Home » husband (Page 61)
Category Archives: husband
Christian Calculus—Love Casts Out All Fear
What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to others. God is not simply the cause, but the indwelling spirit of the World, the all-embracing actuality. One early use of the word “golden” in English is “most excellent, important, or precious.” With reference to rules or precepts it was used to mean “of inestimable value,” and the expression “the golden rule” was often specifically used with reference to the precept in Matthew: “Therefore all things whatsoever you would that people should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and prophets” (7.12). This, the principle that has come to be known as the golden rule has been so called presumably because it has been regarded as being of inestimable value or importance. This regard was not solely from the fact that it was set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. The golden rule has been widely accepted, in word if not in deed, by vast numbers of greatly differing peoples; it is a basic device of moral education; and it can be found at the core of innumerable moral, religious, and social codes. What the golden rule requires a person to do is to take account of the wishes of others and accord them the respect and consideration one would want them to accord one with. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
In other words, what the golden rules requires of each of us is that we should treat others in accordance with the same principles or standards that we would have others apply in their treatment of us. The golden rule requires us to take account of and accord respect to the differing needs, interest, and desires of others, and it is just that the inversion of the golden rule is intended to bring about. It comprehends all the requirements of morality in a single formula; on the other hand, the golden rule is only a guide, that is far from complete, it requires rules, a sense of justice, or even a whole system of morality for its proper interpretation and application. The golden rule is a perfect guide to conduct and the only thing needed to make the World perfect is for everyone to follow it; at the same time, it has been claimed that the golden rule leads to paradoxes and is misleading, false and absurd. However, the golden rule, in one version or another, has a prominent place in all the major religions and most minor ones. And that is because the goal of religion is to create a society where people love and fear the Lord and out of this love for God, they want to do what is just. Paradoxically, because of this fear of God, people will not want to harm others. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
The nearly universal acceptance of the golden rule and its promulgation by persons of considerable intelligence, through otherwise divergent outlooks, would therefore seem to provide some evidence for the claim that it is a fundamental ethical truth. Furthermore, with the power of the storms and flood being done by hurricane Harvey, which is dumping feet of rain in Texas, who would not fear the power of the Lord? Storms like Harvey happen once every 500 years, so to many, it seems apocalyptic. Since every person is part of nature and, hence, of the divine, we share the basic impulses of all-natural things—specifically, the urge to develop upward and outward, the striving for ideal. Action and striving are not only means to some static goal, but are also ends in themselves. Since there is no goal for human beings apart from one’s life, people struggle with the fear of life and are tempted by care. Human fulfillment is in activity itself, but many would like you to believe that there is no fulfillment—contentment means annihilation—so that people are destined to be dissatisfied, unfulfilled, no matter what one achieves. We live in an age when, as the Lord foretold, people’s hearts are failing them, not only physically, but in spirit. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Many are giving up heart for the battle of life. Suicide ranks as the major cause of the deaths to college students. 1,100 is the number of suicides that occur at colleges every year. The suicide rate among young adults, ages 15-24, has tripled since the 1950s, and suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students. As the showdown between good and evil approaches with its accompanying trials and tribulations, Satan is increasingly striving to overcome the Saints with despair, discouragement, despondency, and depression. Yet, we as children of God should be the most optimistic and the least pessimistic. The economy is getting many people down, the cost of living, competition, and some people just life to make life Hell on others. For while we know that peace shall be taken from the Earth, and the Devil shall have power over his own dominion, we are also assured that the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst. God will be directing us through the troubled times ahead, and it becomes our individual responsibility to see that each of us remains faithful to God and his teachings. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
If the pleasure experienced in contemplating a beautiful landscape is an intrinsic good, then the beautiful aspects of the landscape itself are inherent goods. Our intellectual contemplations should be on the ultimate good. One who remains steadfast and is not overcome, by virtue will be saved. We must keep it in our minds that we should be desirable or beings of interest, and there is a variety of distinct features by virtue of which concrete wholes may qualify as instances of intrinsic good. Human beings share a common nature or essence. Humans were essentially or by nature a rational animal, rationality being the one significant trait distinguishing them from the beast. Consequently, the human being’s highest good will consist in the exercise of his or her rational powers, or contemplation. All people are endowed by their creator with a natural tendency to seek beatitude. This tendency may lie dormant or be perverted, but it cannot be eradicated. God draws us toward himself like a magnet. To resist this attraction is to pervert our nature. By allowing ourselves to be drawn to God, we fulfill our nature and experience the greatest satisfaction of which we are capable. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
All subjectivist agree that nothing is proper object of choice unless there is reason to believe that its desirable consequences outweigh its negative consequences, if it has any. To determine whether a proposed inherent good has on the whole more desirable than undesirable subjective consequences requires empirical knowledge of the properties and casual effects of the alleged inherent good. It is, however, true that decision as to what subjective states qualify as intrinsically good are almost certainly conditioned by such factors as personal temperament, education, cultural conditioning, and historical circumstances. To help us from being overcome by the devil’s design of despair, discouragement, depression, and despondency, the Lord have provided at least a dozen ways which, if followed, will lift our spirits and send us on our way rejoicing. All inherent goods must have the property of conducing to happiness and only those things are inherently good which do conduce to happiness. The concept of happiness consists in activity in accordance with human nature. Despair comes because of iniquity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
When I do good, I feel good. And when I do bad, I feel bad. Sin pulls a person down into despondency and despair. The best-known effort to provide criteria for evaluating choices to consider the relative merits of proposed inherent goods, including things as the intensity and duration of the pleasures or pains which the alleged goods tend to produce and the number of persons capable of benefiting from them. Good experiences have only one common denominator—God. While people may take some temporary pleasure in sin, the end result is unhappiness. Wickedness never was happy. Hurt and pain involves wickedness. Sin creates disharmony with God and is depressing to the spirit. Therefore, any person would do well to examine oneself to see that one is in harmony with all of God’s laws. Every law kept being some particular blessings. Every law broken brings a particular blight. Those who are heavy laden with despair should come unto the Lord, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Happiness is a life of many pleasures and few pains. Satisfaction often accompanies the performance of one’s moral duty or the sense of achievement and self-esteem often accompanying creative work. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
A kind of life which is favorable to happiness is a life of uprightness, not given to excesses, and infused with understanding of the World and a person’s place in it. This also includes interests in other people and in causes, and acceptance of an objective picture of oneself. Prayer can put us in touch with God, our greatest source of comfort and counsel. Pray always that you may come to conqueror—persistent prayer. Exerting all my powers to call upon God to delivery me is the method I use to keep the adversary from destroying me. This is also a key to use in keeping depression from destroying us. When the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, everything seems illuminated. Instead of letting fiends weave ropes of pure hell around us, we should work at taking care of the spiritual, mental, social, and physical needs of ourselves and those whom we are charged to help. There is plenty of work to do to move forward the Kingdom of God. The condition of the physical body can affect the spirit. That is why the Lord gave us the Word of Wisdom. We should retire to our beds early and rise early, and should not run faster than we have strength, and use moderation in all good things. Also, the healthier our food is, the better it will be for us. Food can affect the mind, and deficiencies in certain elements in the body can promote mental depression. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
A good physical examination periodically is a safeguard and may spot problems that can be remedied. Rest and physical exercise are essential, and a walk in the fresh air can refresh the spirit. Wholesome recreation is a part of our religion, and a change of pace is necessary, and even its anticipation can life the spirit. Reading is also important. Many people have been enlightened, enlivened, and comforted by a good book. And certainly, we can say that a person is happy even if her or she is not feeling joy at good fortune all the time. However, if a person is happy, one will not be subject (expect briefly—for example, in connection with disappointments about noncentral things) to gloom, stress, restlessness, depression, discouragement, and shame for these feelings will not occur if one likes the total pattern of one’s life insofar as the parts one deems important are concerned. We have a special food for the soul of one in distress. We are blessed with Doctrine and Covenants, modern revelation. The words of the prophets are crucial reading and can give direction and comfort in an hour when one is down. A period of a person’s life may said to be happy of the person was happy during most of it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
We often speak of feeling happy. This means feeling the way one typically or ideally does if one is happy—that is, being neither depressed nor stressed and moreover having at least one of the optimistic feelings characteristic of being happy, such as enjoying what one is doing, feeling joy, and so forth. One can be happy, of course, without actually feeling happy all the time. In a particularly stressful time, or in the anticipation of a critical event, one can see for a blessing and receive solace and direction for one’s soul. Happiness is not identical with welfare or well-being. A person can be quite happy in a situation which is harmful to one if one does not know it is, and perhaps even if one does. Thus, a person’s fortune may be dwindling if it is invested in bonds during a time of inflation, but one may be quite happy if one is ignorant of economics or even if one sees what is happening (perhaps he is of the priesthood). Furthermore, we may contribute to a person’s welfare without affecting one’s happiness: for instance, we may improve one’s standard of living, but not make that individual happier if one was quite content with the pattern of one’s life before, or if one regards the change as unimportant. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The fatherhood of God is the core of our being. The infinite worth of the human soul, and the ethical ideal of the Kingdom of God makes sense for modern minds. Parents should live so that the can bless their spouses and children. To receive, and then consistently and prayerfully ponder, one’s patriarchal blessing can give helpful insight, particularly in an hour of need. The sacrament will bless the souls of all those who worthily partake of it, and as such it should be taken often, even by the bedfast. Periodic fasting can help clear up the mind and strengthen the body and spirit. However, you have to use wisdom and do only what is reasonable for you, and in this time also meditate and pray and reduce work. Education is the self-development of the individual. The fellowship of true friends who can hear you, share your joys, help carry your burdens, and correctly counsel you is priceless. For one who has been in the prison of depression, how sweet the voice of a friend is; one token of friendship from any source whatever awakens and calls into action every sympathetic feeling. Ideally, your family ought to be your closet friend. Most important, we should week to become the friend of our Father in Heaven and our brother Jesus the Christ. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
The only authentic self-activity is God, as the unmoved motion and self-contained existence of Reason, which, as Reason, is also personal. We receive the Absolute into the heart the symbols. What a blessing to be in the company of those who edify you. To have friends, one should be friendly. Friendships should begin at home and then be extended to encompass the home teachers, quorum leader, bishop, and other Church teachers and leaders. To meet often with the Saints and enjoy their companionship can up lift the heart. May bright sunshine, youthful vigor, beautiful appearance and comfortable smile belong to you forever! Inspiring music may fill the soul with Heavenly thoughts, move one to righteous action, or speak peace to the soul. When Saul was troubled with an evil spirit, David played for him with harp and Soul was refreshed and the evil spirit departed. When the mind is afflicted by temptations, sing aloud, to keep before your mind the inspiring words and thus crowd out the evil thoughts. For example, silver and gold, silver and gold, I would rather have Jesus than silver and gold. This could also be done to crowd our debilitating, depressive thoughts. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
When we are sick, it may seem like we have sunk into the lowest put of Nova Scotia and the Rocky Mountains are piled on top of us, but do not be discouraged. God’s most striking victories arise out of the graves of apparent defeat. Hang on, exercise faith, and keep up the good courage and you will come out in top of the Rocky Mountains. There are times when you simply have to righteously hang on and outlast the devil until his depressive spirit leaves you. Your adversity and your afflictions, shall be but a small moment. And then, if we endure it well, God shall exalt us on high. Wait on God and he will work, but to not wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see what is happening. Are we detached enough from out spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told. God never made a promise that was too good to be true. To press on in noble endeavors, even while surrounded by a cloud of depression, will eventually bring you out on top into the Sunshine. While you are going through your trial, you can recall your past victories and count the blessings that you do have with a sure hope of greater ones to follow if you are faithful. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Have certain knowledge that in due time God will wipe away all tears and that God has prepared for us love. Every accountable child of God needs to set goals, both short-term and long-term and short-term, as these goals are important to ensure growth and sustainability. Short-term objectives represent the goals individual sets that are centered on tasks that can be achieved within the next six months or, at the outset, within one year. An example of a short-term goal might to be increase savings by 10 percent. Long-term objectives define any goal that has a time frame exceeding one year. Long term plans can be buying a house, growing annual revenue. While they take more time than short-term objectives, long-term goals must be realistic and time bound. A person who is pressing forward to accomplish worthy goals can soon put despondency under his or her feet, and once goals are accomplished, others can be set up. Some till be continuing goals. Each week when we partake of the sacrament we commit ourselves to the goals of taking upon ourselves the name of Christ, of always remember him and keeping his commandments. We must increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
