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Release Your Faith in Uncommon Ways and You Will See God do Uncommon things!

February 26, 2020 1:29 am

It is impossible, indeed, to separate works from faith, just as it is impossible to separate heat and light from the fire. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Nature hath made people so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there bee found one person sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between being, and being, is not so considerable, as that one being can thereupon claim to oneself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as one. For as the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to mute the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same sanger with oneself. And as to the faculties of the mind, (setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else,) I find yet a greater equality amongst people, than that of strength. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestowes on all beings, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps makes such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom, which almost all beings think they have in a greater degree, than the Vulgar; that is, than all beings but themselves, and a few others, whom by Fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of people, that however they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: for they see their own wit at hand, and other people’s at a distance. However, the proveth rather than people are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything, than that every person is contented with one’s share. Also, parents have to teach their kids and make them responsible. One has to tell their children what is expected of them and that there is no way around it. Children must be held responsible for getting an education and learning how to behave. The television is very interesting, but those TV programs will always be there. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

It is far more for children to get an education than to watch TV. And when your child is in junior high school, that is the time to start talking to them about college and letting them explore college campuses and speak with guidance counselors at the college so they will know what is expected of them, and so the child can form a vision of what they want to do after high school. So many children are solely focused on just getting out of high school, and then in the last semester of high school this idea of college and dumped on them and many of them have no idea what to do because they never even considered it. Therefore, it is important to make sure your child knows that they need to have a career vision, something they can do for the rest of their lives to make money to be able to support themselves, and their wife and child. Furthermore, it is important that children learn that if they make a mistake and break something, they need to pay for it. It may require them to get a Summer job, but it is important for them to learn responsibility as youths so they become good adults. The great masters who taught people truth or gave them supreme works of art or lifted their feelings deserve a large gratitude for such benedictions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

It is those who create ways and means for others to follow in the search for spiritual fulfilment, the teachers and awakeners, who deserve our best honours. Such a person is a focal-point for all that is noble. A nature sensitive to the serenity, benevolence, and wisdom radiating from such a being will gladly give its homage to one. It is a grave mistake made by uneducated persons or by proud ones to fail in holding such a being in deep veneration. God keeps a vacant seat for one in the high places, while simple men and women throw unseen roses of appreciation when one enters their orbit. We should listen to the plain statements of such a being as the ancient Greeks listened to the enigmatic utterances of their oracles. Sokrates tried to awaken the Greeks, Jesus tried to awaken Christians. Their failure was followed by consequences to their people which can be traced in history. If the higher power takes the trouble to send a messenger, it is better to tremble, listen, and obey than to sneer, reject, and suffer. The comments made by the self-actualized upon the varied situations in human life are worth far fare more than the commentaries written by pundits on the sacred or philosophic texts. The former are very much in a minority. What one is testifies to THAT WHICH IS. Where lesser humans have to shout their opinions, one’s silence is eloquent and, to the receptive, an initiation in itself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

There is no such act as a one-sided self-giving. Karma brings us back our due. One who spends one’s life in the dedicated service of philosophic enlightenment may reject the merely material rewards that this service could bring one, but one cannot reject the beneficent thoughts, the loving remembrances, the sincere veneration which those who have benefited sometimes send one. Such invisible rewards help one to atone more peacefully and less painfully for the strategic errors one has made, the tactical shortcomings one has manifested. Life is an arduous struggle for most people, but much more so for such a one who is always a hated target for the unseen powers of darkness. Do not hesitate to send one your silent humble blessing, therefore, and remember that Nature will not waste it. The enemies you are now struggling against within yourself one has already conquered, but the enemies one is now struggling against are beyond your present experience. One has won the right to sit by a hearth of peace. If one has made the greatest renunciation and does not do so, it is for your sake and for the sake of those others like you. Education is about discovering the special skills and talents of students and guiding their learning according to high standards. Education is also about teaching our children and young people basic Southern values and uncorking that World-renowned American ingenuity that has characterized our country. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Respect for God demands that the face, the hands, and the feet be washed once a day. The wise person indulges oneself not in gossip with women, not even his own wife. Leave the “kitchen table talk” for the women. Men should talk about cars, sports, or the economics. For America to move forward and continue as a World leader, and for all our communities to become prosperous and strong, more individuals need to become involved in improving our schools and colleges. We also need to take time for self-care, reflection, and affirmation. We have a choice. We can allow the stress of the job to crush our ability to be the kind of inspirational leaders we want to be, or we can energetically and enthusiastically demonstrate that we are the absolute climate creators at our school. Our challenge is that every day we need to rekindle the passion and get in touch with the joy in our job. Joy is an essential ingredient if inspirational leadership. Leadership is being visible when things are going awry and invisible when they are working well. From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two beings desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

And from hence it comes to pass, that where an Invader hath no more to fear, than another being’s single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces untied, to dispossess, and deprive one, not only of the fruit (product) of one’s labour, but also of one’s life, or liberty And the Invader again is in the like danger of another. And from this diffidence of another, there is no way for any individual to secure oneself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all people one can, so long, till one see no other power great enough to endanger one: and this is no more than one’s own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also because there be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue father than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over people, being necessary to a human’s conservation, it ought to be allowed one. Again, people have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

For every human looketh that one’s companion should value one, at the same rate one sets upon oneself: And upon all signs of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavours, as far as one dares (which amongst them that have no common power, to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other,) to extort a greater value from one’s contemners, by dommage; and from others, by the example. So that in the nature of humans, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first, maketh people invade for Gain, the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters f other people’s persons, wives, children, cattle, and ultimate driving machines; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in the Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name. Leaderships is a people process. It calls for the application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that allow each of us to successfully influence and inspire others towards doing the right things. Leadership deals with effectiveness. On the other hand, management is a coordinating process we carry out to make sure the work functions and tasks get done well and in a timely way. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Over the years, Dr. Freudian analysts have softened their views of the politics of therapy. Along with Gestalt therapists, Jungians, rational emotive therapists, advocates of transactional analysis, and many other new therapies, they now take a middle-of-the-road view. The expert is at times definitely the authority (as in the Gestalt therapist dealing with the person in the “hot seat”), but there is also a recognition of the right of the individual to be responsible for oneself. There has been no attempt to rationalize these contradictions. These therapists take a paternalistic stance, or follow the medical model, believing that at times control is best vested in the therapist, at other times (to be decided by the therapist) control and responsibility are best placed in the client’s, or patient’s hands. One approach which has been very definite in the politics of relationships is behaviourism. Its clear purpose is outlined in Skinner’s famous Walden II. For the good of the person (individually or collectively), an elitist technocracy of behaviourists sets the goals that will make the person happy and productive. It then shapes one’s behaviour by operant conditioning (with out without the “subject’s” knowledge) to achieve those goals. The environmental model, based on learning theory, assumes that behaviour that is in some way rewarded or reinforced tends to be repeated, while nonrewarded or punished behaviour tends not to be repeated. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

