Home » Income (Page 15)
Category Archives: Income
Like a Diamond in the Sky Discipline Must be Maintained!
Every time I open a book, I risk my life…Every work of imagination offers another view of life, an invitation to spend a few days inside someone else’s emotions. The wise person lets the Overself’s presence flow through one’s life, never blocks it by one’s ego nor turns it aside by one’s passions. The ego can no longer foresee what will happen to the outer course of its personal life when the Overself takes the lead, nor can it dictate what that course should be. With all one’s humility before the Overself, one will bear oneself among one’s fellow human beings with serene self-assurance and speak with firm conviction of that which one knows. When these experiences increase and multiply to such an extent that they accumulate into a large body of evidence, one will become convinced that some power is somehow using one as a beneficent channel. It is the real originator of these experiences, the real bestower of these blessing, the real illuminator of these other people. What is this power? Despite its seeming otherness, its apparent separateness, it is really one’s own higher self. Humanity is one, with psyche. Humility is a not inconsiderable virtue which should prompt Christians, for the sake of charity—the greatest of all virtues—to set a good example and acknowledge that though there is only one truth it speaks in many tongues, and that if we still cannot see this is simply due to lack of understanding. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
No one is so godlike that one alone knows the true word. All of us gaze into that “dark glass” in which the dark myth takes shape, adumbrating the invisible truth. In this glass the eyes of the spirit glimpse an image which we call the self, fully conscious of the fact that it is an anthropomorphic image which we have merely named but not explained. By “self” we mean psychic wholeness, but what realities underlie this concept we do not know, because psychic contents cannot be observed in their unconscious state, and moreover the psyche cannot know itself. The conscious can know the unconscious only so far as it has become conscious. We have only a very hazy idea of the changes an unconscious content undergoes in the process of becoming conscious, but no certain knowledge. The concept of psychic wholeness necessarily implies an element of transcendence on account of the existence of unconscious components. Transcendence in this sense is not equivalent to a metaphysical postulate or hypostasis; it claims to be no more than a borderline concept, to quote Kant. That there is something beyond the borderline, beyond the frontiers of knowledge, is shown by the archetypes and, most clearly of all, by numbers, which this side of the border are quantities but on the other side are autonomous psychic entities, capable of making qualitative statements which manifest themselves in a priori patterns of order. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
These patterns include not only causally explicable phenonmena like dream-symbols and such, but remarkable relativizations of time and space which simply cannot be explained causally. They are the parapsychological phenomena which I have summed up under the terms “synchronicity” and which have been statistically investigated by Rhine. The beneficial results of experiments elevate these phenomena to the rank of undeniable facts. This brings us a little nearer to understanding the mystery of psychophysical parallelism, for we know that a factor exists which mediates between the apparent incommensurability of body and psyche, giving matter a kind of “psychic” faculty and the psyche a kind of “materiality,” by means of which the one can work on the other. That the body can work on the psyche seems to be a truism, but strictly speaking all we know is that any bodily defect or illness also expresses itself psychically. Naturally this assumption only holds good if, contrary to the popular materialistic view, the psyche is credited with an existence of its own. However, materialism in its turn cannot explain how chemical changes can produce a psyche. Both views, the materialistic as well as the spiritualistic, are metaphysical prejudices. It accords better with experience to suppose that living matter has a psychic aspect, and the psyche a physical aspect. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
If we give due consideration to the facts of parapsychology, then the hypothesis of the psychic aspect must be extended beyond the sphere of biochemical process to matter in general. In that case all reality would be grounded on an as yet unknown substrate possessing material and at the same tie psychic qualities. In view of the trend of modern theoretical physics, this assumption should arouse fewer resistances than before. It would also do away with the awkward hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism, and afford us an opportunity to construct a new World model closer to the idea of the unus mundus. The “acausal” correspondence between mutually independent psychic and physical events, id est, synchronistic phenomena, and in particular psychokinesis, would then become more understandable, for every physical event would involve a psychic one and vice versa. Such reflections are not idle speculations; they are forced on us in any serious psychological investigation of the UF phenomenon. Undoubtedly the idea of the unus mundus is founded on the assumption that the multiplicity of the empirical World rests on an underlying unity, and that not two of more fundamentally different Worlds exist side by side or are mingled with one another. Rather, everything divided and different belongs to one and the same World, which is not the World of sense but a postulate whose probability is vouched for by the fact that until now one has been able to discover a World in which the known laws of nature are invalid. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
That even the psychic World, which is so extraordinarily different from the physical Word, does not have its roots outside the one cosmos is evidence from the undeniable fact that causal connections exist between the psyche and the body which point to their underlying unitary nature. All that is is not encompassed by our knowledge, so that we are not in a position to make any statements about its total nature. Microphysics is feeling its way into the unknow side of matter, just as complex psychology is pushing forward into the unknown side of the psyche. Both lines of investigation have yielded findings which can be conceived only by means of antinomies, and both have developed concepts which display remarkable analogies. If this trend should become more pronounced in the future, the hypothesis of the unity of their subject-matters would gain in probability. Of course there is little or no hope that the unitary Being can ever be conceived, since our powers of thought and language permit only of antinomian statements. However, this much we do know beyond all doubt, that empirical reality has a transcendental background—a fact which, as Sir James Jeans has shown, can be expressed by Plato’s parable of the cave. The common background of microphysics and depth-psychology is as much physical as psychic and therefore neither, but rather a third thing, a neutral nature which can at most be grasped in hints since in essence it is transcendental. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The background of our empirical World thus appears to be in fact a unus mundus. This is at least a probable hypothesis which satisfies the fundamental tenet of scientific theory: “Explanatory principles are not to be multiplied beyond the necessary.” The transcendental psychophysical background corresponds to a “potential World” in so far as all those conditions which determine the form of empirical phenomena are inherent in it. This obviously holds good as much for physics as for psychology, or, to be more precise, for macrophysics as much as for the psychology of consciousness. Only when we act in and from the Overself can we really be said to act aright, for only then shall our deeds be wise and virtuous, most beneficial in the ultimate sense both to our own self and to others. What the ego thinks and feels and does is to reflect the Overself’s dominion. The ego itself is now to be subsidiary. Every thought or feeling or act is to be dedicated one, every place where is finds itself a consecrated one. The Overself is not merely a transient intellectual abstraction but rather an eternal presence. For those who have awakened to the consciousness of this presence, there is always available its mysterious power and sublime inspiration. It is the divine moment; no longer foes speech come forth humanly not action individually: the God within has taken over. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
At some mysterious moment a higher power takes possession of one, dictates one’s thoughts, words, and acts. Sometimes one is amazed by them, by their difference from what one would normally have thought, spoken, or done. The unfoldment of intuitive action, intuitive thinking, and intuitive feeling means that the Overself and the personality are then in accord and working together. The little circle of the ego then lies within the larger circle of the Overself, in harmony and in co-operation. It does not matter than whether a human lives as a monk or as a householder, whether one is engaged in the World’s activity, or whether one is in retirement. Of course, such a condition is not attained without a full and deep transformation of the human. It is necessary to point out that the mere removal of thoughts by itself is not enough and could only give an illusory illumination and not the kind of peace which one feels after a dreamless sleep—passive, but not positive. There are various tricks. Some are of a hypnotic nature, whereby thoughts can be kept out of the mind and an apparent stillness obtained; but the mediator who only uses these tricks and nothing more deceives oneself. One might as well go to sleep and then wake up. The spiritual value is about the same, while the psychological value is definitely adverse to one. One will ten be in danger of becoming a dreamer with a dulled mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
One must look forward hopefully to the day when one can actually feel the higher self present within all one’s activity. It will reign in one’s inner World and thus be the real doer of one’s actions, not the ego in the outer World. It is not easy to subordinate oneself to this inner voice. However, where can one hide from it? We are to exalt life, not to degrade it. There are times when the Overself accepts no resistance, when it acts with such compelling force that the human is unable to disobey. However, such happenings are special ones. Some elf other than one’s familiar one will rise up within one, some force—ennobling, masterful, and divine—will control one. When a human’s consciousness, outlook, and character are so exalted as this, altruistic duty becomes not a burden to be carried irksomely but a part of one’s path of self-fulfillment from which one would not wish to be spared. There is a strange feeling that not one but somebody else is living and talking in the same body. It is somebody nobler and wiser than one’s own ego. The feeling of being possessed for a while by a holy other-Worldly presence comes over one. One is now under the influence, and later may be under the control, of a superior power. One becomes a vessel, filled from time to time with spiritual presence. One’s words, one’s feelings, and one’ actions will ten not only be expressions of one’s human self but also of that self united indissolubly with one’s divine self. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Mind is the aspect of reality. When this intellectual understanding is brough within one’s own experience as fact, when it is made as much one’s own as a bodily pain, then it becomes direct insight. Such thinking is the most profitable and resultful in which one can engage, for it brings the student to the very portal of Mind where it stops activity by itself and where the differentiations of ideas disappears. As the mental muscles strain after this concept of the Absolute, the Ineffable and Infinite, they lose their materialist rigidity and become more sensitive to intimations from the Overself. When thinking is able to reach such a profound depth that it attains utter impersonality and clam universality, it is able to approach the fundamental principle of its own being. When hard thinking reaches a culminating point, it then voluntarily destroys itself. Such an attainment of course can take place deep within the innermost recesses of the individual’s consciousness alone. One will arrive at the firm unshakable conviction that there is an inward reality behind all existence. If one wishes one may go farther still and seek to translate the intellectual idea of this reality into a conscious fact. In that case the comprehension that is the quest of pure Mind one is in quest of that which is alone the Supreme Reality in this entire Universe, must possess one. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
This mystery Mind is a theme upon which no aspirant can ever reflect enough: first, because of its importance, and second, because of its capacity to unfold one’s latent spirituality. One will doubtless feel cold on these lofty peaks of thought, but in the end one will find a Heavenly reward whilst still on Earth. We are not saying that something of the nature of mind as we humans know it is the supreme reality of the Universe, but only that it is more like that reality than anything else we know of and certainly more like it than what we usually call by the name of “matter.” The simplest way to express this is to say that Reality is of the nature of our mind rather than of our body, although it is Mind transcending the familiar phases and raised to infinity. It is the ultimate being the highest state. This is the Principle which forever remains what it was and will be. It is in the Universe and yet the Universe is in it too. It never evolves, for it is outside time. It has no shape, for it is outside space. It is beyond human’s consciousness, for it is beyond both one’s thoughts and senseless humans may enter into its knowledge, many enter into its Void, so soon as one can drop one’s thoughts, let go one’s sense-experience, but keep one’s sense of being. Then one may understand what Jesus meant when saying: “One that loseth one’s life shall find it.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Such an accomplishment may appear too spectral to be of any use to one’s matter-of-fact generation. What is their madness will one one’s sanity. One will know there is reality where they think there is nothingness. To keep this origin always at the back of one’s mind because it is also the end of all things, is a necessary practice. However, this can only be done if one cultivates reactionlessness to the happenings of every day. This does not mean showing no outward reactions, but it does mean that deep down indifference has been achieved—not an empty indifference, but one based on seeing the Divine essence in all things, all creatures, and a Divine meaning in all happenings. There is only this one Mind. All else is a seeming show on its surface. To forget the ego and think of this infinite and unending reality is the highest kind of meditation. First, remember that It is appearing as ego; then remember to think tat you are It; finally cease to think of It so you may be free of thoughts to be It! To attach oneself to a guru, an avatar, one religion, one creed, is to see stars only. To put one’s faith in the Infinite Being, and in its presence within the heart, is to see the vast empty sky itself. The stars will come and go, will disintegrate and vanish, but the sky remains. In a World of constantly changing scenes, fortunes, health, and relationships, a precious possession is the knowledge that there is the unseen Unchanging Real. Still more precious is awareness within oneself of ITS ever-presence. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
In the moment that there dawns on one’s understanding the fact of Mind’s beginninglessness and deathlessness, one gains the second illumination, the first being that of the ego’s illusoriness and transiency. Not to find the Energy of the Spirit but the Spirit itself is the ultimate goal—not its power or effects or qualities or attributes but the actuality of pure being. The aspirant is not to stop short with any of these but to push on. One will have gone far intellectually when one can understand the statement that mind is the seeker but Mind is the sought. One who puts one’s mind on the Unlimited instead of on the little parts, who does not deal with fractions but with the all-absorbing Whole, gains some of Its power. What we need to grasp is that although our apprehension of the Real is gradual, the Real is nonetheless with us at every moment in all its radiant totality. Modern science has filled our heads with the false notion that reality is in a state of evolution, whereas it is only our mental concept of reality which is in a state of evolution. Thinking can, ordinarily, only produce more thoughts. Even thinking about truth, about reality, however correct it be, shares this limitation. However, if properly instructed it will know its place and understand the situation, with the consequence that at the proper moment it will make no further effort, and will seek to merge into meditation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
When the merger is successfully completed, a holy silence will pervade the consciousness which remains. Truth will then be revealed of its own accord. When all thought are gone, when all vibration, movement, or activity of thinking faculty has ceased, then is the self-revealing possible of Mind-in-itself, of Consciousness with its states. Where the intellect is active it creates a double result—the thought and thinker. Where the enlightened human goes into the Stillness this duality does not appear but Consciousness remains. It contains nothing created by one. It is the Alone. Every creature, from the most primitive amoeba up to the most intellectual human, has some kind and degree of awareness; but only the Illuminate has that toward which awareness itself is striving to attain—Consciousness. The “Void” means void of all mental activity and productivity. It means that the notions and images of the mind have been emptied out, that all perceptions of the body and conceptions of the brain have gone. The Mind is here, now. However, as soon as any thought arises you miss it. It is like space…unthinkable. The great Emptiness is the Ultimate Being, without form, Matterless and Motionless, ineffable, and undescribable except by statements of what it is not. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
Those who study can lead them to this high level must then let go of ward, abandon images, representations, symbols, numberings, divisions, and dualities; must be ready to enter the Stillness. This means being able to attain the utmost Vacuity. Cling single-heartedly to Quietude. Mentalism is the study of Mind and its product, thoughts. To separate the two, to disentangle them, is to become aware of Awareness itself. This achievement comes not by any process of intellectual activity but by the very opposite—suspending such activity. And it comes not as another idea but as extremely vivid, powerfully compelling insight. Nothing that the mind can think into mental existence is IT. Mind in its most unlimited sense is reality. A human can know it only be the intuitive process of being it, in the same manner in which one know one’s name, which is not an intellectual process but an immediate one. We shall never grasp that totality of being with out intellect, but we shall grasp it with the only thing capable of holding it, with Consciousness. The awareness of It as being It is something other, and more, than the mere emptiness of Mind. God in unfathomable and unknowable. Every idea of Him is a false idea, created to satisfy our little human mental need but also sharing our finite human limitations. That is, the idea describes something about humans, nothing about God. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
We prefer to delude ourselves with such images and idols, rather than to take off our shoes at the very remembrance of God and enter the temple of the Silenced Mind. Here, at least, we get no untrue concepts which have to be discarded in the end. Here the wakened faint or strong intuition may bet intimations Godlike in quality, of THAT which must always remain incomprehensible to the intellect. Those who look to God as a healer, or as a mother, or as a father, or as a teacher are still looking for God within the ego. They are thinking of God only in relation to themselves because their first interest is in themselves. However, those who look to God in the Void, and not in any relationship or under any image or idea, really find God. Therefore they really find “the peace which passeth understanding.” If they begin and end in words, all attempts to explain the inexplicable, to describe the inscrutable, to communicate the ineffable must end in failure. For then it is merely intellect talking to intellect. However, let the attempts be made in the stillness, let “hear speak to heart,” and the Real may reveal itself. All talk of things being inside or outside the mind is submission to the spell of a vicious spatial metaphor. All language is applicable to things and thoughts, but not to the august infinite of mind. Here every word can be at best symbolic and at worst irrelevant, while remaining always as remote from definable meaning as unseen and unseeable Universes are from our own. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
We have lived in illusions long enough. Let us not yield the last grand hope of humans to the deceptive sway of profane words. Here there must and shall be SILENCE—serene, profound, mysterious, yet satisfying beyond all Earthly satisfactions. It is not possible for a finite human being to grasp the infinite significance of the Infinite Being, nor to gather any true idea about such Being. One can only think what It is not: otherwise one must retreat into utter silence, not merely of speech alone but also of mental imaginative and passional activity. Awareness alone is whatever it turns its attention to, seems to exist at the time: only that. If to Void then there is nothing else. If to World, then World assumes reality. What is it that is aware? The though of a point of awareness create, gives reality at the lowest level to ego, and at the highest to Higher Self but when the thought itself is dropped there is only the One Existence, Being, in the divine Emptiness. It is therefore the Source of all life, intelligence, form. The idea held becomes direct experience for the personality, the awareness becomes direct perception. Awareness is the very nature of one’s being: it is the Self. Every human credits oneself with having consciousness during the wakeful state. One never questions or disputes the fact. One does not need anyone else to till it to one, not does one tell it to oneself. It is the surest part of one’s knowledge. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Yet this is not a knowing which one brings into the field of awareness. It is known differently from the way other facts are known by one. The difference is that the ego is absent from the knowledge—the fact is not actually perceived. Reason tells us that pure Thought cannot know itself because that would set up a duality which would be false if pure though is the only real itself. Although all ordinary experience confirms it, extraordinary experience refutes it. Consciousness is the best witness to its own existence. When we experience Mind through the sense we call it matter. When we experience it trough imagination of thinking we call it idea. When we experience it as it is in its own pure being, we call it Spirit, or better Overself. Humans are not the authors of nature; but one uses natural things in applying art and virtue to one’s own use. Hence human providence does not reach to that which takes place in nature from necessity; but divine providence extends thus far, since God is the author of nature. Apparently it was this argument that moved those who withdrew the course of nature from the care of divine providence, attributing it rather to the necessity of matter, as Democritus, and others of the ancients. When it is said that God left humans to themselves, this does not mean that humans are exempt from divine providence; but merely that one has not a prefixed operating force determined to only the one effect; as in the case of natural things, which are only acted upon though directed by another towards an end; and do not act of themselves, as if they directed themselves towards an end, like rational creatures, though the possession of free will, by which these are able to take counsel and make choice. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Hence it is significantly said: “In the hand of one’s own counsel.” However, since the very act of free will is traced to God as to a cause, it necessarily follows that everything happening from the exercise of free will must be subject to divine providence. For human providence is included under the providence of God, as a particular universal cause. God, however, extends His providence over the just in a certain more excellent way than over the wicked; inasmuch as He prevents anything happening which would impede their final salvation. For “to them that love God, all things work together unto good,” reports Romans 8.28. However, from the fact that God does not restrain the wicked from the evil of sin, He is said to abandon them: not that He altogether withdraws His providence from them; otherwise they would return to nothing, if they were not preserved in existence by His providence. This was the reason that had weight with Tully, who withdrew from the care of divine providence human affairs concerning which we take counsel. Since a rational creature has, through its free well, control over its action, as was said above, it is subject to divine providence in an especial manner, so that something is imputed to it as a fault, or as a merit; and there is given it accordingly something by way of punishment or reward. In this way, the Apostle withdraws oxen from the care of God: not, however, that individual irrational creatures escape the care of divine providence; as was the opinion of the Rabbis Moses. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Dear Lord in the shining Heaven, during today’s negotiations, please make me eloquent. God, please ease the way, please remove all obstacles, opening the path for a smoothly accomplished deal, opening the path for a profitable outcome. I take up my pen and invoke the Spirit of God, the God of writing, please make my way smooth. I take up the pen and invoke Jesus Christ: Inspiring Saviour, please enflame my words. O Lord our God, please bestow upon us the blessing of Thy festivals for life and peace, for joy and gladness, even as Thou hast graciously promised to bless us. [Our God and God of our fathers, please accept our rest.] Please sanctify us through Thy commandments, and please grant our potion in Thy Bible; please give us abundantly of Thy goodness and please make us rejoice in Thy salvation. Please purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth. In Thy loving favour, O Lord our God, please let us inherit with joy and gladness Thy holy [Sabbath and] festivals; and may America who sanctifies Thy name, rejoice in Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest [the Sabbath and] America and the festivals. O Lord our God, please be gracious unto Thy people of America and please accept their prayer. Please restore the worship to Thy sanctuary and receive in love the supplications of America; and may the worship of Thy people be ever acceptable unto Thee. O may our eyes witness Thy return to America. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who restorest Thy divine presence unto America. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Cresleigh Homes
Describe a better entry than the tall archway over at #CresleighRanch Mills Station Residence 4. We’ll wait…
Carve out the life you’ve always wanted in brand new Cresleigh home.
Learn more about what makes our homes special over at the link in our bio!
The Cresleigh Collection showcases seven luxury single-family home designs in the Mills Station of Cresleigh Ranch, and is conveniently located close to major employment centers, scenic parks, and recreation.
Mills Station is a community of single-story ramblers and two-story homes situated in a premier location, ranging from approximately 2,000 to 2,700 finished square feet. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/
The Apfelstrudel Which I Ate After the Training Session Was Marvelous!