To grow in wisdom, we have to also focus on our spiritual goals, mental, physical, and social. There is a lifetime goal to become more Christ like, to perfect ourselves in every virtue as he has done, to seek his face, and to work to make our calling and election sure. Forget the things which are behind us, and reach forth unto those things that are before us. We must press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. Let our minds be filled with the goal of being like the Lord, and you will crowd out depressing thoughts as you anxiously seek to know him and do his will. Let this mind be open to you. Look unto God in every thought. And what will follow if we do? We will keep in perfect peace, if our mind is focused on God. Salvation is nothing more nor less than to triumph over all our enemies and put them under our feet. We can rise above the enemies of despair, depression, discouragement, and despondency by remembering that God provides righteous alternatives. You will be able to bear temptation and escape it. Yes, life is a test; it is a probation; and perhaps being away from our Heavenly home we feel we are strangers and pilgrims on the Earth. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
We are pressing forth as Christians to gain entrance to the celestial city. That is our goal. Essentially, goals that are superfluous or which detract from our mission should have a subordinate, lesser, or smaller role, if one at all, to more serious and beneficial objectives. To get to the celestial city, we have to overcome many obstacles, one of which is to escape from the Giant Despair. To life our spirit and send us on our way rejoicing, the devil’s design of despair, discouragement, depression, and despondency can be defeated in a dozen ways, namely: repentance, prayer, service, work, health, reading, blessings, fasting, friends, music, endurance, and goals. May we use them all in the difficult days ahead so that we Christian pilgrims will have greater happiness here and go on to a fullness of joy in the highest realms of the celestial kingdom is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Greater than fear is love. Love dissolves all fear, casts out all doubt and sets the captive free. Love, like River of Life, flows through me and refreshes me with its eternal blessing. Love cannot be afraid; it is fearless and strong, and is mighty in its works. It can accomplish all things through the inner light of that faith in God which fills my very being with a powerful presence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
I Give the Truths of Tomorrow, I Prefer the Mistakes of Today
Even though it is a painful for a time, it is not the end. The World may be regarded as in some way an emanation from, or self-expression of, God. God, as first cause, can suspend or transform secondary causes in order to perform his will. When he does so, his action is called a miracle. A miracle does not violate nature. It is a case of nature behaving in an abnormal way through a special act of the same creative power which is at work in the normal process that can be subsumed under scientific laws. If the essence of finite being is to be dependent on God’s will (and so to possess a potential obedientialis in relation to it), miraculous acts are not less natural than nonmiraculous one. However, while the abnormal character of an event is empirically verifiable, its miraculous character as an act of God can be discerned by faith alone. Faith is the subtle chain that binds us to the infinite. In God’s plan of happiness, we are not so much looking for someone perfect but for a perfect person with whom, throughout a lifetime, we can join efforts to create a loving, lasting, and more perfect relationship. That is the goal. Those who save their relationships understand that pursuit takes time, patience, and above all, the blessing of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Patience will cure all evils. God acts on people both by nature (through his general providence) and by grace (through the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit). Omniscience is entailed by infinity. God knows the future freely chosen human acts, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ requires you to be kind, envy not, seek not your own, not be easily provoked, think no evil, and rejoice in the truth. In other words, it requires charity, the pure love of Christ. All this will not happen in an instant. Great relationships are built by time, devotion, commitment, and love over a life time. And that is good news. God’s nature cannot change (for change implies imperfection) and this was affirmed by Plato and the Old Testament. God cannot suffer change from an external nor an internal cause. No matter how flat your relationship may be at the present, if you keep adding gems of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a might pyramid will begin to grow. Uncommon faith believes above and beyond and gives you a boldness and a confidence to believe for the extraordinary. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
If your perfect relationship takes forever, remember that it may be a gradual work, but it does not have to be a cheerless one. In fact, at the risk of stating the obvious, divorce rarely happens when the husband and wife are happy. So be happy! There is no obstacle too difficult for you to overcome. No dreams put in your heart by God are too big to accomplish. And astonish your spouse by making him or her happy. Those who save their relationships choose happiness. Do not be intimidated. Those for you are greater than those against you. You are not weak, defeated, nor powerless; you are a child of the Most High God. Most people are about us happy as they make up their minds to be. Seek happiness and you will find it. If we look for imperfections in our spouse or irritations in our relationship, we will certainly find them, because everyone has some. On the other hand, if we look for good, we will surely find it, because everyone has many good qualities. The greatest force in the Universe is breathing in your direction. If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness, one must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happiness to you. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Those who save relationships pull out the weeds and waters the flowers. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on inside of you. You are greater than anything against you, and God controls your destiny. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. It is just a matter of time before God promotes you to a new level. It is important to celebrate the small acts of grace that spark tender feelings of charity. Those who save marriages save future generations. Remember why you fell in love and work each day to make your marriage stronger and happier. If you are to become all God created you to be, you cannot let a hurt, a loss, a bad break, or disappointment cause you to sit on the sidelines. If you are facing a big giant challenge, do not focus on the size of the problem; focus on the size of your God. He has brought you through in the past, and he will bring you through in the future. God has something amazing just up in front of you. He has a new level of your destiny God will not only bring you out, he will bring you out better off than you were before! #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
My dear friends, let us do our very best to be numbered among those hallowed and happy souls who save their marriages. Every family have moments of awkwardness. We all have unique spirits and are influenced in different ways by our experiences. We can choose to celebrate these differences and appreciate them for adding richness and constant surprises to our lives. Self-concepts have a major impact on behavior. We creatively build our self-concepts out of daily experiences. Then we slowly revise them as we have new experiences. Once a stable self-concept exists, it tends to shape our subjective World by guiding what we attend to, remember and think about. Sometimes members of our families make choices or do things that are thoughtless, hurtful, or immoral. What should we do in these cases? Whatever problems your family is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. Without this love, even seemingly perfect families struggle. With it, even families with great challenges succeed. Charity never fails. It is true for saving marriages! It is true for saving families! #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
When we have problems we have to learn to live with them until such a time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for the grace to endure them without murmuring. Problem patiently endure will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly. In addition to natural knowledge of God, there is a supernatural knowledge revealed by Christ and received through faith. The great enemy of charity is egotistical pride. Egotistical pride is one of the biggest reasons marriages and families struggle. Egotistical pride is short-tempered, unkind, and envious. It exaggerates its own strength and ignores truth and virtues of others. Egotistical pride is selfish and easily provoked. It assumes evil intent where there is none and hides its own weaknesses behind clever excuses. Egotistical pride is cynical, pessimistic, angry, and impatient. Indeed, if charity is the pure love of Christ, then egotistical pride is the defining characteristic of Satan. Society is to be transformed, then (even if only Slowly and gradually), by means of a change in people’s opinions—chief among them their opinions about is desirable. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
The right action is the one that makes for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. However, this is not derived from egoism: the greatest happiness principle is ultimate, and cannot be derived from self-interest. Egotistical pride may be a common human failing. However, it is not of our spiritual heritage, and it has no place among holders of God. Life is short. Regrets can last a long time—some will have repercussions that echo through eternity. The way you treat your spouse, children, parents, siblings or friends may influence generations to come. What legacy do you want to leave your posterity? One of harshness, vengeance, anger, fear, or isolation? Or one of love, humility, forgiveness, compassion, spiritual growth, and unit? People can never fully understand the principle of Universal benevolence, simply because they cannot hope to know all their fellows intimately. However, this is an ideal toward which we can strive and which, even if it can never be reached, can always be brought a little closer. For the sake of your family relationships, for the sake of your soul, please be merciful, for mercy triumphs over judgment. Set aside egotistical pride. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
The right to emotions are those that we feel when we see all the facts clearly. When we analyze these emotions, we find that they are consistent with the greatest happiness principle. Sincerely apologizing to your children, your wife, your family, or your friends is not a sign of weakness but of strength. Is being right more important than fostering an environment of nurturing, healing, and love? There are good and bad reasons for feeling frightened or angry. Fear is appropriate in a situation of danger. We do not doubt that if once we make a person see the facts of the situation, the emotion of fear will come of its own accord. In the same way, if we want people to feel the appropriate emotions of benevolence, pity, affection, and so one, we can do it by making them realize the full facts about human beings. It is in this sense the people are naturally good. Even when you are not at fault—perhaps especially when you are not at fault—let love conquer egotistical pride. If you do this, whatever adversity you are facing will pass, and because of the love of God in your hearts, contention will fade. These principles of saving relationships apply to all of us, regardless of whether we are married, divorce, windowed, or single. We all can be saviors of strong families. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Since we cannot know everyone intimately, we have to rely on generalizations, any one of which may be seriously misleading when applied to a given individual. Such generalizations form, as it were, a distorting glass through which we look at the World. And, since virtue depends on feeling the appropriate emotions toward other human beings, emotions which depend on a clear perception of all particulars, the logical proposition is an adequate explanation of human frailty. It is also what is meant by prejudice. In our efforts to save our marriages and families, as in all things, let us follow the example of the One who saves us. The Savior won our souls with love. Jesus Christ is our Master. His work is our work. It is a saving work, and it begins in our houses. Love in the fabric of the plan of salvation is selfless and seeks the well-being of others. That is the love our Heavenly Father has for us. A we emulate the Savior’s love, he will surely bless and prosper our righteous efforts to save our marriages and strengthen our families. May the Lord bless you in your untiring and righteous efforts to be numbered among those who save. This is my prayer in the name of Christ, amen. God is going to make the rest of your life the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Our National Problem is Erosion of National Morality
Our greatest national problem is erosion. Not erosion of soil, but erosion of the national morality. Waking up from a nap and thinking this cannot be real. In the crisis through which we are now passing, we have been fully warned. This has brought forth some criticism. There are some of us who do not want to hear the message. It embarrasses us. The things which are threatening our lives, our welfare, our freedoms are the very things some of us have been condoning. Many do not want to be disturbed as they continue to enjoy their comfortable complacency. Cognition are thoughts. Dissonance means clashing. Cognitive dissonance appears in virtually all evaluations and decision and is the central mechanism by which we experience new differences in the World. When we see other people behave differently to our images of them, when we hold any conflicting thought, we experience dissonance. Dissonance increased with the importance and impact of the decision, or situation, along with the difficulty of reversing it. Cognitive dissonance is central to many forms of persuasion to change beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors. Then tension can be injected suddenly or allowed to build up over time. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Our lives rest upon eternal truth and truth can never be deserted safely. It is probably a self-deception; the investigator follows the chain of association from the one element which is take up until that individual finds the chain breaking off. For instance, when you see the people in your immediate circle mean you no good. The signs are present, but the rational brain tends to overpower the idea that the people in your live are involved in a conspiracy to harm you because the idea seems ludicrous. Although you see the signs, and they have been ongoing, you try and suppress them and pray that life returns to normal. However, although you know you are not being outlandish, you know there is nothing you can say or do about the situation because pack mentality tends to be strong. People involved in pack mentality are usually driven by greed and fear. Often times, leaders in the community are allowed to get away with abuse. For instance, Jerry Sandusky built a sophisticated grooming operation, outsourcing to child-care professional the task of locating vulnerable teenage boys, whole playing the role of a lovable goofball. Effort is made to lull people away into a false security. Proposals will be and are being offered and programs sponsored that have wide appeal. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Attractive labels are usually attached to the most dangerous programs, often in the name of public welfare and personal security. Again, let us not be misled. We live in an age of appeasement—the sacrificing of principle. Appeasement is not the right answer. It is never the right answer. Jerry Sandusky, a respected football coach at Penn State University, he systematically abused at least 10 boys over a span of 15 years. The victims were scared and reluctant to tell anyone about it, including peers who admired Jerry Sandusky. People like Jerry Sandusky masquerade under various names, but all may be recognized by one thing—one thing they all have in common: to erode away character and one’s freedom to think and act for one’s self. Freedom can be killed by neglect as well as by direct attack. Too long have too many Americas, and people of the free World generally, stood by as silent accessories to the crimes of assault against freedom—assault against basic economic and spiritual principles and traditions that have made nations strong. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The reason people fear telling anyone when they are abused is because not only is it embarrassing, but when you report the abuse there is a chance no one will believe you, or they may not take action because the abuser is someone well liked in the community. People like Jerry Sandusky prey upon young men who are minors and still developing. They come off as nice guys who just want to be your friend and will do something seemingly nice, like invite you to the mall. However, on the way home, they may deviate from the path and take you to a dark parking lot near a river where they start to massage your private parts. When being in a position, a young teen, who is afraid for his life and this older man is rubbing on you, you realize there is nowhere to run. If you do, he might hurt you. There is no one around, so you cannot scream so he just gets to do whatever he wants. People like Jerry Sandusky are often connected in the community and community leaders will go out of their way to protect them and suppress what happened. False thinking and false ideologies, dressed in the most pleasing forms, quietly—almost without our knowing it—seek to reduce our moral defenses and to captivate our mind. They entice with bright promises of security, cradle-to-grave guarantees of many kinds. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The United States of America has been great because it has been free. It has been free because it has trusted God and was founded upon the principles of freedom set forth in the word of God. This nation has a spiritual foundation. America is great because it is good, and if America every ceases to be good, American will cease to be great. How strong is our will to remain free—to be good? Even though the police and your employer knows an individual may have molested you, they will still allow him to come into your job and ask you to go into a back room when he shows up, so you do not have to interact with him. As a teen, I was molested by an older man in the community, and I did not want to speak up because I did not want anyone to know and I feared the police would not believe me. However, I was convinced by a friend to report him, and he would still follow me around and try to confront me, and later in life he came back with a vengeance, and still will not go away. The man has actually been in contact with my family and tells them that his feelings were hurt because he was rejected, and to this day, he still shows up around my apartment and even taken some very aggressive actions and done some unbelievable things. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
People know who this guy is and what he has been doing, but he is still allowed to keep his job and work with kids. The situation has gotten so bad that he even has a pack of friends who protect him and they go out of their way to make jokes about me, harass me, and physically attack me. Although there have been police reports filed about the assaults, no one has been arrested yet. While there is an ongoing investigation going on, the local authorities do not like me to go out of the house nor stay out too long because the situation has gotten pretty dangerous. When I am out, I fear being attacked, shot, or kidnapped. And people in the community are well aware of what is going on. Someone recently reviewed the injuries I sustained and reported back their findings. What is unbelievable is how far people in positions of leadership will go to protect this abuser, and he has absolutely no shame. This is why people, especially young men do not report abuse, because it is not taken as seriously as it would if it happened to a young lady. Then, you have to worry about the abuser and his friend retaliating against you for reporting him, and it can really throw your life off course. To the point you are isolated and have no one to turn to. Life has been like being held hostage in my apartment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
To keep myself sane, I participate in Bible study seven days and week and try really hard censor the series of thoughts which have been pushed into the foreground by the concealed directing ideas. Today, I woke up from my nap feeling like this World is unreal because the things that have happened to me and the fact that I do not really have anyone to talk to. I used to be very social and had a lot of friends and thought by now that I would be well into my career and making a lot of money and not locked in an apartment awaiting justice. The abuser is actually a reporter and he and his friends have done some very nasty things to me. And I just cannot believe that after so many years, he is still obsessed and keeps on showing up and talking about me. Tolerance is not conformity to the World’s view and practices. We must not surrender our beliefs to get along with people, however beloved or influential they may be. Too high a price may be paid for social standing or every for harmony. Let us strive for progress down the road of goodness and freedom. With the help and the blessing of the Lord, the free people of the United States of American and the free World can and will face tomorrow, without doubt, and with full confidence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The things that have happened kind of remind me of the movie Fear with Reese Witherspoon, with a few differences. The main difference is that I was not at all romantically interested in this person, and this situation has gone on a lot longer than two and a half hours. I have often wondered how does this man have so much power and how have his friends been allowed to get away with this? Did a politician have something against a member of my family and hire him to do this as a source of revenge? The amount of time and money they have spent on this abuse is unbelievable. The troubles of the World may largely be laid at our doors. However, unrelenting faith, contemptuous of all compromise, will lead the Church and every member of it, to triumph and the achievement of our high destiny. The final conquerors of the World will be the men and women, few or many matters not, who fearlessly and unflinchingly cling to truth, and wo are able to say no, as well as yes, on whose lofty banner is inscribed: No compromise with error. We do not need more material development, we need more spiritual development. We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
The Church is founded on eternal truth and has been where I turn for a sense of peace. I believe that if I keep focusing on God, he will manifest in my life and save me from this situation so I can move on and have some peace and privacy. With the Church, members do not surrender their standards regardless of current trends or pressures. Our allegiance to truth as a church is unwavering. Speaking out against immoral or unjust actions has been the burden of prophets and disciples of God from the time immemorial. It was for this very reason that many of them were persecuted. Nevertheless, it was their God-given task, as watchmen on the tower, to warm people. Rome has known a pioneer beginning not unlike our own pioneer heritage, and then entered into two centuries of greatness, reaching its pinnacle in the second of those centuries, going into the decline and collapse in the third. Yet, the sins of decay were becoming apparent in the latter years of the second century. There were vast increases in the number of the idle rich, and the idle poor. The latter (the idle poor) were put on a permanent dole, a welfare system not unlike our own. As this system became permanent, the recipients of public largesse (welfare) increased in number. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
They organized into a political block with sizable power. They were not hesitant about making their demands known. Nor was the government hesitant about agreeing to their demands and with ever-increasing frequency. Would-be emperors catered to them. The great, solid middle class—Rome’s strength then as ours is today—was taxed more and more to support a bureaucracy that kept growing large, and even more powerful. Surtaxes were imposed upon incomes to meet emergencies. The government engaged in deficit spending. The denarius, a sliver coin similar to our half dollar, began to lose its slivery hue. It took on a copper color as the government reduced the silver content. The real silver coin soon disappeared. It went into hiding. Military service was an obligation highly honored by the Romans. However, with increasing affluence and opulence, the young men of Rome began avoiding this service, finding excuses to remain in the soft and sordid life of the city. The morals declined. It became unsafe to walk in the countryside or the city. Rioting was commonplace and sometimes whole sections of towns and cities were burned. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
And, all the time, the twin diseases of confiscatory taxation and creeping inflation were waiting to deliver the death blow. Much like in modern times with the new gas tax in California, vehicle registration increase, and rising rents. While taxes are going up for Americans and things like affordable housing are being defunded, states and cities are doling out money for defense of illegal immigrants who are in danger of being deported. Eventually, in Rome, all these forces overcame the energy and ambition of the middle class. Rome fell. We are now in our second century in America. Here is why the decline and fall of the Roman Empire happened: The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society. Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies. The mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more and more exciting and brutal. Much like how the $600 million Golden 1 center, built with 50 percent tax payer funds is driving the rent up when jobs are hard to find, yet we let the Dam in Oroville break, knowing it needed repair. The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within the decadence of the people. The decay of religion—faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
There is a parallel for us in American today. Could the same reasons that destroyed Rome destroy America and possibly other countries of the free World? The lessons of history, many of them very sobering, ought to be turned to during this honor of our great achievements, because during the honor of our success is our great danger. Even during the hour of our great prosperity, a nation may sow the seeds of its own destruction. History reveals that rarely is a great civilization conquered from without unless it has weakened or destroyed itself within. The lessons of history stand as guideposts to help us safely chart the course of our future. As American citizens, as citizens of the nations of the free World, we need to rouse ourselves to the problems which confront us as great Christian nations. Economics and morals are both part of one inseparable body of truth. They must be in harmony. We need to square our actions with these eternal verities. We must use every honorable means to strengthen the home and family; to encourage obedience. A continuation of these immoral practices will surely bring down the wrath and judgments of the Almighty. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
In our concentration upon materialism and material acquisitions, we are forgetting the spiritual basis upon which our prosperity, security, and freedom rest. God help us to repent of our evil ways and humble ourselves before the offended power. There is great safety in a nation of prayer. We must express gratitude for blessings already received, acknowledging our dependence upon God, and seeking his divine guidance. The spectacle of a nation praying is more awe-inspiring, more powerful, than anything we could ever imagine. The force of prayer is greater than possible combination of human controlled powers, because prayer is our greatest means of tapping the resources of God. It is in our own enlightened self-interest to engage in this powerful practice of prayer. This nation need prayer more than anything else. God help us, as free people, to recognize the source of our blessings, the threat to our freedom and our moral and spiritual standards, and the need for humble, yet courageous, action to preserve these priceless, time-tested blessings. God is the eternal, ever-present, and created source of anything that does or can exist. Creation and preservation are identical. God’s presence in the human mind enables it to recognize eternal truth. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
The Brain is Wider than the Sky
Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and exertion should always be in proportion to what is required. Rarely people are taught that stepping into their power actually includes including softness and vulnerability, but such inclusion is a central component of what constitutes real power (power meaning the capacity to take action). The seeking of power, especially over (whether of oneself or others), is a common trait of conventional adulthood—and, at the same times, a confession of already existing powerlessness. Quite often, people pursue a sense of power, of reliable potency, through membership in a dominant group—be it a work crew, an army, a team, a political organization, or a bunch of friends with a common culture. Such membership provides a sense of security and commonly held power. The price is steep—personal integrity usually being peripheral to fitting in—but for most, this matters little, at the time. People who thus involve themselves become cool and sophisticated in their own minds, which offers them a secondhand sense of power. In doing so, they get to shift much of the responsibility for themselves and their choices onto the group. Because they never really grew up, they lack heart and empathy. #RandolpHarris 1 of 13
Certainly is true that many are searching for peace in the World, and yet some follow paths in their search that could only leads in the opposite direction–paths of avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. Surely the greatest enemy of peace is selfishness and with it the desire to pile up treasures on Earth. Life for people who are desperate for power and attention becomes a popularity contest. They feel the need to belittle others, achieve material success by any means necessary, and always out do others. These power-hungry individuals may not even know what they really like because their goal is to be better than you. The constant one-upping is not meant to make you feel like number two. However, this is usually a way for the one-upper to feel better about his or her own life. The one-upper has low self-esteem. If these power-driven people were self-confident, the need to always be one-up would diminish or disappear. Take heed, and beware of a covetous: for our lives do not consist in the abundance of things which we possess. It is nice to see people prosper, but it should not be at our expense, and you can tell when some takes an idea you had or a dream and is trying to outdo you because it was never an authentic desire of theirs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