So most of the behaviour problems we have seen (except those problems having a directly organize root, or perhaps some of the more stubborn psychotic reactions) are viewed, not as unconscious conflicts or illnesses, but as dysfunctional learning: bad habits. Since these problems were learned through conditioning, the behaviour modifiers believe that they can be unlearned, or deconditioned; and more effective or functional behaviour can be relearned, or reconditioned. Whereas analytic approaches sees no value in this. In fact, such past-oriented emphasis is seen as further rewarding the dysfunctional behaviour—giving the person beneficial stokes for their problems. If you want children to stop throwing temper tantrums (which have been reinforced by the attention of parents), do not give them further reinforcement by yelling at them or spanking them. Since those kinds of responses are actually rewards by some quirk of reasoning (“negative strokes are better than no strokes at all”), the answer is to stop responding to—and hence reinforcing—the tantrums. No attention at all is one way of withholding reinforcers. Ignore the behaviour, and after awhile its payoff value to the child is gone. To complete the conditioning process, give the child a lot of optimistic attention and affection for doing those things you want the child to do. This is how operant conditioning techniques work. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

When using operant conditioning, much success has been reported in the treatment of weight management, smoking, and conduct disorder and other similar issues. Not all behaviour problems respond to such treatment, but the results are encouraging. Much use has been made of one of the behaviour modification techniques in working with people who have intellectual disabilities and some psychotic patients in hospitals. It is called the “token economy” program. Patients are trained to do simple tasks by reinforcement of each step of the task with poker chips or other tokens which can be cashed in at the end of the session or the day for candy, gum, juice, and other goodies. Also, these techniques can work with students. If you want them to preform better or tests or increase their attendance, one has to reward the class with something like a pizza party at the end of the semester, but also keep in mind that it will be important to also provide extra guidance for the students so they do not get harassed by others for failing to meet the standards and holding the class back. Another issue is to make sure there is a realistic budget for the party. Most students will problem want about three slices of pizza. Domino’s Pizza always has some kind of deal like the large three topping pizza for $7.99 or the Mix and Match pizza for $5.99 when you order two or more. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The behavioural modifiers believe that tangible rewards used in the early stages of any behaviour change process should later be replaces with praise, hugs, pats on the back, or compliments if that kind of thing is acceptable in your family and community. Secondary reinforcers are substituted for primary reinforcers. Later, inner reinforcers—pride, sense of achievement, realization of goals—can be substituted for the secondary reinforcers. After all, most of us do not spend our lives behaving well in order to win chips or M&Ms! One’s behaviour is, after all, completely determined by environment for the planners so that their completely determined behaviour causes them to operate as such a wise and good elite is a question always deftly avoided. Nevertheless it is assumed that their goals will be constructively social, and the shaping of behaviour will be for the good person as well as society. Yet at times, when applied to the aberrant behaviour, this approach seems a little startling. We would assume that a demerit was clear evidence that the individual had somehow acquired a full-blown social neurosis and needed to be cured, not punished. We would send him or her to a rehabilitation center where one would undergo absolute brainwashing or reeducation until we were quite sure one had become a law-abiding citizen who would not again commit an antisocial act. We would probably have to restructure one’s entire personality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

However, this means that we are completely oblivious to the political implications of what we are doing. Clearly a psychologist who believes brainwashing or reeducating people in detention would be the first to be subsidized and employed by a dictator, who would be very happy to have them “cure” various “demerits” that threatened the state, which could be labeled as, for example, things like race, skin colour, hair texture, profession, medical history, political party, age, number of children, socioeconomic status, and so on. In fairness to behaviorists it should be said that many of them have come to adopt a greatly changed view of the politics of relationships. In the commune Twin Oaks, patterned initially after Walden II, the residents often choose for themselves which behaviors they wish to change, and select the rewards which will be most reinforcing. Clearly this is completely opposed to the politics of the strict behavourist, since it is self-evaluated change. It is not the environment shaping the individual’s behaviour, but the individual choosing to shape the environment for one’s own personal development. Some behavioursists have gone even further. Rather than controlling the individual, they are helping the person learn to achieve one’s own betterment. In its politics this is the reverse of strict behaviourism. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

However, there will come a time in the experience of the apprentice of Jesus where it is appropriate to speak of our being muted to the self. There is no one way this comes to us, I think, and the language here must be handled carefully. It has been the source of much understanding in and harm in the past. However, the fact that it represents is a fundamental, indispensable element in the renovation of the heart, soul, and life. Being muted to self is the condition where the mere fact that I do not get what I want does not surprise or offend me and has no control over me. Faithful servants of God know the secret, and man have left their testimony. They day when some have muted themselves, they report their opinions, preferences, tastes and will; was muted to the World, its approval or censure; muted to the approval or blame even of one’s brethren or friends, and since that point on, individuals will study only to show oneself “approved unto God.” We often speak of those who sleep soundly as “sleeping like a baby.” By that we mean that what is happening around them does not disturb them, that they are unconscious f it and are doing nothing with reference to it. There is an important lesson here, though not a precise parallel. The one who is muted to self will certainly not even notice some things that others would—for example, things such as social slights, verbal put downs and innuendos, or physical discomforts. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

However, many other rebuffs to “the dear self,” will be noticed still, often quite clearly. However, if we are muted to self to any significant degree, these rebuffs will not take control of us, not even to the point of disturbing our feelings or peace of mind. We will wear the World like it is a precious gift from God. Does this mean that the person who is muted to self is without feeling? Does Christ commend the famous “apathy” of the Stoic or the Buddhist elimination of desire? Far from it. The issue is not just feeling or desire, but right feeling or desire, or being controlled by feeling and desire. Apprentices of Jesus will be deeply disturbed about many things and will passionately desire many things, but they will be largely indifferent to the fulfillment of their own desires as such. Merely getting their way has no significance for them, does not disturb them. They know that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those are called according to His purpose,” reports Romans 8.28. They do not have to look after things that concern them, but they do not worry about outcomes that merely affect adversely their own desires and feelings. They are free to focus their efforts on the service of God and others and the furthering of good generally, and to be as passionate about such things as may be appropriate to such efforts. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

