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Obligations Curtail Our Freedom to Waste Ourselves
People who are kind, generous, and compassionate give others a striking affirmation of the intrinsic worth and importance of human beings. After being reduced to bodily terms, we are never the same. For the rest of our lives, we are unable to forget how much it is possible t be in need of others. We approach our relationships differently from then on, emphasizing those bonds which seem likely to withstand the tests of time and strain, and putting less effort into bonds of convenience. The nature of our aspirations changes along with the style of our relationships. We start asking different things of life. Considering how common impairments are, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, it becomes clear that each has our own special demons and divine figures, our own other-World landscapes and struggles. As a result of these changes, people suffering from detriment or restriction can often tell in a glance whether someone they meet has every had the experience of being helpless. They notice that a gap separates them from those who continue to be beguiled by good health. They watch as friends and relatives go on living from day to day as if they are invincible, dwelling inside a privileged deception. People suffering from ailments are not star athlete’s, who can take a hit and keep on ticking, and sometimes unnecessary psychological stress can make their condition worse, as it can amplify the pain they are experiencing or cause other conditions to flare up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Healthy people often find themselves distracted by the crude exterior of affliction, bypassing much of the complexity going on beneath the surface. Knowing what to say and do in the presence of a person who is incapacitated requires an awareness of what it is like to have time on one’s hands and to be at the mercy of others, but also knowledge of the range of emotions that arise in reaction to helplessness itself. A man spent several weeks confined to his bed. He was seriously ill and was unable to get out of bed, or move at all, even if it was only to go from laying on one side to laying on the other side. It was in that state of extreme helplessness that he saw how much a person can be in need of others. He was in need not only of his doctors, nurses, and medical staff, but also of God and spiritual help. Not only for medical care, but for comforting words or gestures. The problem of impairment raises two fundamental questions…Why me? (the questions of bafflement), and What can be done? (The question of order and control). We oppose the lessons of helplessness, hardening ourselves against the indignities and rejecting the forced revisions of our priorities. We hope only for recovery and for a return to self-sufficiency. Anything less invokes bitterness. We want to see more clearly and hear more sharply the themes that are special to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The important thing is to realize that, although life seems to be a matter of literal causes and effects, in fact we are living our deep stories, often unconsciously. We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine. People suffering from an aliment or disability first blame the condition. One says, “If only I was not elderly or disabled or pregnant, life for be better for me.” Then they blame other people, saying, “Life would be better if people did not treat me like I football player.” Then, we finally realize it is what we put out there is what determines how our life is and how people treat us. We make our life good—it does not just happen. There are countless pitfalls on the way our of misery. Focusing relentlessly on what has been lost, comparing oneself to others, aspiring for things that are out of reach, and placing blame on others are only some of the most common snares. Each personal variation is uniquely painful. Soul work involves an effort toward increasing awareness of these situations that form the foundations of our lives, for if we become familiar with the characters and themes that are central to our conditions, we can be free from their compulsions and the blindness that comes upon us when we are caught up in them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When culture and language fail to acknowledge the difficulty of receiving, the dependent person is left doubly burdened, in disliking the help that cannot be repaid and in feeling guilty about the dislike. People know that when someone visits them, that they are simply being visited. They know that one is in receipt of a charitable act and that there is no true relationship. One knows they have nothing in common with the individuals coming to see them, they know all too well. We have often heard people who are elderly or disabled say, “Look at my life—all I do is eat and sleep. What kind of life is this?” They equate their lack of productivity activity with worthlessness. Some people take their mind off of their pain by thinking about what does work right. The most important thing to do is to keep the spirit supple. When we return to our central thought that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and God shall rise the individual up, we must remember that the prayer of faith is definite—it is faith in something and about something. This type of prayer is not generalized, but specific. It is conscious and definite. The prayer of faith is a prayer which expresses faith about some particular thing. What is included is a specific want, or definite need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