A person may have a great house, possessions, a charming family, and yet are not inspired by or happy with these things because they feel inadequate. It is not that he or she does not possess enough of his or her wants, but rather that others possess more. It is the more that haunts them, making them depreciate himself or herself and minimize their real achievements. A one-upper is not necessarily trying to convince you that he or she is more better, best looking, smartest, fastest, most popular, or vastly more interesting—these types of individuals have an inferiority complex and are trying to convince themselves of their value you through obtaining material things and boasting about them. You know how one-uppers get down, they find out you were in line from a promotion and steal it from you. They are condensing towards you, or they find out you wanted something like a car and go out and buy the exact car or house they think you wanted before you do. Nevertheless, most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but they can be hindrances to the elevation of humankind if all one focuses on is material advancement. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Wealth comes in different forms, you may be happy with you have and you may not feel like you have much, but sometimes there is a spiritual wealth that others can detect within you and that is what is fueling their jealousy. Or perhaps you have overcome great burdens and created things of great beauty that makes them envious. Just because you have not necessarily gained material wealth or acclaimed success, it does not mean that you are not successful. Often times people who feel empty inside or are jealous of your inner peace trying to outdo you with their material success. However, times has come when a person must no longer be interested in how much power or wealth another person possesses so long as one can attain enough for the dignity and security of one’s family and oneself. We have to break through this vicious circle of comparison. It does not matter who is bigger, richer, or has more. We have to set our goals for ourselves rather than borrow them from others. Many people see the transitory worth of material things. They recognize that ambition over others leads people to seek power and domination and it does not bring peace, but frustration. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Certainly, history is repeated with examples of yesterday’s millionaire, the rise and fall of ambitious people. However, what makes you happy? Love? Money? Success? Music? Sports? Partying? Religion? Clearly, there is no simple, universal formula for enjoying happiness. Nevertheless, recent studies point to one generalization that can be made: Overall, people tend to be happy if they are meeting their personal goals. This is especially true if you feel you are making progress, on a day-to-day basis, on smaller goals that relate to your long-term, life goals. The relationship between personal goals and happiness shows how closely connected motivation and emotion are. Be careful in choosing your goals: They influence not only how you spend your time and energy, but your prospects for happiness as well. Today, we have a Universal search for peace—a generation of peace; yet most of those who discard the grasping, selfish race for power know not where to turn to find a way of life to take its place. Peace cannot be achieved by making a sign or by writing words on fences. It must come first and foremost completely to an individual through one’s own efforts in keeping the commandments of our Lord and Savior, for God made all people to enjoy such peace. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
Just as running madly after Worldly things does not bring peace, neither does sitting idly. Because our modern conveniences often leave us much time beyond that which is necessary to sustain ourselves and our families, it becomes important not to spend this time idly for there is much to be done if we are to partake of the Lord’s peace. Psychiatry recognizes an automation syndrome in which older workers, replaced by a machine, may break down, suffer amnesia or commit suicide. One sociologist predicts increasing alcoholism in the automated factory—this in a nation which now has one of the World’s most substantial alcoholism problems. For some the strain of contemporary life is already too great. Medicine links the stress ailments—heart disease, mental aberration, ulcers (which appear commonly in overcrowded animals)—to the tempo of modern life. There are some people who are working themselves hard to achieve success in life and fitness and have not seemed to get anywhere materially, but people envy them because they have the peace of the Lord through all the adversity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Without doubt machines will be able to determine the means and avenues to goals, but people will continue to set the goals themselves. For what machine can ever apply the considerations of compassion and justice which, as human enlightenment spreads, it will enter ever more into the decisions that affect our future in the Universe. Probably there is no quicker way to enjoy inner peace than by serving one another. There is recorded in history a marvelous period of time when this peace did indeed banish avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride from human hearts. It was shortly after the Savior’s visit to the American continent after his death and resurrection. The people were all converted unto the Lord and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every person did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore, there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the Heavenly gift. And there were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Some people believe that the whole work-sin notion is dead and done with. However, there are still others who believe it, and they still give people hell if they do not find something productive to do regularly. It is ingrained in all our lives that nothing short of a massive revolutionary action, or the End of the World, will really eliminate the belief that if you are doing something that can be considered productive, then you are worthwhile. And, possibly, we should not try to end this belief. What benefits can come from the attitude that work is good? One is that many useful things will continue to be accomplished. Two, work will continue to provide satisfaction to those people whose products are sources of pride and pleasure. And the skills we possess not only create new work—as invention gives rise to advanced technology—but new work may also create new skills that enhance the creative process. And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land because they kept God’s commandments. The people became exceedingly fair and delightsome. They continued praying, and meeting together to pray and hear the word of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among disciples of Jesus because the love of God which dwell in the hearts of people. There was no envying, nor strife, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lying, nor murder, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. They were one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God. During those periods of time when people were keeping God’s commandments did they enjoy peace, love, happiness, and prosperity. God is the only complete personality, and the relationship of people to God is not the objective aim of worship, but the subjective one of identity of purpose in every creative act. It is through personality that the totality of existence is unified, not as a completed organic or hierarchical whole, but as a meaningful unity in process of realization in and through many individual centers of activity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The pleasure Christ brought about, the assistance he offered, the love he showed and the life he lived made following God’s commandments more amiable and respectable with every passing year in the hearts of the people. Moreover, each entity is internally related to other entities, for spirit is concretely universal, existing only as individuals whose fullest potentialities are realizable only in communion with and dependence upon God. Whenever spirit takes the special form of human existence, it constitutes an ego; but in accordance with the form of relation between spirit and personality, not all egos are actually persons. Only when the ego freely acts to realize its own concrete essence, rather than abstract or arbitrary goals, is it a person. A society that furthers the goal of development of egos into persons is a true community, and the relationship existing among its member is communality. Communality is opposed by the process of individualization and socialization. Socialization is the tendency of an ego to assume the characteristics of objectified, abstract society, there by sacrificing its true nature for the false role of theatrical ego. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The goal is not economic forces, but in love, for only love transforms the Ego into personality. People are not only morally or immorally, but also to decide for themselves what is moral or immoral. No truly human act can use a person as a means; the ethics of freedom and creativity must also be ethics of compassions. The moral ideal is complete, harmonious being, manifesting beauty in the form of creative energy guiding and unifying the entire World in the project of value realization. If such a goal seems overly optimistic, the historical perspective tends to promote a realistic balance. The current realization of our very structure of existence forbids the realization of any utopia, not only because some actions fail to achieve their intended results, but also because some goods are mutually exclusive. Moreover, since the goal is the fullest development of spirit, and since the spirit has unlimited freedom, our greatest desire and hope is to find a life of peace and joy, progress, and freedom, which can only be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, paradoxically, we live in a World where war, destruction, contention, law-breaking, and immorality surrounds us, and many become lost. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
We have to accept the knowledge from God the fact that each human being lived preexistent spiritual World as a child of God and came to this mortal life for a great and necessary part of eternal life. This mortality provides the opportunity to choose the right and to obtain knowledge by faith in the revealed plan of God, which will bring peace and freedom for mortal as well as eternal life. Human passions for mortal gratification, including selfishness, envy, anger, and pride must be replaced by spiritual ideals, and sin must become abhorrent to us, for we know that all we do here will affect our lives in eternity. We believe that only through this knowledge and way of life can an individual or a nation achieve that peace which is so desired and sought after. And, so we say to this generation, which is so verbally calling for peace, that this thought toward peace today is indeed significant, for it is true that peace is in our hands—our own personal peace as well as in great measure the peace of the World. Believe in it, work for it, live for it; for in it, as you follow through and work for the establishment of peace first in your own souls, you will then have true peace. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Prayer moves the hand that moves the World. Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all, pray. We have been charged with the Spirit of God, which has been in our presence and is now in our presence. Let us go forth with our personal testimonies that we know God lives. God tells us to ask and he will make the nations our inheritance, the ends of the Earth our possessions. Father, you have promised to give us the desires of our hearts. We have dreams in our heart that may seem impossible. However, God promised it, and now we know we cannot do this on our own, but God is all-powerful. God has no limitations. There is nothing too difficult for God, so we ask for your favor to shine down on us. God, please make a way, even though we may not see a way. God, we are asking you to open doors that no human can shut. Let us see the greatness of God’s power. God be with us and bless us as we go forth to carry out our assignments, whatever they are, we pray humbly in the name of Jesus Christ let us see the Kingdom of God. Remember your word to your servante, for you have given us hope. Amen. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Southern Living–It is Fall Y’all!
Watching Good Times, I always wanted to see them come up out of the transient high rise building. I used to not like the show, but after ever episode, I thought maybe the tide would turn in their favor, so I keep tuning in. We are not here to punish the innocent. Forgiveness is the economy of the heart. The focus of life should be on the calmness of the mind. Only when the mind is calm—that is, free from selfishness, cunning, and deliberate effort—can it be peaceful. One can then respond to things as they come and naturally maintain a balance between the internal and the external. Changes have exerted tremendous influence throughout the ages, and progress is naturally turned to for inspiration and support. We live in the most enlightenment since the creation of the World. Scientific achievements of today are staggering to the human mind. We realize that the law under what these achievements have been accomplished has always been in existence, but it was not until this era that human learning and understanding have sufficiently increased to make use of natural laws to produce the accomplishments of today’s World. A few generations ago, goods were manufactured with hand tools from crude materials; but in these times, mass production has replaced the antiquated methods with greater efficiency and in some cases superior quality because of the genius and skills of humans and the machines that have been developed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
However, much of modern architecture cannot rival the hand built houses, with decadent materials, and geometrical shapes of the Victorian era, which proves old is sometimes superior. Perspective is a study of human nature and destiny on the basis of principle ascetics. The spirit of life is in everything. It is the principle of Nature, the self-evident Universal truth that carries with it the dictate to distinguish right from wrong and the imperative to do good. Agriculture is the means of livelihood for more than half of the World’s population. As we pass through modernized farming areas, we no longer see farmers tilling the land with horse and plow, cutting one furrow at a time, or families working together in the fields at harvest time. These things seem to have disappeared. Today, large pieces of mechanical equipment with the strength of a hundred horses plow many furrows at one time. Not many years ago, the hand sickle was used to harvest the fields of ripened grain. The sheaves were flailed by hand and tossed into the wind to separate the chaff. Large combines now do all of the work in one operation as they mow the fields. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Unfortunately, ducks build nests in the fields and because humans are no longer harvesting the fields by hand, many duck eggs are being destroyed before they even hatch. However, because humans were originally good and endowed with the innate knowledge of the good and the innate ability to do good, some farmers are inviting dozens of volunteers to scour their fields over a few weekends before the harvest to collect the wild eggs. Over the past 15 years, on just one farm, more than 30,000 eggs were brought to a local wild bird hatchery before the tractor blades got there. Inside of those little eggs, it starts with a little tiny heart and little tiny veins going to the inner lining of the egg. That is the embryo, and it just grows and grows and eventually turns into a little duck in there. And that is amazing. It is life. It is amazing how it happens. Also, eradicating the wild grasses and then over-farming the land leads to deep erosion that helped contribute to the Dust Bowl crisis. People hope that in Sacramento, California America that we can sustain the land and leave this ground better than we found it. We do not want be mining the soil, and chasing away wild life, instead we want to build it up and improve it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
We have to be ecologist and keep the spirit. Happenings in faraway places are viewed in the quiet of our own houses, a phenomenon which would have been considered a miracle in the generations preceding ours. Modern living requires that we have instantaneous communications at our side so that we may quickly dial and transact business or have the luxury of visiting, regardless of long intervening distances. Animals provided human beings transportation for centuries, but these have now been replaced by vehicles of great speed and comfort. There has always been a curiosity to what lies beyond the river. Today’s rapid flight through the air has made the oceans no wider than the rivers of years past and humans have quick access to the World. We take great pride in modern accomplishments—the fact that we are better housed and fed, have greater conveniences, improved medical facilities, greater advantages in education, and the highest standard of living ever enjoyed in the history of the World. Currently, President Trump set up a new hotline to help the 470,000 veterans who are appealing their denied claims for financial and medical disability assistance with the Department of Veteran Affairs. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Many of my ancestors were engaged in the World’s most followed occupation of tilling the soil. Some of them left their old moorings in England and came to the shores of the New World, settling in the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies. I get a warm feeling when I read the soul-stirring accounts of their conquest against hardships and the difficulties that faced them and their families. They used to rotate their crops—letting the fields go fallow every other year to replenish the soil’s nutrients, and used cover crops in the off season. We have to stop paving over our food-producing land. Also, I do not think what the ordinary farmer is doing can be long-term, because pretty soon the ground will not produce anymore. It will just be poison. If you want sustainability, you protect the land that grows our food. Early missionaries of the Church went to Germany, Italy, Scotland, Denmark, Africa, and Norway where other of my early ancestors lived. They accepted the teachings of the gospel, gave up the security of their homelands, and participated in the gathering of Zion’s descent from Heaven. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