The ultimate mystery is one’s own self. Many people believe that children who are loved and have a normal upbringing and who are involved in activities will turn out to be normal, but that is not always the case. Sometimes there are crucial elements that are still missing, which go beyond mental health. Children may sometimes lack a male role model and look for a source of masculine authority in the wrong place. No matter how loving a mother it, it may not be enough to create a balanced human being. Also, children who do not show any signs of sadism in their youth can grow up to become sadist because of a lack of something in their childhood development. Heinrich Himmler was a normal middle-class youth, who had a stable family home, and was active in college and social, but he still went on to admire Adolph Hitler and become the “bloodhound of Europe.” Many people wonder, how could this happen? Well, there are some key factors, including the economy that may have contributed to this behaviour. Mr. Himmler’s submission to a strong fatherly figure was accompanied by a deep and intense dependence on his mother, who loved hum and doted on this son. Mr. Himmler certainly did not suffer from a lack of love from his mother—a cliché to be found in a number of books and articles written about him. One might say, however, that her love was primitive; it lacked insight or vision into what the growing boy needed; it was the love a mother has for an infant, and it did not change its quality as the boy grew up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Thus Mr. Himmler’s love spoiled him and blocked his growth and made him dependent on her. However, Mr. Himmler, as in so many others, the need for a strong father is generated by his helplessness, which in turn is generated by his remaining a little boy who longs for his mother (or a mother figure) to love him, protect him, comfort him, and not to demand anything from him. Thus he feels not like a man but like a child: weak, helpless, without will or initiative. Hence he will often look for a stronger leader to whom he can submit, who gives him a feeling of strength, and who—in an imitating relationship, becomes a substitute for the qualities he likes. There was a physical and mental flabbiness in Mr. Himmler that is frequently fund in such “mother’s boys” and that he tried to overcome by “practicing his will power”—but mainly by harshness and inhumanity. To him control and cruelty became the substitutes for strength; yet this attempt had to fail since no weakling becomes strong by being cruel; he only hides his weakness temporarily from himself and others, as long as he has the power to control them. There is abundant evidence to show that Mr. Himmler was a typical “mother’s boy.” At the age of seventeen when he was in military training, away from his parents, he wrote in the first month twenty-three letters home, and though he received ten or twelve in reply, he continually complained that the family did not write enough. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The first sentence of his letter on 24 January 1917 is typical: “Dear Mommy, Many thanks for your dear letter. Finally I received something from you.” Two days later, having received another note from home, he starts off in the same vein and adds, “I have waited a painfully long time for it.” And two letters in three days did not stop him from lamenting on the 29th, “again today I got nothing from you.” His early letter combined pleas for mail with complaints about his living conditions: his room barren and cold, mold grew in the closets, condensations built up on the windows, it was drafty, the carpet was old, the walls were paper thin, and he suffered from the attentions of bedbugs; he found food sparse and uninviting and pleaded for packages of food and enough money to allow him to eat at the canteen or the beer-hall restaurant in town. Trivial mishaps, such as the inadvertent picking up of the wrong clothes at the bath, assumed the dimensions of minor tragedies and were reported in detail to the family. In part these complaints and lamentations were appeals for help from Frau Himmler. In response, his mother dispatched a succession of money orders and of parcels containing food, extra bedding, insect powder, and clean laundry. Apparently much advice and many expressions of worry accompanied the provisions that arrived from Landshut. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Under the impact of these messages, Heinrich, aware that he must maintain his stance as a brave soldier, would sometimes try to react the complaint that had set the whole operation in motion. However, he always waited until he received the package before changing his tune, and his reverse never lasted long. In the matter of food he was completely unashamed and his letters are filled with appreciative remarks about his mother’s cooking (“the Apfelstrudel which I ate after the training session was marvelous”) and with requests for snacks such as apples and cookies. As time went by, Mr. Himmler’s letters home became somewhat less frequent—although never falling below three a week—yet his requests for mail were as insistent as ever. Sometime he could get quite unpleasant when his mother did not write him as much as expected. “Dear Mother,” he began a letter of 23 March 1917, “Many thanks for your nice news (which I didn’t get). It is really mean of you not to have written. This need to share everything with his parents, especially with his mother, remained the same when he worked as a Praktikant (a student of agriculture who does practical work on a farm). Then nineteen years old, he sent home at least eight letters and cards in the first three and half weeks, although he often noted that he was too busy to write. When he fell sick with paratyphoid fever his mother was reduced almost to frenzy; on recovery, he spent a good deal of time in writing her all the details about his state of health, his temperature, bowel movements, aches, and pains. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
At the same time, Mr. Himmler was clever enough not to want to give the impression that he was a crybaby, interspersing his reports with reassurances that he was fine and chiding his mother for worrying. He even began his letters with three or four items of general interest and then added: “Now as to how it goes with me I can see you, dear mother, fidgeting with impatience.” This may have been true, but the sentence is one example of a method Mr. Himmler used throughout his life—to project his desires and fears on others. Thus far we have made the acquaintance of an obsessively orderly, hypochondriacal, opportunistic, narcissistic young man who felt like an infant and yearned for motherly protection while simultaneously attempting to follow and imitate a father image. Undoubtedly Mr. Himmler’s dependent attitude, partly generated by his mother’s overindulgent attitude toward him, was increased by certain real weakness, both physical and menta. Physically, Mr. Himmler was not a very strong child and suffered from ill health from the age of three. At that time he contracted a serious respiratory infection that seems to have settled in his lungs and from which some children have died. His parents were frantic and brought the physician who had delivered the child all the way from Munich to Passau to treat him. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
To give the child the best care, Frau Himmler went with him to a place with a better climate, and the father visited when he could take time from his work. In 1904 the whole family moved back to Munich for the sake of the child’s health. It is worth nothing that the father approved of all these measures, which were costly and inconvenient for him, apparently without protesting. (This is another factor that makes me assume that the father was not such a harsh and frightening disciplinarian as he is sometimes painted.) At the age of fifteen Mr. Himmler had began to have stomach trouble, which was to plague him for the rest of his life. From the whole picture of this illness it is likely that there was a strong psychogenic factor present. While he resented this stomach trouble as a symptom of weakness, it gave him the chance of being constantly occupied with himself and having people around him who listened to his complaints and fussed over him. (When he was in power Mr. Himmler found such a figure in Dr. Kersten, who seems to have had some influence on him, which is not surprising, considering Dr. Kersten’s function as a mother figure.) Another illness of Mr. Himmler’s was an alleged heart trouble that was supposed to have been the result of his work on the farm in 1919. The same Munich physician who had treated him for paratyphoid fever now made the diagnosis of a hypertrophied (enlarged) heart due to overexertion during his military service. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
It was also reported that Mr. Himmler suffered from exertion in the war, and insufficient nourishment and the aftermath of the paratyphoid fever. However, Mr. Himmler’s physical weakness went beyond these three groups of illnesses—lung, stomach, and heart. He had a soft and flabby appearance and was physically awkward and clumsy. For instance, when we got on a bicycle and could accompany his brother Gebhard on his outings, “Heinrich had a penchant for falling off his machine, tearing his clothes, and suffering other mishaps.” The same physical awkwardness showed in school and was probably even more humiliating. When G.W.F. Hallgarten, who later became an out standing historian, and was a co-student with Mr. Himmler during his school years, heard of his rise to power he could hardly imagine that this was the same person who had been his classmate. Mr. Hallgarten describes Mr. Himmler as an extraordinarily milk-faced, plump boy who already wore glasses and often showed a “half-embarrassed, half-vicious smile.” Mr. Himmler was very popular with all teachers and was an exemplary pupil during his school years, with the best qualifications in all essential subjects. In class he was considered to be overambitious (a Streber). There was only one subject in which Mr. Himmler was deficient, and that was gymnastics. Mr. Hallgarten describes in detail how humiliated Mr. Himmler was when he was not able to do relatively simple exercises, and was exposed not only to the ridicule of the teacher but also to that of his classmates, who were happy to see this ambitious boy in a position of inferiority. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
In spite of his orderliness, however, Mr. Himmler lacked discipline and initiative. He was a talker, and he knew it, berated himself for it, and tried to overcome it. Most of all, he almost completely lacked strength of will; thus, not surprisingly, he praised a strong will and hardness as ideal virtues, but never acquired them. He compensated for his lack of willpower by his coercive power over others. Mr. Himmler’s father required him to keep a daily diary and the young man was obsessively clean, consistently bathing. An illustration of his own awareness of his submissiveness and lack of will is an entry in his diary on 27 December 1919: “God will bring everything to a good end but I shall not submit without will, to fate but street it myself as best I can.” This sentence is rather tortuous and contradictory. He starts out acknowledging God’s will (at that time he was still a practicing Catholic); then he asses that he “will not submit,” but qualifies it by adding “without will”—thus solving the conflict between his actual submissiveness and his ideal of having a strong will by the compromise that he will submit but with his will; then he promises himself to steer his own fate, but qualified this “declaration of independence” with the lame addition of “as best I can.” Quite in contrast to Mr. Hitler, Mr. Himmler always remain a weakling, and he knew it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Mr. Himmler’s life was a struggle against this awareness, an attempt to become strong. Mr. Himmler was much like an adolescent who wants to be strong, but has limitations, who feels guilty and weak, accuses himself of his weakness, and is always trying to change and never succeeding. However, the circumstances and his cleverness permitted him to gain a position of such power over others that he could live with the illusion of having become “strong.” At the end of officers’ training, still seventeen, Mr. Himmler’s fear of being sent to the front was allayed, he assumed a position of self-confidence. The obvious question here is why, at this point, he was eager to go to the front when several months earlier he had been so frightened. There are several answers to this seeming contradiction. His brother Gebhard had been promoted in battle to full cadet, and that must have made Mr. Himmler very jealous and eager to show that he, too, was a hero. Mr. Himmler tries to deny his fears and loneliness and dependency by an assertion of his strong will. “Today, inside myself,” he says, “I have cut loose from everyone and now depend on myself alone. If I do not find a girl whose character suits mine and who loves me, I’ll go to Russian alone.” With or without a girl he will live far away from Germany, all by himself, and with this kind of talk he tried to convince himself that he is no longer a “mother’s boy.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Mr. Himmler, at the age of twenty, was in the same position as many others who became Nazis, he not only lacked the money to live the kind of life he wanted, but also the imaginativeness, endurance, and independence, and had nowhere to go socially or professionally, and yet were ambitions and have an ardent desire to rise. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment of over 20,000,000 Americans, and people being strung along by the government with relief payments that barely meet their needs, many may be understand where some of these Nazis were coming from. (Just an objective opinion, not as justification for tragedies.) Mr. Himmler also became a member of a fraternity and did everything to make himself popular. He visited sick fraternity brothers and sought out members and alumni wherever he went. So he was out going, but he was troubled that he was not very popular with his fellow members, some of whom expressed their lack of confidence in him quite openly. Despite his politicking, and his torment about himself and his future, many of his habits and old way, including church attendance, social calls, fraternity dances and shipments of dirty laundry to Ingolstadt [his mother], still held fast. By 1929, however, Mr. Himmler commanded three hundred men of the Schutz Staffeln, which by 1933 had grown to an army of fifty thousand. What disturbs us so profoundly is not the organization of the SS nor Mr. Himmler’s ultimate position as Reich police chief, but the torture of millions of human beings and extermination of millions more because no direct answer to these questions is to be found in Mr. Himmler’s childhood and youth besides a strong male role model. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
We all go through awkwardness, rejection, and have dreams we are not able to accomplish in our youth. Yet, many of us do not turn into monsters. Mr. Himmler’s sadism probably was deeply rooted in his character structure long before he had the occasion to practice it on the scale that made his name enter history as a bloody monster. We should keep in mind the broad definition of sadism, as the passion for absolute and unrestricted power over another human being; the infliction of physical pain is only one of the manifestations of this wish for omnipotence. We must also no forget that masochistic submissiveness is not the opposite of sadism, but part of the symbiotic system in which complete control and complete submission are manifestations of the same basic vital importance. From the age of twenty-one when Mr. Himmler felt somewhat more independent because he had begun to find new friends and father figures, he began to be slightly condescending toward his father, although he always couched his preaching in appropriate forms while the condescending preaching to his older brother became increasingly vicious. Gebhard was a hero to his brother Heinrich, as a child. However, Gebhard went into the war, was promoted on the battlefield, and received that Iron Cross 1st class. He fell in love and in love with an attractive girl and became engaged to her while his younger brother, possessing neither glory nor love, was awkward, weak, and unpopular. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The girl did not fit Heinrich’s idea of a shy, retiring, and chaste fiancée, and not only that, but Paula was an attractive and distant cousin of theirs. There was some trouble between Paula and Gebhard, so Gebhard asked Heinrich to help him. After a couple instances of harlotry behaviour, Heinrich called off his brother’s engagement and ruined the young lady’s reputation to protect his family’s name. In a letter he stated: “If your union is to be a happy one for you two and for the health of das Volk—which must be built on sound, moral families—you must control yourself with barbaric [underlined in the original statement] strength. Since you do not handle yourself strongly and firmly, and only control yourself to a small degree, and since your future husband, as I have already said, is too good for you, and possesses too little understanding of people and can’t learn it since this age won’t let it be learned, someone else must do it. Since you both approached me on this affair and drew me in, I feel myself obligated to do it. When Gebhard agreed to go along and allowed the engagement to end, Heinrich was triumphant and at the same time scornful of his brother’s lack of resistance. “It was,” he said, “as if he [Gebhard] had absolutely no soul.” This twenty-four-year-old young mand succeeded in breaking down his father, his mother, his older brother, and in making himself the virtual dictator of the family. At this point the wish to control his brother and parents assumed features of pure sadistic viciousness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Heinrich wrote a threatening letter to Paul to stop saying nasty things about the Himmler’s and adds the warning that, although he was a nice fellow, “I will be completely different if anyone forces me to it. Then, I will not be stopped by any false sense of pity until the opponent is socially and morally ousted from the ranks of society.” This was the height of vicious control that Mr. Himmler could exert under the circumstances. When by his cunning he was able to use the new political circumstances for his own purposes, he had the possibility to act out his sadism on a historical scale. “The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear,” reports Heinrich Himmler. However, Mr. Himmler witnessed a mass execution in Minsk in the late summer of 1941 and was rather shaken by it. However, he said, “Nevertheless, I think it is right that we looked at this. Who is to decide over life and death must know what dying is like and what he askes the execution commanders to do.” Many of his SS men became sick after these mass executions; some committed suicide, became psychotic, or suffered from other severe mental damage. Nervous breakdowns were one possible consequence of his extermination campaign. However, one cannot speak of Mr. Himmler’s sadistic character without discussing what has often been described as his kindness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
I have already mentioned that he tried to make himself popular by visiting sick fraternity brothers, but he did similar things also on other occasions. He gave an old woman cake and rolls and recorded in his diary: “If I could only do more, but we are ourselves poor devils,” (not true, because Mr. Himmler’s family was a well-to-do-middle-class family and far from being door devils). Mr. Himmler also organized a benefit with his friends and gave the proceeds to Viennese children, and he behaved in a “fatherly” way to his SS men, as many have commented. From the whole picture of Mr. Himmler’s character, however, I get the impression that most of these friendly acts were not expressions of genuine friendliness. He had a need to compensate for his own lack of feeling and cold indifference, and to convince himself and others that he was not what he was, or, to put it differently, that he felt what he did not feel. He had to deny his cruelty and coldness by a show of kindness and concern. Even his aversion to hunting animals, which he described as cowardly, could not have been very serious since he proposed in one of his letters that the hunting of big animals should be facilitated for the SS men as a reward for good conduct. He was friendly to children and animals, but even here skepticism must be permitted, because there is almost nothing this man did that did not have the purpose of furthering his own career. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Of course, even a sadist like Mr. Heinrich Himmler can have some beneficial human traits, like kindness to some people in some situations; one would expect him to have such traits. What makes it so difficult to believe in them in Mr. Himmler is his complete coldness and the exclusive pursuit of his selfish goals. There is also a benevolent type of sadism in which control over the other person does not have the aim of harming one, but is meant to work for one’s own good. It may be that Mr. Himmler has some of this benevolent sadism, which often gives the impression of kindness. However, Mr. Himmler’s end was much in line with his character as his life had been. When it was clear that Germany had lost the war, he was preparing negotiations with the Western powers, through Swedish intermediaries, which would leave him in a leading role, and offered concessions with regard to the fate of the Jews. In these negotiations he surrendered one by one the political dogmas to which he had clung do tenaciously. Of course, simply by initiating the, der treue Heinrich (loyal Heinrich), as he was called, committed the last act of treachery to his idol, Mr. Hitler. That he thought the Allies would accept him as the new German “Fuhrer” was a sign of his mediocre intelligence and lack of political judgment, as well as of his narcissistic grandiosity, which made him think that he was the most important man even in a defeated Germany. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
People in America should be weary about gun control because people like Heinrich Himmler still exist. In fact, one of his beliefs was, “Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA—ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State. Nonetheless, Mr. Himmler declined the suggestion of General Ohlendorf to surrender to the Allies and to take responsibility for the SS. The man who had preached loyalty and responsibility now showed, true to character, complete disloyalty and irresponsibility. He fled with a black patch over his eye and without his moustache, with false papers, and in the uniform of a corporal. When he was arrested and brought into a prisoner of war camp, his narcissism apparently could not tolerate being treated like thousands of unknown soldiers. He asked to see the commander of the camp and told him, “I am Heinrich Himmler.” Sometime later he bit the cyanide capsule he carried in a hollow tooth. Only a few years earlier, in 1938, he had said in a speech to his officers, “I have no understanding of a person who throws away his life like a dirty shirt because he believes this way, he will evade difficulties. Such a person must be interred like an animal. Often times leaders, because they are in positions of power and wealth hold others to standards, they themselves would not tolerate, in that position. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Thus the circle of his life closed. He had to attain absolute power in order to overcome his own experience of weakness and vital importance. After he had achieved this aim, he tried to cling to this power by betraying his idol. That is why one always has to watch those closet to them, you never know what their true plans are When he was in a prison camps, as an ordinary soldier, one among hundreds of thousands, Mr. Himmler could not bear his reduction to complete powerlessness. He preferred to die, rather than to be thrown back to the role of the powerless man that was for him that of the weakling. Mr. Himmler is an example of the typical anal-hoarding, sadistic, authoritarian character. He was weak (and did not only feel weak); he found a certain sense of security in his orderliness and pedantry, by submitting to strong father images, and eventually he developed a passion for unlimited control over others as the one way to overcome his sense of vital impotence, shyness, uneasiness. He was extremely envious of others whom life had endowed with more strength and self-esteem. His vital impotence and the resulting envy led to the malicious wish to humiliate and destroy the, wither it was his brother Gebhard’s fiancée of the Jews. He was utterly cold and without mercy, which made him feel more isolated and more frightened. His sadistic character may have been due to his early insecurity, unmanliness, cowardice, sense of impotence, and these attributes would indicate the probability of sadistic compensations. #RandolphHaris 17 of 23
There are thousands of Heinrich Himmlers living among us. That is why it is important to have diversity in political power. Socially speaking, they do only minor harm in normal life, although one must not underestimate the number of people whom they damage and make thoroughly unhappy. However, when forces of destruction and hate threaten to engulf the whole body politic, such people become extremely dangerous; they are the ones who yearn to serve the government as its agents for terror, for torture and killing. Many people commit the severe error of believing that one can easily recognize a potential Himmler from far away. One of the purposes of characterological studies is to show that the potential Himmler looks like anyone else, a fallen senator, a wealthy actress, a housewife, a hardworking factory worker, a once prestigious doctor, a beautiful and rich news anchor, a successful police captain, maybe even a president, expect those who have learned to read character and who do not have to wait until circumstances permit the “monster” to show one’s colours. What are the factors that made Mr. Himmler a merciless sadist? Perhaps no one taught him the love of God? We must also consider that there may be genetically determined factors that, while not the source of sadism, are responsible for a disposition toward it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
However, perhaps more than any other factor we must think of the pathogenic influence of the dry, banal, pedantic, dishonest, unalive atmosphere in which the Himmler family lived. There were no values except the insincere profession of patriotism and honesty, there was no hope except that of managing to hold on to their precarious position on the social ladder. There was no fresh air, spiritually or mentally, that could have encouraged the weak little boy to branch out and develop. And there was not only this family. The Himmlers were part of a social class on the lowest fringe of the imperial system that suffered from resentment, impotence, and joylessness. This was the soil on which Himmler grew—and he became increasingly more vicious as the revolution defeated his social status and values, and as it became clearer to him that he had no future in professional terms. “We, however, who must live in this time, wish to prove ourselves worthy, every day and every hour, of gifts which Fate has given us, through the fact that it sent us the Fuhrer, to start with, and after two thousand years, who was, we might say, sent by God. As German men and German women, we wish to be thankful that we were born in precisely this age, that we are able to live in this age,” reports Heinrich Himmler. Love is he measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship. It is our goal to preserve life and love our neighbour’s as ourself. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
As children of God, we have a tremendous responsibility to respect all life forms, animate or inanimate. The Saviour Himself provided the answer with this profound declaration: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” This is the essence of what it means to be a true disciple: those who receive Christ Jesus walk with Him. We must love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind. We have compassion that provides direction not only for our lives but also for the Lord’s Church on both sides of the veil. Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our Church callings, and in our livelihood. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bound that unites families, communities, and nations. Love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk. When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
God the Eternal Father did not give the first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration. No, God does not need us to love Him. However, oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determine what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become. We are created in the image of our Heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage. What and how we love not only defines us as individuals; it also defines us as a church. Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ. Our insight reveals anything communicated can be affirmed in one way or negated in another, therefore it can be quite incorrect. For behind Nature is Mystery beyond all knowing, all thinking, all describing, absolute Being beyond all relativity, that is also Non-Being. All evaluative theories, opinions, judgments, interpretation are assemblages of thoughts. Insofar as religious theories depart from or lack direct insight into the Real, into what is, they are mere thoughts. Where these thoughts enter into the recording, or the communication, of the result of such insight they colour it, add to it, adulterate it. It is when the person attempts to report the Impersonal that this danger exists. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
Do not attempt to describe what God is, for whatever you say would limit God, who would then become something inferior to God. This is why Hebrew and Hindu bible alike say he is the Nameless One. However, you may describe what God is not, you may draw illustrations from human mind, capacity, and character to suggest what some aspect of God may be like in a quite different degree and way. Since the beginning of time, love has been the source of both the highest bliss and the heaviest burdens. At the heart of misery from the days of Adam until today, you will find the love of wrong things. And at the heart of joy, you will find the love of good things. And the greatest of all good things is God. Our Father in Heaven has given us, His children, much more than any mortal mind can comprehend. God created this wondrous World we live in. God the Father watches over us, fills our hearts with breathtaking joy, brightens our darkest hours with blessed peace, distills upon our minds precious truths, shepherds us through times of distress, rejoices when we rejoice, and answers our righteous petitions. He offers to His children the promise of a glorious and infinite existence and has provided a way for us to progress in knowledge and glory until we receive a fulness of joy. He has promised us all that He has. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
If all that is not enough reason to love our Heavenly Father, perhaps we can learn from the words of the Apostle John, who said, “We love him, because he first loved us.” In the center of the storm, there is clam. In the center of confusion, there is peace. In the center of exhaustion, there is rest. God, sitting in the midst of the World, please lead me to the center and grant me the calm and peace and rest that is found there. Speedily, even in our days, do Thou establish Thy dwelling in America forever. Mayest Thou be exalted and sanctified in America, Thy city, throughout all generations and to all eternity. O please let our eyes behold the establishment of Thy kingdom, accord to the word that was spoken in the inspired Psalms of David, Thy righteous anointed: The Lord shall reign forever; Thy God, O Zion, shall be Sovereign unto all generations. Hallelujah! Unto all generations we will declare Thy greatness and to all eternity we will proclaim Thy holiness. Our mouth shall ever speak Thy praise, O our God, for Thou art a great and holy God and King. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy God. Thou didst choose us for Thy service from among all peoples, loving us and taking delight in us. Thou didst exalt us above all tongues by making us holy through Thy commandments. Thou hast drawn us near, O our King, unto Thy service and hast called us by Thy great and holy name. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Cresleigh Homes
Describe a better entry than the tall archway over at #CresleighRanch Mills Station Residence 4. We’ll wait…
Carve out the life you’ve always wanted in brand new Cresleigh home.
Learn more about what makes our homes special over at the link in our bio! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-4/
Located in the prestigious Rancho Cordova community of Cresleigh Ranch, residents of Mills Station enjoy a warm and welcoming neighborhood, perfect for families of all ages, as well as all of the amenities expected in a luxury home.
#CresleighHomes
I Am the Resurrection, and the Life—Glory to God in the Shining Heavens and on Earth!
From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one—absolutely no one—is above the law. The total rejection of any religious belief is so contrary to human’s natural instincts and so destructive of one’s peace of mind. However, the French revelation was a conscious effort to replace the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of man. Thus Grace’s irreligion was soon replaced by a new faith—man’s worship of man. Meanwhile, in the New World a radical experiment opened another chapter in church-state relations. There a group of gentlemen farmers, who were neither naïve about human nature nor pretentious about human society, were drawing up the American Constitution. By refusing to assign redemptive powers to the state or to allow coercive power to the church, the American experiment separated these two institutions for the first time since Constantine. What might be considered the modern phase in church-state history has emerged in out live times. It is an amalgam of elements from the previous eras. The rise of totalitarian regimes has brought back the kind of persecution the church experienced in early Rome; like Herod, modern dictators tolerate no other kinds. In the West secularism has aggressively spread irreligion, turning Europe into a post-Christian culture and America into a battleground with orthodox religion in retreat. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
This is dangerous because of people like Heinrich Himmler, who is an excellent example of a vicious, sadistic character who illustrates what has been said about the connection between sadism and the extreme forms of the anal-hoarding, bureaucratic, authoritarian character. The “bloodhound of Europe,” as he was called by many, Mr. Himmler was, together with Adolph Hitler, responsible for the slaughter of between fifteen and twenty million unarmed and powerless Russians, Poles, and Jews. Mr. Himmler impressed one as of uncanny subalternity, narrow-minded conscientiousness, inhuman methodicalness, blended with an element of an automaton. This sadistic authoritarian character is not the description of a hater or of that of a monster as the latter is usually conceived, but of an extremely dehumanized bureaucrat. Mr. Himmler was the type of a cruel educator of the old school, strict against himself but stricter against others. The signs of compassion and especially friendly tone of his thank you letters were all a fake, as one often finds in clearly cold natures. He could be a tender family father, a correct superior and a good comrade. At the same time he was an obsessed fanatic, an eccentric dreamer and a will-less instrument in Mr. Hitler’s hands to whom he was tied in an ever increasing love/hate. The most extreme example of his submission was that to Mr. Hitler, although one must suspect that his opportunism may have induced him to use a degree of flatter that was not entirely genuine. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Mr. Hitler was for Mr. Himmler the god-man, to be compared to the significance of Christ in the Christian religion or of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. He writes of him: “He is destined by the Karma of the universal Germanness, to lead the fight against the east and to save the Germanness of the World; one of the very great figures of light has found its incarnation in him.” Mr. Himmler submitted to the new Krishna-Christ-Hitler as he had to the old Christ/God, except much more fervently. It must be noted, however, that under the circumstances the new gods offered greater opportunities for fame and power. Can we conclude from this cursory overview that the church and the state must inevitably be in conflict? To some extent the answer is yes. Dual allegiances always create tension. And in a sinful World the struggle for power, which inevitably corrupts, is unavoidable. When the church is not being persecuted, it is being corrupted. So as much as anything else, it is human’s own nature that has created centuries of conflict. While they know that they represent different nations each living under the normal circumstances of their own society, its power and strength in comparison with other nations, nor do they know their place in their own society. Once again the contracting parties, in this case representatives of states, are allowed only enough knowledge to make a rational choice to protect their interests but not so much that the more fortunate among them can take advantage of their special situation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
However, every generation has an obligation to seek anew a healthy relationship between church and state. Both are reflections of human’s nature; both have a role to play. Christ’s teaching clearly delineates these roles. Jesus was remarkably indifferent to those who held political power. He had no desire to replace Caesar or Pilate with His apostles Peter or John. He gave civil authority its due, rebuking both the Zealots and Peter for using the sword. This infuriated the religious right of His day. Eager to discredit Jesus, the Pharisees and Herodians tried trapping Jesus over the question of allegiance to political authority. “Tell us,” they asked, “is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” The question puts Jesus in the middle: If He said no, He would be a threat to the Roman government; if He said yes, He would lose the respect of the masses who hated the Romans. Jesus asked them for a coin. It was a Roman denarius, the only coin that could be used to pay the hated yearly poll tax. On one side was the image of the Emperor Tiberius, around which were written the words Tiberius, Caesar Augusts, son of the divine Augustus. “Whose portrait is this?” Jesus asked, rubbing His finger over the raised features of the Roman ruler. “And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied impatiently. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” replied Jesus, handing the coin back to them. They stared at Jesus in stunned silence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Not only had Jesus eluded the trap, but He has put Caesar in his place. Christ might simply have said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” That is all that was at issue. It was Caesar’s image on the coin, and Caesar had authority over the state. What made Jesus add the second phrase, “Give to God what is God’s”? The answer is found on the reverse face of the coin, which showed Tiberius’s mother represented as the goddess of peace, along with the words highest priest. The blasphemous words commanded the worship of Caesar; they thus exceeded the state’s authority. Jesus’ lesson was not lost on the early church. Government is to be respected, and its rule honoured. “It is necessary to submit to the authorities,” wrote the apostle Paul. “If you owe taxes, pay taxes.” However, worship is reserved solely for God. The distinction Christ made is clear; both the church and state have clear and distinct roles ordained by God. The issue is how to apply these teachings to each institution in today’s volatile World. Christ did not give the keys to of the Kingdom to Caesar nor the sword to Peter. In God’s provision the state is not to seize authority over ecclesiastical or spiritual matters, nor is the church to seek authority over political matters. Yet the constant temptation of each is to encroach upon the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The basic principle of the law of nations is a principle of equality. Independent peoples organized as states have certain fundamental equal rights. This principle is analogous to the equal rights of citizens in a constitutional regime. One consequence of this equality of nations is the principle of self-determination, the right of a people to settle its own affairs without the intervention of foreign powers. Another consequence is the right of self-defense against attack, including the right to form defensive alliances to protect this right. A further principle is that treaties are to be kept, provided they are consistent with other principles governing the relations of states. Thus treaties for self-defense, suitably interpreted, would be binding, but agreements to cooperate in an unjustified attack are void ab initio. Even in a just war certain forms of violence are strictly inadmissible; and where a country’s right to war is questionable and uncertain, the constraints on the means it can use are all the more severe. Acts permissible in a war of legitimate self-defense, when these are necessary, may be flatly excluded in a more doubtful situation. The ai of war is a just peace, and therefore the means employed must not destroy the possibility of peace or encourage a contempt for human life that puts the safety of ourselves and of humankind in jeopardy. The conduct of war is to be constrained and adjusted to this end. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The representatives of states would recognize that their national interest, as seen from the original position, is best served by acknowledging these limits on the means of war. This is because the national interest of a just state is defined by the principles of justice that have already been acknowledged. Therefore such a nation will aim above all to maintain and to preserve its just institutions and conditions that make them possible. It is not moved by the desire for World power or national glory; nor does it wage war for purposes of economic gain or the acquisition of territory. These ends are contrary to the conception of justice that defines a society’s legitimate interests, however prevalent they have been in the actual conduct of states. Granting these presumptions, then, it seems reasonable to suppose that the traditional prohibitions incorporating the natural duties that protect human life would be chosen. Now if conscientious refusal in time of war appeals to these principles, it is founded upon a political conception, and not necessarily upon religious or other nations. While this form of denial may not be a political act, since it does not take place in the public forum, it is based upon the same theory of justice that underlies the constitution and guides its interpretation. Moreover, the legal order itself presumably recognizes in the form of treaties the validity of at least some of these principles of the law of nations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Therefore if a soldier is ordered to engage in certain illicit acts of war, one may refuse if one reasonably and conscientiously believes that the principles applying to the conduct of war are plainly violated. One can maintain that, all things considered, one’s natural duty not to e made the agent of grave injustice and evil to another outweighs one’s duty to obey. Conscription is a drastic interference with the basic liberties of equal citizenship, it cannot be justified by any needs less compelling than those of national security. Citizens agree to this arrangement as a fair way of sharing in the burdens of national defense. In a well-ordered society anyway, evils arise externally, that is, from unjustified attacks from the outside. It is impossible for just institutions to eliminate these hardships entirely. The most that they can do is to try to make sure that the risks of suffering from these imposed misfortunes are more or less evenly shared by all members of society over the course of their life, and that there is no avoidable class bias in selecting those who are called for duty. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
And, of course, it is unjust and contrary to the law of nations to attack the liberty of other societies without just cause. Therefore if a just case for war does not exist, and this may be sufficiently evident under some circumstances, a citizen is justified in refusing to discharge one’s legal duty. Both the law of nations and the principles of justice for one’s own society uphold one in this claim. It no more challenges the state’s authority than the celibacy of priest challenges the sanctity of marriage. Governments, with rare exceptions, seek to expand their power beyond the mandate to restrain evil, preserve order, and promote justice. Most often they do this by venturing into religious or moral areas. The reason is twofold: the state needs religious legitimization for its polices and an independent church is the one structure that rivals that state’s clam for ultimate allegiance. However, when the state has presumed on God’s role, whether in ancient Rome, in Germany, or modern America, the first liberty, freedom of conscience, suffers. On the other side of the coin, the church, whose principal function is to proclaim the Good News and witness the values of the Kingdom of God, must resist the tempting illusion that it can usher in that Kingdom through political means. Jesus provided the best example for the church in His wilderness confrontation with Satan when the Devil tempted Jesus to worship him and thus take dominion over the kingdom of this World. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