If one was praying for a home, one would not be asking for an automobile. If one were praying that his or her neighbor be healed, one would not be asking for money with which to take a trip. In order to enjoy the soulfulness of mythic life, we need a deep inner faith that allows us to know and visit our own deep strata where meaning and values truly are formed. Ritual is an action that speaks to the mind and heart, but it may not make sense in a literal context. In church, people do not eat bread in order to feed their bodies, but to nourish their souls. It is a higher symbolic act. If we could grasp this simple idea, that some actions may not have an effect on actual life, but speak instead to the soul, and if we could let go of the dominant role of function in so many things we do, then we might give more to the soul every day. Frail people try to conceal their needs as much as they can and they like to keep their conditions private. Social workers have been admitted to many apartments where it is more like people are living in private cells, concealing the evidence of their incapacities and averting their eyes from each others’ problems. Usually their presence is only accepted because something had necessitated their help. It was discovered in one such instance that a client had been sitting in the dark for weeks. The light bulbs had burned out in the ceiling fixtures, and he had no floor or table lamps. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Rather than ask one of his neighbors to help, he had been reading by daylight and going to bed when it became too dark to see. His back was hurting and he could barely move without experiencing a great deal of pain, as if his spine was going to snap. Therefore, keep in mind, the one who gives help is more powerful than the one who receives it. Knowing what to do for a person suffering from an impairment and what to cease doing begins with understanding what life is like from that person’s perspective. Without this comprehension, there is a tendency to worry about the wrong things and to give assistance in the wrong ways. Learning all that we can about being dependent allows us to fall short of the ideal to the right extent. Sometimes fear can strike a disabled or elderly person like a malignancy, sapping every and power and attention from their daily lives. They are afraid of the process of their ailment, they are afraid of increasing loss of control, they are afraid of the outcome, and they are afraid of dying. They fear how their families and friends see them, how they feel about them and how their condition affects their lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
However, what can be even more difficult is when people do not know or cannot see that you are disabled or have a diminished capacity and they force you to work, harass you, physically attack you, use you for money, and threaten you because they know they can get away with it. For young people who are physically disabled, it is like experiencing one’s old age prematurely. They are locked into a parallel isolation, shamed by feelings they do not dare confess. These individuals are frightened because they are young and still have a lot of life to live and are deteriorating much sooner than they are supposed to. They do not have a professor of whatever to understand them and how they feel, and their economy of friends tends to shrink. People do not know how to behave toward them, and it is easy to lose heart for coping. Sometimes they have no spirit for anything, like their heart finally dropped out of them. Theses youngster even get bullied and attacked by people who are much older than them, but have not yet experienced what it is like to have fractured vertebrae in their spine, or whatever. However, they have courage. Courage that comes for their belief in God. The Word courage comes from the Latin cor for heart. We give ourselves fresh heart by pulling our attention away from what has been lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
It is not that fear and disheartenment can be willed away, but we have to turn our focus in a direction most favorable to their alleviation. The consciousness that heals is definite and deliberate; it is a specializing of the Universal Law. In this law we may have absolute and implicit confidence, but we must also remember that the law can do for us only what it does through us. Its energy and creativeness must be interpreted through our belief and imagination. This is but another way of saying that if we want the principle of electricity to light our living room we must provide a fixture which makes it possible for the electricity to become a light. When we pray in faith we receive what things we pray for. If we believe that we shall receive them, we shall receive them. There is a specific, definite thing we are to receive, but we are to receive it as we believe. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not adequately understood or followed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8 
Kindness is the Essence of a Celestial Life
Kindness is how Godlike people treat others and should permeate all our words, education, works, and actions. The temporal aspects of exchange relations allow the development of emergent aspects of the relations, such as trust, commitment, solidarity, investments, concerns about justice and equity, and contractual agreements. The most important single feature of the exchange process is the tendency for actors to become—through exchange—drawn into patterns of more or less lasting mutual dependency. However, if one person is more powerful and uses that power advantage to gain benefits, that individual or organization becomes more dependent and the advantage is lost. That is why reciprocity is important is business and intimate relationships. Reciprocity is developed and woven into good enough relationships, sometimes without participants knowing what they are doing. If a relationship is important enough to them, partners will be emotionally invested in it enough to work at building and maintaining it. Business reciprocity as a strategy has huge advantages. People do business with those they know, like, and trust. When you give first, without expecting anything in return, it goes a long way in helping to build the like and trust factor. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