People who truly understand the grace of God, not just intellectually but in very core of their being, will not abuse grace by living irresponsibly. “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the person whose sin the Lord will never count against one,” reports Romans 4.7-8. When I read, “Blessed is the person whose sin the Lord will never count against one,” I was overcome with joy and gratitude. What a fantastic encouragement that God will never judge me for any of my sins. I know I have as wicked a sinful nature as anyone else, and apart from the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit in my life, I am fully capable of the so-called gross sins of immortality, drunkenness, stealing, and the like. However, those are not the sins that trouble me at this time. Rather, I struggle with what I called “refined” sins: selfishness, pride, impatience, a critical attitude, and a judgmental spirit. Despite my calling those areas “refined” sins, they are nevertheless very real sins. They are sins for which I would not want to give account at the judgment bar of God. They are sins that, apart from the atoning death of Christ for me, would send me to eternal Hell. And, if God operated on the basis of merit instead of grace in this life, they are sins that would forfeit all blessings from Him. In short those “refined” sins are very troublesome. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

So when I read that God will never count against me my selfishness, my pride, my impatience, and so on, I wept for joy. I stopped reading and uttered a prayer of deep, heartful thanksgiving to God for His gracious forgiveness. Then what did I do? I asked God to purge those sinful traits from my character. I asked Him to enable me to become more and more aware of specific instances when I was committing those sins so that I could, by His Spirit, put them to death as Paul tells us to do in Romans 8.13. I was compelled by His love to seek to put away those sins. “Finally, people, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things,” reports Philippians 4.8. The true, the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely, the admirable all defy negative exposition. Each ingredient was, and is, a matter of personal choice—and our choices make all the difference in the World. We all can choose a thought program which will produce a Christian mind. “And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the Kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope. And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity. And Christ truly said unto our fathers: if ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me,” reports Moroni 10.21-23. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Lord God Almighty, Christ the King of glory, Who art our true Peace, and Love eternal; enlighten our souls with the brightness of Thy peace, and purify our consciences with the sweetness of Thy love, that we may with peaceful hearts wait for the Author of peace, and in the adversities of this World may ever have Thee for our Guardian and Protector; and so being fenced about by Thy care, may heartily give ourselves to the love of Thy peace. Searcher of Hearts, it is a good day to me when Thou givest me a glimpse of myself; sin is my greatest evil, but Thou art my greatest good; I have causes to loathe myself, and not to seek self-honour, for no one desires to commend one’s own dunghill. My country, family, church fare worse because of my sins, for sinners bring judgment in thinking sins are small or that God is not angry with them. Let me not take other good people as my example, and think I am good because I am like them, for all good people are not so good as thou desirest, are not always consistent, do not always follow holiness, do not feel eternal good in sore affliction. Show me how to know when a thing is evil which I think is right and good, how to know when what is lawful comes from an evil principle, as desire for reputation ow wealthy by usury. “And now I speak unto all the ends of the Earth—that is the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief,” reports Moroni 10.24. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Give me grace to recall my needs, my lack of knowing thy will in Scripture, of wisdom to guide others, of daily repentance, want of which keeps thee at bay, of the spirit of prayer, having words without love, of zeal for thy glory, seeking my own ends, of joy in thee and thy will, of love to others. And let me not lay my pipe too short of the fountain, never touching the eternal spring, never drawing water from above. O God, Who of Thy great love to this World, didst reconcile Earth to Heaven through Thine Only-begotten Son; grant that we who, by the darkness of our sins, are turned aside from brotherly love, may be Thy light shed forth in our souls be filled with Thine own sweetness, and embrace our friends in Thee, and our enemies for Thy sake, in a bound of mutual affection. O God, Who art Peace everlasting, Whose chosen reward is the gift of peace, and Who hast taught us that the peace-makers are Thy children, pour Thy sweet peace into our souls, that everything discordant may utterly vanish, and all that makes for peace be sweet to us forever. Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully grant unto Thy Church, that deadly pleasures may be cast aside, and that it may rather rejoice in the gladness of Thine eternal salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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If we are going to seize the promise of our times and educate our children so they can keep their dreams alive, we must all work together. Not government alone, not individuals alone, but as parents and children, as employers and employees, teachers and students, community leaders and community members, as government and citizens. We must renew our schools so every American child has the opportunity to get the best possible education for the twenty-first century.

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Only the Strong Person Can be Ethical, Not the Weak One!

February 19, 2020 1:34 am

Words and plans are not enough. Leaders stand up for their beliefs. They practice what they preach. They show others by their own example that they live by the values that they profess. If there are degrees in the power of being become manifest and how can it be measured? The answer is that the power of being becomes manifest only in the process in which it actualizes its power. In this process its power appears and can be measured. Power is real only in its actualization, in the encounter with other bearers of power and in the ever-changing balance which is the results of these encounters. Life is the dynamic actualization of being. It is not a system of solutions which could be deduced from a basic vision of life. Nothing can be deduced from a basic vision of life. Nothing can be deduced in a life process, nothing is determined a priori, nothing is final except those structures which make the dynamics of life possible. Life includes continuous decisions, not necessarily conscious decisions, but decisions which occur in the encounter between power and power. Every encounter of somebody who represents a power of being leads to a decision about the amount of power embodied in each of them. These decisions cannot be deduced a priori. Life is tentative. Everybody and everything has chances and must take risks, because one’s power and its power of being remains hidden if actual encounters do not reveal it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

The typical forms in which powers of being encounter each other are a fascinating subject of phenomenological descriptions: life, exempli gratis, in a human individual, transcends itself. It pushes forward, it runs ahead, and it encounters life in another human individual which also pushes forward, or which withdraws or which stands and resists. In each case another constellation of power is the result. One draws another power into oneself and is either strengthened or weakened by it. One throws the foreign power of being out or assimilates it completely. One transforms the resisting powers or one adapts oneself to them. One is absorbed by them and loses one’s own power of being, one grows together with them and increases their and one’s own power of being. These processes are going on in every moment of life, in all relations of all beings. They go on between those powers of being which we call nature, between human and nature, between human and human, between individuals and groups, between groups and groups. The power struggle is taking place in the accidental look of a human at another human, as well as in the most complex forms of love relationships. In these examples the continuous struggle of power of being with power of being is described in a way which does not need to take into consideration hostilities, neuroses, or pacifist ideologies. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

The power of being is simply a description of life processes which occur in Heaven as well as in Hell. They belong to the structure of being. This vision of life is confirmed when we consider the phenomenology of power-relations for the interpretation of all important historical movements. Categories such as challenge, reaction, withdrawal, return, belong to a phenomenology of encounters. And it is not only the encounter of groups with groups, it is also the encounter of groups with nature for which one develops one’s phenomenology relations. In the works of the historians and depth-psychologists we find the material for a complete phenomenology of power relations. Everything real is an individual power of being within an embracing whole. Within the whole of power the individual can gain or lose power of being. Whether the one or the other happens is never decided a priori, but is a matter of continuous concrete decisions. A child, in one’s early years, has power of being only within the embracing power of being which is called “family”. However, at a certain moment most children have the tendency to withdraw from the family unity to themselves and their self-realization. They feel that participation in the family life means a loss of their individual power of being. So they withdraw, mostly internally, sometimes also externally. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