No small temptation. With that kind of power, Christ could enforce the Sermon on the Mount; love and justice could reign. He might have reasoned that if He did not accept, someone else would. This rationalization is popular today, right up through the highest councils of government: compromise to stay in power because there you can do more for the common good. However, as the saying goes, “People who lie down with dogs, get flees.” It is just another way of achieving success by compromising one’s morals and yielding to coercive power. And think of the popularity Jesus could have gained. After all, the people wanted a Messiah who would vanquish their oppressors. However, Jesus understood His mission, and it could not be accomplished by taking over the kingdoms of the World in a political coup. The mission of the church is to build the kingdom of God on Earth, and the means of the mission is politics. We live with both good (the wheat) and evil (the tares), and cannot root out the tares. Only God is able to do that and He will—when the Kingdom comes in its final glory. However, citizens of the World have a duty to work through civil authority for the advancement of justice and human good. They may provide critical illumination, personal example and vocational leadership. There are proper ways as well for the institutional church to provide society with its moral vision and hold government to moral account. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Some Christian traditional similarly believe that they can best model Kingdom values not by involvement in politics but by the establishment of alternative communities in which they live out the teachings of the Kingdom. In its proper form, this is not a withdrawal from the World or abandonment of Christian responsibility; nor is it a privatization of Christian values as with those who profess to believe but live as they do not. Instead a different strategy to the same end of providing a witness in the kingdom of man to the values of the Kingdom of God. While I do not agree with the generally negative view of government held by such groups, I respect the faithfulness by which they live their convictions. This split up of the social order is precisely analogous to the process of growth in biology. Embryos differentiate as they develop, forming more and more specialized organs. The entire march of evolution, from the virus to the man, displays a relentless advance toward higher and higher degrees of differentiation. There appears to be a seemingly irresistible movement of living beings and social groups from less to more differentiated forms. Thus it is not accidental that we witness parallel trends toward diversity—in the economy, in politics, in religion, in art, in education and mass culture, in the social order itself. These trends all fit together forming part of an immensely larger historic process. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The Super-age of information Revolution can now be seen for what, in large measure, it is—the advance of human society to its next higher stage of differentiation. This is why it often seems to us that our society is cracking at the seams. It is. This is why everything grows increasingly complex. Where once there stood 1,000 organizational entities, there are now at least 21.6 million in America alone—interconnected by increasingly transient links. Where once there were a few relatively permanent subcults with which a person might identify, there are now thousands of temporary subcluts milling about, colliding, and multiplying. The powerful bonds that integrated industrial society—bons of law, common values, centralized and standardized education and cultural production—are breaking down. All this explains why cities suddenly seem to be “unmanageable” and states “ungovernable.” For the old ways of integrating a society, methods based on uniformity, simplicity, and permanence, are not as effective. For the individual, this leap to a new level of differentiation holds awesome implications. However, not for the ones most people fear. We have been told so often that we are heading for faceless uniformity that we fail to appreciate the fantastic opportunities for individuality that the Super-industrial Revolution brings with it. And we have hardly begun to think about the dangers of over-individualization that are also implicit in it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Therefore keep in mind that the common grace is God’s provision for the welfare of all His created beings, both those who believe in God and those who do not. The human race, far from being flattened into monotonous conformity, will become far more diverse socially than it ever was before. The new society, the super-age of informational society now beginning to take form, will encourage a crazy-quilt pattern of evanescent life styles. The critical dynamic in the church-state tension is separation of institutional authority. Religion and politics cannot be separated—they inevitably overlap—but the institutions of church and state must preserve their separate and distinct roles. In this regard, the American experiment merits closer examination. The Kingdom of God is universal, bound by neither race nor nation. The church was ordained principally for the conversion of men and women—conversion grounded in individual conscience wrought by the supernatural work of a sovereign God upon the soul. So that state could neither successfully establish nor destroy the church, since it could not rule conscience nor transform people’s hearts and soul. Each rational soul has an equal right to judge for oneself, every person has an unalienable right to act in all religious affairs according to the full persuasion of one’s own mind. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Thus two typically mortal enemies, the Enlightenment and the Christian faith, found a patch of common ground on American soil. Both agreed (for different reasons) that the new government should neither establish nor interfere with the church. The religion of every human must be left to the conviction and conscience of every human; and it is the right of every human to exercise it as these may dictate. It was this reasoning, not the right for the news reporters to spread lie, that led to the adoption of the First Amendment, expressly to protect the individual’s right to freedom of conscience and expression, and to prevent the establishment of a state church. However, contrary to the belief of many today, this separation of church and state did not mean that America was to be a nation free of religious influence. From the very beginning the American Revolution itself was seen by many as a rebellion fueled by the conviction that humans are creatures of God, and one’s political life is conditioned by that truth. As James Madison insisted, “This duty [homage to the Creator] is precedent, both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society. Before any human can be considered as a member of civil society, one must be considered as a subject of the governor of the Universe.” A nation under God was no idle phrase. Nor did the separation of church and state mean religion and politics could be separated or religious values removed form the public arena. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
For one’s political life is an expression of values, and religion, by definition, most profoundly influences values. The concept of a “wall of separation,” a phrase incidentally first used by Jefferson fifteen years after the Constitution was adopted, applied to institutions of church and state, not religious and political values. The Founding Father were all aware that the form of limited government they were adopting could only succeed if there was an underlying consensus of values shared by the populace. I am reminded of this when I visit the House of Representatives. A beautiful fresco on the upper walls of the chamber itself contains the portraits of history’s great lawmakers. Standing at the speaker’s desk and looking straight ahead over the main entrance, one’s eyes meet the piercing eyes of the first figure in the series: Moses, the one who recorded the Law from the original Lawgiver. John Adams eloquently acknowledged the understanding of our constitutional framers when in 1798 he wrote: “We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any others. Many of these original American visionaries believed that Christian citizens would actively bring their religious values to the public forum. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
George Washington faintly echoed Augustine when he asserted, “Of all the dispositions and habit which lead to a political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that men claim that tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness.” Thus, when laws were passed reflecting the consensus of Christian values in the land, no one panicked supposing that the Christian religion was being “established” or that a sectarian morality was being imposed on an unwilling people. The point of the First Amendment was that such convictions could only become the law of the land if a majority of citizens could be persuaded (without coercion), whether they shared the religious foundation or nor, of the merits of a particular proposition. Today’s widespread relegation of religion to merely something people do in the privacy of their homes or churches would be unimaginable to the founders of the republic—even those who personally repudiated orthodox Christian faith. Though America has drifted far from the vision of its founders, this system continues to offer one of the World’s most hopeful models in an otherwise contentious history of conflict #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The record of the centuries should not cause despair, however. Tensions between church and state is inherent and inevitable. Indeed, it is perhaps the outworking of one of God’s great mysteries, part of the dynamic by which He governs His Universe. For from the constant tension—the chafing back and forth—a certain equilibrium is achieved. To maintain this balance the church and the state must fulfill their respective role. One cannot survive without the other; yet neither can do the work of the other. Both operate under God’s rule, each in a different relationship to that rule. Certainly one thing is clear. When they fail in their appointed tasks—that is, when the church fails to be the visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God and the state fails to maintain justice and concord—civic order collapses. The consequences can be catastrophic and tumultuous events demonstrate that. To confess that intellectually we know nothing about the Absolute is understandable. However, to say that therefore we should leave its existence entirely out of our intellectual World-view, is not. For although that exact definition and direct explanation of the spirit is unable to catch the whole of this subtle experience within our receiving range because it is turned into ordinary human intellectual, emotional, and physical experience, by studying the spirit we may nevertheless evoke an intuitive recognition of its beauty; we may be able to better understand the world of the soul and the spirit may arouse the first aspirations towards spiritual enlightenment. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Spiritual enlightenment is the topic most worth writing about yet least understood. Whoever has entered into a partial understanding—it would be too much to demand more—of it, bears some responsibility. One must communicate with one’s fellows. Because the Real is beyond the thinking intellect’s grasp, it cannot be formulated into ideas. Yet because we need signpost and a goal to give guidance and direction, we must tentatively and provisionally formulate it. Dear Lord in shining in Heaven, I drop my fears into your ocean and watch them sink from sight. I place my fears on your broad Earth and see them rot away. I put my fears into your hands and they are no more. When you offer your arms to me, Great Father, your hands hold nothing but love. We sanctify Thy name on Earth even as it is sanctified in the shining Heavens above, as described in the vision of Thy Prophet: And the seraphim called one unto another saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole Earth is full of His glory. Whereupon the angels in stirring and mighty chorus rise toward the seraphim and with resounding acclaim declare: Blessed be the glory of God from His Heavenly abode. From Thy Heavenly abide, please reveal Thyself, O our King, and reign over us, for we wait for Thee. O when wilt Thy reign in America? Speedily, even in our days, do Thou establish Thy dwelling here forever. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes
Just when you thought #BrightonStation Residence One 3 bed, 2 bath, 2 car garage + workshop was already a SMART idea… we’re here to make it even better!
Each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an ‘All Ready’ smart home package. Included with your home are features and tools like: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together!
Learn more about this home and take a virtual tour over on our website. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/
#CresleighHomes
Papa—or—His Educational Surrogate—Knows Best!
All illness comes from sin. This everyone must take, whether they like it or not; it comes from sin—where it be of the body, of mind, or of soul. However, it may not be caused by the individual’s sin, but it comes from sin. While certain part of Europe and Japan are still building their first all-purpose supermarkets, the United State of America has already leaped to the next stage—the creation of specialized super-stores that widen still further (indeed, almost beyond belief) the variety of goods available to the consumer. In Washington, D.C., one such store specializes in foreign foods, offering such delicacies as hippopotamus steak, alligator meat, wild snow hare, and thirty-five different kinds of honey. The idea that primitive industrial techniques foster uniformity, while advanced automated techniques favour diversity, is dramatized by recent changes in the automobile industry. The widespread introduction of European, Japanese, and Korean cars into the American market has opened many new options for the buyer—increasing one’s choice from a dozen to nearly 300 car models in 2021. Today even this wide range of choice seems narrow and constricted. Faced with foreign competition, Detroit had to shutdown during the economic crises of 2008. However, Detroit is back to producing General Motors, Ford Motors, and Fiat Chrysler. To increase demand, General Motors, Ford Motors, and Fiat Chrysler are offer 0 percent financing of up to 84 months as well as big discounts on vehicles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
While United States retail sales were down by about 41 percent during March and April, they have been more resilient than expected during the coronavirus pandemic, according to J.D. Power. When the “stay at home” or “shelter-in-place” orders were initially enacted some expected United States sales to fall by up to 80 percent. “We continue to see evidence that we are over the worst and we are firmly in recover,” reports Thomas Kind, J.D. Power president of data and analytics. They found that customers want cars that will give them the illusion of having-one-of-a-kind. For instance, BMW has an E26 M1 vehicle and only 453 M1 models were manufacture, approximately 54 vehicles are used for the Group 4 Pro Cars series, so they are highly coveted and desirable. BMW also only manufactured 20 examples of the “Frozen Black” E92 M3. These came standard with the Competition Package, DCT transmission, red brake calipers and red contrast stitching among other cosmetic updates. To provide that illusion for the mass consumer, the computerized assembly systems make possible not merely the illusion, but the reality. Thus the beautiful and spectacularly successful Mustang is promoted by Ford as “the one you design yourself,” because, as critic Reyner Banham explains, there “is not a dung-regular Mustang any more,” just a stockpile of options to meld in combinations of 3 (bodies) X 4 (engines) X 3 (transmissions) X 4 (basic sets of high-performance engine modifications) – 1 (rock-bottom six cylinder car to which these modification do not apply) + 2 (Shelby grand-touring and racing set-ups applying to only one body shell and not all engine/transmission combinations).” #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
This does not even take into account the possible variations in colour, upholstery and optional equipment. Both car buyers and auto sales representatives are increasingly disconcerted by the sheer multiplicity of options. The buy’s problem of choice has become far more complicated, the addition of each option creating the need for more information, more decisions and sub-decisions. Thus, anyone who has attempted to buy a car lately, as I have, soon finds that the task of learning about the various brands, lines, models and options (even within a fixed price range) requires days of shopping and reading. The auto industry may soon reach the point at which its technology can economically produce more diversity than the consumer needs or wants. BMW has already started accommodating this trend by alternating production of two of their high-end, large, luxury coupes. Both are very nice and expensive, but experts notice that when the economy is under preforming, BMW tends to produce the 6 Series and cancels the 8 Series, but when the market is doing really well, BMW cancels the 6 Series and produces the slightly more expensive 8 Series. The benefit of this kind of marketing makes these two cars hard to find and highly desirable, and buyers may hold on to their model as they anticipate the release of the next generation. It is also good for the pre-owned market because some buyers fall in love with a body style and do not care if it is not brand it. That is the car they want, no matter the year or cost, they buyer must have that car. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Marshall McLuhan has noted that, “Even today, most United States automobiles are, in a sense, custom-produced. Figuring all possible combinations of styles, options and colours available on a certain new family sports car, for example, a computer expert came up with 25,000,000 different versions of it for a buyer. When automated electronic production reaches full potential, it will be just about as inexpensive to turn out a million differing objects as a million exact duplicates. The only limits on production and consumption will be the human imagination.” We are, in fact, racing toward “over-choice”—the point at which the advantages of diversity and individualization are cancelled by the complexity of the buyer’s decision-making process. Does any of this matter? Some people argue that diversity in the material environment is insignificant so long as we are racing toward cultural or spiritual homogeneity. “It is what is inside that counts,” they say, paraphrasing a well-known burrito commercial. This view gravely underestimates the importance of material goods as symbolic expressions of human personality differences, and it glibly denies a connection between the inner and outer environment. Those who fear the standardization of human beings should warmly welcome the destandardization of goods. For by increasing the diversity of good available to a human we increase the mathematical probability of differences in the way humans actually live. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
More important, however, is the very premise that we are racing toward cultural homogeneity, since a close look at this also suggests that just the opposite is true. It is unpopular to say this, but we are moving swiftly toward fragmentation and diversity not only in material production, but in art education and mass culture as well. One highly revealing test of cultural diversity in any literate society has to do with the number of different books published per million; the more diverse these tastes, the greater the number of titles. The increase or decrease of this figure over time is a significant clue to the direction of cultural change in the society. The more advanced the technology in a country, the greater the likelihood that it would be moving in the direction of literary diversity and away from uniformity. The same push toward pluralism is evident in painting, too, where we find an almost incredibly wide spectrum of production. Representationalism, expressionism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, hardedge, pop, kinetic, and a hundred other styles are pumped into the society at the same time. One or another may dominate the galleries temporarily, but there are no universal standards or styles. It is a pluralistic market. When art was a tribal-religious activity, the painter worked for the whole community. Later one worked for a single small aristocratic elite. Still later the audience appeared as a single undifferentiated mass. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Today one faces a large audience split into a milling mass of sub-groups. According to John McHale: “The most uniform cultural contexts are typically primitive enclaves. The most striking feature of our contemporary ‘mass’ culture is the vast range and diversity of its alternative cultural choices. The ‘mass,’ on even cursory examination, breaks down into many different ‘audiences.’” Indeed, artists no longer attempt to work for a universal public. Even when they think they are doing so, they are usually responding to the tastes and styles preferred by one or another sub-group in the society. Like the manufacturers of pancake syrup and automobiles, artists, too, produce for “mini-markets.” And as these markets multiply, artists output diversifies. The push for diversity, meanwhile, is igniting bitter conflict in education. Every since the rise of industrialism, education in the New World, and particularly in the United States of America, has been organized for the mass production of basically standardized educational packages. It is not accidental that at the precise moment when the consumer has begun to demand and obtain greater diversity, the same moment when new technology promises to make destandardization possible, a wave of revolt has begun to sweep the college campus. Though the connection is seldom noticed, events on the campus and events in the consumer market are intimately connected. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Ne basic complaint of the student is that one is not treated as an individual, that one is served up an undifferentiated gruel, rather than a personalized product. Like the BMW E26 M1 and Mustang buyer, the student wants to design one’s own education. The difference is that while industry is highly responsive to consumer demand, education typically has been indifferent to student wants. (In one case we say, “the customer knows best”; in the other, we insist that “Papa—or his educational surrogate—knows best.”) Thus the student-consumer is forced to fight to make the education industry responsive to one’s demand for diversity. While most colleges and universities have greatly broadened the variety of their course offerings, they are still wedded to complex standardizing systems based on degrees, majors and the like. These systems lay down basic tracks along which all students must progress. While educators are rapidly multiplying the number of alternative path, the pace of diversification is by no means swift enough for the students. This explains why young people have set up “para—universities”—experimental colleges and so-called free universities—in which each student is free to choose what one wishes from a mind-shattering smorgasbord of courses that range from guerrilla tactics and stock market techniques to Christian ethics, morals and values, and “underground theater.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Long before the year 2040 A.D., the entire antiquated structure of degrees, majors, and credits will be a shambles. No two students will move along exactly the same educational track. For the students now pressuring higher education to destandardize, to move toward the super-age of informational diversity, will win their battle. Perhaps corporations will for their own universities and start recruiting kids out of high school, who score well on their standardized test. Perhaps public schools will be divided and sponsored by corporations, which will allow children to choose the type of enrichment material they want to learn, then the corporations will pick the brightest minds, the ones that show the most creativity to educate in their universities, and more than grades will matter. They will truly see who is excelling and genuinely cares about what they learn, even if they do not preform well on tests. That will be a way to diversify education and train people from crib to coffin to be the kind of employee you want. It is significant, for example, that one of the chief results of the student strikes in France was a massive decentralization of the university system. Decentralization makes possible greater regional diversity, local authority to alter curriculum, student regulations and administrative practices. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Many people in America are already demanding that the entire school system be cut up into smaller “community-run” school systems. Some African Americans and other ethnic groups are requesting that their kids are allowed to take history from their culture’s perspective in grade school. Some religious groups want religious based public schools. They want greater parental involvement with the schools than is possible in the present large, bureaucratic and ossified system. It claims, in short, the right to be different. And these might be viable choices. For instance, in the state of Utah, the cities Salt Lake City and Highland may have a large number of Mormons and a public school based on Mormon values may be something that the community wants for their children. Or in Sacramento, California in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighbourhood, history from an Asian American’s perspective might be something that that community desires. Other schools in the Sacramento area may want English classes that have books from African American authors. These types of programs could be a way to build the community, teach the children to appreciate their heritage, increase tax revenue and attendance in certain communities, and improve academic performance. Or children in Rancho Cordova, California may want to attend an architectural high school where the curriculum focuses more calculus and analytic geometry, architectonics, history of architecture, and environments. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Different types of educational and community-based education, in short, claims the right to be different. Of it will require families to be more stable and have an attachment to their community. If they is not always possible for parents, that is were professional parenting may come into play, where people are willing to foster children so they can remain in the community and attend school. Or we may need for organizations in communities like the Ecumenical Institute. Perhaps a corporation can purchase a block of McMansions and they can have professional parents raise children and have the educated and these specialized schools in the community. The essential issue is allowing children to have a safe place, where they can learn, be safe, and have a fair chance at life. Because as it stands, by fixing city-wide standards and curricula, by choosing texts and personnel on a city-wide basis, leaders have imposed considerable uniformity on the schools and if America is going to stay a World Super Power, we need to get each and every student to tune in and work hard. The days of being spoiled and living a leisure life are over. We need students to be interested in their education and they need the help to be successful. We need to generate local variety in public education by turning over control of the schools to community authorities. Otherwise, failure to diversify education within the system will simply lead to the growth of alternative educational opportunities outside the system. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Thus we have today the suggestions of prominent educators and sociologist, including Kenneth B. Clark and Christopher Jencks, for the creatin of new schools outside of, and competitive with, the official public school systems. Mr. Clark has called for regional and state schools, federal schools, schools run by colleges, trade unions, corporations and even military units. Such competing schools would, he contends, help create the diversity that education desperately needs. Simultaneously, in a less formal way, a variety of “para-schools” are already being established by young, successful parents and other groups who find the mainstream educational system too homogenous. We see here, therefore, a major cultural force in the society—education—being pushed to diversify its output, exactly as the economy is doing. And here, exactly as in the realm of material production, the new technology, rather than fostering standardization, carries us toward super-industrial diversity. Computers, for example, make it easier for large school to schedule more flexibly. They make it easier for the school to cope with independent study, with a wider range of course offerings and more varied extracurricular activities. More important, computer-assisted education, programmed instruction and other such techniques, despite popular misconceptions, radically enhance the possibility of diversity in the classroom. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Computer-assisted education techniques permit each student to advance at one’s own purely personal pace. They permit one to follow a custom-cut path toward knowledge, rather than a rigid syllabus as in the traditional industrial era classroom. Aaliyah Haughton, for instance, went to a performing arts high school, scored well and became a successful actor, model, and singer. Moreover, in the educational World of tomorrow, that relic of mass production, the centralized work place, will also become less important. Just as economic mass production required large numbers of students to be assembled in factories, educational mass production required large numbers of students to be assembled in schools. This itself, with its demands for uniform discipline, regular hours, attendance checks and the like, was a standardizing force. Advanced technology will, in the future, make much of this unnecessary. A good deal of education will take place in the student’s own room at home or in a dorm, at hours of one’s own choosing. With vast libraries of data available to one via computerized information retrieval systems, with one’s own tapes and video units, one’s own language laboratory and one’s own electronically equipped study carrel, one will be freed, for much of the time, of the restrictions and unpleasantness that dogged one in the lockstep classrooms. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The technology upon which these new freedoms will be based will inevitably spread through the schools in the years ahead—aggressively pushed, no doubt, my major corporations like Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, and Xerox. Within the next 30 years, the educational systems of the United States of America, and several Western European countries as well, will have broken decisively with the mass production pedagogy of the past, and will have advanced into an era of educational diversity based on the liberating power of the new machines. In education, therefore, as in the production of material goods, the society is shifting irresistibly away from, rather than toward, standardization. It is not simply a matter of varies automobiles, detergents, and syrup. The social thrust toward diversity and increased individual choice affects our mental, as well as our material surroundings. One of the functions of intuition is to protect the body against unnecessary sickness by warning the human in it when one is transgressing the laws of its hygiene, or by showing the right road. In this, intuition is pitted against the body’s past habits and animal appetites, the emotional nature’s desires, as well as the mind’s ignorance immaturity and inexperience—a combination of enemies which usually triumphs over it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Another of its functions is to protect the human against avoidable calamity or preventable loss, by consciously moving one out of its reach. However, here it has opposed to it the egoistic desires and habits or the emotional impulses and negative feelings which perceive only the immediate and not the impending, the semblance of things and not the actuality. The intuitive life does not always know how or why it acts, for it is often spontaneous and unconscious. However, when it does become at times intellectually self-conscious, its power in the World to affect humans is heightened, not lessened. Like Socrates we possess an inner warning voice which forbids certain course of action but does not recommend better ones. It is negative and not positive. Intuition—which is called the surest road to truth—eradicates hesitancies. When you are in contact with God in solving a problem, you receive a direct command what to do and you then know it is right. The clouds and hesitancies and vacillations which arise when struggling between contrary points of view, melt. Whereas, if you are not in contact with God, but only being carried along through universal law, then you swing back and forth with emotion or opinion. One is indeed fortunate whose intuition shows itself in one impelling thought strong enough to outclass all other conflicting thoughts. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong may combat the smooth plausible appearance of everything being right. One can depend on one thing alone to show one the right roads and the right master. It is intuition. If one’s reason governs one’s body and one’s intuition governs one’s reason, a human’s life will be less troubled and one’s happiness more secured. If a human acts according to intuitive wisdom, all will go well with one. This is not to say that one will be free from external misfortunes. However, if they come, they will be of the unavoidable kind and therefore less in number than if they included those of one’s own direct making. And even the others will be turned to profit in some way by the search for their underlying meanings, so that although humanity calls them evil, one will nevertheless gain some inner good from them. If one is sensitive enough and can touch the intuitive element within oneself, either deliberately by sheer power of deeply introspective concentration or spontaneously by immediate acceptance of its suggestive messages, one’s decisions will be filled with utter conviction and followed with resolute determination. One may be sure of this, that whatever action God’s leading causes one to take will always be for one’s ultimate good even thought it may be to one’s immediate and apparent detriment. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
There is the feeling of being led, but not the ability to see where, and to what, one is being led. To the degree that the intuitive element can displace all others for the rulership of one’s inner life, to that degree can a healing and guiding calm displace the emotion of moods and commotion of thought. To say what the Absolute is not, to describe it in negatives, is correct so far as it goes but is not so satisfactory. The terms Void or Space, being more positive, are even better. Space is a good metaphor of Mind. In one aspect it is bounded, in another it is infinite. Mind also is static and dynamic, still active, within Universes yet transcending them all. Where is the being who has ever known the unknowable and indescribable Supreme Godhead? For all humans came into existence after it already was there. However, whoever receives knowledge by tradition, investigation, or intuition, by meditation, revelation or even by science leading into metaphysics, by art or poetry or literature, may acquire the tremendous certitude that it is there. More—it must always have been there. That which transcends even the high Worldly authorities, even World-Mind, is unthinkable and unimaginable. Therefore it is without name or form, beyond all contact with the senses, beginningless and endless, neither growing nor diminishing, indestructible, free from any relations or comparisons—this Undefinable Mystery of Mysteries. Let no one seek it, for one cannot find IT. However, one can know that it is there and, through its manifestations, the God, worship IT. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
All human explanation of the nature of Mind, as all human expositions of the working of the World-Mind, are limited forms of language. This cannot be helped. It is outside time in a Now beyond the successive character of human thinking and incomprehensible to it. Yet intellect, though it cannot enter this Grand Mystery, can at its most brilliant perception infer that it is. Try as it might, the finite thinking mind cannot break through this sound-barrier of mystery which surrounds the Unique Being, That which is ever the same. All thoughts simply pile up, leaving the last one unanswered, if not unanswerable, or else ending in an involved labyrinth from which there is no outlet. IT cannot be investigated, but the fact of its necessary existence can be stated more emphatically than any other of the innumerable or observable facts. Both church and state assert standards and values in society; both seek authority; both compete for allegiance. As members of both the religious and the political spheres, the Christian is bound to face conflict. The conflict is particularly apparent in the Judeo-Christian tradition because of the assertion that the God of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures is King. That has been an offense to some of the proud and powerful since the beginning—and the reason many Jewish and Christians alike have been systematically persecuted. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The tensions between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of humans runs like an unbroken thread through the history of the past two thousand years. It began not long after Christ’s birth. In the end one will have to confess, as the English hermit Richard Rolle confessed over six hundred years ago, despite one’s deep mystical experiences, that it is not possible to know what God is but only that He is. When the last words have been uttered, the final sentences written down; when the sermons, books, and articles have exhausted all that human intellect and human intuition can explain, suggest, or hint; when the profoundest mystical experience has yielded all that it could reveal, there will still remain an awed feeling before the Grand Mystery that is God, a tremendous humility before Its unknowableness. Because there is nothing quite like it in human experience and because there is no opposite in the entire cosmos from which it can be differentiated, the Absolute Being remains utterly incomprehensible to human intellect. The mystery of That Which Is baffles not only the comprehension of the ordinary mind but also that of the philosophic mind. There is an abyss which no human can cross, a mystery which remains utterly impenetrable to one. This is the transcendent Godhead. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
We can know as much, and as little, of God as the wave dashing against the Californian coastline can know of the immense ocean stretching so many thousand miles to the Australian shore: such is human insignificance in relation to that activity of God which is directed to thus Universe. However, in relation to that non-activity which is God-in-itself, at rest, we can know absolutely nothing. For here is Being without end, Mind without individualization of any kind, and Life without any bottom or top to it. The Unfathomable Mystery of Mind will always remain. Despite all the absurd claims to the contrary, no one has ever interpreted to us the great Mystery of mysteries, the Godhead behind the God active in the Universe. The more righteous a people become the more they are qualified for loving others and rendering them happy. A wicked human can have but little love for one’s wife; while a righteous human, being filled with the love of God, is sure to manifest this Heavenly attribute in every thought and feeling of one’s heart, and in every word and deed. Love, joy, and innocence will radiate from one’s very countenance, and be expressed in every look. This will beget confidence in the love of one’s heart; for love beget love; happiness imparts happiness; and these Heaven born emotions will continue to increase more and more, until they are perfected and glorified in all the fulness of eternal love itself. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
True love of one human for another always includes the love of God from whom all good things issue. Without a strong commitment to the Lord, an individual is more prone to have a low level of commitment to a spouse. Weak commitments to eternal covenants lead to losses of eternal consequence. If two people are earnestly and faithfully observing all the ordinances and principles of the gospels, there could not arise any cause for divorce. The joy and happiness pertaining to the marriage relationship will grow sweeter, and spouses will become more and more attached to each other as the days go by. Not only will the husband love the wife and the wide the husband, but children born to them will live in an atmosphere of love and harmony. The love of each for the others will not be impaired, and moreover the love of all towards our Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ will be more firmly rooted in their soul. The Lord said, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 42.22. This kind of love can be shown for your wives in so many ways. First and foremost, nothing except God Himself takes priority over your wife in your life—not work, not recreation, not hobbies. What does it mean to love someone with all you heart? #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
To love someone with all of your heart means to love that individual with all your emotional feelings and with all your devotion. You cannot demean her, criticize her, find fault with her. What does it mean to cleave unto her? It means to stay close to her, to be loyal and faith to her, to communicate with her, and to express your love for her. It does not mean be like Evan Chambers, a young heir to a media conglomerate, from Greek thr TV show. His mother gave him a multi-million dollar trust fund in college, and a $100,000.00 German sports car, but he had to sign a contract stating he could only drive his car on approved trips and could not marry until he was 25. So, Evan took this as a sign that meant he was not supposed to genuinely love anyone, spend lavishly on his friends, and be a suave playboy. However, love means being sensitive to the feelings of the person you are with. Husbands, recognize your wife’s intelligence and her ability to counsel with you. Give her the opportunity to grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially as well as spiritually. Remember, brethren, love can be nurtured and nourished by little tokens. Flowers on special occasions are wonderful, but so is your willingness to help with the dishes, vacuum the carpet, get up with a crying child in the night, or leave the television or the newspaper to help with dinner. Those are the quiet ways we say, “I love you,” with our actions. They bring rich dividends for such little effort. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
If two people love the Lord more than their own lives and then love each other more than their own lives, working together in total harmony with the gospel program as their basic structure, they are sure to have this great happiness. When a husband and wife go together frequently to the holy temple, kneel in prayer together in their home with their family, go hand and hand to their religious meetings, keep their religious meetings, keep their lives wholly chaste—mentally and physically—so that their whole thoughts and desires and loves are all centered in the one being, their companion and both work together for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God then happiness is at its pinnacle. Moroni tells us that this highest of Christian virtues is more accurately labeled, “The pure love of Christ.” And it endures forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well him [and her]. “Wherefore, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he has bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons [and daughters] of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may be purified even as he is pure,” reports Moroni 7.47-48. True charity, the absolutely pure, perfect love of Christ, has really been known only once in this World—in the form of Christ Himself, the living Son of the living God. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
As in everything, Christ is the only one who got it all right, did it all perfectly, loved the way we are all to try to love. However, even though we fall short, that divine standard is there for us. It is a goal toward which we are to keep reaching, keep striving—and, certainly, a goal to keep appreciating. God of justice, may I not complain at what fate has brought to me. Please cleave my night with your lightning-axe, dividing my troubles into ones I can bear. O Lord, please open my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. May my words of you be as sweet and beautiful as honey and more precious than silver and gold, diamonds and rubies. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possesses all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children, and their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of America. Thou, O Lord art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. Our solutions to life’s problems are always gospel solutions. Not only are answers found in Christ, but so is the power, the gift, the bestowal, the miracle of giving and receiving those answers. In this matter of love no doctrine could be mor encouraging to us than that. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Cresleigh Homes
Home is where your story begins. Let It begin with #Meadows Residence 1 at #PlumasRanch. This stunning home includes three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two car garage plus workshop. Swipe to see the beautiful interiors. 👉👉👉https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-1/
Plumas Lake by Cresleigh Homes offers spacious home designs with flexible floor plans and hundreds of designer options to personalize your home. Enjoy an unparalleled lifestyle of luxury and convenience, with incredible amenities, shopping, and dining.