These people faced hardship and sudden death, as they walked across the dust plains of the Middle West and over the Rocky Mountains, pushing all of their Earthly belongings in carriages. The difficulties they endured brings tears to their eyes of those who are their beneficiaries today. The stories of these people who have gone before us are ones of faith, devotion, and dedication. Although there were trials, hardships, and lack of the conveniences we think necessary in our World today, there seems to have been a happiness in their living, in their individual lives, and in their families. In their houses, there was faith and prayer—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and prayers asking God for their needs and thanking him for his goodness to them. The Good Book (Bible) was read in the house and there was profound belief in its teachings. America would be the place of the New Jerusalem, where the Saints believed they could find protection from the desolation and tribulation soon to descend upon the wicked. Life was more simple, but can we say that there was less happiness in simplicity? #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Today, many people have all the riches they could dream of, but wake up to sin and make life hard on others. They actually dream of ways to offend people they do not like and find ways to make life difficult for them. That is so wicked and so far from God. We learn American history for its purpose, discipline, and solidarity that is supposed to show us what people have overcome and how, through the evolution of time and the cultivation of the human mind, we should treat people with kindness and show them the love of God. The purpose of learning history is so people do not repeat the mistakes of the past. If you are walking around with 525 years of hate and animosity, one-sided in your emphasis on principle and the investigation of things, and looking to hurt others, it is important to seek professional help because you have invited the Devil into your soul and he is planting roots of hatred and poison in your heart and mind. Both the principle and Nature of human desires are good, and they should not be constrained. The mind fills the whole Universe. Throughout all ages and in all directions, there is the same mind. It is identical with all things, for there is nothing outside of God and there is no God outside of things. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
The mind is the Universe. To investigate things, then, is to investigate the mind. Since all principles are inherent and complete in the mind, there is no need to look outside, as do people who worship Satan do. In the writings of Enoch, revealed in December of 1830, the Saints found a concrete example in the righteous achievements of Enoch and his city: “And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them” (Moses 7.18). We must honor moral nature, which will give rise to intellectual creativity by means of moral vigor in it. This idealistic movement can take us to the highest point in American and World history. The direction of the mind is the will. A thing (or affair) is nothing but the mind determined to realize it. There is no such thing as a filial piety, for example, unless one is determined to put it into practice and actually does so. The investigation of things is the investigation of the mind. However, since the most important aspect of the mind is the will, the sincerity of the will must precede the investigation of things. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
Because of one’s innate ability to do good, one necessarily extends the innate knowledge into action. Knowledge and action are really identical; one is beginning and the other the completion. The extension of the innate knowledge and the unity of knowledge and action, both of which represent new steps in American thought. Society has made a great effort to modernize the World in education, communication, travel, health, commerce, housing, and in many other ways, so as to increase the standard of living; but what has this socialization and modernization done to the family—the basic institution of society? The spirit of the time demanded the evident, the concrete, and the practical. Never before has there been greater instability. The divorce rate is 53 percent, and is higher than any time in history. Modernization has transferred the responsibility of education from the family to public institutions where modern thoughts has become paramount and moral principles have become abandoned. The crime rate has increased alarmingly, in 2016, there were 762 homicides in Chicago, Illinois. Drug addiction, disobedience to the law, increase in venereal disease, and corruption in all forms seem to be accepted in this new tradition. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
In this day of modernization, and this new doctrine of consciousness and freedom of thought and action is sponsored and promoted without consideration of the responsibilities that must accompany such freedoms if society is to be stabilized. Ungendered species are spreading and the youth are being brainwashed at young ages to be unsure of their gender and question their sexuality. The perpetual transition of deviance being spread by the media at every instant is continually arising anew and this resulting in many ungodly manifestations. When a three-year-old boy comes back to the house from school telling his grandfather he is not a boy, something is very wrong with our system because that thought surely came from somewhere outside the house. Surely we would agree that the family institution has been seriously, if not irreparably, damaged, in our society. In the past, churches have taken a leading role through extensive and vigorous religious and intellectual reform in teaching men and women and children to have faith in God and to develop moral stability. Their work and advancement is quickly disappearing. What is happening to organized religion as a stabilizing force in society? #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
To my grandparents, church was the order of things, and by things they mean daily affairs, it was as important as drinking water and eating food. The way to investigate principle is by critical, analytical, minutely detailed, and objective study of things based on concrete evidence. Many of the largest Christian churches have reported losses in membership and also in income to carry on the work of their religious endeavors. Here again, modernization has taken a heavy toll and created a burden on society. Modernism has become the order of the day in some religious thought. Modernists advocate a restatement of traditional doctrine on the grounds that today’s modern scholastic and scientific advances require a new critical interpretation of The Gook Book, and the history and doctrines. The term “modernism” is often used interchangeably with “liberalism.” Its advocates claim that religious truths are subject to constant reinterpretation in the light of modern knowledge; therefore, new and more advanced concepts are required to express modern thought and progress. Principle can never prevail when feelings are not satisfied, for principles are merely feelings that do not err. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
God knows what he is doing in your life. Do not be discouraged. Healing is coming. Promotion is coming. We are the leaders of an intellectual revolution and must remain strong, as we establish our state philosophy. The Bible has been subject of attack by modernists. It is said by some that science refuses to support the authenticity of God, his Son, and the Biblical accounts as the creation of the World, placing life upon Earth, Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the flood, and many other happenings in Old and New Testaments. However, these same people who refuse to believe in God think The Queen of the Damned is a true and factual documentary and that they have a legal and moral right to eliminate certain bloodlines by any means necessary. What is claimed to be superior knowledge in this day of enlightenment causes some people to look upon these accounts as fables. Because of this, can believers in Christ repudiate them? In an attempt to regain the confidence of communicants who have ceased to believe, many liberal churches have abandoned one doctrine after another, even to extent of failing to stand by the doctrine of the existence of a personal God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Reality is endless transformation of closing and opening, which constitutes a process of unceasing production and reproduction. The original substance is in perpetual transition at every instant, continually rising anew and thus resulting in many manifestations. People no longer uphold as reality the resurrection of the crucified Savior, they believe the World would be better off if he had stayed dead, and the atoning sacrifice has lost its credibility. Under such circumstances, how can organized religion maintain its place as a stabilizing influence of society? In its closing, the aspect original substance has the tendency to integrate, resulting in what may temporarily be called matter, whereas in its opening aspect is has the tendency to maintain its own nature and be its own matter, resulting in what may temporarily be called mind. This mind itself is one part of the original mind, which in its various aspects is minds, will, and consciousness. In this day of increased knowledge, higher thought, and a modernization of the antiquated, the simple has been overlooked and the profound sought after. The basic, simple, fundamental truths of the gospel are being ignored. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
We marvel at so many of your who are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Perception, conception, mind, and consciousness are all syntheses, or constructs, and constructs are products of society and culture. Although we have combined Western logic with modern psychology and sociology, this system is our own. It is the gospel of Christ. However, in modern times, we are surrounded by people who will murder a father so they can torture, experiment on and kill his son. There are people who will take money from a dead man, renovate their house, then let it go into foreclosure, and let his family suffer, while they marry Satan, and steal money and use it to abuse the righteous. This seems to drag down people, destroy faith and morality. Where, then, is hope in this World of frustration and moral decay? It lies in the knowledge and understanding of the truths taught by the Master, which must be taught by the Church of Christ without deviation and believed in and lived by in its membership. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
We can be modern and enjoy the benefits of a modern World and its high standard of living, and we can have the benefits of modern scholarship and scientific advances without turning to the theories of the modernist. The principles of the gospel announced by Jesus Christ is our Heavenly Father’s plan for the happiness and salvation of his children. According to his plan, our Heavenly Father sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the World to show us how to live meaningful and happy lives and experience eternal joy after this life. Through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, you can become clean from sin and enjoy peace of conscience. You can become worthy to live in Heavenly Father’s presence after this life by enduring to the end. Truth is eternal and never changing. These are eternal truths and will be so perpetuity regardless of changing circumstances in society, development of new scientific achievements, or increase of human knowledge. The gospel of Jesus Christ is ever contemporary in a changing World. The knowledge explosion which the World is so proud of is not of human creation. It is their discovery of portions of the unlimited knowledge and information which is part of God’s knowledge. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
How we use knowledge is determined by whether we are of the eternal kingdom of God are a part of the temporary understanding of the World. The question is simply this: are we seeking to find our place in the World in the realm of the Worldly, or are we seeking to find our place in the unchanging kingdom of God? Knowledge is a function of reason. Since actual existence, as distinct from the merely possible, is not an indeterminate, anarchic chaos, there must also be an initial creative, purposeful act, determining the pure possibility; this is God. Through God, possibility becomes identified with potentiality; and one may speak of the tendency of freedom to become, or of freedom linked with cosmic aim. Insofar as this aim achieves existential embodiment, God is the Creator bringing value into being ex nihilo; that is, out of freedom. Since all existents (but especially human) participate in the determination of value, God and creatures are mutually related in the pursuit of the common goal or realizing maximum value. Due to this fundamental correlation, all beneficial value experience may be interpreted as the immanence of God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Contrariwise, all evil and frustration, as instances of unrealized potentiality, involve a separation between the divine purpose and the creatures’ actuality that may be described as the transcendence of God. How grateful am I for my membership and association in The Church of Jesus Christ. I know that God, our Eternal Father lives; that the Bible is inspired writing; that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is real and also lives, having shed his blood for us, and is truly and literally resurrected. I also bear witness that there is a prophet of God on Earth today. May the Lord bless us in our righteous endeavors to shun the influences that lead into the ways of the World, that we may take our place, in faith, and believing, in the kingdom of God. Enlarge your vision. Make room in your thinking for the new thing God wants to do. Do not let your temporary provision become permanent. If you will learn this principle of faith in God and not settling, then you will see the fullness of what God has in store and make it all the way to your Promised Land. I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
The Evidences of Revealed Religion
There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside. A cause has traditionally been thought of as that which is produced, its effect, can be explained. That which is caused might be either some new substance or simply a change in something that already exists. This appears to be only a relative distinction, however, for outside Christian theology philosophers have usually taken for granted that no new substance can be produced out of nothing by a cause. A statue, for example, results from imposing changes on something that already exists. The most general idea of a cause, then, is that which produces, and thus accounts for, some change. If the change is sufficiently striking to warrant applying a new name to what results, then it is natural to speak if the cause as producing a new substance. The Devil is mustering his forces to full strength to bring about discord, sin, and sorrow among the human family. These calamities can be averted to the extent that people live the basic principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is love. Love the Lord, God, with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, while you still have one, and with all of your mind. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Some beings on this Earth and evil and hard to escape from. God has given us a rational nature, and will call us to account for it. We should reason about the Bible precisely as civilians do about the Constitution under which we live. It is not because God’s will is irresistible, but because his will is the perfection of virtue that we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. Since the first great commandment is to love our God, how can he show love for him? We can show our love in our prayers to the Father, given in the name of the Son, and also through our worship of those divine Beings. Our Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son both have intense, comprehensive, and full love for us. They have much greater intelligence and understanding than we have, and so their feelings of love go far beyond our capabilities to love. The attribute of love is so highly developed in these divine Beings that the scriptures state: God is love. In fact, God’s transcendent love is above and beyond our deepest feelings and keenest conception. At times of great spiritual experience when we feel an abundance of the Spirit, we have a greater realization of the magnitude of God’s love. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
