the person whom we love; how gladly we lay hold on every opportunity to gratify the child or servant of a friend and sure our love towards God would as naturally spring forth in charity towards humans, did we mind the interest that God is please to take in them, and consider that every soul is dearer unto one than all the material World; and that God did not account the blood of his Son too great a price for their redemption. Heaven should be considered one of the most important subjects of faith. The fear of eternal torment in Hell could be a strong incentive to choose salvation, but is it is not the foundation of our faith. Heaven is the place where our Savior Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of our Almighty Father God. Jesus is the foundation of our faith; the chief corner stone. Our blessed hope is the appearing of Jesus Christ who will redeem us. It is the Creator’s Grand Army, and he is the Commander-in-Chief. With these facts before you, now try to guess human’s chief’s pet name for this ferocious Commander-in-Chief? I will save you the trouble, but you must not laugh. It is our father in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
What is pleasant is good. Knowledge is pleasant. Therefore, knowledge is good. Value means the worth of a thing, and valuation means an estimate of its worth. Philosophers from the time of Plato had discussed a variety of questions under such headings as the good, the end, the right, obligation, virtue, moral judgement, aesthetic judgment, the beautiful, truth, and validity. All these questions belong to the same family, since they are all concerned with value or what ought to be, not with what is, was, or will be. In the next place, for purifying our souls, and disentangling our affections from the pleasures and enjoyments of this terrestrial life, let us frequently ponder the excellency and dignity of our nature, and what a shameful and unworthy thing it is for so noble and divine creatures as the soul of human, to be sunk and immersed in brutish and sensual lusts, or amused with airy and fantastical delights, and so to lose the relish of solid and spiritual pleasures; that the best should be fed and pampered, and the human and the Christian be starved in us. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Did we but mind who we are, and for what we were made, this would teach us, in a right sense, to reverence and stand in awe of ourselves; it would beget a modesty and shamefacedness, and make us very shy and reversed in the use of the most innocent and allowable pleasures. We should mediate often on the joys of Heaven. It will be very effectual to the purpose that we frequently rise our minds towards Heaven, and represent to our thoughts the joys that are at God’s right hand, those pleasures that endure for evermore; for every human that hath this hope in God purifies oneself, event as God is pure. If our Heavenly country be much in our thoughts, it will make us strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul, and keep ourselves unspotted from this World, that we may be fit for the enjoyments and felicities of the other. However, we must see that our notions of Heaven be not gross and carnal, that we dream not of a Mahometan paradise, not rest on those metaphors and similitudes by which these joys are sometimes represented. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
If we focus on the pleasures of the flesh, it might entangle us farther in carnal affections, and we should be ready to indulge ourselves in a very liberal foretaste of those pleasures wherein we had placed our everlasting felicity. However, when we come once to conceive aright of those pure and spiritual pleasures; when the happiness we propose to ourselves is from the sight, and love, and enjoyment of God, and our minds are filled with the hopes and forethoughts of that blessed estate; O how mean and contemptible will all things here below appear in our eyes! With what disdain shall we reject the gross and muddy pleasures that would deprive us of those celestial enjoyments, or any way unfit and indispose us for them. Jesus Christ is the Conqueror of Death, and all the Enemies of our Salvation: he bids his dispels of good cheer, in that he has overcome the World, and therein the Prince of the World. It is not great satisfaction and comfort that we shall fall into such fate, careful, and faithful hands as those of truly Angels; that never miscarried in any executions or embattles of this kind? Nor, indeed, in any others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
They may object, that they are strangers to, and unacquainted with the way to Heaven; they never went it, not have spoken to any that have gone it. However, there is not enough to silence such reformings? For we have all the satisfaction about it that the care will admit of. It is a point of faith, and not of sense, and we are offered that none have miscarried in, but all have got safe through it; and there is nothing wanting on God’s part to secure and bring them to Bleffednefs in Heaven. The happiness which we obtain by Christ, has also this peculiar advantage, which renders it most estimable and wonderful, in that it contains deliverance from death and destruction, as well as a right to life. It supposed a forgiveness of all trespasses, as well as an admission into Heaven, to behold the Mediator’s Glory there. God’s created natural covering is designed to protect the spiritual life, but our individuality must yield to God so that our spiritual life may be brought forth into fellowship with him. God, bless us and enlarge our territory! Let your blessings be with us, and keep us from harm so that we will be set free from pain. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The Winchester Mystery House