Residence One at Cresleigh Meadows holds 2,054 square feet of single story living. The open concept design includes three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two car garage plus workshop. Through the charming front porch enter into the foyer, where two secondary bedrooms lead off to a Jack and Jill bathroom. The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light.
The Owner’s suite is nestled in the rear of the home separate from the secondary bedrooms, providing maximum privacy. Enjoy a spa like experience in the Owner’s bathroom with a large walk in shower and large soaking tub.
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together! #CresleighHomes
Love, as Defined by the Lord, Elevates, Protects, Respects, and Enriches Another!
Good-bye, good night. Merry Christmas. God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth. What seems to be reasonable conditions for engaging in civil disobedience, and can we connect these conditions more systematically with the place of civil disobedience in a state of near justice? Of course, the conditions enumerated should be taken as presumptions; no doubt there will be situations when they do not hold, and other arguments could be given for civil disobedience. The first point concerns the kinds of wrongs that are appropriate objects of civil disobedience. Now if one views such disobedience as a political act addressed to the sense of justice of the community, then it seems reasonable, other things equal, to limit it to instances of substantial and clear injustice, and preferably to those which obstruct the path to removing other injustices. For this reason there is a presumption in favour of restricting civil disobedience to serious infringements of the first principle of justice, the principle of equal liberty, and to blatant violations of the second part of second principle, the principle of fair equality of opportunity. Of course, it is not always easy to tell whether these principles are satisfied. Still, if we think of them as guaranteeing the basic liberties, it is often clear that these freedoms are not being honoured. After all, they impose certain strict requirements that must be visibly expressed in institutions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Thus when certain marginalized members of the population are denied the right to vote or to hold office, or to own property and to move from place to place, or when certain religious groups are repressed and others denied various opportunities, these injustices may be obvious to all. They are publicly incorporated into the recognized practice if not the letter, of social arrangements. The establishment of these wrongs does not presuppose an informed examination of institutional effects. By contrast infractions of the difference principle are more difficult to ascertain. There is usually a wide range of conflicting yet rational opinion as to whether this principle is satisfied. The reason for this is that is applied primarily to economic and social institutions and policies. A choice among these depends upon theoretical and speculative beliefs as well as upon a wealth of statistical and other information, all of this seasoned with shrewd judgement and speculative beliefs as well as upon a wealth of statistical and other information, all of this seasoned with shrewd judgment and plain hunch. In view of the complexities of these questions, it is difficult to check the influence of self-interest and prejudice; and even if we can do this in our own case, it is another matter to convince others of our good faith. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Thus unless tax laws, for example, are clearly designed to attack or to abridge a basic equal liberty, they should not normally be protested by civil disobedience. The appeal to the public’s conception of justice is not sufficiently clear. The resolution of these issues is best left to the political process provided that the requisite equal liberties are secure. In this case a reasonable compromise can presumably be reached. The violation of the principle of equal liberty is, then, the more appropriate object of civil disobedience. This principle defines the common status of equal citizenship in a constitutional regime and lies at the basis of the political order. When it is fully honoured the presumption is that other injustices, while possibly persistent and significant, will not get out of hand. A further condition for civil disobedience is the following. We may suppose that the normal appeals to the political majority have already been made in good faith and that they have failed. The legal means of redress have proved of no avail. Thus, for example, the existing political parties have shown themselves indifferent to the claims of the minority or have proved unwilling to accommodate them. Attempts to have the laws repealed have been ignored and legal protests and demonstrations have had no success. Since civil disobedience is a last resort, we should be sure that it is necessary. Note that it has been said, however, tat legal means have been exhausted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
At any rate, further normal appeals can be repeated; free speech is always possible. However, if past actions have shown the majority immovable or apathetic, further attempts may reasonably be thought fruitless, and a second condition for justified civil disobedience is met. This condition is, however, a presumption. Some cases may be so extreme tat there may be no duty to use first only legal means of political opposition. If, for example, the legislature were to enact some outrageous violations of equal liberty, say by forbidding the religion of a weak and defenseless minority, we surely could not expect that sect to oppose the law by normal political procedures. Indeed, even civil disobedience might be much too mild, the majority having already convicted itself of wantonly unjust and overtly hostile aims. The third and last condition being considered is rather complicated. It arises from the fact that while the two preceding conditions are often sufficient to justify civil disobedience, this is not always the case. In certain circumstances the natural duty of justice may require a certain restraint. We can see this as follows. If a certain minority is justified in engaging in civil disobedience, then any other minority is relevantly similar circumstances is likewise justified. Using the two previous conditions as the criteria of relevantly similar circumstances, we can say that, other things equal, two minorities are similarly justified in resorting to civil disobedience if they have suffered for the same length of time for the same degree of injustice and if their equally sincere and normal political appeals have likewise been to no avail. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
It is conceivable, however, even if it is unlikely, that there should be many groups with an equally sound case (in the sense just defined) for being civilly disobedient; but that, if they were all to act in this way, serious disorder would follow which might well undermine the efficacy of the just constitution. I assume here that there is a limit in the extent to which civil disobedience can be engaged in without leading to a breakdown in the respect for law and the constitution, thereby setting in motion consequences unfortunate for all. There is also an upper bound on the ability of the public forum to handle such forms of dissent; the appeal that civilly disobedient groups wish to make can be distorted and their intention to appeal to the sense of justice of the majority lost sight of. For one or both of these reasons, the effectiveness of civil disobedience as a form of protest declines beyond a certain point; and those contemplating it must consider these constraints. The ideal solution from a theoretical point of view calls for cooperative political alliance of the minorities to regulate the overall level of dissent. For consider the nature of the situation: there are many groups each equally entitled to engage in civil disobedience. Moreover they all wish to exercise this right, equally strong in each case; but if they all do so, lasting injury may result to the just constitution to which they each recognize a natural duty of justice. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Now when there are many equally strong claims which if taken together exceed what can be granted, some fair plan should be adopted so that all are equitably considered. In simple cases of claims to goods that are indivisible and fixed in number, some rotation or lottery scheme may be the fair solution when the number of equally valid claims is too great. However, this sort of device is completely unrealistic here. What seems called for is a political understanding among the minorities suffering from injustice. They can meet their duty to democratic institutions by coordinating their actions so that while each has an opportunity to exercise its right, the limits on the degree of civil disobedience are not exceeded. To be sure, an alliance of this sort is difficult to arrange; but with perceptive leadership, it does not appeal impossible. Certainly the situation envisaged is a special one, and it is quite possible that these sorts of consideration will not be a bar to justified civil disobedience. There are not likely to be many groups similarly entitled to engage in this form of dissent while at the same time recognizing a duty to a just constitution. One should not, however, that an injured minority is tempted to believe its claims as strong as those of any other; and therefore even if the reasons that different groups have for engaging in civil disobedience are not equally compelling, it is often wise to presume that their claims are indistinguishable. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Adopting this maxim, the circumstances imagined seems more likely to happen. This kind of case is also instructive in showing that the exercise of the right to dissent, like the exercise of rights generally, is sometimes limited by others having the very same right. Everyone’s exercising this right would have deleterious consequences for all, and se equitable plan is called for. Suppose that in the light of the three conditions, one has a right to appeal one’s case by civil disobedience. Thus injustice one protests is a clear violation of the liberties of equal citizenship, or of equality of opportunity, this violation having been more or less deliberate over an extended period of time in the face of normal political opposition, and any complications raised by the question of fairness are met. These conditions are not exhaustive; some allowance still has to be made for the possibility of injury to third parties, to the innocent, so to speak. However, I assume that they cover the main points. There is still, of course, the question whether it is wise or prudent to exercise this right. Having established the right, one is now free, as one is not before, to let these matters decide the issue. If our conduct only serves to provoke the harsh retaliation of the majority, we may be acting within our rights but nevertheless unwisely. To be sure, in a state of near justice, vindictive repression of legitimate dissent is unlikely, but it is important that the action be properly designed to make an effective appeal to the wider community. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Since civil disobedience is a mode of address taking place in the public forum, care must be taken to see that it is understood. Thus the exercise of the right to civil disobedience should, like any other right, be rationally framed to advance one’s ends or the ends of those one wishes to assist. The theory of justice has nothing specific to say about these practical considerations. In any event questions of strategy and tactics depend upon the circumstances of each case. However, the theory of justice should say at what point these matters are properly raised. Now in this account of the justification of civil disobedience I have not mentioned the principle of fairness. The natural duty of justice is the primary basis of our political ties to a constitutional regime. As we noted before only the more favoured members of society are likely to have a clear political obligation as opposed to a political duty. They are better situated to win public office and find it easier to take advantage of the political system. And having done so, they have acquired an obligation owed to citizens generally to uphold the just constitution. However, members of subjected minorities, say, who have a strong case for civil disobedience will not generally have a political obligation of this sort. This does not mean, however, that the principle of fairness will not give rise to important obligations in their case. For not only do many of the requirements of private life derive from this principle, but it comes into force wen persons or groups come together for common political purposes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Just as we acquire obligations to others with whom we have joined in various private associations, those who engage in political action assume obligatory ties to one another. Thus while the political obligation of dissenters to citizens generally is problematical, bonds of loyalty and fidelity still develop between them as they seek to advance their cause. In general, free association under a just constitution give rise to obligations provided that the ends of the group are legitimate and its arrangements fair. This is as true of political as it is of other associations. These obligations are of immense significance and they constrain in many ways what individuals can do. However, they are distinct from an obligation to comply with a just constitution. My discussion of civil disobedience is in terms of the duty of justice alone; a fuller view would note the place of these other requirements. When religion is allowed to invade public life, things have come to a pretty pass when. Slavery, for instance, was a very unjust institution. People were packed into a dark bottom of a ship, barely able to breathe because of the stench of human waste and vomit, as they lay chest to back, legs drawn into a fetal position, feet resting on the heads of those in the next row. Some were taken prisoner during tribal wars. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Others were jailed as petty criminals; and many had been unsuspecting dinner guests of Englishmen visiting their country. However, all had been forcibly enslaved and held in a stockade on the African coast until sold to the highest bidder. That bidder was the captain in the cabin above. Once purchased they had been branded and rowed to the schooner waiting offshore, their screams and cries ignored by the seamen who hoisted them abroad and chained them in the stinking hold. For the women, however, there was a further torture. The crew, diseases and ill-treated themselves, claimed the one sordid privilege of their trade—the pick of the slave women. Once under way, the ship had become half bedlam, half brothel. Now, several weeks into the voyage, sixty slaves had already died. Fever had taken some. Others, driven insane by the horror of their lot, had been killed by the crew. Each morning when the lower decks were opened, several dead or near-dead bodies were thrown to the sharks trailing the ship. The captain cursed as the bodies hit the choppy water. Each body overboard meant lost profits. For those who survived the hellish three-month journey, an equally gruesome future awaited. They would be auctioned naked in the marketplace to planter who would work them to death on their Caribbean plantations. Never again would these African men and women see their homeland. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Thousands of miles to the north, in a country that profited richly from this human misery, another man sat at his desk. He too gazed into darkness still filled his second-floor library at Number 4 Old Palace Yard, London. Only his piercing blue eyes reflected the turmoil of his thoughts as he eyed the jumble of pamphlets on his cluttered desk. He ran his hand through his wavy hair and opened his Bible to begin the day, as was his custom, with Scripture reading and prayer. However, his thoughts kept returning to the pamphlets, grisly accounts of human flesh sold like mutton for the profit of his countrymen. No matter how be tried, William Wilberforce could not wipe these scenes from his mind. William Wilberforce was the only son of prosperous merchant parents. High society revolved around romantic intrigue and adulterous affairs. An upper-class couple might not be seen together in public for weeks during the social season, for no popular hostess would invite a husband and wife to the same event. The poor, of course, had no such opportunity to escape from one another. Crammed together in shabby dwellings, they were cogs grinding out a living in the Empire’s emerging industrial machines. Pale children worked eighteen hours a day in cotton mills or coal mines to bring homes a few shillings a month to parents who often wasted in on inexpensive gin. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
London was a city where unchecked passions and desires ran their course. Few raised their voice in opposition. So it is not surprising that few argued against one of the nation’s most bountiful sources of wealth—the slave trade. In fact, the trade was both a successful business and a national policy. Political alliances revolved around commitments to it. It became known euphemistically as “the institution,” the “pillar and support of British plantation industry in the West Indies.” In a celebrated case in England’s high court only four years earlier, slaves had been seemed “goods and chattels.” Corruption in government was so widespread that few members of Parliament thought twice about accepting bribes for their votes. Planters and other gentlemen involved in the slave trade paid three to five thousand pounds to “buy” boroughs, which sent their representatives to the House of Commons. The same attitude reigned in the House of Lords. Their political influence in Parliament grew until a large bloc was controlled by the vested influence of the slave trade. The horrors of the trade were remote and unseen, the cotton and sugar profits they yielded very tangible. So most consciences were not troubled about the Black men and women suffering far away on the high sea or on remote plantations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Many people say that some used Christianity and the Bible to incorrectly justify slavery, but that was not always the case. John Newton, son of a sailor, had been impressed into the Royal Navy when he was eleven. He deserted, was caught in West Africa, flogged, and placed into service on a slave ship. Eventually he became involved in the slave trade and in 1750 was given command of his own ship. On one especially stormy passage to West Indies, however, Mr. Newton was converted to faith in Jesus Christ. He renounced slaving and expressed his wonder at the gift of salvation in his famous hymn, “Amazing Grace.” Some people become so absorbed in politics that they never give themselves time for due reflection on religion. God wants to being compassion to the oppressed as well as oppose the oppressors. Almighty God has set before His people even today, two great objectives. The abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners. Slaver is so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable, and an iniquity such as this, because it still happens today, must be abolished. We still live in a time, even in American, where the country’s economic strength depends on slavery at home and abroad. There are different forms from forced labour to human trafficking. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
An estimated 25 million victims are trapped in modern-day slavery. Of these, 16 million (64 percent) were exploited for labour, and approximately 5 million (19 percent) were exploited for pleasures of the flesh, 4 million (17 percent) were exploited in state-imposed forced labour. Forced labour takes place in many different industries. Therefore, private faith that does not act in the face of oppression is no faith at all. Slavery is a subject, in which the interest, not of this country, nor of Europe alone, but of the whole World, and of posterity, are involved. It is impossible for me not to feel both terrified and concerned at our leader’s inadequacy to abolish slavery in their communities before taking hold of state, nation, or international positions. However, as a race—the human race—as a nation, and as citizens of God’s Kingdom, we must fight for the total abolition of the slave trade. This is bigger than climate change, bigger than COVID-19, and much bigger than any jobs report because without human life, we have nothing. I mean not to accuse anyone for having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others. This evidence cannot be ignored. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Never, never will we desist till we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened ties, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country. The courts, law enforcement, and your employers have a duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America! For instance Amendment IV of the Constitution states people have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized. Our sister, Breonna Taylor, an innocent young lady in the prime of her life was murdered in her own home, on 13 March 2020, while she lay in bed resting, so she could return to her job as a nurse in the morning, and because the police killed her by accident, no one is being held responsible for the crime, but so many are fighting to keep our boarders open and floor the streets with illegal immigrants, when we will not even protect our own citizens. How humane is that? Amendment VIII states the excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. However, our brother George Perry Floyd was killed by the police on 25 March 2020, while telling the officer he could not breath because the officer had his knee on the man’s neck. How cruel and unusual is that! #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Amendment XVI states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States of America, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, but innocent 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was gunned down after buying some candy because someone did not like the way he looked. There are just a few laws that ought to be observed and we must never take our freedom for granted, nor allow criminals to roam the streets without answering for their crimes. That is why Amendment VI of the United States Constitution states in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against one; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in one’s favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for one’s defense. We do not want chaos on our streets, we do not want people becoming law enforcement agents to get away with murder, and we do not want people taken into custody without being read their Miranda rights or being allowed to have a trial. It should not be easier for those in public office or law enforcement to break the laws than it is to enforce it. The laws and law enforcement are there to protect us, not facilitate and help crime to fester. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Just remember, slavery is still a reality and in was not long ago, in the year 1788 in a ship destined for the slave trade, out of 650 persons on board, 155 died. In another, 405 were on board, out of whom were lost 200. In another there were on board 402, out of whom 73 died. When Captain Charles Wilson was asked the causes of this mortality, he replied that the slaves had a fixed melancholy and dejection; that they wished to die; that they refused sustenance, till they were beaten in order to compel them to eat; and that when they had been so beaten, they looked in the faces of their captures and said, piteously, “Soon we will be no more.” Now, I am sure you know someone who was happy and full of life who has suffered some adverse circumstances and is emotionally, physically, or born so worn down that they no longer want to live, and you know that is not them talking, but the endless pain and torment they so badly want to escape from and cannot. Often times, it is much harder for victims to get help than people know. It is not that they do not want to be saved, it is however, that the system is set up to make victims of those they want to harm. How else did Larry Nassar go on abusing hundreds of girls from 1992 until 2015? How did Jerry Sandusky go on abusing young boys from 1994 until 2011? Because people in positions of authority liked him and protected him, until they could not. Nonetheless, countless lives were ruined while these innocent children were enslaved. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
Even the vested economic interests of the West Indian bloc could not gloss over the appalling facts nor ignore the public support the abolitionists were gaining. However, in modern times, the force of the people has to be involved in stopping slavery. We cannot allow radicals to continue to fan the flames of this reign of terror. Unless the Divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of humans and devils, but if God be for you who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might, till even modern American slavery, the vilest thing currently under the Sun, shall vanish away before it. That God that has guided you from your youth up may continue to strengthen in this and all things, is my prayer. Be not weary of well-doing. We must issue a proclamation at the deluge of every kind of vice which, to the scandal of our holy religion, and to the evil example of our loving subject, have broken upon this nation. The only wat to reform morals is to ruin purses. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Make them pay. How can you sleep while the fate of men, women, and children are in the hand of abusers should be rushing to your minds, and the guilt of our wicked land. If one really loves another, one would rather die for that person than to injure the individual. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nor height, nor depth, not any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” reports Romans 8.35, 39. If we would truly seek to be more like our Saviour and Master, learning to love as He loves should be our highest goal. Love is the foundation of marriage, but love itself is a product of law and lives by law. True love is law-abiding, for the highest satisfaction come to a law-abiding life. To those who are sealed to each other for all existence, love is ever warm, more hopeful, believing, courageous, and fearless. Such people live the richer, more joyful life. To them happiness and the making of it have no end. Above physical charm, love is begotten by qualities, often subtle, of mind and spirit. The beautiful face may hide an empty mind; the sweet voice may utter coarse words; the lovely form may be ill-mannered; the person of radiant beauty and the ne of kingly form may be intolerable bores on nearer acquaintanceship. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
The person who looks attractive may really have no faults, may excel us in knowledge and courtesy, yet one is not of our kind, one’s ways are not ours. Under either condition, love wilts in its first stage. “Falling in love” is always from within, rather than from without. That is, if true love is to be born and have long life, physical attractiveness must be reinforced with mental and spiritual harmony. There must be common ideals and standards. There must be a great devotion and companionship. Love is cleanliness and progress and sacrifice and selflessness. This kind of love never tires nor wanes, but lives through sickness and sorrow, poverty and privation, accomplishment and disappointment, time and eternity. Love cannot be forced, it comes out of Heaven, unasked and unsought. This respect comes of recognition that each of us is a son or daughter of God, endowed with something of one’s divine nature that each is an individual entitled to expression and cultivation of individual talents and deserving of forbearance, of patience, of understanding, of courtesy, of thoughtful consideration. True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well being of one’s companion. The World is filled with too many of us who are inclined to indicate our love with an announcement or declaration. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
True love is a process. True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time. Too often expediency, infatuation, simulation, persuasion, or lust are mistaken for love. If our love is no deeper than the arousal of momentary feeling or the expression in words of what is more lasting than the time it takes to speak them, how hollow, how empty. We must at regular and appropriate intervals speak and reassure others of our love and the long time it takes to prove it by our actions. Real love does take time. The Great Shepherd had the same thoughts in mind when he taught, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” reports Jon 14.15. If you love me, feed my sheep,” reports John 21.16. If it is to be continuing, love demands action. Love is a process, not a declaration. Love is not an announcement. Love is not a passing fancy. Love is not an expediency. Love is not convenience. God-given proclamations should remind us we can often best show our love through the process of feeling and keeping. Love of God takes time. Love of family takes time. Love of country takes tie. Love of neighbour takes time. Love of companion takes time. Love in courtship takes time. Love of self takes time. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
One who loves has and feels responsibility. If we look at love between two who are preparing for a temple marriage, we see the elements of sacrifice and of serving each other’s best interest, not a shortsighted “me” interest. True love and happiness in courtship and marriage are based upon honesty, self-respect, sacrifice, consideration, courtesy, kindness, and placing “we” ahead of “me.” Perfect love is perfectly patient. Unlike our love, Jesus’ love consists of active restraint as well as pressing encouragement. His perfect love of each and all spares Him the need to accept us as we now are for He knows perfectly what we have the possibility to become. Love, as defined by the Lord, elevates, protect, respects, and enriches another. It motivates one to make sacrifices for another. At the hour of sin, pure love is pushed out of one door while lust sneaks in the other. Affection has then been replaced with desire of the flesh and uncontrolled passion. Accepted has been the doctrine which the devil is so eager to establish, that illicit relations in pleasures of the flesh that are justified. Dear Lord in Heaven, with your quick-sent lightning and penetrating rain, please make the Earth fertile, storm-rider, hammer-wielder. Please wield the lightening on my side, Thunderer, and I will ensure that my cause is just. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Wilder of the hammer, red-bearded one, God, protector, to you I call. I stand in the midst of a storm, and ask your protection. You who bear the flaming hammer, to you I pray: please fight on my side against all my opponents. For with you on my side, who can stand before me? Please remember my devotion to you, Lord of Thunder. As I work to your honour, may you work also to mine. Thou didst thus make Thy greatness and holiness known in Thy World, and didst bring great deliverance to America. Then Thy children came into Thy dwelling place, cleansed the Temple, purified the Sanctuary, kindled lights in Thy sacred courts, and they designated these days for giving thanks and praise unto Thy great name. For all this, Thy name, O our King, shall be blessed and exalted for ever and ever. O, please inscribe all the children of Thy covenant for a happy life. May all the living do home unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who art our salvation and our help. Please blessed be Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks are due. Our God and God of our fathers, please bless us with threefold blessing written in the Torah of Moses, Thy servant, and spoken by Aaron and his sons, Thy consecrated priests: May the Lord bless thee and keep thee; so may it be His will. May the Lord make His countenance to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; so may it be His will. May the Lord turn His countenance unto thee and give thee peace. So may it be His will. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
MILLS STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
Mills Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mission, Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, and Contemporary Farmhouse. Homes range in size from approximately 2,000 to 3,000 square feet.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.