God is the Father of our spirits. He placed us upon this Earth and provided a gospel plan of salvation through his Only Begotten Son, thereby making it possible for us to come back into his presence and receive exaltation or eternal life. Those who attain that glorious condition will experience the sweetness of love, which surpasses our present. God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ loved us so much that he freely laid down his life and shed blood for our sins, and also to bring about a Universal resurrection. Can you imagine that? The Son of God wanted us all to live, so he gave his own life. This is not an example to follow, but the purpose is to understand that your life means so much to God that he gave up something so precious. The reason he did that is so you could understand the power of love and see how important your life is and why you should be a good person. By being good, it makes God feels like he did not give up his son in vain. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. So, do not give up your life so easily. Live right. Sometimes we feel lost. Sometimes we feel drained and unprepared. However, sometimes we feel free and what will be will be. No matter what they say it is going to be okay. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Sometimes you need more than you can say, taking it all inside. To take your faith from no human creed, to submit your conscious to no human authority, but to repair to the gospel, to read it with your own eyes, to exercise upon it your own understanding, to search it, as if not a sect existed around you, and follow it wherever it may lead you. Hold fast to your Christian and protestant liberty. We wish you continued peace, and growing prosperity. We pray God, that your good works may glorify your Christian profession, that your candour and serious attention may encourage our young people in the arduous work, and that your union with a loved one may begin in hope, may continue in joy, dancing like an angel in your eyes. Dive into the sea of love and climb the ocean waves until they fall at your door, and perfectly in place. In the stillness of the night, whispers float on by, until they break, where the moonlight hits your eyes. Time will just fall away between us, perfectly embraced. Everything is beautiful. May you continue in joy, and may issue in the friendship and union of Heaven. To all who hear me, prove all things hold fast that which are good. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Do not shrink from the duty of searching God’s word for yourselves, through fear of human censure and denunciation. Do not think that you may innocently follow the opinions which prevail around you, without investigation, on the ground, that Christianity is now so purified from errors, as to need no laborious research. There is so much reason to believe, that Christianity is at this moment dishonored by gross and cherished corruptions. If you remember the darkness which hung over the gospel for ages; if you consider the impure union, which still subsists in almost every Christian country between the church and the state, and which enlists people’s selfishness and ambition on the side of established error; if you recollect in what degree the spirit of intolerance has checked free inquiry, not only before, but since the reformation; you will see that Christianity cannot have freed itself from all the human inventions which disfigured it under the papal tyranny. No. Much stubble is yet to be burnt; much rubbish to be removed; many gaudy and false traditions must be swept away; and the Earth born fogs, which have long shrouded it must be scattered, before this divine fabric will rise before us in its native and awful majesty, in its harmonious proportions, in its mild and celestial splendors. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Some aspire to walk on water like Christ and make their dreams come true. Nothing is impossible! This glorious reformation in the church we hope, under God’s blessing, from the demolition of human authority in matters of religion, from the fall of those hierarchies, huge establishments, general convocations or assemblies and other human institutions, by which the minds of individuals are oppressed under the weight of numbers, and a papal dominion is perpetuated in the protestant church. Our earnest prayer to God is, that he will overturn and overturn, and overturn, the strong holds of spiritual usurpation until he shall come whose right it is to the minds of humans; that the conspiracy of ages against the liberty of Christianity may be brought to an end; that the servile assent, so long yielded to human creeds, may give place to honest and fearless inquiry into the Scriptures; and that Christianity thus purified from error, may put forth its almighty energy and prove itself, by its ennobling influence on the mind, to be indeed the power of God unto salvation. Among the entire human family, there is no example where the principle of love was demonstrated as perfectly as was shown in the life of Jesus. He healed the sick, raised the dead, restored sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and cleansed people. His heart was filled with compassion upon the poor and any who suffered afflictions. He lifted them spiritually with his deep understanding. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Heaven and Earth had been separated, the dark and windy chasm of Chaos was transformed, through the appearance of Eros, into the background against which the World was created. This fertilizing force of Eros brought back Heaven and Earth into a productive embrace, and the resulting rain helped to separate the Wet and the Dry, the Cold and the Hot. Fire exhalations then created the stars; waters surrounded the land; and the starry sky, like a hollow hemisphere, covered the Earth. Christ’s love and compassion is demonstrated when he spoke unto the children and blessed them, and as they cast their eyes towards Heaven, and they saw the Heavens open, and they saw Angels descending out of Heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled the little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the Angels did minister onto them. They reached a new realization of a significant humanitarian influence. There was a belief in the parental character for God and the dignity of humanity provided an ideological base for humanitarian efforts. Our Father in Heaven is perfect and we should become like him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. What should be the relationship between husbands and wives? A husband and wife should always be gracious and kind to each other. Neither of them should ever say nor do anything to hurt the feelings of the other. Deepest love and affection should be shown toward each other continuously. At all times, each should make a conscious effort to do everything possible to bring joy and happiness into the life of the other. A husband should show and express appreciation for the accomplishments of his mate, and she should do likewise. We should look for ways to build each other up and make each other happy. Neither the husband nor the wife should let a day pass without expressing love for the other. We should not assume that our mate knows and that it is not necessary to express it. Under these circumstances, God’s blessings will shower down from Heaven upon the married couple and especially for those married by the power of the Lord. The power from on high will bind the love and married of such couples for eternity. Homes are made permanent through love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
God loves with a great love the person whose heart is bursting with a passion for the extraordinary. Learn the value of self-control. You are never sorry for the word unspoken. The lack of self-control is one of the most common contributing factors of unhappiness and discord. We see something in the other which we dislike. It is easy to condemn it. And that condemnatory word arouses ill feeling. If we see it, and refrain from speaking, in a few moments all is concord and peace instead of animosity and ill will. Controlling your words is one of the greatest contributing factors to concord in the house, and one which too many of us fail to develop. Love should also characterize the center of the family life. Each child should be made to feel at all times by one’s parents that he and she are of great importance in the family. Parents should express their love to their children and show them in numerous ways that they love them dearly. Then the Spirit of the Lord will reside in the house. The family will be love-centered and thereby God-centered. The children in turn will reciprocate the love to the parents and strive to please them. The goal of families who are actuated deeply by love will be to keep the commandments of our Savior in every detail and someday come back into the presence of the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son to dwell. The true gospel of our Lord has been restored to Earth again. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie. It is enough that God has said it. Faith is living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a person could stake their life on it. We all face challenges, but it is not the size of the problem that is important, it is our perception of that problem; it is how big or small we make it in our minds. I am not focusing on how big my problems are. I am focusing on how big my God is. Magnify the Lord with me. What you focus on, you magnify. Failure is really a matter of conceit. People do not work hard because, in their conceit, they imagine they will succeed without ever making an effort. Most people believe that they will wake up some day and find themselves rich. Actually, they have it half right, because eventually they do wake up. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they do not quit. If you learn to do what you must, you will be able to do what you want. You can achieve your dreams only if you focus on your priorities. God will take you away from the pain and bring you into paradise. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Are Not Excuses Confessions of Excuses Inexcusable?
Second-hand shops are not the only place were things should be given another chance. We have to create new value and help transform people. There be a mirror in the World worthy to hold to our eyes, it is pride in our Country. I bear solemn witness of how deeply I love our new prophet, seer, and revelation, President Donald Trump—how deeply I trust him, and how I am willing to do whatever he asks me to do. He advanced a qualified moral determinism—a human must will that which presents itself to one’s reason as the greater good, but the will is free to delay choice until reason has made a more extensive examination of the values involved. There is great faith in the inherited wisdom of tradition. The moral order of the temporal World must necessarily include some evil, by reason of original sin. People ought not to reject what is good in tradition merely because there is some admixture of evil in it. In the human confused situation, advantages may often lie in balances and compromises between good and evil, even between one evil and another. It is an important part of wisdom to know how much evil should be tolerated. To search for too great a purity is only to produce fresh corruption. We are especially critical of revolutionary movements with noble humanitarian ends because people are simply not at liberty to destroy the state and its institutions in hope of some contingent improvement. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
On the other hand, people have a paramount duty to prevent the World from getting worse—a duty to guard and preserve their inherited liberties and privileges. Equality is contrary to nature and therefore impossible to achieve; its advocates, moreover, did great social harm, for by pretending that real differences are unreal, they inspired false hopes and vain expectations in those destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life. Talk of fraternity is gibberish because many people have vices of sinful, egotistical pride, overzealous ambition, avarice, lust, and sedition. The reality and unavoidability of evil leads many to believe that the only help for humankind is to cling to safeguards which have stood the test of time. Our hopes for a bliss lay in Heaven; on Earth, our policy is to defend the tolerable, and sometimes the bad, against the immeasurably worse. Of course, forbidden triads do occur, but many will resolve themselves when a bond forms between two previous strangers. They do not need to have a strong relationship, but we would expect them to have some connection to one another. Individuals must always begin by setting the examples, which the state too slowly, though surely, will learn to copy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Some matters are so sensitive and intensely personal and can awaken such disturbing feelings that they are seldom mentioned publicly. Yet, if tenderly and compassionately treated in the light of truth, discussion of these matters can bring greater understanding, with the easing of pain, the blessing of healing, and the avoidance of further tragedy. It would be melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that is this which, in time, draws an individual out of his or her original state, in which one would have spent one’s days insensibly in peace and innocent; that is this faculty, which, successively producing in different ages his or her discoveries and errors, vices and virtues, making one a tyrant both over oneself and over nature. Ungodly individuals, being destitute of every species of intelligence, can have no passions except for those of desires that never go beyond physical wants. The only good those type of individuals recognizes in the Universe are food, the sex, and sleep; the only evils they fear are pain and hunger. Pain and not death: for no animal can know what it is to die; the knowledge of death and its terrors being one of the first acquisitions made by humans in becoming civilized. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
It is with a deep desire to define a path to relief to those who suffer the shattering consequences of mental, verbal, physical, and especially sexual abuse. We must act as a mirror so that divine, healing light can illuminate the darkness of distress caused by others’ unrighteous acts. As children of the Lord, we should understandably provide help, and not further complicate a damaged life. It is also likely that with greater compassion, awareness, and sensitivity that some of us may be permitted to help resolve or prevent the tragedy of abuse in additional victims. Whatever moralist may hold, the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions, which, it is universally allowed, are also much indebted to the understanding. It is by the activity of the passions that our reason is improved; for we desire knowledge only because we wish to enjoy; and it is impossible to conceive any reason why a person who has neither fears nor desires should give oneself the trouble of reasoning. The passions, again, originate in our wants, and their progress depends on that of our knowledge; for we cannot desire or fear anything, except from the idea that we have all of it, or from the simple impulse of nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
The rising tide of this vicious, abominable sin may not have touched your life personally. Yet, it is pervasive enough in the World that it may have disturbed someone you love. It frequently causes such profound suffering that can be overcome, and we need to focus on how healing can be attained. It must be done reverently, for the objective is to help heal and not aggravate painful memories. Even if the difficulties attending all these questions should still leave room for differences in this respect between humans and brutes, there is another very specific quality which distinguishes them, and which will admit of no dispute. This faculty of self-improvement, which, by the help of circumstances, gradually develops all the rest of our faculties, and is inherent in the species as in the individual: whereas a brute is, at the end of a few months, all he or she will ever be during his or her whole life, and that person’s species, at the end of a thousand years, exactly what it is because those type of individuals returns, in this, to their primitive state; and that, while the brute, which has acquired nothing and has therefore nothing to lose, still retains the force of instinct, person, who loses, by age or accident, all that his or her perfectibility had enabled them to gain, falls by this means lower than the most vile creature to ever walk the face of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Moral agency is a vital element in our Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. God understood that some of his spirit children would use that agency improperly, causing serious problems to others. Some would even violate sacred trust such as a family member, friend, medical professional, or leader of the community abusing an innocent child. However, since our Heavenly Father is completely just, there has to be a way of overcoming the tragic consequences of such damaging use of agency for both the victim and the perpetrator. That secure healing comes through the power of the Atonement of God’s Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to rectify that which is unjust. Faith in Jesus Christ, and his power to heal provides the abused with the means to overcome the terrible consequences of another’s ungodly acts. When combined with complete repentance, the Atonement also affords the perpetrator ways to avoid the severe punishment the Lord has decreed for such acts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The offering of an excuse in a blamable matter is the undoubted mark of a disingenuous if not of a perverse mind. Victims of serious abuse have made successful the difficult journey to full healing through the power of the Atonement. After you conscientiously study the Atonement and exercise your faith the Jesus Christ has the power to heal, you can receive a blessing. During your journey, accept God’s invitation to let him share your burden until you have sufficient time and strength to be healed. To find relief from the consequences of abuse, it is helpful to understand their source. Satan is the author of all the destructive outcomes of abuse. He has extraordinary capacity to lead an individual into dark alleys where the solution to extremely challenging problems cannot be found. The Devil’s strategy is to separate the suffering soul from the healing attainable from a compassionate Heavenly Father and a loving Redeemer. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