The child wants to increase their power of being which, they feel, is being reduced within the group. However, it may happen that after a certain time they return to the family because they feel that without the power of being of the group their own power of being is severely endangered. And again, after a certain tie they may realize that they have surrendered too much to the group and that this self-surrender not only weakens their own being but also that of the group to whose power they have surrendered. Again they withdraw and the conflict continues. The problem implied in this situation is sharpened by the “hierarchical” structure of life. The more centred a being is the more power of being is embodied in it. The completely centred, self-related and self-aware being, human, has the greatest power of being. One has a World, not only an environment, and with it infinite potentialities of self-realization. One centredness makes one the master of one’s World. However, where there is centredness there is a hierarchical structure of power. The nearer to the centre an element is, the more it participated in the power of the whole. The ancient parable of the revolt of the members of the body against the stomach and the answer of the stomach, that without its central position all other members would starve, shows the decisive importance of the centre for the power of being for every part. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Centred structures are present not only in the organic but also in the inorganic realm, notably in the atomic and subatomic elements of matter. And even the most egalitarian societies have centres of power and decisions, in which the large majority of the people participate only indirectly and in degrees. Theses centres are strengthened in the moment in which the fullest development of power by a social group is demanded, in emergency situations. The need for an acting centre makes even an egalitarian group hierarchical. The centre of power is only the centre of the whole as long as it does not degrade its own centrality by using it for particular purposes. In the moment in which the representatives of the centre use the power of the whole for their particular self-realization they cease to be the actual centre, and the whole being, without a centre, disintegrates. Certainly, it is possible for a ruling group to force its will upon the whole, even if its will is not the expression of the whole. However, this is possible only for a limited time. Finally, the loss of the power of the whole, through internal or external causes, is unavoidable. Since no being has a natural authority over one’s fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among humans. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

If an individual can alienate one’s liberty and make oneself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining; but let us confine ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or to sell. Now, a being who become the salve of another does not give oneself; one sells oneself, at the least for one’s subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself? A king is so far from furnishing one’s subjects with their subsistence that one gets one’s own only from them; and, kings do not live on nothing. Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods also? I fail to se what they have left to preserve. It will be said that the despot assures one’s subjects civil tranquility. Granted; but what do they gain, if the wars one’s ambition brings down upon them, one’s insatiable avidity, and the vexatious conduct of one’s ministers press harder on them than their own dissension would have done? If the very tranquility they enjoy is one of their miseries, what do they gain? Tranquility is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting to be devoured. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

To say that a human gives oneself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that one who does it is out of one’s mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right. Even if each being could alienate oneself, one could not alienate one’s children: they are born human and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they have the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of discretion, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but one cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the governed would be no longer arbitrary. To renounce liberty is to renounce being a human, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For one who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with human’s nature; to remove all liberty form one’s will is to remove all morality from one’s acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

Is it not clear that we can be under no obligation to a person from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does not this condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or exchange, in itself involve the nullity of the act? For what right can my slave have against me, when all that he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this right of mine against myself is a phrase devoid of meaning? War is found in another origin for the so-called right of slavery. The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back one’s life at the price of one’s liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties. However, what is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the sate of war. Humans, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies. War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private way, or war of human with human, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, were everything is under the authority of the laws. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Individual combats, duels and encounters, are acts which cannot constitute a state; while the private wars, authorised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King of France, and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of feudalism, in itself an absurd system if ever there was one, and contrary to the principles of natural right and to all good polity. War then is a relation, not between human and human, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as humans, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only other States, and not humans; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation. Furthermore, this principle is in conformity with the established rules of all times and the constant practice of all civilised peoples. Declarations of war are intimations less to powers than to their subjects, without declaring way on the prince, is not an enemy, but a brigand. Even in real war, a just prince, while laying hands, in the enemy’s country, on all that belongs to the public, respects the lives and goods of individuals: he respects rights on which his own are founded. The object of the war being the destruction of the hostile State, the other side has a right to kill its defenders, while they are bearing arms. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

However, as soon as its defenders lay down their arms and surrender, the hostile State sees that they cease to be its enemies or instruments enemy, and become once more merely humans, whose lives no one has any right to take. Sometimes it is possible to kill the State without killing a single one of its members; and war gives no right to which is not necessary to the gaining of its object. These principles are not based on the authority of poets, but derived from the nature of reality and based on reason. The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right t massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when one cannot make one a slave, and the right to enslave one cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill one. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make one buy at the price of one’s liberty one’s life, over which the victor holds no right. It is not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right slavery on the right of life and death? Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody, I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered people, is under no obligation to a master, expect to obey one as far as he is compelled to do so. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

By taking an equivalent for one’s life, the victor has not done one a favour; instead of killing one without profit, one has killed one usefully. So far then is one from acquiring over one any authority in addition to that of force, that the state of war continues to subsist between them: their mutual relation is the effect of it, and the usage of the right ward does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has indeed been made; but this convention, so far from destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuance. So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a being to say to a being or to people: “I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like.” The question of the origins of inequality is only half of the problem of a sophisticated Marxist philosophy of history. The other half is that Rousseau’s argument with Hobbes has never been satisfactorily settled. The Marxists have said, with Rousseau, that because human nature is a blank slate, neutral, even good; evil exists because of social institutions that encourage it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Evil also exists because of social classes and the hate, envy, competition, degradation, and scapegoating that stem from them; change society and human’s natural goodness will flower. Not so, say the conservatives, and they point for proof at those revolutionary societies which have abolished social class but which continue to express personal and social evil; evil, then must be in the heart of the creature; the best that social institutions can do is keep it blunted; and social institutions that already effectively do this without excessive repression and within legal safeguards for individual rights—why, such social institutions should not be changed. So argue the conservatives. This question has been the central one of science of human, and as such the knottiest in its whole career; thus it is logical that it is the last problem to be solved. I myself have been coming back to it again and again for a dozen years now, and each time I thought there was a clear solution I later discovered that vital things had been left unsaid. At first it seemed to me that Rousseau had already won the argument with Hobbes: had he said that evil is a robust child? Then, as Rousseau argued, children are clumsy, blustering organisms who must take some toll of their environment, who see activity and self-expansion in an innocent way, but who cannot yet control themselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Their intentions are not evil, even if their acts cause damage. In this view, humans are an energy-converting organism who must exert one’s manipulative powers, who must damage one’s World in some ways, who must make it uncomfortable for others, excreta, by one’s own nature an active being. One seeks self-expansion from a very uncertain power base. Even if humans hurt others, it is because one is weak and afraid, not because one is confident and cruel. Only the strong person can be ethical, not the weak one. Hate and violent aggression could be developed in humans as a special kind of cultural orientation, something people learned to do in order to be big and important—as some primitive tribes learned warfare and won social esteem because of their cruelty to enemies, excreta. It was not that humans had instincts of hate and aggression, but rather that one could easily be molded in that way by the society which rewarded them. The thing that characterized humans is one’s need for self-esteem, and one would do anything one’s society wanted in order to earn it. From this point of view, even scapegoating and the terrible toll it has taken historically seemed to be explainable in terms of the thing that humans wanted most was to be part of a close and loving ingroup, to feel at peace and harmony with others of one’s kind. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