Laws of Nature and Nature’s God—A Great City is that Which Has the Greatest Men and Women!
Your cravings as a terrestrial being do not become a prayer just because it is God who you ask for them. Underrepresented groups experiment; majorities cling to the forms of the past. It is safe to say that large numbers of people will refuse to jettison the conventional idea of marriage or the familiar family forms. They will, no doubt, continue searching for happiness within the orthodox format. Yet, even they will be forced to innovate in the end, for the odds against success may prove overwhelming. The orthodox format presupposed that two young people will “find” one another and marry. It presupposed that the two will fulfill certain psychological needs in one another, and that the two personalities will develop over the years, more or less in tandem, so that they continue to fulfill each other’s needs. It further presupposes that this process will last “until death do us part.” These expectations are built deeply into our culture. It is no longer respectable, as it once was, to marry for anything but love. Love has changed from a peripheral concern of the family into its primary justification. Indeed, the pursuit of love through family life has become, for many, the very purpose of life itself. Love, however, is defined in terms of this notion of shared growth. It is seen as a beautiful mesh of complementary needs, flowing into and out of one another, fulfilling the loved ones, and producing feelings of warmth, tenderness and devotion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Unhappy husbands often complain that they have “left their wives behind” in terms of social, educational or intellectual growth. Partners in successful marriages are said to “grow together.” This parallel development theory of love carries endorsement from marriage counsellors, psychologists, and sociologist. Thus, says sociologist Nelson Foote, a specialist on the family, the quality of the relationship between husband and wife is dependent upon “the degree of matching in their phases of distinction but comparable development.” If love is a product of shared growth, however, and we are to measure success in marriage by the degree to which matched development actually occurs, it becomes possible to make a strong and ominous prediction about the future. It is possible to demonstrate that, even in a relatively stagnant society, the mathematical odds are heavily stacked against any couple achieving this ideal of parallel growth. The odds for success positively plummet, however, when the rate of change in society accelerates, as it now is doing. In a fast-moving society, in which many things change, not once, but repeatedly, in which the husband moves up and down a variety of economic and social scales, in which the family is again and again torn loose from home and community, in which individuals move further from their parents, further from the religion of origin, and further from traditional values, it is almost miraculous if two people develop at anything like comparable rates. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
If, at the same time, average life expectancy rises from, say eighty to one hundred years, thereby lengthening the term during which this acrobatic feat of matched development is supposed to be maintained, the odds against success become absolutely astronomical. Thus, Nelson Foote writes with wry understatement: “To expect a marriage to last indefinitely under modern conditions is to expect a lot.” To ask love to last indefinitely is to expect even more. Transience and novelty are both in league against it. It is this change in the statistical odds against love that accounts for the high divorce and separation rates in most of the techno-societies. The faster the rate of change and the longer the life span, the worse these odds grow. Something has to crack. In point of fact, of course, something has already cracked—and it is the old insistence on permanence. Millions of men and women now adopt what appears to them to be a sensible and conservative strategy. Rather than opting for some offbeat variety of the family, they marry conventionally, they attempt to make it “work,” and then, wen the paths of the partners diverge beyond an acceptable point, they divorce or depart. Most of them go on to search for a new partner whose developmental stage, at that moment, matches their own. As human relationships grow more transient and modular, the pursuit of love becomes, if anything more frenzied. However, the temporal expectations change. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
As conventional marriage proves itself less and less capable of delivering on its promise of lifelong love, therefore, we can anticipate open public acceptance of temporary marriages. Instead of wedding “until death us do part,” couples will enter into matrimony knowing from the first that the relationship is likely to be short-lived. They will know, too, that when the paths of husband and wife diverge, when there is too great a discrepancy in developmental stages, they may call it quits—without shock or embarrassment, perhaps even without some of the pain that goes with divorce today. And when the opportunity presents itself, they will marry again…and again…and again. Serial marriage—a pattern of successive temporary marriages—is cut to order for the Age of Transience in which all human’s relationships, all one’s ties with the environment, shrinks in duration. It is the natural, the inevitable outgrowth of a social order in which automobiles are rented, dolls traded in, and dresses discarded after one-time use. It is the mainstream marriage pattern of tomorrow. In one sense, serial marriage is already the best kept family secret of the techno-societies. According to Professor Jessie Bernard, a World-prominent family sociologist, “Plural marriage is more extensive in our society today than it is in societies that permit polygamy—the chief difference being that we have institutionalized plural marriage serially or sequentially rather than contemporaneously.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Remarriage is already so prevalent a practice that nearly one out of every four bridegrooms in America has been to the altar before. It is so prevalent that one IBM personnel man reports a poignant incident involving a divorced woman, who, in filling out a job application, paused when she came to the question of marital status. She put her pencil in her mouth pondered for a moment, then wrote: “Unremarried.” Transience necessarily affects the durational expectancies with which persons approach new situations. While they may yearn for a permanent relationship, something inside whispers to them that it is an increasingly improbably luxury. Even young people who most passionately seek commitment, profound involvement with people and causes, recognize the power of the thrust toward transience. Listen, for example, to a young American, a civil-right worker, as she describes her attitude toward time and marriage: “In this World, marriage is always billed as ‘the end’—like in a Hollywood movie. I do not for that. I cannot imagine myself promising my whole lifetime away. I might want to get married now, but how about next year? That is not disrespect for the institution [of marriage], but the deepest respect. In The [civil rights] Movement, you need to have a feeling for the temporary—of making something as good as you can, while it lasts. In conventional relationships, time is a prison.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Such attitudes will not be confined to the young, the few, or the politically active. They will whip across nations as novelty floods into the society and catch fire as the level of transience rises still higher. And along with them will come a sharp increase in the number of temporary—then serial—marriages. The idea is summed up vividly by a Swedish magazine, Svensk Damtidning, which interviewed a number of leading Swedish sociologist, legal experts, and others about the future of man-woman relationship. It presented its findings in five photographs. They showed the same beautiful bride being carried across the threshold five times—by five different bridegrooms. Though Our Lord often speaks of Hell as a sentence inflicted by a tribunal, He also says elsewhere that the judgment consists in the very fact that humans prefer darkness to light, and that not He, but His “word,” judges humans. We are therefore at liberty—since the two conceptions, in the long run, mean the same thing—to think of this bad human’s perdition not as a sentence imposed on one but as the mere fact of being what one is. The characteristic of lost souls is their rejection of everything that is not simply themselves. Our imaginary egoist has tried to turn everything one meets into a province or appendage of the self. The taste for the other, that is, the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in one except in so far as one’s body still draws one into some rudimentary contact with an outer World. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Death removes this last contact. One has one’s wish—to lie wholly in the self and to make the best of what one finds there. And what one finds there is Hell. Another objection turns on the apparent disproportion between eternal damnation and transitory sin. And if we think of eternity as a mere prolongation of time, it is disproportionate. However, many would reject this idea of eternity. If we think of time as a line—which is a good image, because the parts of time are successive and no two of them can co-exist; id est, there is no width in time, only length—we probably ought to think of eternity as a plane or even a solid. Thus the whole reality of a human being would be mainly the work of God, acting through grace and nature, but human free will would have contributed the base-line which we call Earthly life: and if you draw your base-line askew, the whole solid will be in the wrong place. The fact that life is short, or, in the symbol, that we contribute only one little line to the whole complex figure, might be regarded as a Divine mercy. For if even the drawing of that little line, left to our free will, is somethings so badly done as to spoil the whole, how much worse a mess might we have made of the figure if more had been entrusted to us? A simpler form of the same objection consists in saying that death ought not to be final, that there ought to be a second change. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
The second chance must not be confused either with that of Purgatory (for souls already saved) of Limbo (for souls already lost). I believe that if a million chances were likely to do good, they would be given. However, a master often knows, when boys and parents do not, that it is really useless to send a boy in for a certain examination again. Finality must come some time, and it does not require a very robust faith to believe that omniscience knows when. Another objection turns on the frightful intensity of the pains of Hell as suggested by medieval art and, indeed, by certain passages in Scripture. Von Hugel here warns us not to confuse the doctrine itself with the imagery by which it may be conveyed. Our Lord speaks of Hell under three symbols: first, that of punishment (“everlasting punishment,” Matthew 25.46); second, that of destruction (“fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell,” Matthew 10.28); and thirdly, that of privation, exclusion, or banishment into “the darkness outside,” as in the parables of the man without a wedding garment or the wise and foolish virgins. The prevalent image of fire is significant because it combines the ideas of torment and destruction. Now it is quite certain that all these expressions are intended to suggest something unspeakably horrible, and any interpretation which does not face that fact is, I am afraid, out of court from the beginning. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
However, it is not necessary to concentrate on the images of torture to the exclusion of those suggesting destruction and privation. What can that be whereof all three images are equally proper symbols? Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed. And people often talk as if the “annihilation” of a soul were intrinsically possible. In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log, and you have gases, heat, and ash. To have been a log means now being those three things. If souls can be destroyed, mist there not be a state of having been a human soul? And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation? You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for humans at all. “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepare for you since the creation of the World.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” reports Matthew 25.34, 41. To enter Heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on Earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a human: it is “remains.” To be a complete human means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a human—to be an ex-human or damned ghost—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will. It is, of course, impossible to imagine what the consciousness of such a creature—already a loose congeries of mutually antagonistic sins rather than a sinner—would be like. There may be a truth in the saying that “hell is hell, not from its own point of view, but from the Heavenly point of view.” I do not think this belies the severity of Our Lord’s words. It is only to be damned that their fate could ever seem less than unendurable. And it must be admitted that we think of eternity, the categories of pain and pleasure, which have engaged us so long, begin to recede, as vaster good and evil loom in sight. Neither pain nor pleasure as such had the last word. Even if it were possible that the experience (if it can be called experience) of the lost contained no pain and much pleasure, still that black pleasure would be such as to send any soul, not already damned, flying to its prayers in nightmare terror: even if there were pains in Heaven, a who understand would desire them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Exception must be taken to the light of their Father, because it could not illuminate and fill even those things which were within it, namely the shadow and the void. It seems scandalous and reprehensible to suppose that within the pleroma of light there could be a dark and formless void. For the Christian neither God nor Christ could be a paradox; they have to have a single meaning. However, no one knew, and apparently (with a few commendable exceptions) no one knows even now, that the hybris of the speculative intellect had already emboldened the ancients to propound a philosophical definition of God that more or less obliged one to be the Summum Bonum (the highest good). A Protestant theologian has even had the temerity to assert that “God can only be good.” Yahweh could certainly have taught him a thing or two in this respect, if he himself is unable to see his intellectual trespass against God’s freedom and omnipotence. This forcible usurpation of the Summum Bonum naturally has its reasons, the origins of which lie far back in the past (though I cannot enter into this here). Nevertheless, it is the effective source of the concept of privatio boni, which nullifies the reality of evil and can be found as early as Basil the Great (330-79) and Dionysius the Areopagite (2nd half of the 4th century), and is fully developed in Augustine. The earliest authority of all for the later axiom “Omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine” is Tatian (2nd century), who says: “Nothing evil was created by God; we ourselves have produced all wickedness.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
You must not look upon God as the author of the existence of evil, not consider that evil has any subsistence in itself. For evil does not subsist as a living being does, nor can we set before our eyes any substantial essence thereof. For evil is the privation of good. And thus evil does not inhere in its own substance, but arises from the mutilation of the soul. The darkness of the World comes from the shadow cast by the body of Heaven. Neither is evil uncreated, as the wicked say who set up evil for the equal of good…nor is it created. For if all things are of God, how can evil arise from good? It is equally impious to say that evil has its origin from God, because the contrary cannot proceed from the contrary. Life does not engender death, darkness is not the origin of light, sickness is not the maker of health…Now if evil is neither uncreated nor created by God, whence comes its nature? That evil exists no one living in the World will deny. What shall we say, then? That evil is not a living and animated entity, but a condition of the soul opposed to virtue, proceeding from light-minded persons on account of their falling away from good. Each of us should acknowledge that one is the first author of the wickedness in one. The perfectly natural fact that when you say “high” you immediately postulate “low” is here twisted into a causal relationship and reduced to absurdity, since it is sufficiently obvious that darkness produces no light and light produces no darkness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
The idea of good and evil, however, is the premise for any moral judgment. They are a logically equivalent pair of opposites and, as such, the sine qua non of al acts of cognition. From the empirical standpoint we cannot say more than this. And from this standpoint we would have to assert that good and evil, being coexistent halves of moral judgment, do not derive from one another but are always together. Evil, like good, belongs to the category of human values, and we are the authors of the facts submitted to our moral judgment. These facts are called by one person good and by another evil. Only in capital cases is there anything like a consensus generalis. If we hold that humans are the authors of evil, we are saying in the same breath that they are also the author of good. However, humans are first and foremost the author merely of judgments; in relation to the facts judged, one’s responsibility is not so easy to determine. In order to do this, we would have to give a clear definition of the extent of one’s free will. The psychiatrist knows what a desperately difficult task this is. Perhaps evil has no substance of its own but arises from a mutilation of the soul, and if we are convinced that evil really exists, then the relative reality of evil is grounded on a real mutilation of the soul which must have an equally real cause. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
If the soul was originally created good, then it has really been corrupted and by something that is real, even if tis is nothing more than carelessness, indifference, and frivolity. When something—I must stress this with all possible emphasis—is traced back to a psychic condition or fact, it is very definitely not reduced to nothing and thereby nullified, but is shifted on to the plane of psychic reality, which is very much easier to establish empirically than, say, the reality of the devil in dogma, who according to the authentic sources was not invented by humans at all but existed long before they did. If the devil fell away from God of one’s own free will, this proves firstly that evil was in the World before humans, and therefore that humans cannot be the sole author of it, and secondly that the devil already had a mutilated soul for which we must hold a real cause responsible. However, this argument produces some insoluble contradictions: it is laid down from the start that the independent existence of evil must be denied even in the face of the eternity of the devil as asserted by dogma. The historical reason for this was the threat presented by Manichaean dualism. This is especially clear in the treatise of Titus of Bostra (d.c. 3700, entitled Adversus Manichaeos, where he states in refutation of Manichaeans that, so far as substance is concerned, there is no such thing as evil. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Jesus Christ teaches us that we should love our enemies, return good for evil. However, is this realistic in a World in which evil so often triumphs? Can one forgive seventy times seven and still restrain wrongdoers? Turn the other cheek to terrorism? These dilemmas lead many to conclude that either Jesus was not speaking literally or if He was, one must live a monastic life to be a Christian. We reach such conclusion, however, because we misunderstand Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom. When Jesus announced the Kingdom, He did indeed set forth radical standards by which its citizens are to live. He knew such a lifestyle would be both costly and complex, but it would witness the values of God’s Kingdom even in the midst of the evil of this World. Christ was not suggesting, however, that the obedient Christian would be able to usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth. Only Christ Himself would do that when He returns. However, for this period between the two stages—the announcement of the Kingdom and its final consummation—God has provided structures to restrain evil of the World. The state is even ordained to wield the sword when necessary; and the Christian is commanded to obey the state and to respect its authority as God’s instruments. One will have to maintain one’s loyalty to the intuition against the cautions, the excessive prudence, of frightened intellect. The intuition is to collate all these different functions of the personality, and direct them towards its truest welfare. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
The Christian, therefore, follows two commandments: to live by Christ’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, modeling the values of God’s Kingdom—the one yet to come in its fullness—and at the same time to support government’s rile in preserving order as a witness to God’s authority over the present kingdoms of this World. A human is really free when one’s intuition directs one’s intellect and rules one’s energies. The verdict of intuition may be vindicated by time but one cannot always afford to wait for it. So while the Christian is not to return evil for evil (one must instead exercise forgiveness, breaking the cycle of evil), one may participate in the God-ordained structure that restrains the evil and chaos of the fallen World by the use of force. The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society’s most basic values. The family is an alternative to the states as a focus of loyalty and thus a humanizing force in society. Unlike the state, it upholds nonmaterial values—makes them paramount indeed. In most Eastern cultures the family remains the fundamental unit of society. In the West, however, relativism has encouraged the belief that family is a matter of convenience rather than convention. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
The traditional family has all but disintegrated in many communities, where more than 50 percent of children are born out of wedlock. And in the nation as a whole more than half the children are raised in one-parent families where the parent works. Some school textbooks even describe the family as any voluntary grouping of people living together. This attitude is reflected in out laws, our court decisions, our public mores—and in our crime rates. Typically, crime is not the result of environment or poverty, but of wrong moral choices. Generally, such moral choices are determined by moral conscience, which is shaped early in life and most profoundly by the family. Without the lessons the family alone can teach, commitment to God and duty to fellow humans becomes alien concepts. Little wonder that many of today’s youth have been lost to the streets. Though it is not my purpose here to examine the issue of the modern family, the situation today merits a word of warning. The widespread loss of the God-ordained role of the family leads to the deterioration of society and [the] eventual collapse of the nation. The humanizing force of the family can never be replaced by political or bureaucratic means. Consciousness-in-itself, its own pure formless being, is incorruptible; but viewed from our side, our relation to it, universal and collective, we, individual entities, emerge from it and eventually fall back into it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
This applies to all who take on an existence, however tiny it be in dimension or however immense in time, however feeble in power or however majestic in rulership. Although the Absolute is the Unknowable to us, it must be able to know and understand its own being and its own nature. Consciousness untouched by any thought, picture, or name—this has yet to be studied by our Western psychologist. Ultimate reality does not lie in this World, nor in that which perceives it, but in that which perceives the perceiver. Consciousness can exist apart from the World, from the things and creatures in it, and even from the ego, but the World exists only as a projection of consciousness. In this sense the World has no lasting reality but, by contrast, the consciousness has. What is Spirit? It is that which is the essence of mind and therefore mind in its pure state divested of all thoughts, all personal emotions, and all personal egoism. Therefore, it transcends the human concept of individual being. To ascribe human qualities to it is to falsify it and yet, because it is the essence of the mind, it is the essence of every human being. The intellect can never understand this point until it understands that the conception of individuality and the conception of existence are separate and different from each other. Individuality may go but existence may remain. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Beyond all forms which consciousness can take is its very essence, consciousness in itself, alone and unique. It can never be transformed or changed and it can never disintegrate. Pure consciousness is not a mental state, but Mind-in-itself, the Mind when gathered entirely into itself. The mental states are brought about by some kind of mental activity, but not here. Consciousness-in-itself is something apart from its objects, which are thoughts, feelings, imaginations, things, bodies—in short experience. Consciousness stripped of thoughts and pictures become bare Being. Consciousness-in-itself does not vary, but its phases and states do. It is Mind which not only lights up its own existence but also all other existence. There are various kinds of consciousness but there is only a single pure Consciousness, one where nothing is put into it—no thoughts, emotions, or objects, even no ego. Dear Lord in Heaven, you move among the stars as a shepherd among His sheep, guiding them, keeping them from straying. Father Moon, please softly light my way, keeping me from real danger as well. We thankfully acknowledge Thee, O Lord our God, our fathers’ God to al eternity. Our Rock art Thou, our Shield that saves through every generation. We give Thee thanks and we declare Thy praise for all Thy tender care. Our lives we trust into Thy loving hand. Our souls are ever in Thy charge; Thy wonders and Thy miracles are daily with us, evening, morn and noon. O Thou who art all-good, whose mercies never fail us, Compassionate One, whose loving kindness never cease, we ever hope in Thee. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Cresleigh Homes
Whatever lifestyle you’re cooking up in your #Riverside Residence 2, we know it’s going to be good with that kitchen. 😉 Swipe to see a spacious working island and your kitchen dining area! ➡️
Residence Two a spacious single story home with over 2,500 square feet of home thoughtfully designed to maximize every available foot of space. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a three car garage all come included in this home. The layout if an entertainer’s dream with large kitchen and working island, dining room connected through the butler’s pantry, and a large great room overlooking the ample rear yard.
Cresleigh offers a community that has established great schools, superior natural beauty, and other wonderful amenities. Hiking trails, parks complement the dramatic landscape offering residents unmatched opportunities to relax and connect with nature. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/
Spare You Country’s Flag as if it was a Star-Crossed Lover Shining Bright!