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All who Rage Against you Will Surely be Ashamed and Disgraced
The most attractive solution to the problems of human existence, to the tragic sense of is, is the hope for eternal life expressed in human’s perennial hunger for immortality. God said, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him or her who curses you; and in you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12.1-3). This hunger has two dimensions—it refers either to the nondestruction of the soul with the Universe or the totality of being. The destruction of a human’s consciousness is an a priori impossibility: We cannot even conceive of the nonexistence of consciousness, since that conception is itself an act of consciousness. Human is nothing if he or she is not everything—to exist is yearning to reach all space, all time, all being. To be a man or a woman is to seek to become God. Unless human is God, he is not even human: Either all or nothing. We ask not only if we can ever know the truth of statements about the past, or whether we can ever be sure of the existence of minds other than our own. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
The existence of God is the supreme cause. Creatures are infinite, God is infinite. Seeing God as the ultimate cause of all perfections; and recognizing the transcendence of those perfections in God; God created the Universe in a hierarchical order ranging from the first luminous intelligence through lesser intelligences, human, animals, elements, and material principles. In all creatures there is a real distinction between essence and existence, and in all material substances there is only one substantial form. Created intellectual substances, seeing the eternal Ideas in God, illuminate lesser intelligences to know truth. The human mind has four immediately evident (per se nota) rules by which it can investigate theology, the science of the faith: God is the supreme Truth and cause of all truth; primary Truth can neither deceive nor be deceived, therefore his Word should be believed; we should believe everything clearly revealed by God through his spokesmen; Scripture is true precisely because God gave it to us in that way. Unlike these rules, the articles of faith are not immediately evident, but in the light of faith and these rules, the articles of faith become objects of scientific study. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
Beauty is characteristically pleasurable. Ethical attitudes vary much more, from society to society and even between individuals, than do our beliefs about the external World or other people’s feelings. The patent fact of ethical disagreement forces us to re-examine the bases of our moral beliefs. Furthermore, the disagreements we encounter concerning moral issues often seem to involve deep matters of principle which leave no common ground between the disputants. This is sometimes referred to as the problem of disagreement about ultimate moral principles. It is this problem—whether ultimate moral principles are susceptible of rational justification—which will be examined. Just as the field of ethics comprises responsible human actions of which some are evil and blameworthy, so, among perceptual objects, there are some which have negative aesthetic value. This does not mean that such objects simply lack the characteristics by virtue of which things are beautiful; it means, rather, that they possess recognizable properties that are opposites of those found in beautiful objects. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
Existence is a mystery, absurdity is a mystery, and anguish is a mystery. Love is the basic force of human existence. It encompasses all conative relations of humans to being and enables them to overcome anguish of their contingency by giving them the rich feeling of their own existence. The relation between beauty and ugliness has commonly been conceived in hedonistic terms, that is, whereas a beautiful object is a source of pleasure in the spectator, an ugly object arouses its opposite, pain. The proper function of art and life is to create pleasure. Yet, it is clear that there is seeming conflict between this view of the World and the empirical fact that works of art often represent objects and events that are ugly. What type of visual art depicts things which in themselves we view with pain. The painting, picture, or news itself arouses pleasure in some, a phenomenon that is explained by our intellectual interest in recognizing the object. Comedy, moreover, imitates people who are ignorable and therefore ludicrous; and though this is a kind of ugliness, the comedy is, for unspecified reasons, kept from being painful. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