And to achieve this intimate identification it was necessary to strike at strangers, pull the group together by focusing it on an outside target. The sacrificial ravages of the Nazis could be approached in terms of neutral motives or even altruistic ones: love, harmony, unity. Eichmann was a simple bureaucrat who wanted only to be admired and rewarded for a job efficiently done and wielded his rubber stamp on the death of millions with the nonchalance of a postal clerk. We could even, as we have seen, subsume this under the Agape motive: humans want to merge with a larger whole, have something to dedicate one’s existence to in trustfulness and in humility; one wants to serve the cosmic powers. The most noble human motive, then, would cause the greatest damage because it would lead people to find their highest use as part of an obedient mass, to give their complete devotion and their lobes to their leaders. It is not aggressive drives that have taken the greatest toll in history, but rather unselfish devotion, hyper-dependence combined with suggestibility. Humans are less driven by adrenalin than one is drugged by symbols, by cultural belief systems, by abstractions like flags and anthems: Wars are fought for words. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Much of aggression is due to the way children are brought up and the kind of life experiences people have. On this view, the most twisted and vicious people are those who have been most deprived, most cheated of love, warmth, self-realization. Dr. Strangelove would be the paradigm of the kind of mechanical coldness and life frustration which leads to World destruction. Again, this is a pure Marxist view: changing the life-denying institutions of modern society would enable a new type of human being to take shape. The hope of the Enlightenment in its full development is to show clinically what prevents self-reliant humans. This has been the burden—to argue for the ideal of autonomy while showing precisely what hinders it in the interplay of the individual psychology and society. In this way the whole historical problem of slavishness is attacked. People were always ready to yield their wills, to worship the hero, because they were not given a chance for developing initiative, stability, and independence. Humans are still a tool of others because one has not developed self-reliance, full and independent insides. In this way can human get some kind of even keel, some sort of inner gyroscope that will keep one from alternating eternally between the poles of sadism and masochism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Still, holiness and edification in all lands would not be perfect joy. Nor would a great ministry of healing and raising the dead. Nor would possession of all languages and all science, nor all understanding of prophecy and Scripture, and insight into the secrets of every soul. Nor would even the conversion of all unbelievers to faith in Christ! Perfect joy is wherein when they come to their quarters—dirty, wet, and exhausted from hunger—they are rejected, repeatedly, rebuffed, and finally driven away by force, then if we accept such injustice, such cruelty, and such contempt with patience, without being ruffled and without murmuring, and if we bear all these injuries with patience and joy, thinking of all the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, which we would share out of love for God, here, finally, is perfect joy. Giving and forgiving are of course central to the divinely restricted life, as we take on the character truly suited to the human soul. Even from one’s strictly humanistic perspective, the most widespread misunderstanding is that which assumes that giving is giving up something, being deprived of, sacrificing. People whose main orientation is a non-productive one feel giving as an impoverishment; the virtue of giving, to them, is possessed in the very act of acceptance of sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

This certainly fits in with the purely negative understanding of self-denial discussed above. In fact, it has become a part of our ethical culture. For the productive character giving has an entirely different meaning. Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. The experience of heightened vitality fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving is possessed the expression of my aliveness. The apostle Paul wrote the entire sixth chapter of Romans to answer the question, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?’ Why did he have to deal with such a question? What had he said to even raise the issue? His whole teaching to that point in Romans was that justification is by faith in Jesus Christ alone, culminating in his sweeping statement in Romans 5.20: “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Paul realized his unqualified presentation of the grace of God left him open to being misunderstood. Paul himself knew that his insistence on the pure grace of God without any admixture of commitment or discipline or obedience on our part could cause us to misunderstand him. He knew his readers could respond with this attitude: “Well, if that is true, let us go out and sin all we want. The more we sin, the more we cause God’s grace to abound.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

This type of response is always a possibility. In fact, if our concept of grace does not expose us to that possibility. In fact, if our concept of grace does not expose us to that possible misunderstanding, then we do not thoroughly understand grace. I believe it is because we are afraid of this attitude that we often change the doctrine of grace into a doctrine of works. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a person is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation that this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will be redound all the more to the glory of grace. Obviously this does not mean that we should try to confuse people with our presentation of the gospel. However, the presentation of salvation by grace alone, apart from any preconditions on the part of our hearers, leaves us open to the possibility that people may charge us with saying, “It does not matter what you do; sin as much as you like.” But you know doing evil does not result in good, and that one’s condemnation is deserved. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

The grace of salvation is the same grace by which we live the Christian life. We have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. We are not only justified by grace through faith, we stand every day in this same grace. And just as the preaching of jusitification by grace is open to misunderstanding, so is the teaching of living by grace. The solution to this problem is not to add legalism to grace. Rather, the solution is to be so gripped by the magnificence and bondless generosity of God’s grace that we respond out of gratitude rather than out of a sense of duty. “And if they perish it will be like unto the Jaredites, because of the willfulness of their hearts, seeking for blood and revenge. My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his suffering and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever. And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the Heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all thing shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with your forever. Amen,” reports Moroni 9.23 and 25-26. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Show the light of Thy countenance upon us, O Lord, that the going-forth of Thy word may give light and understanding, to nourish the hearts of the simple; and that while our desire is set on Thy commandments, we may receive with open heart the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. O God, with Whom if the well of life, and in Whose light we see light; increase in us, we beseech Thee, the brightness of Divine knowledge, whereby we may be able to reach Thy plenteous fountain; impart to our thirsting souls the draught of life, we restore to our darkened minds the light from Heaven. Bless God, ten thousand snares are mine without and within, defend thou me; when sloth and indolence seize me, give me views of Heaven; when sinners entice me, give me disrelish of their ways; when sensual pleasures tempt me, purify and refine me; when I desire Worldly possessions, help me to be rich toward thee; when the vanities of the World ensnare me, let me not plunge into new guilt and ruin. May I remember the dignity of my spiritual release, never be too busy to attend to my soul, never be so engrossed with time that I neglect the things of eternity; thus may I not only live, but grow towards thee. For my mind to right notions of religion, that I may not judge of grace by wrong conceptions, not measure my spiritual advances by the efforts of my natural being. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