If truth is less shapely than fiction, still it is more honest. The most obviously upsetting force likely to strike the family in the decades immediately ahead will be the impact of new birth technology. The ability to pre-set the gender of one’s baby, or even to “program” its IQ, looks and personality traits, must now be regarded as a real possibility. Embryo implants, babies grown in vitro, gene editing, the ability to swallow a pill and guarantee oneself twins or triplets or, even more, the ability to walk into a “babytorium” and actually purchase embryos—all this reaches so far beyond any previous human experience that one need to look at the future through the eyes of the poet or painter, rather than those of the sociologist or conventional philosopher. It is regarded as somehow unscholarly, even frivolous, to discuss these matters. Yet advances in science and technology, or in reproductive biology alone, could with in a short time, smash all orthodox ideas about the family and its responsibilities. When babies can be grown in a laboratory jar what happens to the very notion of maternity? And what happens to the self-image of the female in societies which, since the very beginnings of humans, have taught one that one’s primary mission is the propagation of and nurture of the race? Few social scientists have begun as yet to concern themselves with such questions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
One who has concerned oneself with birth technology and the woman’s role in the family and society is psychiatrist Hyman G. Weitzen, director of Neuropsychiatric Service at Polyclinic Hospital in New York. The cycle of birth, Dr. Weitzen suggests, “fulfills for most women a major creative need…Most women are proud of their ability to bear children…The special aura that glorifies the pregnant woman has figured largely in the art and literature of both East and West.” What happens to the cult of motherhood, Dr. Weitzen asks, if “her offspring might literally not be hers, but that of a genetically ‘superior’ ovum, implanted in her womb from another woman, or even grown in a Petri dish?” If women are to be important at all, he suggests, it will no longer be because they alone can bear children. If nothing else, we are about to end the mystique of motherhood. Not merely motherhood, but the concept of parenthood itself may be in for radical revision. Indeed, the day may soon dawn when it is possible for a child to have more than two biological parents. Dr. Beatrice Mintz, a developmental biologist at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia, has grown what are coming to be known as “multi-mice”—baby mice each of which has more than the usual number of parents. Embryos are placed in a laboratory dish and nurtured until they form a single growing mass. This is then implanted in the womb of a third female mouse. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Then, a baby is born that clearly shares the genetic characteristics of both sets of doners. Thus a typical multi-mouse, born of two pairs of parents, has white fur and whiskers on one side of its face, ark fur and dark hair covering the rest of the body. Some 700 multi-mice bred in this fashion have already produced more than 35,000 offspring themselves. If multi-mouse is here, can “multi-human” be far behind? Under such circumstances, what or who is the mother? And just exactly who is the father? If a couple can actually purchase an embryo, then parenthood becomes a legal, not a biological matter. Unless such transactions are tightly controlled, one can imagine such grotesqueries as a couple buying an embryo, raising it in vitro, then buying another in the name of the first, as though for a trust fund. In that case, they might be regarded as legal “grandparents” before their first child is out of infancy. We shall need a whole new vocabulary to describe kinship ties. Furthermore, if embryos are for sale, can a corporation buy one? Can it buy ten thousand? Can it resell them? And if not a corporation, how about a non-commercial research laboratory? If we buy and sell living embryos, are we back to a new form of slavery? Such are the nightmarish questions soon to be debated by us. To continue to think of the family therefore, in purely conventional terms is to defy all reason. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Faced by rapid social change and the staggering implications of the scientific revolution, super-industrial humans may be forced to experiment with novel family forms. Innovative marginalized members of the community can be expected to try out a colourful variety of family arrangements. They will begin by tinkering with existing forms. We expect a well-ordered society, but we know that in reality some serious violations of justice nevertheless do occur. Conscientious refusal is noncompliance with a more or less direct legal injunction or administrative order. It is refusal since an order is addressed to us and, given the nature of the situation, whether we accede to it is known to the authorities. Typical examples are the refusal of the early Christians to preform certain acts of piety prescribed by the pagan state, and the refusal of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to salute the flag. Other examples are the unwillingness of a pacifist to serve in the armed forces, or of a soldier to obey an order that one thinks is manifestly contrary to the moral laws as it applies to war. Or gain, in Thoreau’s case, the refusal to pay a tax on the grounds that to do so would make one an agent of grace injustice to another. One’s action is assumed to be known to the authorities, however much one might wish, in some cases, to conceal it. Where it can be covert, one might speak of conscientious evasion rather than conscientious refusal. Covert infractions of a fugitive slave law are instances of conscientious evasion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
There are several contrasts between conscientious refusal (or evasion) and civil disobedience. First of all, conscientious refusal is not a form of address appealing to the sense of justice of the majority. To be sure, such acts are not generally secretive or covert, as concealment is often impossible anyway. One simply refuses on conscientious grounds to obey a command or to comply with a legal injunction. One does not invoke the convictions of the community, and in this sense conscientious refusal is not an act in the public forum. Those ready to withhold obedience recognize that there may be no basis for mutual understanding; they do not seek out occasions for disobedience as a way to state their cause. Rather, they bide their time hoping that the necessity to disobey will not arise. They are less optimistic than those undertaking civil disobedience and they may entertain no expectation of changing laws or policies. The situation may allow no time for them to make their case, or again there may not be any chance that the majority will be receptive to their claims. Conscientious refusal is not necessarily based on political principles; it may be founded on religious or other principles at variance with the constitutional order. Civil disobedience is an appeal to a commonly shared conception of justice, whereas conscientious refusal may have other grounds. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
For example, assuming that early Christians would not justify their refusal to comply with the religious customs of the Empire by reasons of justice but simply as being contrary to their religious convictions, their argument would not be political; nor, with similar qualifications, are the views of a pacifist, assuming that wars of self-defense at least are recognized by the conception of justice that underlies a constitutional regime. Conscientious refusal may, however, be grounded on political principles. One many decline to go along with a law thinking that it is so unjust that complying with it is simply out of the question. This would be the case if, say, the law were to enjoin our being the agent of enslaving another, or to require us to submit to a similar fate. These are patent violations of recognized political principles. It is a difficult matter to find the right course when some humans appeal to religious principles in refusing to do actions which, it seems, are required by principle of political justice. Does the pacifist posses an immunity from military service in a just war, assuming that there are such wars? Or is the state permitted to impose certain hardships for noncompliance? There is a temptation to day that the law must always respect the dictates of conscience, but this cannot be right. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
As we have seen in the case of the intolerant, the legal order must regulate human’s pursuit of their religious interests so as to realize the principle of equal liberty; and it may certainly forbid religious practices such as human sacrifice, to take an extreme case. Neither religiosity nor conscientiousness suffices to protect this practice. A theory of justice must work out from its own point of view how to treat those who dissent from it. The aim of a well-ordered society, or one in a state of near justice, is to preserve and strengthen the institutions of justice. If a religion is denied its full expression, it is presumably because it is in violation of the equal liberties of others. In general, the degree of tolerance accorded opposing moral conceptions depends upon the extent to which they can be allowed an equal place within a just system of liberty. If pacifism is to be treated with respect and not merely tolerated, the explanation must be that it accords reasonably well with the principles of justice, the main exception arising from its attitude toward engaging in a just war (assuming here that in some situations wars of self-defense are justified). The political principles recognized by the community have a certain affinity with the doctrine the pacifist professes. There is a common abhorrence of war and the use of force, and a belief in the equal status of humans are moral persons. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
And given the tendency of nations, particularly great power, to engage in war unjustifiably and to set in motion the apparatus of the state to suppress dissent, the respect accorded to pacifism serves the purpose of altering citizens to the wrongs that governments are prone to commit in their name. Even though one’s views are not altogether sound, the warnings and protests that a pacifist is disposed to express may have the result that on balance the principles of justice are more rather than less secure. Pacifism as a natural departure from the correct doctrine conceivably compensates for the weakness of humans living up to their professions. It should be noted that there is, of course, in actual situations no sharp distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal. Moreover the same action (or sequence of actions) may have strong elements of both. While there are clear cases of each, the contrast between them is intended as a way of elucidating the interpretation of civil disobedience and its role in a democratic society. Given the nature of this way of acting as a special kind of political appeal, it is not usually justified until other steps have been taken within the legal framework. By contrast this requirement often fails in the obvious case of legitimate conscientious refusal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
In a free society no one may be compelled, as the early Christians were, to preform religious acts in violation of equal liberty, not must a soldier comply with inherently evil commands while awaiting an appeal to a higher authority. These remarks lead up to the question of justification. The reason people like to keep society busy with fake news and chaos is because as long as the people’s passions are spent on each other, they are not being vented on their conquerors. However, “The God of Heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed,” the prophecies said. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to release the oppressed. The true Kingdom of Heaven is already a present reality. However, the Kingdom of God is a rule, not realm. It is the declaration of God’s absolute sovereignty, of His total order of life in this World and the next. That this Kingdom is not of this World, as Jesus later explained, and that it is spiritual rather than temporal makes it no less authoritative; that it is a rule not a realm makes it no less an actual kingdom, its laws less binding than those of nations and states, any more than unseen physical laws are less binding than the laws of legislatures. Jesus is ushering in the Kingdom of God. Almost all of His parables focused on the Kingdom in one aspect or another, while His miracles authenticated His message. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
In converting water to wine, calming storms, multiplying loaves and fishes, healing the sick, and raising the dead, Jesus was not working magic to gather crowds; nor was He showing His power to gain credibility. He was demonstrating the reality of His rule. By exercising dominion over every phase of Earthly existence, He reveled that in fact the Kingdom of God had come. Many people miss Christ’s message because they, like many today, are conditioned to look for salvation in political solutions. People long for a military messiah who will stamp out their hated oppressors. Another reason that people miss the full significance of the message of the Kingdom of God is that Jesus speaks about a Kingdom that has come and a Kingdom that is still to come—one Kingdom in two stages. This still confused people today. A holy God would not take dominion over a sinful World. So He first sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to pay the debt for human’s sin and thereby provide for humans to be made holy and fit for God’s rule. Christ’s death and resurrection—the D-Day of human history—assure His ultimate victory. However, we are still on the beaches. The enemy has not yet been vanquished, and the fighting is still ugly. Christ’s invasion has assured the ultimate outcome, however—victory for God and His people at some future date. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The second stage, which will take place when Christ returns, will assert God’s rule over all the Universe; His Kingdom will be visible without imperfection. At that time there will be a final judgment of all people, peace on Earth, and the restoration of harmony unknow since Eden. Many soldiers died to bring about the victory in Europe. However, in the Kingdom of God, it was the death of the king that assured the victory. And this leads to another reason that the Kingdom is often misunderstood: the nature of the King Himself. What king would ever sacrifice oneself for one’s people? Kings sacrifice their subjects, not themselves. What kind would wash one’s servants’ feet, as Jesus did, or freely befriend one’s lowest subjects? Potentates maintain the mystique of leadership by keeping a distance from those they rule. A certain grandeur seems to robe those who occupy high office. There is a certain aloofness, a power that is exuded by great humans that people feel and want to follow. Jesus Christ exhibited none of this self-conscious aloofness. He served other first; He spoke to those to whom no one spoke; He dined with the lowest members of society; He touched the untouchable. He had no throne, no crown, no bevy of servants or armoured guards. A borrowed manger and a borrowed tomb framed His Earthly life. Kings and presidents and governors and mayors and prime ministers surround themselves with minions who rush ahead, swing the doors wide, and stand at the attention as they wait for the great to pass. Jesus said that He Himself stands at the door and knocks, patiently waiting to enter our lives. Christ came as the Lamb of God. However, lambs were for sacrifice. Where was the mighty warrior who would tear Rome to shreds? #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Because the nature of the King and the price He paid for His Kingdom, much is required of its citizens, and Jesus made these demands of the Kingdom clear. Through the centuries, however, many of His followers have watered down His teachings, stripped away His demands for the building of a righteous society, and preached an insipid religion concerned only with personal benefit. This distorted view portrays Christianity not as the powerful source of spiritual rebirth and the mediating force for justice, mercy, and love in the World, but as the ultimate self-fulfillment plan. The gospel is not a release for the captives, but confidence for the shy. It is the spiritual equivalent of racy sports cars, designer clothes—a commodity to help one get more out of life. Many humanists have failed to understand human nature. However, many Christians have failed also—failed to understand the utterly radical nature of the central message of Christianity. Other great leaders have expounded creeds, philosophies, and mystical visions. Many are wise and moral, but they are only belief systems: rules to live by, value codes. Humans require more than rules; they require what Jesus’ message of the Kingdom uniquely provides: answers to their most basic needs. What are these needs? To know God. The heat of humans is restless until it finds its rest in Thee. Humans most primal yearning—the need to know God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
In announcing His messiahship Jesus was saying that God’s love and just rule has come to Earth—in Him. Humans would thereafter be able to find rest not in a law they could never hope to fulfill, but in the actual person of Jesus Christ. To find salvation. However, how does one come to a personal relationship with this Christ? That is the archetypal question asked by the apostle Paul’s jailer: “What must I do to be saved?” Because we interpret it from our perspective and not God’s, salvation has always been misunderstood. People want salvation from their oppressor. However, Christ same to save them from a much greater oppressor—the sin within one. Sin is essentially rebellion against the rule of God. This is why Jesus coupled the message of the Kingdom with the call to repent and believe. Faith and repentance, the opposite of rebellion, are necessary human responses to the divine initiative of spiritual rebirth, resulting in salvation. When Christ first used the term born again, it was not the evangelical cliché or secular slur it is today. He used it in late-night conversation with Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish religious community, telling him it was the key to entering into the Kingdom of God. Imagine the shock of the religious elite when they heard Jesus’ words: Salvation was not to be found in proud piety or scrupulous adherence to religious rules, but in turning from evil and humble faith in One greater the oneself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Just as one is born physically in a particular nation, so one is born spiritually by submitting to God’s rule in His holy nation. To find meaning. This relationship with God meets human’s deepest psychological need. As we have already seen, human beings cannot live in a vacuum. We are not a chance collision of atoms in an indifferent Universe or islands amid cold currents of modern culture. We each have a personal purpose in history, which is to be found under the purposeful rule of God, as a beloved citizen of His Kingdom. To find authority. Christianity is more than simply a relationship between humans and God, however. The Kingdom of God embraces every aspect of life: ethical, spiritual, and temporal, and it determines the patter, purpose and dynamic by which God orders life of the Heavenly polis in this World. In announcing this all-encompassing Kingdom, Jesus was no using a clever metaphor; He was expressing the literal theme of history—that God was King and the people were His subjects. This tradition dated back to the days of Abraham and the patriarchs, when God made His original covenant with the Jews to be His “holy nation.” Americans, steeped in the tradition of democracy, find a monarchy, even with Christ on the throne, an alien concept. We think in terms of human rulers whose limitless lust for power is a constant peril to humankind. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, God is not a mirror reflection of human rulers. He is God—and as such, is entitled to rule over all things. His character, as revealed in the Bible and in the person of Christ, reveals absolute justice, mercy, and love. Prophets promised the coming of Messiah and the eventual establishment of the Kingdom of God. Christ was the fulfillment of the prophecy; He was the final king in David’s royal line. However, Jesus was not just a king for Israel; He was king for all people. His message, then, assumes the ultimate authority humans require: God rules every aspect of what He has made. Life, death, relationships, and Earthly kingdoms are all in His hands. When Christ commanded His followers to “seek first the kingdom of God,” He was exhorting them to seek to be ruled by God and gratefully acknowledge His power and authority over them. That means that the Christian’s goal is not to strive to rule, but to be ruled. While God’s rule is authoritarian, it is also voluntary. The Good News is that the price has been paid, and His Kingdom is open to all who desire admission. If the joyful news of the rule of God is proclaimed, if humans humble themselves and do justice to its claims, if evil is overcome and humans are made free for God, then the Rule of God has already become actual among them, then the Reign of God is in their midst. If every other entity in the Universe and the Universe itself disappeared, God would remain. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
That which always remains the same, never changes, that is reality. Reality is God. THAT is real being which is faultless and partless, and without a single one of the characteristic properties belonging to this physical World. It never varies whereas that World is constantly changing. Such everlasting being is incomparable, unique, and beyond human picturization. THAT is the essence of all things, the base whence, eventually, the Universe is projected. That is the Real which not only is not subject to any change but also would still abide even if the entire Universe vanished. Everything and everyone else must come out of some prior element which traces itself down even to the first and original element, but the Real alone is self-abiding and self-existing. It has its own independent Being. There is no period so far off in the future, no tie so distant in the past, no area anywhere in space, that will be or has been without Being. If humans can find it today, they will find it then as they found it in antiquity. If they commune with it on this Earth, or enter into some relationship with it here, they can do likewise on other planets. Moreover it remains ever the Same, the Unchanged and Unchangeable. Reality being what it is, a gigantic fact which is utterly impregnable against time and change, even the total disappearance of the exponents of that truth which points to it could not alter its own status. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
We must never forget that the entire dynamic movement occurs inseparably within a static blessed repose. Becoming is not apart from Being. Its kinetic movement takes pace in the eternal stillness. World-Mind is forever working in the Universe whereas Mind is forever at rest and its still motionlessness paradoxically makes all activity and motion possible. The infinite unconditioned Essence could never become confined within or subject to the finite limited World-form. The one dwells in a transcendental timelessness whereas the other exists in a continuous time. There cannot be two eternal principles, two ultimate realities, for each will limit the other’s existence and thus deprive it of its absolute character. There is only the One, which is beyond all phenomena and yet includes them. The manifestation of the cosmic order, filled with countless objects and entities though it be, does not in any way or to any extent alter the character of the absolute Reality in which it appears. That character is unvarying—is never reduced to a lower form, never confined in a limited one, never modified by conditions, never deprived of a single iota of its being, substance, amplitude, or quality. It always is what it was. It is the ultimate origin of everything and everyone in this Universe, yet it remains as unchanged by their death as by their birth, by their absence as by their presence. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Everything in the Universe is liable to changes, because it was born and must die. We venerate God because He is not liable to change, being ever-existent and self-subsisting, birthless and deathless. Considered from its own standpoint, the infinite can never manifest as the finite, the Real can never alter its nature and evolve into the unreal; hence the pictures of creation or evolution belong to the realm of dream and illusion. The gran verity is that the Universal self has never incarnated into matter, nor ever shall. It remains what it was, is, must forever be—the Unchanged and Unchangeable. The infinite has never, can never, become the finite. The Real is neither the Many nor the Changing but THAT from which these are both derived. Such a truth will never need to be replaced by a newer one: it will hold its place, and satisfy the searching mind, in a thousand years’ time as much as it does today. Bradley’s errors are: (a) to turn the Absolute into a system or a process, and (b) to identify the Absolute with its contents. God of Gentle hands, with arms held wide in benediction: please come between my enemies and me and join us together in peace. Our God and God of our fathers, may our remembrance and the remembrance of our forefathers come before Thee. Please Remember the Messiah of the house of David, thy servant, and America, Thy holy city, and all Thy people, the house of America. Please grant us deliverance and well being, loving kindness, life and peace on this day and forever. Please restore America back to a land of sanity, prosperity, law and order so we can earn the American Dream, which always includes freedom and homeownership. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes
Whether you’re admiring the guest bedroom or getting ready for spa night in the Primary bedroom’s ensuite, living life at #MillsStation Residence 2 means enjoying clean, modern lines in a familiar family home layout. 😍
Residence Two at Mills Station is a two story home that has all the conveniences of a single story! At 2,317 square feet, this home features the Owner’s suite on the first floor with two secondary bedrooms on the “pop top” second story. Take advantage of the vaulted ceilings offered in this plan! The open floor plan includes three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, Home Hub, Loft and more! Walk into the great room and feel the height of the ceilings and all the light brought in from the high windows.
The kitchen opens directly to the dining room allowing for perfect flow. The large kitchen island makes food prep and entertaining easy while the walk in pantry provides ample storage. The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is located on the first floor of this home providing easy access and eliminating the hassle of climbing stairs daily. The Owner’s bathroom is spacious and tranquil including a large free standing soaking tub, walk in shower and large walk-in closet.
This home is designed with Universal Design concepts meaning that its well equipped for life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more about this unique feature by speaking with a sales associate today!
Check out the interactive floor plan on our website! Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-2/
Sit Down and I Will Tell You a Story, Stand Up and We Will Play a Game!
Some people try to find things in this game that do not exist. Football is two things. It is blocking and tackling. One important class of experiential products will be based on simulated environments that offer the customer a taste of adventure, excitement, titillation or other pleasure without risk to one’s real life or reputation. Thus computer experts, roboteers, designers, historians, architects, automotive engineers, and museum specialists will join to create experiential enclaves that reproduce, as skillfully as sophisticated technology will permit, the splendor of ancient Rome, the pomp of Queen Elizabeth’s court, the traditional arts, ceremonies, calligraphy and flower arranging of Japan, the economic prosperity and rapid development and advancement of China, the rich culture and mysterious of Africa, the superior engineering of Germany, the liveness and flavour of Latin culture, the intelligence of the Middle East, and the hardworking and orderly conduct of America. Customers entering these pleasure domes will leave their everyday clothes (and cares) behind, don costumes, and run through a planned sequence of activities intended to provide them with a first-hand taste of what the original—id est, unstimulated—reality must have felt like. They will be invited, in effect, to live in the past or perhaps even in the future. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Production of such experiences is closer than one might think. It is clearly foreshadowed in the participatory techniques now being pioneered in the arts. Thus “happenings” in which the members of the audience take part may be regarded as a first stumbling step toward these simulations of the future. The same is true of more formal works as well. When Dionysus in 69 was performed in New York, a critic summed up the theories of its playwright, Richard Schechner, in the following words. “Theater has traditionally said to an audience, ‘Sit down and I will tell you a story.’ Why cannot it also say, ‘Stand up and we will play a game?’” Mr. Schechner’s work, based loosely on Euripides, says precisely this, and that audience is literally invited to join in dancing to celebrate the rites of Dionysus. Artists also have begun to create whole “environments”—works of art into which the audience may actually walk, and inside which things happens. For instance, BMW believes that design should always be a reflection of your identity, and so they make cars with a strong personality. When designing the BMW Concept i4, the goal was to make it organic, and less industrial. In its captivating dynamic, engineers wanted to add more nature-inspired elements. More handworked wood, intelligent fabrics—designs for all the sense so one feels like the cabin of the car is a living room. The artists who produce these are really “experiential engineers.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Knowledge gained for research on creating experiences will permit the construction of fantastic simulations. However, it will also lead to complex live environments that subject the customer to significant risks and rewards. The African safari today is a colourless example. Future experience designers will, for example, create gambling casinos in which the customer plays not for money, but for experiential payoffs. Certain American television programs, such as Survivor and The Bachelor, already pay players off in experiential rewards. In the future, simulated and non-simulated experiences will also be combined in ways that will sharply challenge human’s grasp of reality. In Ray Bradbury’s vivid novel, Fahrenheit 451, suburban couples desperately save their money to enable them to buy three-wall or four-wall video sets that permit them to enter into a kind of televised psycho-drama. They become actor-participants in soap operas that continue for weeks or months. Their participation in these stories is highly involving. We are, in fact, beginning to move toward the actual development of such “interactive” films with the help of advanced communications technology. The combination of simulation and “reals” will vastly multiply the number and variety of experiential products. However, the great psych-corps of tomorrow will not only sell individual, discrete experiences. They will offer sequences of experiences so organized that their very juxtaposition with other another will contribute colour, harmony or contrast to lives that lack these qualities. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Beauty, excitement, suspense or delicious sensuality will be programmed to enhance one another. By offering such experiential chains or sequences, the psych-corps (working closely, no doubt, with community mental health centers) will provide partial frameworks for those whose lives are otherwise too chaotic and unstructured. In effect, they will say: “Let us plan (part of) your life for you.” In the transient, change-filled World of tomorrow, that proposition will find many eager takers. Many architects are now designing homes to feel like luxury hotels. These places are all about lifestyles—inviting the community to become part of the property. Adding unique vantage points, creating indoor/outdoor experiences, and making homes larger, function, bright and comfortable is what is making architecture exciting these days. People are always looking for a home that is special, affluent home buyers are seeking homes that are destinations with purpose and meaning, where lifelong memories can be created because luxury is the absence of worry. Home buyers want to know they are in good hands with gorgeous detail abound. Creative space segmentation is necessary, providing both intimae and social zones, as well as furniture delivering comfort and functionality. More extravagant entrance features are emerging, which include large green walls, indoor waterfalls, large chandeliers and multimedia stations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
No longer is the classic bed-table-closet combo enough to make a guest bedroom or primary bedroom feel inviting. Home buyers are looking for creative offices for those who are business travelers, interesting looking TV panels and an extra sofa or accent chairs next to the king-sized bed are just some of the key ingredients for a trendy guest bedroom or primary bedroom. We have also seen colourful walls and eclectic décor mixes, which can definitely appeal to guests or the home’s primary occupant wanting to experience unique accommodation. Bathrooms stopped being perceived as auxiliary rooms, spaces to be minimized, in order to expand living areas. The modern individual expects more than one got in the past. A resort bathroom with spa-like features is an open invite to relaxation and a sure-proof method of alluring potential buyers through the promise of ephemeral luxury. Think en-suite bedrooms, water fall showers, over-sized bathtubs, dual sinks, giant towels, beauty items and plenty of space. Fewer home builder base the appeal of the kitchen strictly on practicability. Cooking is an art and so should be the exhibition space. We have seen more and more home builders come up with exciting designs and turn the kitchen design into a memorable space. Theme are highly recommended, pushing creativity to new heights. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Sensory experiences go a log way. Beside open concept, the blurring of indoor-outdoor boundaries is well integrated in the array of services offered by modern homes builders, who strive to keep their indoor-outdoor transition as ethereal as possible. Not only are the offering more windows, larger windows, walls of glass, but also expanding the patio spaces so nature is brought inside in every possible way. Wood paneling, stone decorations, lush greenery, vibrant lawns, indoor waterfalls—these are just some of the elements employed to release the tension of residents. Sustainability is a delicate issue for home owners as they are doing their best to minimize short term costs. However, being ahead of the game is important, which leads to innovative ideas. Over-sized windows for natural lighting, solar panels to conserve electricity, luxury vinyl wood plank floors, and energy efficient appliances are just a few of the trends for staying green. It is a fact that a home will stay in a buyer’s mind for a long time if the accommodation is unique. With this in mind, home builders are offering individual personalized spaces as never before. With home hubs, butler’s pantries, build-in furniture, card rooms, super family rooms, and workspaces in the house. And more than anything, homes should provide comfort, that feeling of being home away from home, in your own home. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
No mater how luxurious, technology friendly and well-themed the home, coziness is a major factor to consider. Wood additions, inspired decorating items, carpets, a fireplace, build-in tables, uniquely shaped kitchen islands all add up to a memorable home. In the World outside of the home, agriculture and the manufacture of goods will become economic backwaters, employing fewer and fewer people. Highly automated, the making and growing of goods will be relatively simple. The design of new goods and the process of coating them with stronger, brighter, more emotion-packed psychological connotations, however, will challenge the ingenuity of tomorrow’s best and most resourceful entrepreneurs. The service sector, as defined today, will be vastly enlarged, and once more the design of psychological rewards will occupy a growing percentage of corporate time, energy, and money. Investment services, such as mutual funds, for example, may introduce elements of experiential gambling to provide both additional excitement and non-economic payoffs to their shareholders. Insurance companies may offer not merely to pay death benefits, but to care for the window or widower for several months after bereavement, providing nurses, psychological counseling and other assistance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Based on banks of detail data about their customers, they may offer a computerized mating service to help the survivor locate a new life partner. Services, in short, will be greatly elaborated. Attention will be paid to the psychological overtones of every step or component of the product. Finally, we shall watch the irresistible growth of companies already in the experiential field, and the formation of entirely new enterprises, both profit and non-profit, to design, package and distribute planned or programmed experiences. The arts will expand, becoming as Ruskin or Morris might have said, the handmaiden of the industry. Psych-corps and other businesses will employ actors, directors, musicians, and designers in large numbers. Recreational industries will grow, as the whole nature of leisure is redefined in experimental terms. Education, already exploding in size, will become one of the key experiences industries as it is beginning to employ experiential techniques to convey both knowledge and values to the students. The communication and computer industries will find in experiential production a major market for their machines and for their software as well. With COVID-19 and more people working from home and going to school at home, I would expect Cisco TelePresence IX5000 Series to become more people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
This system allows immersive collaboration beyond the boardroom. Cisco TelePresence IX5000 Series offers a triples screen, high-fidelity audio and video, and rich collaboration tools, and more bandwidth of existing products. The IX5000 Series brings people together to make decisions faster with high-definition video and theater-quality audio. The immersive, lifelike experience increases engagement, which helps teams build relationships and trust. Participants can share multiple content sources on three 70-inche LCD screens. The 4K cameras allow flexible whiteboard placement and the series features industry-first support for H.265 video on a triple-screen product. This product allows people to work from home, teach from home, attend class from home and interact with others as if they are in the same room. In short, those industries that in one way or another associate themselves with behavioural technology, those industries that transcend the production of tangible goods and traditional services, will expand most rapidly. Eventually, the experience-makers will form a basic—if not the basic—sector of the economy. The process of psychologization will be complete. With more people working from home, spending less on transportation, they will be able to afford larger homes with real offices or even classrooms. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The essence of tomorrow’s economy is an emphasis upon the inner as well as the material need for individuals and groups. This new emphasis will arise not merely from the demands of the consumer, but from the very need of the economy to survive. In a nation where all essential material needs can be filled by perhaps no more than three-fourth or even half of the productive capacity, a basic adjustment is required to keep the economy healthy. It is this convergence of pressures—from the consumer and from those who wish to keep the economy growing—that will propel the techno-societies toward the experiential production of the future. The movement in this direction can be delayed. The poverty-stricken masses of the World may not stand idly by as the World’s favoured few traverse the path toward psychological self-indulgence. There is something morally repellent about one group seeking to gratify itself psychologically, pursuing novel and rarified pleasures, while the majority of humankind lives in wretchedness or starvation. The techno-societies could maintain a more conventional production, shifting resources to environmental quality control, and then launching absolutely massive anti-poverty and foreign assistance programs. By creaming off “excess” productivity and, in effect, giving it away, the factories can be kept running, the agricultural surpluses used up, and the society can continue to focus on the satisfaction of material wants. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
A fifty-year campaign to erase hunger from the World and family planning methods, for example, would not only make excellent moral sense, but would buy the techno-societies badly needed time for an easier transition to the economy of the future. Such a pause might give us tine to contemplate the philosophical and psychological impact of experiential production. If consumers can no longer distinguish clearly between the real and the simulated, if whole stretches of one’s life may be commercially programmed, we enter into a set of psycho-economic problems of breathtaking complexity. These problems challenge our most fundamental beliefs, not merely about democracy or economics, but about the very nature of rationality and sanity. One of the great unasked questions of our time has to do with the balance between vicarious and non-vicarious experience in our lives. No previous generation has been exposed to one-tenth the amount of vicarious experiences that we lavish on ourselves and our children today, and no one, anywhere, has any real idea about the impact of this monumental shift on personality. Our children mature physically more rapidly than we did. The age of first menstruation continues to drop four to six month every decade. The population grows taller sooner. It is clear that many of our young people, products of television and instance accesses to oceans of information, also become precocious intellectually. However, what happens to emotion development as the ratio of vicarious experience to “real” experience rises? Does the step-up of vicariousness contribute to emotional maturity? Or does it, in fact, make it as slow as molasses on a Winter’s day? #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
And what, then, happens when an economy in search of a new purpose, seriously begins to enter into the production of experience for their own sake, experience that blur the distinction between the vicarious and the non-vicarious, the simulated and the real? One of the definitions of sanity, itself, is the ability to tell real from unreal. Shall we need a new definition? We must begin to reflect on these problems, for unless we do—and perhaps even if we do—service will in the end triumph over manufacture, and experiential production over service. The growth of the experiential sector might just be an inevitable consequence of affluence. For the satisfaction of human’s elemental material needs opens the way for new, more sophisticated gratifications. We are moving from a “gut” economy to a “psyche” economy because there is only so much gut to be satisfied. Beyond this, we are also moving swiftly in the direction of a society in which objects, things, physical constructs, are increasingly transient. Not merely human’s relationships with them, but the very things themselves. It may be that experiences are the only products which, once brought by the consumer, cannot be taken away from one, cannot be disposed of like non-returnable soda pop bottles or nicked razor blades. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