What is your business giving away? What product, service, bit of knowledge, or piece of information could you charge for, but should probably give away instead? When you give away valuable information or goods and services for free, your business has greatly increased its credibility and likelihood of picking up new customers through this strategy. When someone foes you a solid favor, you feel compelled to return the favor. The same goes for your customers. No good deed goes unpunished. It is completely counterintuitive, but without fail, when you give first (without expecting anything in return), you will get back much more than you initially gave. Competitors may use you, possibly. However, whose credibility and reputation just went up, your business who is providing enormous value for free, or your competitor, who is now trying to sell what you are giving away for free? (Believe this, your competitors will not try to repay a good deed, and if they are stealing your material, they will not understand how or why the law of reciprocity works.) Some of the benefits include search engine optimization, increased brand recognition, and customer loyalty. A charity enduring long, and is kind, and fair, and is not ostentatious, is not easily provoked. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
If we are not kind to others, we do not honor God. When a competitor is using you or your business and providing no benefit in return, and they become dependent on you, the coalition formation will transform the structure of the network, redistributing power to your advantage, and eventually you will be able to vertically integrate markets and channels of distribution. Vertical integration is a strategy where a company expands its business operations into different steps on the same production path, such as when a manufacturer owns its supplier and/or distributor. Family lines can be analyzed similarly with kin-based economic opportunities flowing down and filial loyalty and support flowing up across generations. Examples of negatively connected networks include competitive economic market structures, dating networks and friendship networks. Most concrete networks involve connections of both types. If we do not have charity, we are nothing, for charity never fails. Therefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail, but charity is the pure love of God, and it will endure forever, and those whoso are found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with God. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Judging from the frequent occurrence of such words as power, influence, dominance, and submission, status, and authority, the importance of power is widely recognized. When I was in college and studying for my final examines, my grandmother asked me did I pray to God to help me on my exams. Even though I was raised in the church, I did not understand, at that time, how God could help me with my education. I did not yet see spirituality as a holistic concept. Nevertheless, I prayed to God and that semester in college I got a 3.83 grade point average, and the next semester God helped me earn a 4.0 grade point average and I was accepted into an honors program to attend college overseas. Each student had to have a 4.0 grade point average to be accepted. Power relations are frequently intransitive. The scriptures teach us that the righteous exercise of our ability is dependent upon our living the principles of kindness, charity, and love. By kindness, and pure knowledge, we shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. Social structure is created, maintained, and changed through symbolic interaction, and once created is a constraining interaction. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
If people do something anyway, there is no need to have a norm prescribing it. The norm is redundant. It is a waste of time prescribing things that people are going to do even if they are not prescribed. Let us examine our lives and determine to follow the Savior’s example by being kind, loving, and charitable. And as we do so, we will be in a better position to call down the powers of Heaven for ourselves, for our families, and for our fellow travelers in this sometimes difficult journey back to our Heavenly home. We have a deep tendency to create social ties through exchange of gifts. Exchange theory offers a soft interpretation of power. Exchange theory emphasizes mutually beneficial exchange rather than coercion. Therefore, power inequalities are seen to result from asymmetric or unilateral exchange. Stated differently, power inequality stems from unequal dependence. However, a person does not necessarily require a Church calling, an invitation to help someone, or even good healthy to become an instrument in God’s hands. Domination is usually found in institutionalized forms of power called authority, embedded in or deriving from a legitimate social order. Both weak and the strong party can gain through the yielding act of a weak person. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
Power, like exchange, can be symmetrical and even equal. Domination can take purely coercive forms, but taken by itself, coercive rule is unstable and costly. Stable and enduring forms of domination are based upon claims of and beliefs in the legitimacy of domination (including the right to use coercive force). When legitimized, domination is called authority. Different bases for legitimacy generate qualitatively different systems of authority. Three pure types of authority can be analytically distinguished, deriving their legitimacy from rational-legal, charismatic, and traditional sources. Concrete empirical systems approximate those types in varying degree. However, none of the forms of domination can be conceptualized properly on the basis of exchange. Charity and love are the greatest principles in existence. If we can lend a helping hand to the oppressed, if we can assist those who are despondent and in sorrow, if we can uplift and ameliorate the condition of humankind, it is our mission to do it, it is an essential part of our religion to do it. When we feel love for God’s children, we are given opportunities to help them in their journey back to his presence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