May I seek after an increase of divine love to thee, after unreserved resignation to they will, after extensive benevolence to my fellow creatures, after patience and fortitude of soul, after a Heavenly disposition after a concern that I may please thee in public and private. Draw on my soul the lineaments of Christ, in every trace and feature of which thou wilt take delight, for I am thy workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, thy letter written with the Holy Spirit’s pen, thy tilled soil ready for the sowing, then harvest. We have paid, and are still paying, a heavy price for our comfortable conviction that the philosophic illuminate is a fool, to whom it is unnecessary to pay serious attention. It is such people who ought to be made, not the leaders of humankind, but the counsellors to the leaders. A single meeting with the self-actualized brings forth our involuntary respect. A long association with one brings forth our loving devotion also. If anyone brings one homage or reverence one takes it, not to oneself but to the Unseen Higher Power of God, before whom one lays it. Most people make their appeal t authority and are constantly at pains to quote letter and script for their words; others will gaze into their own glasses of vision and report upon the reflections of Truth that they descry within: but the illuminated one live the life and so declare only that which they have experience themselves; indeed what they say comes as form on high for us. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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February 14, 2020 1:55 am

Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge while others just gargle. When you use your sense of humor, be sure that you use your sense as well as your humor. What can we say fundamentally about the nature of being? And the answer is nothing in terms of a definition, but something in terms of metaphorical indication. The concept of power for this purpose: Being is the power of being! Power, however, presupposed, even in the metaphorical use of the word, something over which it proves its power. The dynamic self-affirmation of life is overcoming internal and external resistance. By what measures can people judge in reality which is unseen and not in illusion, the moral rectitude of a being who has been sent among them with a mission, who has not only secretly dissolved one’s human “I” but has secretly taken and faithfully kept the self-actualized person’s vows? The vast reticence of such a being will be respected by those who are sensitive but may infuriate those who are not. Because of the many seeming contradictions in one’s nature one may be much misunderstood by others. Humanity venerates the memory of these prophets, but in decreasing degree. For they incarnate values, attainments, and qualities which most people feel are far above any likelihood of their own coming even remotely near. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Contrary to common belief, the illuminate is not a joyless griefless human who has crushed all human affection, sterilized all human feelings, sunk oneself in physical inertia, and habituated oneself to insensitivity toward the sufferings of others. Such a being cannot be really known by those who have not themselves touched one’s height; part of one—the most important and precious part—must always remain an inscrutable stranger to them. To one observer such a being seems to live inside oneself, to another outside oneself. To the first, one is held fast to some internal power; to the second, one is constantly practising self-identification with others. One’s followers expect too much from one, perhaps because they credit one with powers far beyond what one does possess. This leads to a measure of disappointment. If others think one aloof, cold, even unsympathetic, they may go further and misunderstand the individual. One is not shut stonily in one’s ego, as they think, but on the contrary, is much freer from it than they are. It is possible that one’s actions sometimes puzzle those who put their trust in one. Those who judge only by appearances may be surprised and aggrieved at one’s seeming indifference. However, with the efflux of time they may get to know more or all the facts, and then their puzzlement will vanish. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

They come to inspect the great soul, as if they could really see one. They bring out heir measuring equipment and pronounce verdict on one’s littleness or greatness. Their opinion is based on an appearance that is a possible illusion. Just as Pythagoras and Sokrates were maligned and even put to death by those who either misunderstand or misrepresented their teachings, so Epicurus, another Greek, has been maligned ever since one’s own time, although one fortunately died a natural death. Incidentally, he died of the stone. It could be that there was an excess of calcium in his body and that it had got concentrated in the wrong place, producing the stone in the bladder or the kidney—for he tried to live a simple life and ate only barely, bread, and cheese and drank only water. There was probably an excess of cheese in his diet, producing the excess of calcium. However, it is supposed that he preached heathenism, the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment as being the highest good, but the truth is, as demonstrated by his simple life, that he was an ascetic. Epicurus did not believe in cluttering himself up with a lot of possession and he sought the freedom from anxiety which this gave him. The freedom from those desires for luxuries and comforts which fill most people left him with a serene mind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

This serenity was enjoyable and pleasant; so what one meant by pleasure was a pleasure of living the good life, not the pleasure of living the terrestrial life. However, if Epicurus is to be judged by his diet, his philosophy was incomplete and imbalanced. Because he ever practices calmness, other persons may think of him to be indifferent to them, to what is happening, and to one’s own actions, as if he were performing them somewhat casually; but in this they would be mistaken. For the detachment within Epicurus was possessed deep down and consisted in a general attitude towards Worldly life based upon knowledge, understanding, philosophy. He was not heedless but attentive, not unresponsive but touched by situations calling for sympathy, not neutral where right or wrong are concerned, not neglectful of duties and responsibilities, not careless in work but carefree. When it comes, suffering is real and painful. The self-actualized is not heartless to its appearance in other people, but understands it somewhat better than they do. Such a being has enigma and paradox between one and the World’s understanding. It is easy for the populace to be deceived by one’s unassuming manners and unpretentious speech into thinking one to be anything but what one really is. One and the same Master will appear to one’s followers as an incarnation of God, but to the Worldly as a wise lunatic, if not a fraud. None of these views may be correct. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Although the self-actualized can understand the points of view of the unwise, the ignoramus, the Worlding and the bigot, they cannot understand one’s own. When one’s name is vilified, it is the wise guidance of God which persuades such a being to walk indifferently, and when one’s character is slandered, to hold one’s tongue. Those who do not understand and appreciate this great control of feeling, and especially those who are highly emotional themselves, will see one merely from the outside and consequently misunderstand one’s character. They will consider one to be a cold, shut-in type. The World will assess one’s motives at the lowest level, interpret one’s actions in the basest way. If one were to let it rot in its own ignorance, one would be well justified. To evaluate the work and word of these beings is to judge by appearances alone. For there is in both an incalculable element, a hidden worth. The initiate does not waste one’s time in arguing with others, either to attack their beliefs or defend one’s Own. If one seems outwardly distant and indifferent, we should understand that one’s distance and one’s indifference are not egoistic, and consequently are worthy of close examination and deep study. They contain a mystery as well as a paradox. For in one’s heart there flows, side by side, both a pure love for humanity and an utter detachment from humanity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