For the ancient Japanese nobility every flower, every serving bowl or obi, was freighted with surplus meaning; each carried a heavy load of coded symbolism and ritual significance. The movement toward the psychologization of manufactured goods takes us in this direction; but it collides with the powerful thrust toward transience that makes the objects themselves so perishable. Thus we shall find it easier to adorn our services with symbolic significance than our products. And, in the end, we shall pass beyond the service economy, beyond the imagination of today’s economists; we shall become the first culture in history to employ high technology to manufacture than most transient, yet lasting of products: the human experience. The flood of novelty about to crash down upon us will spread from universities and research centers to factories and offices, from the marketplace and mass media into our social relationships, from the community into the home. Penetrating deep into our private lives, it will place absolutely unprecedented strains on the family itself. The family has been called the “giant shock absorber” of society—the place to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the World, the one stable point in an increasingly flux-filled environment. As the super-age of information revolution unfolds, this “shock absorber” will come in for some of its own shocks. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Social critics have a field day speculating about the family. The family is “near the point of complete extinction,” says Ferdinand Lundberg, author of The Coming World Transformation. “The family is dead except for the first year or two of child raising,” according to psychoanalyst William Wolf. “This will be its only function.” Pessimists tell us what will take place. Family optimists, in contrast, contend that the family, having existed all this time, will continue to exist. Some go so far as to argue that the family is in for a Golden Age. As leisure spreads, they theorize, families will spend more time together and will derive great satisfaction from joint activity. “The family that play together, stays together,” et cetera. A more sophisticated view hold that the very turbulence of tomorrow will drive people deeper into their families. “People will marry for stable structure,” says Dr. Irwin M. Greenberg, Professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. According to this view, the family serves as one’s “portable root,” anchoring one against the storm of change. In short, the more transient and novel the environment, the more important the family will become. It may be that both ideas in this debate are wrong. For the future is more open than it might appear. #RandolphHrris 14 of 21
The family may neither vanish nor enter upon new Golden Age. It may—and this far more likely—break up, shatter, only to come together again in weird and novel ways. If tribulation is a necessary element in redemption, we must anticipate that it will never cease till Go sees the World to be either redeemed or no further redeemable. A Christian cannot, therefore, believe any of those who promise that if only some reform in our economic, political, or hygienic system were made, a Heaven on Earth would follow. This might seem to have a discouraging effect on the social worker, but it is not found in practice to discourage one. On the contrary, a strong sense of our common miseries, simply as humans, is at last as good a spur to the removal of all the miseries we can, as any of those wild hopes which tempt humans to seek their realization by breaking the moral law and prove such dust and ashes when they are realized. If applied to individual life, the doctrine that an imagined Heaven on Earth is necessary for vigorous attempts to remove present evil, would at once reveal is absurdity. Hungry human seeks food and sick humans healing none the less because they know that after the meal of the cure the ordinary ups and downs of life still await them. I am not, of course, discussing whether very drastic changes in our social system are, or are not, desirable; I am only reminder the reader that a particular medicine is not to be mistake for the elixir of life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Since political issues have here crossed our path, it is clear that the Christian doctrine of self-surrender and obedience is a purely theological, and not in the least a political, doctrine. Of forms of government, of civil authority and civil obedience, I have nothing to say. The kind and degree of obedience which a creatures owes to its Creator is unique because the relation between creature and Creator is unique: no inference can be drawn from it to any political proposition whatsoever. The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the World we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the World: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in the World and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with out friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. We must never mistake the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the “unimaginable sum of human misery.” When a human hesitates too long over taking a course which intuition tells one, he or she should take, and in which one’s higher life is concerned, it may be that destiny will intervene and make one suddenly realize that this is the way, and that all doubts should be thrown out. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
An intuition may be sudden and unexpected, quite contrary to the line of previous thought about the matter. This is certainly true of many appearances but it is not true of other ones. An intuition may come into the mind apparently by hazard, unsummoned, experience. Every thought which comes down to us from that serene height comes with a divine authority and penetrating force which are absent from all other thoughts. We receive the visitant with eagerness and obey it with confidence. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it. When we have reached he maximum that a single person can suffer, we have, no doubt, reached something horrible, but we have reached all the suffering there ever can be in the Universe. The addition of a million sufferers adds no more pain. Intuition is not the equal but rather the superior of all other human faculties. It delivers the gentlest of whispers, commands from the Overself, whereas the other faculties merely carry them out. It is the master, they are the servants. The intellect things, the will works, and the emotion drives towards the fulfilment of intuitively felt guidance in the properly developed spiritually erect human. Of all evils, pain only is sterilized or disinfected evil. Intellectual evil, or error, may recur because the cause of the first error (such as fatigue or bad handwriting) continues to operate; but quite apart from that, error in its own right breeds error—if the first step in an argument is wrong, everything that follows will be wrong. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Sin may recur because the original temptation continues: but quite apart from that, sin of its very nature breeds sin by strengthening sinful habit and weakening the conscience. Now pain, like the other evils, may of course recur because the cause of the first pain (disease, or an enemy) is still operative: but pain has no tendency, in its own right, to proliferate. When it is over, it is over, and the natural sequel is joy. This distinction may be put the other way round. After an error you need not only to remove the causes (the fatigue or bad writing) but also to correct the error itself: after a sin you must not only, if possible, remove the temptation, you must also go back and repent the sin itself. In each case an “undoing” is required. Pain requires no such undoing. You may need to heal the disease which caused it, but the pain, once over is sterile—whereas every uncorrected error and unrepented sin is, in its own right, a fountain of fresh error and fresh sin flowing on to the end of time. Again, when I err, my error infects every one who believes me When I sin publicly, every spectator either condones it, thus sharing my guilt, or condemns it with imminent danger to one’s charity and humility. However, suffering naturally produces in the spectators (unless they are unusually depraved) no bad effect, but a good one—piety. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Thus that evil which God chiefly uses to produce the “complex good” is most markedly disinfected, or deprived of that proliferous tendency which is the worst characteristic of evil in general. The Real is forever and unalterably the same, whether it be the unmanifest Void or the manifested World. It has never been born and consequently can never die. It cannot divide itself into different “realities” with different space-time levels or multiply itself beyond its own primal oneness. It cannot evolve or diminish, improve or deteriorate. Whereas everything else exists in dependence upon Mind and exists for a limited time, however prolonged, and therefore has only a relative existence, Mind is the absolute, the unique, the ultimate reality because with all its innumerable manifestations in the Universe it has never at any moment ceased to be itself. Only its appearances suffers change because they are in time and space, never itself, which is out of time and space. The divisions of time into past, present, and future are meaningless here; we may speak only of its “everness.” The truth about it is timeless, as no scientific truth could ever be, in the sense that whatever fate the Universe undergoes its own ultimate significance remains unchanged. If the Absolute appears to us as the first in the time-series, as the First Cause of the Universe, this is only true from our limited standpoint. It is in fact only our human idea. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
The human mind can take itself the truth of transcendental being only by taking out of itself the screens of time, space, and person. For being eternally self-existence, reality is utterly timeless. Space divisions are equally unmeaning in its “Be-ness.” The Absolute is both everywhere and nowhere. It cannot be considered in spatial terms. Even the word “infinite” is really such a term. If it is used here because no other is available, let me be clearly understood, then, that it is used merely as a suggestive metaphor. If the infinite did not include the finite then it would be less than infinite. It is erroneous to make them both mutually exclusive. The finite alone must exclude the infinite from its experience but not vice versa. In the same way the infinite Duration does not exclude finite time. Hence, corruption and defects in natural things are said to be contrary to some particular nature; yet they are in keeping with the plan of universal nature; inasmuch as the defect in one thing yields to the good of another, or even to the universal good: for the corruption of ne is the generation of another, and through this it is that a species is kept in existence. Since God, then, provides universally for all being, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects, that the perfect good of the Universe may not be hindered, for if all evil were prevented, much god would be absent from the Universe. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
A lion would cease to life, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution. Thus Augustine says (Enchiridion 2): “Almighty God would in wo wise permit evil to exist in His works, unless He were so almighty and so good as to produce good even from evil.” It would appear that is was on account of these two arguments to which we have just replied, that some were persuaded to consider corruptible things—exempli gratia, casual evil things—as removed from the care of divine providence. Dear Lord in Heaven, your bow’s swift arrows: are they blessing or destruction? Please show your blasting face to those who need it. Please show your blessing face to those who deserve it. Whether beating down mercilessly or shining benevolently, please bring what is right to each, God. Whether by fighting off enemies or singing them to peace, please be my protector, and I will always speak sweety of You. Our God and God of our fathers, please accept our rest. Please Sanctify us through Thy commandments, and please grant our portion in Thy Torah. Please give us abundantly of Thy goodness and please make us rejoice in Thy salvation. Please purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth. In Thy loving favour, O Lord our God, please grant that Thy holy Sabbath be our joyous heritage, and may America who sanctifies Thy name, rest thereon. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest the Sabbath. O Lord our God, please be gracious unto Thy people of America and accept their prayer. Please restore the worship to Thy sanctuary and receive in love and favour the supplication of America. May the worships of Thy people be ever acceptable unto Thee. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Cresleigh Homes
Don’t mind us, we’re just admiring the view from the backyard of this #BrightonStation Residence 3 home. Not only does it look great, it’s also shaped like the perfect place to make memories.
View a video walkthrough of this residence on our website. Link in bio. https://youtu.be/yQTnZ0oO2OE
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse. There are enhanced included features, smart open floor plans, ample storage, nature views, and the quality you expect from Cresleigh.
Eco-Technological Development is Firmly Convinced that Human Nature is Eternal and Stability Will Return!
The human task is to make of oneself a work of art. It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief. There are four chief ways in which guidance may be given. They are: intuitive feeling, giving in a general ways approbation or rejection of a proposed course of action; direct and precise inner message; the shaping of outer circumstances; and the teaching of inspired texts. If all four exist together, and if they all harmonize, then you may step forward in the fullest assurance. However, if there are contradictions between them, then great caution and some delay is certainly advisable. It is also needful to remember that the higher self can only be known by the higher part of the mind, that is, the intuition. The emotions are on a lesser and lower level, however noble or religious they may be. The immense satisfaction which the ecstatic raptures give is no indication that one is directly touching reality, but only that one is coming closer to it. They may seem purely spiritual, but they still belong to the ego’s feeling nature and if one believes otherwise one will fall into self-deception. Only through the pure intuition, freed from emotional egoism and transcending intellectual illusion, can one really make a contact with the Overself. And that will happen in a state of utter and perfect tranquillity; there will be none of the emotional excitement which marked the successful practice of the earlier stage of meditation exercises. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
When the deliverance of intuition cancels the deliverance of reason, one may trust oneself to the first, but only when one is sure it is what it purports to be. When one finds some of one’s own intuitions formulated and printed in someone else’s book, one feels their truth is confirmed and one’s own mind confronted. One has the right to judge an intuition rationally before submitting to it, but what if one’s judgment is itself wrong? Intuition may support reason but must supplant it only on the gravest occasions. The sudden revelation of correct understanding, whether in certain situations or about uncertain problems, may come unexpectedly or abruptly anytime during the day. It springs up of its own accord or it appears in a dream message. If the intuitive feeling leads one gently at some times, it also leads one firmly at other times. An intuition is directly self-revealing; it does not depend on what kind of thought and study were done before it appeared. It is also self-evident: the correctness of the receiving conscious is very calm, and when the lapse of time tends to strengthen its authority. The intuitive answer may come in one of several ways, but the commonest is either a self-evident that one cannot help thinking it. This is how intuition usually appears and is usually recognized for what it is. Develop them that another sign to recognize intuitions is the unexpectedness. #RandolphHrris 2 of 21
The mysterious appearance of an intuition may well make us ask where it comes from. At one moment it is no there; at the next it is lodged in the mind. Sometimes we are wiser than we know and utter involuntary answers which surprise us with their unexpected wisdom or unknown Truth in one way intuitions are born. Because it comes from within, it comes with its own authority. When it is “the real thing,” the seeker will not have to question examine or verify its authenticity, will not have to run to others for their appraisal of its worth or its rejection as a pseudo-intuition. One will know overwhelmingly what it is in the same way that one knows who one is. Education and experience alone do not make the mind; there is something higher that mixed itself in now and again with disconcerting incomprehensible spontaneity. One reason why an intuition is so often missed is that it flashes into the mind as disjointedly, as abruptly, and as inconsequentially as a person or s thing sometimes comes momentarily into the field of vision through the corner of an eye. Today the human with a pacemaker or a plastic aorta is still recognizably a human. The inanimate part of one’s body is still relatively unimportant in terms of one’s personality and consciousness. However, as the proportion of machine components rise, what happens to one’s awareness of self, one’s inner experience? If we assume that the brain is he seat of consciousness and intelligence, and that no other part of the body affects personality or self very much, then it is possible to conceive of a disembodied brain—a brain without arms, legs, spinal cord or other equipment—as a self, a personality, an embodiment of awareness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
It may then become possible to combine the human brain with a whole set of artificial sensors, receptors, and effectors, and to call that tangle of wires and plastic a human being. All this may seem to resemble medieval speculation about the number of angels who can pirouette on a pinhead, yet the first small seps toward some form of human-machines symbiosis are already being taken. Moreover, they are being taken not by a lone mad scientist, but by thousands of highly trained engineers, mathematicians, biologists, surgeons, chemists, neurologists and communications specialists. Dr. W. G. Walter’s mechanical “tortoises” are machines that behave as though they had been psychologically conditioned. These tortoises were early specimens of a growing breed of robots ranging from the “Perceptron” which could learn (and even generalize) to the more recent “Wanderer,” a robot capable of exploring an area, building up in its memory an “image” of the terrain, and able even to indulge in certain operations comparable, at least in some respects, to “contemplative speculation” and “fantasy.” Experiments by Ross Ashby, H. D. Block, Frank Rosenblatt and others demonstrate that machines can learn from their mistakes, improve their performance, and, in certain limited kinds of learning, outstrip human students. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Reports Dr. Block, professors of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University: “I do not think that there is a task you can name that a machine cannot do—in principle. If you can define a task and a human can do it, then a machine can, at least in theory, also do it. The converse, however, is not true.” Intelligence and creativity, it would appear, are not a human monopoly. Robotology may be the new wave of the future. Technicians at Disneyland have created extremely life-life computer-controlled humanoids capable of moving their arms and legs, grimacing, smiling, glowering, simulating fear, joy and a wide range of other emotions. Built of clear plastic, that according to one reporter, “does everything but bleed,” the robots chase girls, play music, fire pistols, and so closely resemble human forms that visitors routinely shriek with fear, flinch and otherwise react as though they were dealing with real human beings. The purposes to which these robots are put may seem trivial, but the technology on which they are based is highly sophisticated. It depends heavily on knowledge acquired from the space program—and this knowledge is accumulating rapidly. There appears to be no reason, in principle, why we cannot go forward from these present primitive and trivial robots to build humanoid machines capable of extremely varied behaviour, capable of even “human” error and seemingly random choice—in short, to make them behaviourally indistinguishable from humans except by means of highly sophisticated or elaborate tests. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
At that point we shall face the novel sensation of trying to determine whether the smiling, assured humanoid behind the airline reservation counter is a pretty young lady or a carefully wired robot. (This raises a number of half-amusing, half-serious problems about the relationships between humans and machines, including emotional and even relationships involving pleasure of the flesh. Professor Block at Cornell speculates that human-made relationships involving pleasures of the flesh may not be too far distant. Pointing out that people often develop emotional attachment to the machines they use, he suggests that we shall have to give attention to the “ethical” questions arising from our treatment of “these mechanical objects of our affection and passion.”) The likelihood the that flight attendant with be both human and robot is likely. The thrust toward some form of human-machine symbiosis is furthered by out increasing ingenuity in communicating with machines. A great deal of much-publicized work is being done to facilitate the interaction of humans and computers. However, quite apart from this, Russian and American scientists have both been experimenting with the placement or implantation of detectors that pick up signals from the nerve ends at the stub of an amputated limb. These signals are then amplified and used to activate an artificial limb, thereby making a machine directly and sensitively responsive to the nervous system of a human being. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
The human need not “think out” one’s desires; even involuntary impulses are transmittable. The respon 89sive behaviour of the machine is as automatic as the behaviour of one’s own hand, eye or leg. In Flight to Arras, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, novelist, poet and pioneer aviator, described buckling himself into the seat of a fighter plane during World War II. “All this complication of oxygen tubes, heating equipment; these speaking tubes that form the ‘intercom’ running between the members of the crew. This mask through which I breathe. I am attached to the plane by a rubber tube as indispensable as an umbilical cord. Organs have been added to my being, and they seem to intervene between me and my heart.” We have come far since those distant days. Space biology is marching irresistibly toward the day when the astronaut will not merely be buckled into one’s capsule, but become a part of it in the full symbiotic sense of the phrase. One aim is to make the craft itself a wholly self-sufficient Universe, in which algae is grown for food, water is recovered from body waste, air is recycled to purge it of the ammonia entering the atmosphere from urine, et cetera. In this totally enclosed fully regenerative World, the human being becomes an integral part of an on-going micro-ecological process whirling through the vastness of space. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus Theodore Gordon, author of The Future and himself a leading space engineer, writes: “Perhaps it would be simpler to provide life support in the form of machines that plug into the astronaut. One could be fed intravenously using a liquid food compactly stored in a remote pressurized tank. Perhaps direct processing of body liquid wastes, and conversion to water, could be accomplished by a new type of artificial kidney built in as part of the spaceship. Perhaps sleep could be induced electronically…to lower one’s metabolism.” Und so weiter. One after another, the body functions of human become interwoven with, dependent on, and part of, the machine functions of the capsule. The ultimate extension of such work, however, is not necessarily to be found in the outer reaches of space; it may well become a common part of everyday life here on the mother planet. This is the direct link-up of the human brain—stripped of its supporting physical structures—with the computer. Indeed, it may be that the biological component of the supercomputers of the future may be massed human brains. The possibility of enhancing human (and machine) intelligence by linking them together organically opens enormous and exciting probabilities, so exciting that Dr. R. M. Page, director of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, has publicly discussed the feasibility of a system in which human thoughts are fed automatically into the storage unit of a computer to form the basis for machine decision-making. Furthermore, research from countless sources contributes toward the eventual symbiosis. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
In one of the most fascinating, frightening and intellectually provocative experiments ever recorded, Professor Robert White, director of neurosurgery at the Metropolitan General Hospital in Cleveland, has given evidence that the brain can be isolated from its body and kept alive after the “death” of the rest of the organism. The experiment, described in a brilliant article by Oriana Fallaci, saw a team of neurosurgeons cut the brain out of a rhesus monkey, discard the body, then hook the brain’s carotid arteries up to another money, whose blood then continued to bathe the disembodied organ, keeping it alive. Said one of the members of the medical team, Dr. Leo Massopust, a neurophysiologist: “The brain activity is largely better than when the brain had a body…No doubt about it. I even suspect that without his senses, he can think more quickly. What kind of thinking, I do not know. I guess he is primarily a memory, repository for information stored when he had his flesh; he cannot develop further because he no longer has the nourishment of experience. Yet this, too, is a new experience.” The brain survived for five hours. It could have lasted much longer, had it served the purposes of research. Professor White has successfully kept other brains alive for days, using machinery, rather than a living monkey, to keep the brain washed with blood. “I do not think we have reached the stage,” he told Miss Fallaci, “where you can turn humans into robots, obedient sheep. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
“Yet…it could happen, it is not impossible. If you consider that we can transfer the head of a man onto the trunk of another man, if you consider that we can isolate the brain of a human and make it work without its body…To me, there is no longer any gap between science fiction and science…We could keep Dr. Einstein’s brain alive and make it function normally.” Not only, Professor White implies, can we transfer the head of one person to the shoulders of another, not only can we keep a head or a brain “alive” and functioning, but it can all be done, with “existing techniques.” Indeed, he declares, “The Japanese will be the first to [keep an isolated human head alive]. I will not, because I have not resolved as yet this dilemma: Is it right or not?” A devout Catholic, Dr. White is deeply troubled by the philosophical and moral implications of his work. As of the year 2018, a team of scientists recently revealed they had successfully conducted experiments on hundreds of pigs that involved keeping their brains alive for up to 36 hours after the animals had been decapitated. Researcher Dr. Nenad Sestan, who lead the team of Yale University scientists, disclosed the nature of the research in a meeting at the National Institutes of Health to discuss the ethical concerns surrounding edge research with the human brain. In essence they were able to successfully remove the pigs’ heads and resuscitate their brains while no longer connected to a body. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Through a delicate, complex process they were able to keep the brains alive by connecting them to a closed-loop system called “BrainEX” that pumps oxygen-rich artificial blood through the necessary areas of the brain to sustain life. The researchers intent, reportedly, is to create a complete atlas of the connections between human brain cells, a monumental undertaking that has never been done. By keeping the pig brains alive, they are able to study them in ways that will contribute to further breakthroughs. This could lead to a radical enhancement of our understanding of the human brain. The research itself is remarkable and, it could change everything. We may have to evolve the way we think about death, consciousness, souls, and what it means to be human. As the brin surgeons and he neurologist probe further, as the bio-engineers and the neurologists probe further, as the bio-engineers and the mathematicians, the communications experts and robot-builders become more sophisticated, as the space humans and their capsules grow closer and closer to one another, as machines begin to embody biological components and humans come bristling with sensors and mechanical organs, the ultimate symbiosis approaches. The work converges. Yet the greatest marvel of all is not organ transplantation or symbiosis or underwater engineering. It is not technology, nor science itself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
The greatest and most dangerous marvel of all is the complacent past-orientation of the race, its unwillingness to confront the reality of acceleration. Thus humans move swiftly into an explored Universe, into a totally new stage of eco-technological development, firmly convinced that “human nature is eternal” or that “stability will return.” He stumbles into the most violent revolution in human history muttering, in the words of one famous, though myopic sociologist, that “the processes of modernization…have been more or less ‘completed.’” He simply refuses to imagine the future. In 1865 a newspaper editor told his readers that “Well informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” Barely a decade later, the telephone erupted from Mr. Bell’s laboratory and changed the World. One the very day that the Wright brothers took wing, newspapers refused to report the event because their sober, solid, feet-on-the-ground editors simply could not bring themselves to believe it had happened. After all, a famous American astronomer, Dr. Simon Newcomb, had not long before assured the World that “No possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which humans shall fly long distances.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Not long after this, another expert announced publicly that it was “nothing less than feeblemindedness to expect anything to come of the horseless carriage movement.” Six years later the one-millionth Ford automobile rolled off an assembly line. And then there was the great Dr. Rutherford, himself, the discoverer of the atom, who said in 1933 that the energy in the atom’s nucleus would never be released. Nine years later: the first chain reaction. Again and again the human brain—including the first class scientific brain—has blinded itself to the novel possibilities of the future, has narrowed its field of concern to gain momentary reassurance, only to be rudely shaken by the accelerative thrust. This is not to imply that all the scientific or technological advances so far discussed will necessarily materialize. Still less does it imply that they will all occur between now and the turn of the century. Some will, no doubt, die a-borning. Some may represent blind alleys. Others will succeed in the lab, but turn out to be impractical for one reason or another. Yet all this is unimportant. For even if none of these developments occur, others, perhaps even more unsettling, will. We have scarcely touched on the computer revolution and the far-ramifying changes that must follow in its churning wake. We have barely mentioned the implications of the thrust into outer space, an adventure that could, before the new millennium arrives, change all our lives and attitudes in radical and as yet unpredicted ways. (What would happen if an astronaut or space vehicle returned to Earth contaminated with some fast-multiplying, death-dealing microorganism or space ghost?) #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
We have said nothing about the laser, the holograph, the powerful new instruments of personal and mass communication, the new technologies of crime and espionage, new forms of transport and construction, the developing horror of chemical and bacteriological warfare techniques, the radiant promise of solar energy, the discovery that life can be conceived in a test tube, the startling new tools and techniques for education, and an endless list of other fields in which high-impact changes lie just ahead or are already here. In the coming years, advances in all these fields will fire off like a series of rockets carrying us out of the past, plunging us deeper into the new society. Now will this new society quickly settle into a steady state. It, too, will quiver and crack and roar as it suffers jolt after jolt of high-energy change. For the individual who wishes to live in one’s time, to be a part of the future, the super-industrial revolution offers no surcease from change. It offers no return to the familiar past. It offers only the highly combustible mixture of transience and novelty. This massive injection of speed and novelty into the fabric of society will force us not merely to cope more rapidly with familiar situations, events and moral dilemmas, but to cope at a progressively faster rate with situations that are, for us, decidedly unfamiliar, “first-time” situations, strange, irregular, unpredictable. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
This will significantly alter the balance that prevails in any society between the familiar and unfamiliar elements in the daily life of its people, between the routine and non-routine, the predictable and unpredictable. The relationship between these two kinds of daily-life elements can be called the “novelty ratio” of the society, and as the level of newness or novelty rises, less and less of life appears subject to our routine forms of coping behaviour. More and more, there is a growing weariness and wariness, a pall of pessimism, a decline in our sense of mastery. More and more, the environment comes to seem chaotic, beyond human control. Thus two great social forces converge: the relentless movement toward transience is reinforced and made more potentially dangerous by a rise in the novelty ratio. Nor, as we shall next see, is this novelty to be found solely in the technological arrangements of the society-to-be. In its social arrangements, too, we can anticipate the unprecedented, the unfamiliar, the bizarre. All things which are as they ought to be are conformed unto this second law eternal; and even those things which to this eternal law are not conformable are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law. There is a paradox about tribulation in Christianity. Blessed are the poor, but by “judgment” (id est, social justice) and alms we are to remove poverty wherever possible. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Blessed are we when persecuted, but we may avoid persecution by flying from city to city, and may pray to be spared it, as Our Lord prayed in Gethsemane. However, if suffering is good, ought it not to be pursued rather than avoided? I answer that suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, one’s submission to the will of God, and, for the spectators, the compassion aroused and the acts of mercy to which it leads. If wholeness or integration consists in the union of opposites, symbolized by the emergence of quaternities and mandalas, it follows that the most obvious pair of opposites, good and evil, are to be found in the self. Yet the self, as we have seen, is a God-image, or at least cannot be distinguished from one. The conventional Christian view of God is dualistic, in that God is entirely good (the doctrine of the Summum Bonum), while evil is contained in Satan. However, earlier Christian belief was monotheistic. Clement of Rome taught that God rules the World with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan. All of our lives, many of us has wrestled with the problem of the origin of evil. Just as we have to remember the gods of antiquity in order to appreciate the psychological value of the anima/animus archetype, so Christ is our nearest analogy of the self and its meaning. It is naturally not a question of a collective value artificially manufactured or arbitrarily awarded, but of one that is effective and present per se, and that makes its effectiveness felt whether the subject is conscious of it or not. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Yet, though the attributes of Christ (consubstantiality with the Father, co-eternity, filiation, parthenogenesis, crucifixion, Lamb scarified between opposites, One divided into Many, et cetera) undoubtedly mark Him out as an embodiment of the self, looked at from the psychological angle He corresponds to only one half of the archetype. The other half appears in the Antichrist. The latter is just as much a manifestation of the self, except that one consists of its dark aspect. Both are Christian symbols, and they have the same meaning as the image of the Saviour crucified between two thieves. This great symbol tells us that the progressive development and differentiation of consciousness leads to an ever more menacing awareness of the conflict and involves nothing less than a crucifixion of the ego, its agonizing suspension between irreconcilable opposites. However, it is fitting that one of these two extremes, and the best, should be called the Son of God because of His excellence, and the other, diametrically opposed to him, the son of the evil demon, of Satan and the devil. The opposites even condition one another. Where there is evil…there must needs be good contrary to the evil. The one follows from the other; hence we must either do away with both, and deny that good and evil exist, or if we admit the one, and particularly evil, we must also admit good. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Evil spirits and impure demons do not have the contrary virtue substantially, and they were not created evil but chose the condition of wickedness (malitiae gradus) of their own free will. For it is certain that to be evil means to be deprived of good. To turn aside from good is nothing other than to be perfected in evil. However, who can accurately judge what is good and evil because in some cases it is subjective. Take for instance, The Queen of the Damned, the movie by Warner Brothers, which is based on an Anne Rice novel Queen of the Damned. The vampire Queen, Akasha is 6,000 years old and trying to preserve her race and the planet by feeding on humans. Some might see this as an evil act, where others might she it as a benevolent act. After all, how much different is it from humans trying to preserve their race from feeding on animals and plant life? Food is food, right? This shows clearly that an increase in either good or evil means a diminution of the other, so that good and evil represent equivalent halves of an opposition. Naturally there can be no question on a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of consciousness would be destroyed, and the result would be complete unconsciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only those supreme and ultimate decision which confront us in situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
This means, in other words, that in such cases the ego is a suffering bystander who decides nothing but must submit to decision and surrender unconditionally. The “genius” of humans, the higher and more spacious part of one whose extent no one knows, has the final word. It is therefore well to examine carefully the psychological aspects of the individuation process in the light of Christian tradition, which can describe it for us with an exactness and impressiveness far surpassing our feeble attempts, even through the Christian image of the self—Christ—lacks the shadow that properly belongs to it. In the fallen and partially redeemed Universe we may distinguish the simple good descending from God, the simple evil produced by rebellious creatures, and the exploitation of the evil by God for His redemptive purposes, which produced the complex good to which accepted suffering and repented sin contribute. Now the fact that God can make complex good out of simple evil does not excuse—though by mercy it may save—those who do the simple evil. And this distinction is central. Offences must come, but woe to those why whom they come; sins do cause grace to abound, but we must not make that an excuse for continuing to sin. The crucifixion itself is the best, as well as the worst, of all historical events, but the role of Judas remains simply evil. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Love is a feeling of deep devotion, concern, and affection. The greatest example of God’s love for His children is found in the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ. Love for God and fellow humans is a characteristic of disciples of Jesus Christ. Have you recognized the love of God in your life? We manifest our love for Heavenly Father by keeping His commandments and serving His children. Our expressions of love for others may include being kind to them, listening to them, mouring with them, comforting them, serving them, praying for them, sharing the gospel with them, and being their friend. When we remember that we are all children of God—that we are spirit brothers and sisters–our love for those around us increases. The love that results from this realization has the power to transcend all boundaries of nation, creed, and colour. Dear Lord in Heaven, please remind me on my drive that my anger harms me more than that which angers me. Lord of Peace, in ultimate calm sitting, please pass on to me some of your beatific pose. Please remind us that we have the power to overcome anger, as our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us and love us and is not angry that our sins before he was born, while he was born, and after his death is the toll he paid for us to cross over into this mortal realm and he still love us. May even my commute be done in beauty. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Land folk, I am here, newly arrived to this place. I have come from my previous home, where I lived under the protecting gaze of the Land Spirits there. In this new place, then, I wish to establish peace again between my people and the people of the land, as it as been done since the unremembered time. I bring gifts to you, I bring offerings, as a suppliant should when entering a chieftain’s hall. Please accept the from me and, with them, my friendship. Please establish between us peace. Please encompass me about with your protection, Holy Ones of ancient times. Please stand about me on all sides, warding away from me all dangers, keeping away from me all harm. Who may be compared to Thee, Father of mercy, who in love rememberest Thy creatures unto life? Faithful art Thou to grant eternal life to the departed. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who callest the dead to life everlasting. Holy art Thou and holy is Thy name and unto Thee holy beings render praise daily. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the Holy God. We sanctify Thy name on Earth even as it is sanctified in the Heavens above, as described in the vision of Thy Prophet: And the seraphim called one unto another saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole Earth is full of His glory. Whereupon the angels in stirring and mighty chorus rise toward the seraphim and with resounding acclaim declare: Blessed by the glory of God from His Heavenly abode. From Thy Heavenly abode, please reveal Thyself, O our King, and reign over us, for we wait for Thee. O when wilt Thou reign in America? Speedily, even in our days, do Thou establish Thy dwelling here forever. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Cresleigh Homes
You made it past Wednesday! Time to kick back and relax in your #Riverside Residence 1 home. Grab some loungewear from your spacious Primary Bedroom closet and head downstairs to the kitchen to make plans for the weekend. 😄
Or you could learn more about this residence on our website! And with approximately 2,300 square feet, all on one level, you will likely find all the space you need. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/residence-1/
My God Sits in the Back of the Limousine, My God Has the House on the Cover of the Magazine!