Power and influence are based upon exchange processes, but domination and authority are not. There are two diametrically contrasting types of domination. Domination by virtue of constellation of interests (in particular: by virtue of a position of monopoly), and domination by virtue of authority. The purest type of the former is monopolistic domination in the World; of the latter, patriarchal, magisterial, or princely power. God has asked us to journey, go on missions, accept callings, invite someone to church, or help someone in need. The Lord will grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with the, and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible, others to the knowledge of truth. Do we really want to be instruments in God’s hands? If so, our desire will permeate our prayers and be for focus of our reality. It may be conformity with respect to a belief, an attitude, a value, a behavior; it may be conceptualized as deviance from one set of norms, that than adherence to another; it may be thought of as conformity to the norms of a group to which the individual aspires to belong rather than to those of one in which he or she currently hold membership. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
What do all of these have in common in shaping of behavior, feeling, or thought in accordance with that of a referent, and to the extent that such attitudes and behaviors are organized around a particular social status (student, mother, father, teacher), the consequence of normative reference orientation is socialization or anticipatory socialization. It illuminates social mobility, acculturation, attitude change. May our minds be enlightened and the cloud of darkness lifted from us. Let us see with our spiritual eyes. Financial difficulty is a reality faced by millions of people. There is precious little money for the essentials—things like food, mortgage, rent, car repairs, and luxuries like dining out and going to the opera or theater. That is a reality in many households. However, fear not. God is there and he has already given you the key to prosperity: prayer. It is not just a matter of asking for money, there is more to it than that. God, we come to you with thanksgiving for all you have given us, and how you have blessed and sustained us for all this time. We lift up to you our finances and that you for your words and promises that you will supply all of our needs. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
We pray that you will bless us with your provision now. Open the storehouse of Heaven and pour financial blessings up us. Give us wisdom as to how to handle all finances, and keep us from making any foolish decisions. Bless our work with success. Reveal to us how we can earn more and handle our finances more efficiently. Show us where we have spent unwisely and how we can reduce our debt and expenses. Show us if we are doing what you want us to do, or if you have other work for us. Open our eyes to see where we are not ling your way with regard to our finances. Teach us how to spend, save, invest and better organize our money and resources such a land, estates, travel, and other forms of capital. We know that our true treasure is found in you. Forgive us for any times when we have not fully loved out that truth. We choose to seek you, God, and your kingdom first and foremost in our lives, trusting that you will provide all we require. It is our glory that we may be an instrument in the hands of God, to bring some soul to repentance; and this is our joy. May our confidence in God increase. God treasures those who help his children (grown and youthful). Kindness is key to a celestial life. #RandolpHarris 9 of 9
Earth—Marvelous Work and a Wonder
To cure spiritual diseases which throttle us and plague our lives, the Lord has given us a sure cure. Knowledge of God must be supplemented by revelation. If wisdom is God, who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, then the philosopher is a lover of God. The truth turns out to be the search for one’s own salvation, as a sparkling new presentation. Here then is a great truth. In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. In this is the divine image, which can be mirrored from the soul. It is part of the purging toll exacted of some to become acquainted with God. In the agonies of life, we seem to listen better to the faint, Godly whisperings of the Divine. The wealth of insights that it brings will be unfamiliar to most. Is not aspiring to or seeking the Godlike transfiguration of one’s own soul, in and through the stern but invigorating exercise of justice and (merely apparent) sacrificial devotion, equivalent to the pursuit of the greatest of all conceivable goods for the very core of one’s own being? #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Since immortality and eternal life constitute the sole purpose of life, all other interests and activities are but incidental thereto. And since those objectives are the work and glory of God, they are the proper work of humans also and are the major reason for his coming to Earth. Of the two elements, the one great blessing immortality comes to humans without their effort, as a gift from the Almighty. The other eternal life is a cooperative program to be developed by the Lord and his offspring on Earth. It thus becomes the overall responsibility of human beings to fully within the Eternal God in accomplishing this objective. All people can stand adversity, but if you want to test a person’s character, give them power. To this end God created humans to live in mortality and endowed them with the potential to perpetuate the race, to subdue the Earth, to perfect themselves and to become as God, omniscient and omnipotent. Our Father in Heaven the sent to the Earth a line of prophets to keep humans in remembrance of their duties and their destiny, to warn them of dangers, and to point the way to the total victory of humans. The pursuit of truth is intrinsically valuable. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