It is in the very nature of one’s attainment of a true philosopher’s status that one should be able to fulfill oneself only by going beyond all selves—ours as well as one’s own. The World should be more grateful for the presence of such people. The good they do is mostly indirect, however, through intermediaries, or mostly hidden because psychological, so it escapes the World’s notice. Light the lamps and it will spread out its rays by itself. We are indeed blessed by the presence of these great souls on this Earth and doubly so if we meet in person. They deserve not merely our respect but our veneration. However, even if we are never fortunate enough to meet one of these masters, the mere knowledge that such beings do exist and live demonstrates the possibility of spiritual achievement and proves that the quest is no chimera. It should comfort and encourage us to know this. Therefore we should regard such a being as one of humanity’s precious treasures. We should venerate one’s sayings or writings as whispers out of the eternal silence. However, if everything that is participate in it, we must ask, what can resist the power of being? If all possible places are established by the power of being, where is the ontological place of that which the power of being is able to overcome. What can that be which is conquered by the power of being is non-being. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

It is an old answer, given in the myth long before the dawn of philosophy, repeated in rational terms by philosophers in all cultures and centuries, brought to a renewed attention in our time by the leading Existentialist philosophers. However, if one tries to relate to that answer that the power of being is conquered by non-being, one must be aware that one has touched at the basic mystery of existence and that one has no chance to explain the riddle of non-being in terms which do not bear in themselves the scars of non-being, namely the language of the paradox. Nobody can fail to ask the question: How can non-being have the power to resist being? Does it not appear in such a statement as a part of being itself, and if so, is it not swallowed up into being, so that the metaphor “power of being” become meaningless? It is understandable that the analytic logic of our time becomes impatient if such language is used and speaks of meaningless sentences. However, if it becomes impatient with present-day ontology it must become impatient with all ontology and reject the works of almost all philosophers of past and present. And that is what logical affirmations have done. However, such a procedure does not defeat philosophers of the past. It defeats those who try to defeat them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

The answer to the question how non-being can resist the power of being, can only be that non-being is not foreign to being, but that it is that quality of being by which everything that participates in being is negated. Non-being is the negation of being within being itself. Each of these words is, of course, used metaphorically. However, metaphorical language can be true language, pointing to something that is both revealed and hidden in this language. Being which includes non-being is finite being. “Finite” means carrying within one’s being the destiny not to be. It designates a limited power of being, limited between a beginning and an end, between non-being before and non-being after. This, however, is only a part of the answer. The other part must explain why in the balance of being and non-being, being prevails. The answer is both logical and existential. Logically (and linguistically) it is obvious that non-being after. This, however, is only a part of the answer. The other part must explain why in the balance of being and non-being, being prevails. The answer is both logical and existential. Logically (and linguistically) it is obvious that non-being is possible only as the negation of being. Being logically precedes non-being. That which is and comes to an end logically precedes the end. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The negative “lives” by the absolute it negates. However, these answers, evident as they are, do not satisfy the question of the prevalence of being over non-being. Could one not speak of a balance in which neither prevails? To this only an existential answer is possible. It is what one has called the answer of faith or courage. Courage, and that in faith which is courage, affirms the ultimate prevalence of being over non-being. It affirms the presence of the infinite in everything finite. And a theology which is based on such a courage tries to show that, as non-being is dependent on the being it negates, so the awareness of finitude presupposes a place above finitude from which the finite is seen as finite. However, the act in which the place is occupied is courage and not reasoning. Every being affirms its own being. Its life is its self-affirmation—even if its self-affirmation has the form of self-surrender. Every being resists the negation against itself. The self-affirmation of a being is correlate to the power of being it embodies. It is greater in humans than in animals and in some people greater than in others. A life process is the more powerful, the more non-being it can include in its self-affirmation, without being destroyed by it. The neurotic can include only a little non-being, the average person a limited amount, the creative being a large amount, God-symbolically speaking—an infinite amount. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

The self-affirmation of a being in spite of non-being is the expression of its power of being. Power is the possibility of self-affirmation is spite of internal and external negation. It is the possibility of overcoming non-being. Human power is the possibility of humans to overcome non-being infinitely. In several places in this history of philosophy, notably in the Platonic school, degrees of being have been spoken of. This concept is difficult and highly controversial. It appears to be meaningless if being is identified with existence in time and space. There are no degrees in existing, but an either-or. If, however, being is described as the power of being, the idea of degrees of being loses its difficulty. There are, certainly, degrees in the power of being, namely in the power of taking non-being into one’s own self-affirmation. I tried years ago to describe the process of change as it is inwardly experienced by the client in a person-centered therapy with a male therapist: “I am afraid of the therapist. I want help, but I do not know whether to trust him. He might see things which I do not know in myself—frightening and bad elements. He seems not to be judging me, I am sure he is. I cannot tell him what really concerns me, but I can tell hum about some past experiences that relate to my concerns. He seems to understand those, so I can reveal a bit more of myself. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

“However, not that I have shard with him some of this bad side of me, he despises me. I am sure of it, but it is strange I can find little evidence of it. Do you suppose that what I have told him is not so bad? It is possible that I need not be ashamed of it as a part of me? I no longer feel that he despises me. It makes me feel that I want to go further, exploring me, perhaps expressing more of myself. I find him a sort of companion as I do this—he seems really to understand. However, not I am getting frightened again, and this time deeply frightened I did not realize that exploring the unknown recesses of myself would make me feel feelings I have never experienced before. It is very strange because in one way these are not new feelings. I sense that they have always been there. However, they seem so bad and disturbing I have never dared to let them flow in me. And now as I live these feelings in the hours with him, I feel terribly shaky, as though my World is falling apart. It used to be sure and firm. Now it is loose, permeable and vulnerable. It is not pleasant to feel things I have always been frightened of before. It is his fault. Yet curiously I am eager to see him and I feel more safe when I am with him. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

“I do not know who I am any more, but something when I feel things I seem solid and real for a moment. I am troubled by the contradictions I find in myself—I act one way and feel another—I think one thing and feel another. It is very disconcerting. It is also sometimes adventurous and exhilarating to be trying to discover who I am. Sometimes I catch myself feeling that perhaps the person I am is worth being, whatever that means. I am beginning to find it very satisfying, though often painful, to share just what it is I am feeling at this moment. You know it is really helpful to try to listen to myself, to heart what is going on it me. I am not so frightened any more of what is going on in me. It seems pretty trustworthy. I use some of my hours with him to dig deep into myself to know what I am feeling. It is scary work, but I want to know. And I do trust him most of the time, and that helps. I feel pretty vulnerable and raw, but I know he does not want to hurt me, and I even believe he cares. It occurs to me as I try to let myself down and down, deep int myself, that maybe if I could sense what is going on in me, and could realize its meaning, I would know who I am, and would also know what to do. At least I feel this knowing sometimes with him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