I supposed it is because the protagonist is a good individual who suffers adversity, tragedy is not merely shocking when we live in a place where stateworkers are forced to take furloughs and Governor Jerry Brown eliminates affordable housing, but raises taxes and spends $30,000,000.00 taxpayer dollars to defend illegal immigrants. This initiates the controversy over the paradox of tragedy that has survived to this present day. Taxation without representation is a situation in which a government, in this case Jerry Brown (governor of California), imposes taxes on a particular group of its citizens, despite the citizens not consenting nor having an actual representative deliver their views when the taxation decision is made. Many people are having a hard time finding jobs and housing because it is too expensive and the City of Sacramento decided it was better to build a $600,000,000.00 sport complex and tear down the mall that was under 20 years old, without voter approval and Jerry Brown cut funding for Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, which provided houses and apartments that were based on one’s income. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
Humans are painfully aware of the contingency. That they exist or that one is the particular person he or she happens to be is neither necessary nor permanent. By usurping taxpayer funds, and redistributing them to illegal immigrants, we are displacing many Americans who are born in the United States and lived here all of their lives, but no one is protesting for their rights! This is the same type of situation that trigged the original 13 American colonies to revolt against the British Empire during the Seven Years’ was (1756-1763). Many people believe that the way their tax money is being used is illegal because they have no Parliamentary representation and were denied the right to a trial by jury about the use of their money. How can we support undocumented citizens and build unnecessary bridges when we cannot even afford to take care of our own people nor maintain our infrastructure? As has been shown, this paradox is not the sole instance of the problem of ugliness, but it states the problem most acutely, both because the tragedy is sorrowful or pathetic. Why do we esteem narratives of evil and suffering? #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
Why are we not demanding more affordable housing? The whole ugliness has transcended and instead of protesting about our own needs, everyone is attacking the President about people who have absolutely no right to be here. The tragic melting plot in America has been painful to watch, and therefore ugly. Simply because democrats and the people they have illegally voting for them and causing chaos in America and stealing American tax money wish to hold that ugliness does not exist, and since their thesis runs counter to ordinary belief, they are constrained to justify it. The unreality of the ugliness is enjoined by the media because they fear American will go back to being a lawful and righteous country and the reporters will no longer be able to run amuck and produce lies and wild facts for entertainment. And 50 percent of the people who regularly watch the news say it is too much and they cannot stand it anymore, so perhaps they need to turn the TV off and let the news ratings fall. So, they can fire the pundants and disrupters. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
Stated theologically, the World and everything in it has been created by an infinitely good God, as an expression of his goodness; stated metaphysically, existence is not neutral with respect to value and disvalue, but is rather an embodiment, through and through, of beneficial value. In such a World view, the apparent presence of evil of any kind poses a problem, and I consider sin and blindness just such problems. However, this aesthetic disvalue is a particular issue for me because my conception of reality is conspicuously aesthetic. Aesthetic aspects of life are beautiful and harmonious. All things are images of the ideas of form and harmony that exist in the mind of God, and together they make up an internally ordered unity. Objects are beautiful by virtue of their form, but if there is so, then ugliness does not exist, since sheer formlessness cannot exist. The opposite of beauty is not anything real, but mere the absence or privation of optimistic value. There is a degrees of value characteristic of metaphysical optimism and idealism. An object may not have the form appropriate to things of its kind, but this lack constitutes a relative deficiency of beauty, not sheer ugliness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
Moreover, objects that lack a certain degree of aesthetic value must be seen not in isolation, but as parts of the Universe as a whole. Seeming ugliness sets off, and thereby enhances, the beauty of the World. Jerry Brown, Vivek Ranadive, and other dangerous animals, which are not in any clear way lacking in form, but are considered ugly because they are displeasing or offensive to the sight. They are unbeautiful—the mere negative absence of beauty—conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated—rather than the ugly. Ugliness itself is a species of beauty that is present whenever such concepts as evil and disaster enter into the aesthetic pleasure we gain from the total object. Sometimes we may also want to say people are bad because they express a deficiency or relatively slight degree of aesthetic goodness. The work of Governor Jerry Brown, the City of Sacramento and Vivek Ranadive is less than it promises; they are lacking in vitality, ethics, morals, and charm. The muddy orchestration or incoherent plot structure is, significantly, opposite to orchestral clarity or unity of plot. There is a total absence of compensating virtues. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Lying is wrong suggests that the fact that a statement is known to be false is a reason for not making it to someone. Adultery is wrong suggests that the fact that someone is married is a reason for his refraining from the sexual intercourse with any person who is not his spouse. And, again, one ought to be kind suggest that there are reasons for performing kind actions rather than unkind ones. Asserting a moral principle of this kind and denying the suggestion about reasons results in paradox. Saying the governor upholds the law, but then raises taxes and steals money from hard working legal citizens, to redistribute to unlawful immigrants constitutes a lie and fraud. The Bible states that sinners earn the death penalty (Romans 6.23). Forgiveness of those sins requires blood to be shed to satisfy that penalty (Hebrews 9.22). Christ’s sacrifice of himself made is possible to take away the sin of the World (John 1.29). Because he is God, and human beings were created through him (Colossians 1.16), his life is worth immeasurably more than all other human lives throughout history. This, Christ’s sacrifice was more than sufficient as total payment for the death penalty we have earned because of sin. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
To assuage their anguish, humans must feel in their existence, even of one is lead to suffering. One must learn to experience their uniqueness by expanding the range and the self-consciousness of their perceptions of the World. The central temporal dimension of human existence is the future, which leads to a desire for immortality and to a concern with death. This focus on the future is expressed as a means of both honors and hope and the means of eternal waiting. The structure of the future expresses both human’s determination to continue to live and their permanent dissatisfaction and despair concerning existence. Goals are self-created and are permanent commitments. This covenant with God guarantees a permanent right to the land. It is unconditional, as seen in the statements “God will,” without corresponding obligations. This covenant promises the ultimate return to the land in repentance and faith in circumstances will God will prosper them. This covenant will be fulfilled in the Millennium. Convent theology teaches that God initially made a covenant of works with Adam, promising eternal life for obedience and death for disobedience. Christ is the ultimate mediator of God’s covenant of grace. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
Truth is subjective, it exists only as it is manifested in authentic belief. Belief, in turn, is an expression of human’s total being and consequently is realized in action. Objective truth is, strictly speaking, a meaningless conception. Through its identity with belief and actions, truth is ultimately an act of will. It is a will to create; and the will as creator wants and loves at the same time. Because of this persona and volitional factor in truth, the opposite of truth is not error but the lie. This subjective view of truth gives a distinct idealistic, even mystical cast to this thought. All knowledge about human and the World is subjective in the sense that it begins with first-person experience. To think of truth as transcending first-person experiences is, strictly speaking, a contradiction, because the very program of transcending first-person experience is a first-person project and concept and a construction. There is, however, another kind of truth, illustrated by mathematics, which is the function of reason alone, whereas true belief is a function of human’s whole being. Reality is a state of permanent flux, so that no two experiences are ever the same. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
There are two metaphysical alternatives. Reality may be a vast sea of consciousness with my subjectivity at the center. There is no easy way to distinguish this consciousness from a mere dream. Its sole foundation is the fact that I experience it and that I will it to be real. The other view is that the focus of our being may be outside ourselves. We may identify ourselves with the realities of other people, cars, houses, trees, flowers, and mountains. This care and watchfulness over our own actions must be seconded by frequent and serious reflections upon them, not only that we may obtain the divine mercy and pardon for our sins, by an humble and sorrowful acknowledgment of them; but also that we may re-enforce and strengthen out resolutions, and learn to decline or resist the temptations by which we have been formerly foiled. It is an advice worthy of a Christian, though it did first drop from a heathen pen, that before we betake ourselves to rest, we renew and examine all the passages of the day, that we may have the comfort of what we have done aright, and my redress what we find to have done amiss, and make the shipwrecks of one day be as marks to direct our course in another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