To marvel at the wonders of the gospel is a sign of faith. It is to recognize the hands of God in our lives and in everything around us. On Earth we have the rich opportunities to discover the marvelous things of this World. We can visit the most significant monuments, historic sites, and natural wonders of the World. There is so much beauty in this World. However, sometimes when we have them constantly before our eyes, we take them for granted. We look, but we do not really see; we hear, but do not really listen. We are so privileged to live in an exceptional time. Our amazement also produces spiritual strength. It gives us the energy to remain anchored in our faith and to engage ourselves in the work of God. Clearly belief in miracles is already plausible if our enquiry may presume this view of things. The usual way of making this out might be described as supernaturalistic. God reveals his nature in part through observable phenomena. Divine actions are not changes in God as they are manifestations or expressions of his will, which is eternal. Being all-knowing God eternally knew renowned miracles would be necessary. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Seek and cherish the companionship of the Holy Ghost. In faith, we hold to the promise that of we seek, we shall find. To this day, healing remains the form that most claimed miracles take, and many of those miracles are associated with visitations to churches and the shrines of saints or the wilderness. Miracles remain an important and powerful dimension of religions and mystics. The word of God and sacred places are considered to be a fountain of knowledge that never runs dry. There is always something new to learn and feel. Nearly 90 percent of Americans believe in God, 84 percent believe in miracles, and nearly 48 percent reported that they have experienced a miracle in their own lives or in the life of someone else. Our amazement should be rooted in the core principle of our faith, in the purity of our covenants and ordinances, and our most simple acts of worship. Others recognize miracles as extraordinary occurrences. Miracles were designed by the creator for very specific purposes and, though contrary to the observable laws of nature, were instituted at the beginning of creation as part of God’s divine plan. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Most wonders of the gospel cannot be perceived by our natural sense. They are the things that the eyes have not seen, nor heard, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. When we have the Spirit with us, our spiritual senses are sharpened and our memory is kindled so we cannot forget the miracles and signs we have witnessed. Viewed this way, a miracle is an event that astonishes beholders (wonder) and at the same time conveys meaning (sign). Absent the sign factor, it is impossible to distinguish miracle from mere coincidence. Since signs are always signs of something, we can say that a miracle is an unusual event that discloses the meaning and power of the transcendent within the World of time and space. If a veteran from the Vietnam War gets Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a cancer of the lymphatic system), after being exposed to Agent Orange, and is given 3-5 years to live and told he cannot have kids, but he goes on to live beyond his projected lifespan and produced three biological children, the patient or others may claim that the patient’s sudden restoration to health and procreation are the result of prayer to God for a miracle. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Only after a board of physicians concludes that an unexpected healing has no known scientific cause does a board of theologians consider whether the healing is also a divine sign. Because of miracles, people have a reason to believe in the afterlife. Therefore, miracles are real and much more than just studies. This gives many people the faith to believe that God is real, Heaven is real, and the scriptures are not just stories that people came together and made up to control human behavior. The power to work miracles belongs to God as the creator and sustainer of the World. When we have the spirit with us, our spiritual senses are sharpened and our memory is kindled so we cannot forget the miracles and signs we have witnessed. The testimonies of miracles might dwindle without being constantly renewed by the power of the Spirit of God. And this is why it is important for us to thank God and focus on the good things in our lives, so we can give power to that which is edifying to our souls and experience on the Earth. Do not risk the loss of this precious and marvelous gift—the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Seek it through fervent prayer and righteous living. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Let us pray that we may always have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that perceive the wonders of this marvelous gospel. Often, when we pray for miracles to happen in our lives, we are also praying for healing to happen in our lives as well. We see countless examples of miracles every day. Dear Lord in Heaven, please heal us in whatever you see needs healing. Heal us of whatever might separate us from you. Heal our memory, heal our heart, heal our emotions, heal our spirit, heal our body and heal our soul. Miracles are power testify that God’s touch is always a heartbeat away. It is important that we are conscious of God at work in our lives daily. Miracle power can happen in our lives when we have faith and trust that miracles can really true. Heavenly Father, we open our hearts wide to receive the love of God. We realize and accept your healing power of the Universe of love. God is limitless and abundant, we feel the outpouring of God’s love in our bodies and minds. We feel God’s love in all our affairs, and we know all is well. We would not be here without the power of God and without his miraculous power being at work. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
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Bunker Bun Warmer—Wake Up from Your Fiestas!!