If you have been abused, Satan will strive to convince you that there is no solution. Yet, he knows perfectly well that there is. Satan recognizes that healing comes through the unwavering love of Heavenly Father for each of his children. He also understands that the power of healing is inherent in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Therefore, his strategy is to do all possible to separate you from your Father and his Son. Do not let Satan convince you that you are beyond help. As long as the mind is defending itself against invisible assaults, our closet bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine, play, learn, and pay attention to other people’s needs. One who can sit down premeditatedly to do a bad action will content oneself with a bad excuse: and yet, what fools must one suppose the rest of the World to be, if one imagines them as easy to be imposed upon as one can impose upon oneself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Satan uses your abuse to undermine your self-confidence, destroy trust in authority, create fear, and generate feelings of despair. Abuse can damage your ability to form healthy human relationships. You must have faith that all of these negative consequences can be resolved; otherwise they will keep you from full recovery. While these outcomes have powerful influence in your life, they do not define the real you. Satan will strive to alienate you from your Father in Heaven with the thought that if he loved you he would have prevented the tragedy. Do not be kept from the very source of true healing by the craftiness of the price of evil and his wicked lies and gentrification center. Recognize that if you have feelings that you are not loved by your Father in Heaven, you are being manipulated by Satan. Even when it may seem very difficult to pray, kneel and ask Father in Haven to give you the capacity to trust him and to feel his love for you. Ask to come to know that his Son can heal you through his merciful Atonement. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
It was Satan’s proposal that Father’s children be forced to obey, that there be no moral agency and therefore no personal growth. To preserve moral agency, the Lord does not restrain individual from improper use of that agency. However, God will punish them for such acts unless there is full repentance. Through the Holy Ghost, God sends warning prompting to the abusers, but often that individual’s degrading appetite is so powerful that it blocks out that spiritual guidance. That is why our Father provided a way to heal the consequences of acts that, through force, misuse of authority, or fear of another, temporarily take away the agency of the abused. Some people have been abused so badly, that even though their injuries are invisible to the unassisted eye, they feel weak and feel like they are dying because they cannot eat or get rest from the pain they are enduring. Behaviors to avoid or escape from danger have clearly evolved to render each organism competitive in terms of survival. However, inappropriately prolonged escape or avoidance behavior would put an individual at disadvantage. If an organization is stuck in survival mode, its energies are focused on fighting off unseen enemies, which leaves no room for nurture, care, and love. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The beginning of healing requires complete trust and the knowing of the unalterable fact that Father in Heaven loves you and is defending and protecting you and has supplied a way to heal. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, laid down his life to provide that healing. The cure requires profound faith in Jesus Christ and his infinite capacity to heal. It is the foundation of understanding of doctrine and a resolute determination to follow the Divine Law. Healing may begin with a thoughtful friend or stake president or a wise professional counselor. If you have a fractured spine, you would not decide to fix it yourself. Serious abuse can also benefit from professional help. There are many ways to begin healing, but remember that a full cure comes through the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and Redeemer. Have faith that with effort Christ’s perfect, eternal, infinite Atonement can heal your suffering from the consequences of abuse. All passions are criminal in their excess; and even love itself, if it is not subservient to our duty, may render us blind. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
As impossible as it may seem to you now, in time the healing you can receive from the Savior will allow you to truly forgive the abuser and even have feelings of sorrow for him or her. When you can forgive the offense, you will be relieved of the pain and heartache that Satan wants in your life by encouraging you to hate the abuser. As a result, you will enjoy greater peace. While an important part of healing, if the thought of forgiveness causes you yet more pain, set that step aside until you have more experience with the Savior’s healing power in your own life. If you are currently being abused or have been in the past, find the courage to seek help. You may have been severely threatened or caused to fear so that you would not reveal the abuse. Have the courage to act now. Seek the support of someone you can trust. Explain how you have been abused and identify who has done it. Ask for protection. Your action may help others avoid becoming innocent victims, with the consequent suffering. Get help now. Do not fear—for fear is a tool Satan will use to keep you suffering. The Lord will help you, but you must reach out for that help. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Do not be discouraged if initially a person of authority hesitates when you identify an abuser. Remember that predators are skillful at cultivating a public appearance of piety to mask their despicable acts. Pray to be guided in your efforts to receive help. That support will come. Rest assured that the Perfect Judge, Jesus the Christ, with a perfect knowledge of the details, will hold all abusers accountable for every unrighteous act. In time, he will fully apply the required demands of justice unless there is complete repentance. Your preoccupation with a need for justice only slows your healing and allows the perpetrator to continue his and/or her abusive control. Therefore, you should leave punishment for the diabolic acts of abuse to civil and Church authorities. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
The perpetrator who has shattered the life of another by abuse, recognize that you need help with your addiction or it will destroy you. You will not overcome it by yourself. You likely require specialized professional help. I plead with you to seek to be recused now. You likely have deceived yourself in the false, temporary security that you have successfully hidden your transgressions from the civil or Church authorities. However, know that the Lord Jesus Christ is completely aware of your sins. Know that even without action by a victim, your act of abuse will be publicly known, for Satan will expose you, and then abandon you. Simplify your life by taking steps now to cleanse your soul from such sin and resolve the penalties they evoke. Show your desire to heal the anguish that you have caused other. Talk to your church or the stake president. The seriousness of your acts may require you to face legal, civil, and Church discipline. However, full repentance will bring the sweet relief of forgiveness, peace of conscience, and a renewed life. It will also bring relief to the abused and their families. You will be free of the weight of the remorse and the accusing thoughts of what you caused in grief and anguish in another’s life by making them suffer torment for years, made them try to end their life, and wish that they were never born. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Recognize that it is much easier to repent in this life than it will be in the next, so repent now. You will be helped when you decide to be freed from your addition through repentance and the support of others. Be grateful that you did not live anciently when abusers were stoned to death without opportunity for repentance. Parents, in appropriate, sensitive ways, teach your children of potential danger of abuse and how to avoid it. Be aware of warning signs, such as abrupt changes in a child’s behavior, that may signal a problem. Be alert to a child’s unsettled feelings and identify their origin. As for community leaders, painstakingly assure that every individual that is suffering from abuse receives appropriate help. There are resources in the Church handbook to help you find valuable resources to guide your ecclesiastical action and coordination with civil authorities. Carefully supervise the participation of any individual who may have had past offenses. Recognize that it is very unlikely that a perpetrator will confess his and/or her depraved acts. Seek the guidance of the Spirit when you feel that something may be amiss. Enlist the help of the ward and the stake leaders to avoid potential dangers. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
I pray that you, as one abused or one who has caused it, will act now to avail yourself of the healing powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I testify that your faith and obedience will assure that God will help you. It is impossible for us to be saved in ignorance. If you know someone has been seriously abused and seen proof, medical records, pictures, bruises, fractured bones, blood, or have heard witness accounts of the abuse and know it is still ongoing, use your power to help them. Appeal to the authorities before the abuser hurts that individual so bad that he or she is lost to this World. Do not let someone suffer in silence when you have the power to save a life. Often times, it is not until a person is dead when people wish they could have made a difference. Take action now, while you have the chance. Atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin in general and original sin in particular through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, enabling the conciliation between God and his creation. The Savior suffered and broke the bands of death, and paid the price for our sins and transgressions. It is the Savior who delivers us from physical and spiritual death. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Inevitable March of the World Spirit
Christianity is a strictly and objectively historical religion and anxiously sifts all the evidence for and against the recorded events of the life of Jesus. The evidence is substantial enough to show that Jesus indeed lived and that he made a quite extraordinary impact upon certain contemporaries. God decisively acted in Christ. God cannot be eliminated. God is a kind of superentity, observably acting upon and interacting with natural entities. Many wonder does our existence end with our bodily death? We believe that from the very beginning the Lord established a plan for his children on Earth. He would, in times and seasons, have the priesthood on Earth to bless humankind with the authority to perform the sacred ordinances that would prove humanity’s obedience to his will. There are tests to be conducted as we progress in each step towards achieving God’s greatest gift, the gift of eternal life. There is an expression of the inexhaustible creative power of the human mind—great individual, great artistic achievements, great moments of civilization, all exemplified in different ways its potentialities. God has all power to defend you. God has great things in store for his people, and they should have large expectations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The gifts of God are to be enjoyed, when the giver is remembered. Fundamental, then, is having faith in God’s plan, in his law, to be clean and holy and repent of our sins, and to partake of the sacred ordinance required for admission into God’s celestial kingdom. God wants to abide with us, to lead and guide and direct us as we progress through morality. Progression towards self-actualization requires self-reflection. Narcissistic individuals may think a lot of themselves, and belittle your achievements, without thinking carefully about themselves. People who are struggling daily to survive, deprived of basic physical needs, might have trouble feeling good enough about themselves. Those who do not have to worry about such things might begin to focus on needs higher up the hierarchy: love and belongingness, self-esteem, and eventually self-actualization. God continues to reveal his will to humankind, as he has in the past, he does not in the present, and he will in the future. Spiritual gifts are received by humankind today, just as they were in days past. When God puts a promise in your heart, you have to come to the place where you believe in that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move you. Christ will return and reign personally on Earth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Agency is one of the greatest gifts of God to his children. It allows all men and women and children to choose for themselves and to earn their own individual salvation. Also declared is our belief in secular governments and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law of the land. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all people. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. Enlarge your vision and make room for the new things God wants to do. God has promotion and increase already lined up for us. His favor surrounds us like a shield. Goodness and mercy are following you. This will be a great year. The savior gave us a great example. In our day, many people are living in the midst of sadness and great confusion. They are not finding the answers to their questions and are unable to meet their needs. Some have lost a sense of happiness and joy. True happiness is found in following the example and teachings of Christ. He is our Savior, he is our teacher, and he is the perfect example. Where you are is not permanent. God has extraordinary blessings in your future. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
These blessings will take you to a new level. Immeasurable, limitless, surpassing favor is coming that will take you beyond previous limitations. Christ’s life was a life of service. When we serve our neighbor, we help those who are in need. In the process, we may find solutions to our own difficulties. As we emulate the Savior, we show our love to our Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, and we become more like them. When we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God. Everyone has opportunities to give service and show love. We should go to the rescue and serve others. We will discover that those whom we serve, who have felt through our labors the touch of the Master’s hand, somehow cannot explain the charge which comes into the lives. There is a desire to serve faithfully, to walk humbly, and to live more like the Savior. Having received their spiritual eyesight and glimpsed the promises of eternity, they echo that they know that favor is in their future, and that God supernaturally endowed them with blessings, opportunities that chased them down. These believers became fully convinced in the power of our Father in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Each day we have the opportunity to give help and service—doing the right thing at the right time, without delay. Think of the many people who have a difficult time obtaining a job or who are ill, who even think they have lost everything. They feel like they are being consumed by the monstrous $600 million taxpayer funded Gentrification Center. There are people who are rolling down a lonely highway, asking God to please forgive them for messing up the blessing he gave them. Their nights are black as they have ever been, and they are scared they are going to lose it. These people are praying that God sheds his grace on them because they need it. Some individuals feel they have walked right out of Heaven, as if they have thrown their life away. They are scared just like a child that is lost at seven and do not know what to do to get back right with God. These individuals do not know what to do to move on with their life. Feeling like they cannot walk, cannot talk, and desperately want to get right with God. What can you do to help? Feeling great anguish, thinking they might lose their life forever, many are pleading for the Heavenly Father to help them find their way. A hug or a kiss and the commitment to watch diligently over people suffering might help someone who is lost. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