This may be called the very art of virtuous living, and would contribute wonderfully to advance our reformation, and preserve our innocence. However what we must nor forget to implore the divine assistance, especially against those sins that do most easily beset us: and through it be supposed that our hearts are not yet moulded into that spiritual frame which should render our devotions acceptable; yet, methinks, such considerations as have been proposed to deter us from sin, may also stir us up to some natural seriousness, and make our prayers against it as earnest, at least, as they are wont to be against other calamities: and I doubt not but God, who hear the cry of the ravens, will have some regard even to such petitions as proceed from those natural passions which himself hath implanted in us. Besides, that those prayers against sin, will be powerful engagements on ourselves to excite us to watchfulness and care; and common ingenuity will make us ashamed to relapse into those faults which we have lately bewailed before God, and against which we have begged his assistance. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
The Authority of Truth
You may be shocked by these words coming from me. However, on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experiences, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my beliefs, I have always been a man who tried to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfold it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. However, it will not suffice to consider these things once again, nor to form some resolutions of abandoning our sins, unless we maintain a constant guard, and be continually watching against them. Sometimes the mind is awakened to see the dismal consequences of a vicious life, and straight we are resolved to reform; but alas! It presently falls asleep, and we lose that prospect which we had of things, and then temptations take the advantage; they solicit and importune us continually, and so do frequently engage our consent before we are aware. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
It is the folly and ruin of most people to live at adventure, and take part in everything that comes in their way, seldom considering what they are about to say or do. If we would have our resolutions take effect, we must take heed unto our ways, and set a watch before the door of our lips, and examine the motions that arise in our hearts, and cause them to tell us whence they come, and wither they go; whether it be pride or passion, or any corrupt and vicious humour, that prompt us to any design, and whether God will be offended or anybody harmed by it. And if we have no time for long reasoning, let us at least turn our eyes toward God, and place ourselves in his presence, to ask his leave and approbation for what we do. Let us consider ourselves under the all-seeing eye of that divine Majesty, as in the midst of an infinite globe of light, which compasses us about both behind and before, and pierce to the innermost corners of the soul. The sense and remembrance of the divine presence is the most ready and effectual means, both to discover what is unlawful, and to restrain us from it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
There are some things a person could make a shift to palliate or defend, and yet he dares not look Almighty God in the face, and adventure upon them. If we look unto him we shall be lightened; if we set him always before us, he will guide us by his eye, and instruct us in the way wherein we ought to walk. I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under his authority. Every Christian can have his or her body under absolute control for God. What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be his temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth—my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with him, and his covenants are designed for this purpose. When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of his covenant, there is no sense of personal achievement—no human ingredient at all. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed. Our job is to get the fact and be sober in doing that. Acceptance is the great healer of strife, conflict, and upset. It also corrects major imbalances of perception and precludes the dominance of negative feelings. Everything serves a purpose. Humility means that we will not understand all events or occurrences. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when one chooses—repentance is a gift of God. No matter what or what we are, God restores us to right standing with himself. Put God in remembrance of his promises. Keep not silent. Give him no rest till it comes to pass. When God hears his promises, he dispatches angels with the answers. He sets the miracle into motion. God will change things in your favor. It may not happen overnight, but just stay in faith and keep reminding God what he promises you day in and day out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Sometimes we use prayers as an excuse to complain to God about people not treating them right. Or about the price of rent, food, and gas being too high, and that they cannot take it anymore. Instead of complaining, remind God of his promises. Do not keep silent and eventually you will see what God said come true. As consciousness evolves to higher levels, the World changes in appearance and behavior. Everything is viewed whole, perfect, and complete. Father in Heaven, I may not see how it can happen, but I know you have an extraordinary blessing coming my way. Thank you that you make the rivers in the desert and streams in barren places. I am expecting a sudden, rapid, and widespread increase of blessings in my life. I believe that I will see surpassing greatness of you favor and blessings that will advance me years ahead. My hopes and dreams are in your hands and I trust you. Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often powerful auxiliaries. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International Institute 