When choosing between two evils, I always like to take the one I have never tried before. The justification for majority rule rests squarely on the political ends that the constitution is designed to achieve, and therefore on the two principles of justice. As a reminder, the first principle of justice states that each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all. The second principle of justice states that social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). The first principle of equal basic liberties is to be embodied in the political constitution, while the second principle applies primarily to economic institutions. Fulfillment of the first principle takes priority over fulfillment of the second principle, and within the second principle fair equality of opportunity takes priority over the difference principle. The first principle affirms that all citizens should have the familiar basic rights and liberties: liberty of conscience and freedom of association, freedom of speech and liberty of the person, the rights to vote, to hold public office, to be treated in accordance with the rule of law, and so on. The first principle accords these rights and liberties to all citizens equally. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Unequal rights would not benefit those who would get a lesser share of the rights, so justice requires equal rights for all, in all normal circumstances. The second distinctive feature of the first principle is that it requires fair value of the political liberties. The political liberties, concerned with the right to hold public office, the right to affect the outcome of national elections and so on. For these liberties, citizens who are similarly endowed and motivated should have similar opportunities to hold office, to influence elections, and so on regardless of how rich or poor they are. This fair value proviso has major implications for how elections should be funded and run. The second principle of justice has two parts. The first part, fair equality of opportunity, requires that citizens with the same talents and willingness to use them have the same educational and economic opportunities regardless of whether they were born rich or poor. In all parts of society there are to be roughly the same prospects of culture and achievement for those similarly motivated and endowed. So, for example, if we assume that natural endowments and the willingness to use them are evenly distributed across children born into different social classes, then within any type of occupation (generally specified) we should find that roughly one quarter of people in that occupation were born into the top 25 percent of the income distribution, one quarter were born into the second-highest 25 percent of the income distribution, one quarter were born into the lowest 25 percent. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Since class of origin is a morally arbitrary fact about citizens, justice does not allow class origin to turn into unequal opportunities for education or meaningful work. The second part of the second principle is the difference principle, which regulates the distribution of wealth and income. Allowing inequalities of wealth and income can lead to a larger social product: higher wages can cover the costs of training and education, for example, and can provide incentives to fill jobs that are more in demand. The difference principle allows inequalities of wealth and income, so long as these will be to everyone’s advantage, and specifically to advantage of those who will be worst off. The difference principle requires, that is, that any economic inequalities be to the greatest advantage of those who are advantaged least. The difference principle is partly based on the negative thesis that the distribution of natural assets is undeserved. A citizen does not merit more of the social product simply because one was lucky enough to be born with the potential to develop skills that are currently in high demand. Yet this does not mean that everyone must get the same shares. The fact that citizens have different talents and abilities can be used to make everyone better office. In a society governed by the difference principle, citizens regard the distribution of natural endowments as a common asset that can benefit all. Those better endowed are welcome to use their gifts to make themselves better off, so long as their doing so also contributes to the good of those less well endowed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
The difference principle this expresses a positive ideal, an ideal of deep social unity. In a society that satisfies the difference principle, citizens know that their economy works to everyone’s benefit, and that those who were lucky enough to be born with greater natural potentials are not getting richer at the expense of those who were less fortunate. In justice as fairness, humans agree to share one another’s fate. I have assumed that some form of majority rule is justified as the best available way of insuring just and effective legislation. It is compatible with equal liberty and possesses a certain naturalness; for if minority rule is allowed, there is no obvious criterion to select which one is decide and equality is violated. A fundamental part of the majority principle is that the procedure should satisfy the conditions of background justice. In this case these conditions are those of political liberty—freedom of speech and assembly, freedom to take part in public affairs and to influence by constitutional means the course of legislation—and the guarantee of the fair value of these freedoms. When this background is absent, the first principle of justice is not satisfied; yet even when it is present, there is no assurance that legislation with be enacted. One problem with this procedure of majority rule is that it may allow cyclical majorities. However, the primary defect from the point of view of justice is that it permits the violation of liberty. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
There is nothing to the view, then, that what the majority wills is right. In fact, none of the traditional conceptions of justice have held this doctrine, maintaining always that the outcome of the voting is subject to political principles. Although in given circumstances it is justified that the majority (suitably defined and circumscribed) has the constitutional right to make law, this does not imply that the laws enacted are just. The dispute of substances about majority rule concerns how it is best defined and whether constitutional constraints are effective and reasonable devices for strengthening the overall balance of justice. These limitations may often be used by entrenched minorities to preserve their illicit advantages. This question is one of political judgment and does not belong to the theory of justice. It suffices to note that while citizens normally submit their conduct to democratic authority, that is, recognized the outcome of a vote as establishing a binding rule, other things equal, they do not submit their judgment to it. A justice constitution is defined as a constitution that would be agreed upon by rational delegates in a constitutional convention who are guided by the two principles of justice. When we justify a constitution, we present considerations to show that it would be adopted under these conditions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Similarly, just laws and policies are those that would be enacted by rational legislators at the legislative stage who are constrained by a justice constitution and who are conscientiously trying to follow the principles of justice as their standard. When we criticize laws and policies, we try to show that they would not be chosen under this ideal procedure. Now since even rational legislators would often reach different conclusions, there is a necessity for a vote under ideal conditions. The restrictions on information will not guarantee agreement, since the tendencies of the general social facts will often be ambiguous and difficult to assess. The Lord has said that “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.20-21. It would seem from this declaration that there is no permanent progress made in any field or in any place except it be through obedience to the governing law. We know this is true in the Heavens, because the Lord said: “That which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same. That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin [sin, being the breaking of the law], and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
“For judgement goeth before the face of one who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things. And one hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the Heavens and the Earth, which comprehend the Earth and all the planets,” Doctrine and Covenants 88.34-35, 40, 42-43. This scripture tells us that all things in God’s economy, even those which to us seem inanimate, obey the laws by which they are governed. “The Earth [for example] abideh the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the law,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 88.25. Therefore, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father; that bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; and they who are not sanctified through the law which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ [which is His gospel—the perfect law of liberty] must inherit another kingdom, for one who is not able to abide the law of the celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory. And one who cannot abide the law of a terrestrial kingdom cannot abide a terrestrial glory. And one who cannot abide the law of a telestial kingdom cannot abide a telestial glory,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 88.19-24. How blessed are Latter-day Saint to be assured by the revealed word of God that there will be no capriciousness in the World to come. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
We are so blessed that every soul will be rewarded according to the law that one has obeyed; all divine law is as immutable as the law of gravity; it is the same yesterday, today, and forever; judgment will be mercifully administered, but it will be administered pursuant to law, and it will not rob justice. Not only are we blessed by having this knowledge concerning the rule of law; we are twice blessed by having both a knowledge and an understanding of the laws by which we are to be judged. If we were to fail to obey the law, in our light of our knowledge of the perfect law of liberty, how shortsighted, how foolish, how tragic that would be. Latter-day Saints should strictly obey the laws of the government in which they live. By our own declaration of faith we are committed to do so, for we declare to the World that “we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honouring, and sustaining the law,” reports Articles of Faith 1.12. This we do in harmony with the Lord’s command: “Let no human break the laws of the land, for one that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land. Wherefore, be subject to the powers that be, until one reigns whose right it is to reign, and subdues all enemies under one’s feet,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 58.21-22. Civil authority is of divine origin. It may be more or less adapted to the needs of humans; more or less just and benevolent, but, even at its worst, it is better than anarchy. Revolutionary movements that aim at the abolition of government itself are contrary to the law of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
When the rule of law breaks down in a family, a community, a state, or a nation, chaos reigns. The kingdoms of Heaven are to be free from chaos, because no one will be in any one of them who does not by one’s own free will obey the laws thereof. Here on Earth, some people steadfastly refuse to face such facts. We avoid them by stubbornly refusing to recognize the speed of change. It makes us feel better to defer the future. Even those closet to the cutting edge of technology and scientific research can scarcely believe the reality. Even they routinely underestimate the speed at which the future is breaking on our shores. Thus Dr. Richard J. Cleveland, speaking before a conference of organ transplant specialists, announced in January, 1967, that the first human heart transplant operation will occur “within five years.” Yet before the same year was our Dr. Christiaan Barnard had operated on a fifty-five-year-old grocer named Louis Washkansky, and a staccato sequence of heart transplant operation exploded like a string of firecrackers into the World’s awareness. In the meantime, success rates are rising steadily in kidney transplants to 97 percent. Successful liver, pancreas, and ovary transplants are also reported. Scientists and doctors are getting so good that they even have the ability to do face transplants now. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Such accelerating medical advances must compel profound changes in our ways of thinking, as well as our way of caring for the sick. Startling new legal, ethical and philosophical issues arise. What, for instance, is death? Does death occur when the heart stops beating, as we have traditionally believed? Or does it occur when the brain stops functioning? Hospitals are becoming more and more familiar with cases of patients kept alive through advanced medical techniques, but doomed to exist as unconscious vegetables. What are the ethics of condemning such a person to death to obtain a healthy organ needed for transplant to save the life of a person with a better prognosis? Lacking guidelines or precedents, we flounder over the moral and legal questions. Ghoulish rumors race through the medical community. There has been speculation about the possibility of future murder rings supplying healthy organs for unofficial surgeons whose patients are unwilling to wait until natural sources have supplied the heart or liver or pancreas they need. In Trenton, New Jersey USA—an Israeli citizen living in Brooklyn, New York USA, admitted to brokering three illegal kidney transplants for payments of $120,000.00 UDS or more before he was caught conspiring to organize another illegal sale. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum also known as Isaac Rosenbaum, age 60 at the time he brought to trial in 2011 (now age 70), plead guilty to an information charging him with three counts of acquiring, receiving, and otherwise transferring human organs for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation; and one count of conspiracy to do the same. Mr. Rosenbaum was originally charged with the conspiracy by Complain in July 2009. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
The defendant entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson in Trenton federal court. Mr. Rosenbaum’s convictions were the first under the federal statue involving illegal market sales of kidneys from paid donors. “Mr. Rosenbaum admitted he was not new to the human kidney business when he was caught brokering what he thought was an organ trafficking,” U.S. Attorney Fishman said. “Trafficking in human organs is not only a grave threat to public health, it reserves lifesaving treatment for those who can best afford it at the expense of those who cannot. We will not tolerate such an affront to human dignity.” According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that from January 2006 through February 2009, he conspired with other to provide a service, in exchange for large payments, to individuals seeking kidney transplants by obtaining kidneys from paid donors. Specifically, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted to arranging three transplants on behalf of New Jersey residents that took place in December 2006, September 2008, and February 2009. Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he was paid approximately $120, 000.00 USA, $150,000.00 USA, and $140,000.00 USD, respectively on behalf of these three recipients. Mr. Rosenbaum’s kidney business was exposed through the use of cooperating criminal defendant Solomon Dwek and an undercover FBI agent (the “UC”) who was posing as an employee of Dwek and who represented to Mr. Rosenbaum that her uncle was in need of a kidney transplant. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Dwek and the UC first met with Mr. Rosenbaum in mid-February 2008 at which time Mr. Rosenbaum informed them that “it’s illegal to buy and sell organs,” but assured them that “I’m doing this a long time.” Mr. Rosenbaum explained to Dwek and the UC that he would help the recipient and the donor concoct a fictitious story to make it appear that the transplant was the product of a genuine donation and that he would be in charge of babysitting the donor upon the donor’s arrival from overseas. In Washington, the National Academy of Science, backed by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, has been studying social policy issues springing from advances in the life sciences. At Stanford, a symposium, also funded by Russell Sage, examines methods for setting up transplant organ banks, the economics of an organ market, and evidence of the economics of an organ market, and evidences of class or racial discrimination in organ availability. The possibility of cannibalizing bodies or corpses for usable transplant organs, grisly as it is, will serve to accelerate further the pace of change by lending urgency to research in the field of artificial organs—plastic or electronic substitutes for the heart or liver or spleen. (Eventually, even these may be made unnecessary when we learn how to regenerate damaged organs or severed limbs, growing new ones as the lizard now grows a tail.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
And it is totally possible that the human body could be advanced to regrow limbs, organs, and other healthy tissues as it already replaces blood, hair, teeth, nail, skin and you see how can manifest and growth tumors and cancer. So if scientists are able to unlock the secrets of the human body, stopping death and loss of organs and life is totally possible. The drive to develop spare parts for failing human bodies will be stepped up as demand intensified. The development of an economical artificial heart, Professor Lederberg says, “is only a few transient failures away.” Professors R. M. Kenedi of the bio-engineering group at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow believes that “artificial replacements for tissues and organs may well have become commonplace.” For some organs, this is in fact, a reality. Already more than 3 million cardiac patients Worldwide—including a former Supreme Court justice—are alive because they carry, stitched into their chest cavity, a tiny pacemaker—a device that sends pulses of electricity to activate the hearts. Each year 600,000 pacemakers are implanted. Approximal 90,000 heart valve substitutes are now implanted in the United States of America and 280,000 Worldwide each year; it is estimated that nearly half are mechanical valves and half are bioprosthetic valves. Implanting hearing aids, artificial kidneys, arteries, hip joints, lungs, eye sockets and other parts are all in various stages of early development. We shall, before many decades are past, implant tiny, aspirin-sized sensors in the body to monitor blood pressures, pulse, respiration and other functions, and tiny transmitters to emit a signal when something goes wrong. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
Such signals will feed into giant diagnostic computer centers upon which the medicine of the future will be based. Some of us will carry a tiny platinum plate and a dime-sized “stimulator” attached to the spine. By turning a midget “radio” on and off we will be able to activate the stimulator and kill the pain. Initial work on these pain-control mechanisms is already under way at the Case Institute of Technology. Push button pain killers are already being used by certain cardiac patients. Such developments will lead to vast new bio-engineering industries, chains of medical-electronic repair stations, new technical professions and a reorganization of the entire health system. They will change life expectancy, shatter insurance company life tables, and bring about important shifts in the human outlook. Surgery will be less frightening to the average individual; implantation routine. The human body will come to be seen as modular. Through application of the modular principle—preservation of the whole through systematic replacement of transient components—we may add two or three decades to the average life span of the entire population. Imagine that, people living to be an average of 100 to 120 and strong and healthy. Unless, however, we develop far more advanced understanding of the brain than we now have, this could lead to one of the greatest ironies in history. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Sir George Pickering Regius professor of medicine at Oxford, has waned that unless we watch out, “those with senile brains will form an ever increasing fraction of the inhabitants of the Earth. I find this,” he added unnecessarily, “a terrifying prospect. With President Joe Biden being the 46th President of the United States and the oldest President so far, being 78 years of age, many feel this is why Speaker on the United States House, Nancy Pelosi fought to remind the people about the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 25th Amendment deals with Presidential Disability and Succession, which says that is a President becomes unable to do his or her job, the Vice President shall become President. This amendment was passed by Congress 6 July 1965, and ratified 10 February 1967. Such terrifying prospects will drive us toward more accelerated research into the brain—which, in turn, will generate still further radical changes in the society. Today we strive to make heart valves or artificial plumbing that imitate the original they are designed to place. We have even been able to use valves from the hearts of pigs into human beings. We strive for functional equivalence. Once we have mastered the basic problems, however, we shall not merely install plastic aortas in people because their original aorta is about to fail. We shall install specially-designed parts that are better than the original, and then we shall move on to install parts that provide the user with capabilities that were absent in the first place. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Just as genetic engineering holds out the promise of producing “super-people,” so, too, does organ technology suggest the possibility of track stars with extra-capacity lungs or hearts; sculptors with a neural device that intensifies sensitivity to texture; students with super computer brains. We will no longer implant merely to save a life, but to enhance it—to make possible the achievement of moods, states, conditions or ecstasies that are presently beyond us. Under these circumstances, what happens to our ago-old definitions of “human-ness?” How will it feel to be part protoplasm and part transistor? Exactly what possibilities will it open? What limitations will it place on work, play, socialism, intellectual or aesthetic responses? What happens to the mind when they body is changed? Questions like these cannot be long deferred, for advanced fusions of human and machine—called “Cyborgs”—are closer than more people suspect. We are constantly faced by the hoariest of all problems, which is “Why did the Universe arise out of the depth and darkness of the Absolute Spirit?” The Seer can offer us a picture of the way in which this Spirit has involved itself into matter and is evolving itself back to self-knowledge. That is only the How and not the Why of the World. The truth is not only that nobody has ever known, that nobody knows, and that nobody will ever know the final and fundamental purpose of creation, but that God Himself does not even know—for God too has arisen out of the Absolute no less than the Universe, has found Himself emanated from the primeval darkness and utter silence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Even God must be content to watch the flow and not wonder why, for both God and humans must merge and be absorbed when they face the Absolute for the last time. (In the symbolic language of the Bible, “For humans cannot meet God face to face and live.”) That which IS can be none other than Final Being itself, not dependent on anything or anyone, mysteriously self-sufficient without a shape, yet all shaped things and creature have emerged from elements which trace back to it. Forever alone, there was none to witness the Beginning. As Mind the Real is static, as World-Mind it is dynamic. As Godhead It alone is in the stillness of being; but as God it is the source, substance, and power of the Universe. As Mind there is no second thing, no second intelligence to ask the question why it stirred and breathed forth World-Mind, hence why the whole World-process exists. Only humans ask this question and it returns unanswered. For all of us, for the witless and for the wise, there are unanswerable questions in life and we must learn to live with them. None of us is a full and finalized encyclopedia, for however, far we may penetrate into the meaning of things we are always confronted in the end by the Unknowable Mystery. We do not know why the whole process of involution and evolution ever started at all: because we find that there is in the deepest metaphysical sense no becoming and process at all, there is only the Real. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
At the ultimate level there is neither purpose nor plan because there is no creation. Mind, which forever is, can undergo n change in itself and no multiplication of itself. If it could, it would not be what it is—the Ultimate, the Unconditioned, and the Unique. Nor, being perfect, complete, could it have desire, purpose, aim, or motive for itself. Therefore it could not have projected the Universe on account of any benefit sought or gain needed. There is no answer to the question why the Universe was sent forth. It is to impose human limitation upon the transcendental Godhead to say that It has any eternal purpose to fulfill for Itself in the cosmos, whether that purpose be the establishment of a perfect society on Earth or the training of individuals to enter into fellowship with It and participate in Its creative work. Purpose implies a movement in times whereas the Godhead is also the Timeless. Neither this Earth nor the societies upon it can be necessary to God’s serenely self-sufficient being. Yet these fallacies are still taught by the theology of theistic orthodox. We know as much, and as little, about the Primal Mind as we know why there was a beginning of the Universe—that is, precisely nothing. If being asked how to prevent oneself from being deceived by these pseudo-intuitions, it can be said that a useful rule is to check them against other sources on the same subject and see if they all harmonize. If, for example, fifty inspired humans who have written on the subject teach what contradictions the alleged intuition, then there is something wrong on one side or the other and careful investigation is called for. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
It is always safer to ascertain what the great scriptural texts or the classic mystical testaments have to tell on the matter and not depend solely on what one’s intuition tells. We need more. And most of us—deep down—cannot deny it. There is a core of truth buried in every heart, a truth that we cannot escape. All-Father God, protector of travelers, please guards us, please guide us, please bring us through in safety and ease on our journey today. As I enter your realm, spirits of the air, as I mount to the clouds in this airplane, I place myself in your hands. There, among the vagaries of the winds, I will not be afraid, because I know you are my allies. As I fly today, please be at my side. Please protect me until I land again safely. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the mighty? Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, revered in praises, doing wonders? At the shore of the Red Sea, the redeemed offered praise unto Thy name. Singing a new song, they proclaimed Thy sovereignty: “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.” O Rock of America, arise to help Thy scattered folk; deliver all who are crushed beneath oppression’s heel. Thou art our Saviour: the Lord of Hosts is Thy name; blessed art Thou, O Lord, Redeemer of America. O Lord, please open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Expand your faith so you can access everything God has in store. Allow God to be present in your life and have faith in Him, and you will see God make miracles and blessings that you can only imagine in your best dreams! #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Cresleigh Homes
The largest home at #MillsStation is Residence 4 with 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and all that natural light. Family nights are even better with an open floor plan between the Kitchen and Great Room! 😍🙌
You can check out an interactive floor plan of this residence on our website. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-4/
Residence Four at Mills Station boasts 2,692 square feet in the largest home in the community. The open concept design includes four bedrooms, three and one half bathrooms and a two car garage plus workshop.
#CresleighRanch
#CresleighHomes
Randolph Harris II International 