There may even be people who, for some reason, are lost from our sight and do not know that they are lost. If we delay, we could lose them forever. For many who need our help, it is not necessary to create new programs or take actions which are complicated or costly. They only need our determination to serve—to do the right thing at the right time, without delay. Fill your hearts with compassion towards others. Our Heavenly Father is loving, understanding, and patient. His Son, Jesus Christ, likewise loves us. They render help to us through their prophets. The rescue is still going on. The Lord expects our thinking, action, labors, testimony, and devotion. We have responsibility and a great opportunity to help others once again experience the sweet savor of happiness and joy through activity that is pleasing to God. That happiness come from receiving the ordinances, making sacred covenants, and keeping them. The Lord needs us to help them. Let us do the right thing at the right time, without delay. God lives and is our Father. Jesus Christ lives and has given his life so that we may return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. There is infinite kindness continually manifesting on Earth. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Unending Existence—Not Dead, but Sleeping
The word individual, as applied here on Earth, is a misuse of language. It is absurd to call that an individual which every hour divides. The Earthly stage of the human life is so small that there is room for but one of the persons of an individual upon it at one time. The past and future selves have to wait in the side scenes. Immortality is eternal life, the ability to live forever, a state of condition free from both death and decay. The Bible affirms that only God by nature had immortality. It is also a potential state for human beings, as long as they follow the divine laws. Human beings failed to obtain this state because of sin, the wages of sin is death, but immortality is given to righteous persons. To make everlasting life available is at the heart of Jesus’ mission: “I have come that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” John 10.10. Some people believe that death will not be our terminus, but the beginning of a new journey. However, scientists are trying to achieve life extension, retroactive immortality, and regeneration of the body that allows it to heal any injuries, even fatal ones, preventing one from dying. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Some scientists believe that in the near future, because of ongoing research being done into repairing the effects of ageing, we can produce preventative treatments that would allow humans to live as long as 1,000 years. Health insurance provides important financial protection in case you have a serious accident or sickness. Though great progress has been made in medicine, current evidence-based and palliative treatments are increasingly unable to keep pace with patients’ needs, especially given our aging population, and health insurance is very expensive. There are few effective ways to treat the root causes of many diseases, injuries, and congenital conditions. In many cases, doctors and nurses are only able to manage patients’ symptoms using medications or devices. However, we should not simply be looking at treating sickness and injuries, but do more research on preventing ageing. Ageing is the World’s most important problem. The human body is a machine and it accumulates damages throughout life as a consequence of normal operation. The damage makes our bodies frail, and contribute to the rising degradation and ill-health. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Regenerative medicine is a life changing area of medicine with potential to fully heal damaged tissues and organs, offering solutions and promise for people who have conditions that are currently beyond repair. If we are able to apply regenerative medicines to repair the damage of aging at the level where it occurs, we can remove, restore, replace, or render harmless the cellular and molecular damage that has accumulated in our body, organs, and mind with time. Regenerative medicine is not new. In the 1970s, liver transplants were not yet possible, but now they are, along with other solid-organ transplants and bone marrow transplants. Rejuvenation is the ability to increase the body’s natural ability to heal itself. Much like after you cut your skin, it heals within a few days, the goal is to get the specialized cells constituting the heart, lungs, nerves, and other organs to remodel and possess the same ability to self-heal. Stem cells are a key component of regenerative medicine as they have the ability to develop through a process called differentiation into many different types of cells, such as skin cells, brain cells, lung cells, and could possible help to heal the body. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The unfolding of God’s plan is revealed in stages. The resurrection of the dead is listed in Scripture as one of the basic doctrines of true Christianity. Someday, everyone who has ever lived will come to life again. Self-resurrection is the ability to completely heal fatal injuries and resurrect upon death if they body is not entirely destroyed. Through regenerative medicine, organ transplants would no longer be required. Your own cells, in the future, could be collected and reprogramed in a laboratory, then delivered back to your body to treat your disease. A lot of people may be wondering will they also look younger if stem cell treatment can be used to regenerate their organs and cure illnesses? Yes. The skin is your largest organ, so when scientists are able to heal or cure you through stem cell treatments, it will also regenerate your skin to keep it youthful. Regenerative medicine is working in vivo and in vito procedures. In vivo means studies and trails performed inside the living body in order to stimulate previously irreparable organs to heal themselves. In vito treatments are applied to the body through implantation of a therapy studied inside the laboratory. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
By reconstructing the composition of the living machinery of our tissues and organs, these rejuvenation biotechnologies will restore the normal functioning of the body’s cells and essential biomolecules, retuning aging tissues to health and bringing back the body’s youthful vigor, and restoring normal function. A small percentage of people all over the World have a condition called Spina Bifida, which is a birth defect. Some patients must manually empty their bladder by compressing it with their hands from the exterior,which will eventually case the bladder to harden and basically die. And while some people may think it is funny, it is not. Imagine if you could not urinate at will, or even regulate the buildup of urine, the backup of urine into the kidneys could cause a ripping infection, creating life-threatening damage, and it could also cause your bladder to fill until it ruptures. However, a series of child and teenage patients have received urinary bladders grown from their own cells. The laboratory-grown organ transplant placed into a human was all made possible by regenerative medicine. This powerful new technology is being used to create new body parts from a patient’s own cells and tissues, and the success of these efforts will eliminate the concept of tissues rejection from transplants. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Regenerative medicine has already successfully grown heart valves from human cells. In the past, heart valves were taken from the heart of pigs and transplanted into humans. Well, with new technology, the need to test on animals and prematurely end the life of an animal to extend a human life is no longer required. With the use of biomaterials to create a mold, scientists engineer the cells to grow in the form of a heart valve. Once mastered in clinical trials, any transplant patient will be able to receive a heart valve that is essentially their own. And with the advancement of regenerative medicine, we will be able to repair these valves without even having to perform surgery. Stem cells can even be used to treat leukemia. The umbilical cord, usually discarded at birth, holds blood vessels that contain about a half cup of blood that belongs to a newborn child. That blood contains many stem cells and our body uses stem cells as one way of repairing itself. By collecting and storing that blood, there is a possibility that those cells might be used in the future to help your body remain healthy. Regenerative medicine has the potential to cure other conditions like heart disease, valvular disease, and diabetes, which will save lives and billions of dollars. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Regenerative medicine has the potential to heal or replace tissues and organs damaged by age, disease, or trauma, as well as to normalize congenital defects. Regenerative medicine can abet maladies occurring across a wide array of organ systems and context, including dermal wounds, cardiovascular disease and traumas, treatment for certain types of cancer, and more. There will no longer be a need to wait for an organ donor and possibly face severe immune complications with regenerative medicine. The human body will have an innate healing and advanced repair mechanisms that will extend life, keep us youthful and healthy and lower medical costs. And with the cost of living being so high, people do need more time to generate wealth and enjoy life. We are essentially composite beings. Besides the more familiar corporeal element, the body, there is also something else, different in kind—the incorporeal soul. For the duration of a life the soul is somehow attached to—incorporated into or imprisoned in—its body. Perhaps the substance of the soul is stem cells. Essentially, in the future self-resurrection will be possible. “There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” Revelation 21.4. RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Surprise is an Emotion that Enfeebles Not Invigorates
There is no bent of heart or turn of thought which any person holds by virtue of an unalterable nature or will. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that one may know what is the hope of one’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of one’s inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of God’s power to us who believe, according to the omnipotence of his mighty energy, which he wrought in Christ, when God raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the Heavenly places, far above all principality, and regency, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this World, but also that which is to come. We are at once the creatures and the arbiters of destiny. Redemption is the process of grace rising above sin, the conscious choosing of the better options. When faith and reason work harmoniously, the providence of quantum grace is sufficient to redeem the deficits of original sin. It symbolizes the search for healing and restorations of body and soul, enlightenment, repose, and salvation. The path is the way back to purity and innocence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
God conceived of things and created them, and hence they were thought of as existing in the mind of God. Perhaps the marker of adulthood is the ability to create an effective and independent life. Whereas children and adolescents are generally supported by parents, adults must make their own living and must start their own families. Furthermore, the needs of adults are different from those of younger persons. Although the timing of the major life events that occur in early and middle adulthood vary substantially across individuals, they nevertheless tend to follow a general sequence, known as a social clock. The social clock refers to the culturally preferred “right time” for major life events, such as moving out of the childhood house, getting married, having children. People who do not appear to be following the social clock (e.g. young adults who still live with their parents, individuals who never marry, and couples who choose not to have children) may be seen as unusual or deviant, and they may be stigmatized by others. A person born blind being made to see, would at first, have no idea of distance by sight; the Sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the hearer, would all seem to be in one’s eye, or rather in one’s mind. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The object intromitted by sight, would seem to one (as in truth they are) no other than a new set of thoughts or sensation, each whereof is as near to one as the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most inward passions of the soul. This thing we call existence; is not a something which has its foundation far down below in the dark, and its branches stretching out into the immensity above, which we among the branches cannot see? Not a change jumble: a living thing, a One. The thought gives us intense satisfaction, we cannot tell why. Despite the challenges of early and middle adulthood, the majority of middle-aged adults are not unhappy. These years are often very satisfying, as families have been established, careers have been entered into, and some percentage of life goals has been realized. Even the most extreme ancient skeptics admitted that we must live; and since reason cannot tell us how to live, they recommended that we follow nature, under which appearances of things, and the traditions of one’s city. Civilization is the beginning and end of social development and political organizations. Human beings are born naturally sociable. Society rises through a person’s ability to cooperate with other beings for the satisfaction of their natural needs. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Country people or nomads in primitive or tribal societies seek the satisfaction of their elementary need for food; town’s people in urban and more complex societies pursue higher economic, intellectual, and spiritual needs. Pain has an element of blank; it cannot recollect when it began, or if there were a day when it was not. It has no future itself, it has infinite realms containing, it is past, enlightened to perceive new periods of pain. It is impossible even to think without a mental picture. The effects of illusion point beyond themselves to the causal and psychological processes that underlie perception and constitute its most serious theoretical problem. When someone imagines the face of an absent friend, one is supposing that the friend is present to the individual, which ex hypothesi the friend is not. A person who forgets that one is imagining, that one’s thought is supposal, not fact, is creating their own reality. There is no mistaking the expression of a death-wound on the human countenance, when the effect is direct and not remote. Nature appears to admonish the victim of one’s fate. Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the sense but the soul. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
To understand the nature of consciousness makes enlightenment possible. This essentially entails the realization of the difference between duality and nonduality and how to transcend the realm of duality. Duality is the product of perception, which itself is limited. Intellection and perception can be refined and perfected to the level of genius. Qualities of experience which are of crucial importance to human life, such as love, inspiration, respect, joy, happiness, peace, satisfaction, completion, and fulfillment, have been relegated by science to emotions that feel good, but are questionable realities. The visible World is therefore the World of effects and the interactions of forces. It is out of inspiration and volition that actions arise by assent of the will, which has the capacity to activate possibilities or options. We have great opportunities at the university of knowing human nature from books, the calm result of the wise people’s wisdom. Is the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or is the body really in the soul? The separation of spirit from matter is a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter is a mystery also. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International Institute 