People who are long before they see a thing, when once it strikes them, see it in the strongest light. Back in 1975, on the successful situational comedy show All in the Family, Archie Bunker was tired of waking up in the morning and sitting on a cold toilet seat, so he came up with a God sent idea. The idea of an electric toilet seat that would warm up automatically and wanted to call it the Bunker Bun Warmer. However, the idea was revolutionary at the time because it had never been heard of and a representative from a firm he was working with thought it was the craziest thing he had ever heard. However, in 2017, although high-technology toilet seats are still rare in most houses, they are a feature in some homes. Now days, high-technology toilet seats include a heated seat, a bidet, blow drier, fans, air freshener, many come with a built-in disinfecting system to clean the toilet, some play music, and others have colorful lights. There are even toilets that can do laundry. And although it sounded like a repulsive or ridiculous idea, electrically heated toilet seats have been popular in Japan since the 1970s. Sociologists call this kind of thinking ethnocentrism, which is a tendency to evaluate the customs of other groups according to one’s own cultural standards. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
People that do not see all, often know nothing. The first electrically-heated toilet seat was manufactured on 5th January 1959. So, the idea that Archie Bunker had was reasonable, but when people encounter particularly advanced or exotic cultures, they are not always able to restrain their cultural biases. People are made for a sociable life and should love their fellow people in the same way they love God. We all see things in God. Divine ideas are things. The World is a great mechanism and goes like a clock. We know God directly; everything else is known by way of our apprehension of God’s nature as revealed in the idea which emanate from him. The fields of air are open to knowledge. That is why many people, even though they are separated by land, sea, and language, sometimes come up with the same ideas and they are unheard of in their cultures, and often thought to be original. The relation between our mind and God’s is left in obscurity. The Good Book (Christian Bible) tells us that God is just. This means he is fair and impartial. It also means that he hates the ill-treatment and oppression of people and of nature, which he has created. He hates lying, cheating and other forms of mistreatment of others. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes. The fact that God is just means that he can and will judge between right and wrong and he will administer justice in accordance with his standards. The knowledge of all law goes but a little way to the discerning the justice of the cause. Justice is treated as a particular virtue. Moral reciprocity—doing to others as one would have them do to oneself and giving an equal return for benefits received is closely linked to impartiality, for to be impartial between oneself and someone else means doing nothing to profit at someone else’s expense. From this follow ideas such as a fair wage, a just price, and a fair exchange (commutative justice), as opposed to exploitation and profiteering. It may be difficult, of course, to evaluate benefits exchanged, and the only measure available may be a market price or some conventional standard. For instance, how can one evaluate domestic service without taking for granted a wage structure in which types of work are roughly graded according to accepted standards like skill and responsibility? And for any individual worker the just wage is necessarily related to the idea of the wage for the job. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Justice considered as reciprocity is often held to require returning evil for evil as much as good for good (lex talionis). In this case punishment would be paying back what is due. The natural impulse to retaliate is moralized as a sentiment of justice by confining it to those cases where the injury is to society at large and where retaliative justice has a useful deterrent function. However, although the duty of reciprocity may spring from our recognition of other people, just as much as ourselves, as persons with interests and claims deserving of respect, we cannot infer from that a duty to attack their interests whenever they attack either our own or even those of society at large. The idea of a law behind the law, the standard of justice to which positive law must conform, is exemplified in the immutable and unwritten laws of Heaven. There is a universal law of nature, equally accessible to all people through reason. Treating human law as the local application of natural law is itself an expression of God’s rational will guiding the Universe. Even if you suppose that God does not exist, one is still bound by the law of nature, since it is derived from the two human qualities of sociability and rationality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
To find right remedies and right method is the great function of knowledge. Our need of society dictates the minimum conditions for social harmony. Natural law thus came to be regarded as a Universal test of the justice for positive law. Just law formalizes a preexisting, objective, juridical relationship, that it does not create justice but recognizes and attaches sanction to what already exists, and it can be rationally established independently of positive law. It is based on the principle that a person subjected to legal norms must be respected as an end in oneself, and treated as a participant in the community. Nothing, humanely speaking, can deserve higher respect than a procession in which a people devotes the labor of one’s life to the support of justice. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes good record of it; ignorance, wanting its day’s dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations. Law and all form of law are only deductions made by the intelligence from the right instincts of the people’s heart. God works in mysterious ways, “He’s got some grand strategy that he can’t revulge,” says Archie Bunker. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International Institute 