“I can even tell him just how I am feeling toward him at any given moment, and instead of this killing the relationship, as I used to fear, it seems to deepen it. Do you suppose I could be my feelings with other people also? Perhaps that would not be too dangerous either. You know, I feel as if I am floating along on the current of life very adventurously, being me. I get defeated sometimes, I get hurt sometimes, but I am learning that those experiences are not fatal. I do not know exactly who I am, but I can feel my reactions at any given moment, and they seem to work out pretty well as a basis for my behaviour from moment to moment. Maybe this is what it means to be me. However, of course I can only do this because I feel safe in the relationship with my therapist. Or could I be myself this way outside of this relationship? I wonder. I wonder. Perhaps I could.” The initial element in a great friendship is a mutuality of soul. People are sometimes able to become one spirit. Their souls will be bound together. This type of bonding usually happens when people view life from the same divine perspective (God is sovereign and does as He pleases, and all of life is to be lived from Him). And when people see this, their soul reflexively clings to someone else’s. Here is a person with a heart that beats with one’s own heart. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

This is the way it is with deep friendships. It is not that friends think alike on everything. Often it is quite the opposite. However, they do share the same Worldview and approach to life. And this is why a Christian friendship exceeds anything that exists between nonbelievers—for such a friendship is founded on a supernatural mutuality of soul. They Holy Spirit makes your souls chorus the same cries. You assent to the same authority. You know the same God. You are going the same way. You long for the same things. You dream mutual dreams. Mutuality of soul is followed by love. as the next phrase indicates—and one is able to love their friend as one loves oneself. This is an amazing statement because of its immediacy. This type of love does not develop in a month or even a day, but in a flash. It is usually because your kind soul meets such a deep need in another person’s—”At last I have found someone who lives like me!” When one is able to love oneself, in doing so one is also able to love one’s neighbor as oneself—and thus fulfilling the Law of God. His love would pay great dividends because honest, unselfish love has an irresistible drawing power. You will one day also be drawn to the same love. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The same tone applies to Jesus’ teaching about who can be his disciple or apprentice. This too is put in very shocking language: “If you come to me,” he said, “and do not prefer me over (do not hate) your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters—yes, and your very own life (soul)—you cannot be my apprentice,” reports Luke 14.26. And then he uses an absolutely shocking image—one all too familiar to his hearers, but rather hard for us fully to appreciate today. It was that of a man carrying on hi back the lumber that would be used to kill him when he arrived at the place of execution. “Whoever does not come after me carrying one’s own cross cannot be my apprentice,” reports Luke 14.27. The cross is an instrument of death, of “losing your life.” The teaching here is exactly the same as in the statements about losing and finding our lives. It is one of comparative costs, as the verses that follow in Luke 14 show. Those who are not genuinely convinced that the only real bargain in life is surrendering ourselves to Jesus and his cause, abandoning all that we love to him and for him, cannot learn the other lessons Jesus has to teach us. They cannot proceed to anything like total spiritual transformation. Not that he will not let us, but that we simply cannot succeed. If I tell you that you cannot drive a BMW M760Li automobile unless you can see, I am not saying I will not let you, but that you cannot succeed even if I do. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Still, from within the life that remains “lost” to God, the teaching of the Cross and of abandoning all that is “first” in ordinary human life seems repulsive and impossible. And it has often been disastrously misinterpreted, resulting in the destruction, not the renovation, of the human heart and life. It remains a dangerous half-truth if left to stand on its own. It is a negation that in practice can only rest on an affirmation. “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature,” 1 Corinthians 14.20. In thinking be mature! Such an admonition one would hardly expect in the context of apostolic writing. However, here it is, appearing in the same letter of Paul in which he contrasts sharply the wisdom of the World with that foolishness of God that is wiser than the wisdom of humans. And he points to the fact that not many wise humans belong to the ranks of the congregation, but that God has chosen what is foolish in the World. Maturity on the basis of divine foolishness—this is hard to understand—not only for the first readers of the letter to the Corinthians, but for all generations of Christians and non-Christians in the history of Christianity. In some way, the whole problem of the possibility of Christian existence is implied in this combination of divine foolishness and humanity. However, perhaps it is not only the problem of the possibility of Christian existence; perhaps it is the problem of human existence as such—how to unite divine foolishness with human maturity. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

From the distinct rights, one of punishing crimes for restraint, and preventing the like offense, which right of punishing is in every body; the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party, comes to pass the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into one’s hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of law, remit the punishment of criminal offenses by one’s own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private being for the damage one has received. That, one who has suffered the damage has a right to demand in one’s own name, and one alone can remit: the damnified person has this power of appropriating to oneself the goods or service of the offender, by right of self-preservation, as every being has, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from everybody, and also to secure beings from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to humankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter one hath committed upon one, declared war against all humankind. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

And therefore, because one has declared war against all humankind, one may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom human can have no society nor security: and upon this grounded that the great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth human’s blood, by human shall one’s blood be shed. And Cain was so fully convinced, that every one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that after the murder of his brother, he cries out, Everyone that findeth me, shall slay me; so plain was it writ in the hearts of all humankind. The fact is, of course, God is gracious and generous to all who are his children. God is not only sovereign, but He also dispenses His grace to people who do not even feel or know they deserve it. God is fully of gracious generosity. The Bible is full of God’s promises to provide for us spiritually and materially, to never forsake us, to give us peace in times of difficult circumstances, to cause all circumstances to work together for our good, and finally to bring us safely home to glory. Not one of those promises is dependent upon our performance. Hey are all dependent on the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God,” reports 2 Corinthians 1.20. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

O God, Who art One and True, we humbly beseech Thee that the Catholic Faith, which is acceptable to Thee, may continue for ever in us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, one that is not condemned, or one that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing—but it is mockery before God, denying the mercies of Christ, and the power of his Holy Spirit, and putting trust in dead works. Behold, my son, this thing ought not to be; for repentance is unto them that are under condemnation and under the curse of a broke law. And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments brings the remission of sins. And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto the prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God,” reports Moroni 8.22-26. O Holy Father, thou hast freely given thy Son, O Divine Son, thou hast freely paid my debt, O Eternal Spirit, thou hast freely bid me come, O Triune God, thou dost freely grace me with salvation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Prayers and tears could not suffice to pardon my sins, nor anything less than atoning blood, but my believing is my receiving, for a thankful acceptance is no paying of the debt. What didst thou see in me? than I a poor, ailing, despised sinner should be clothed in thy bright glory? that a creeping worm should be advanced to this high state? that one lately groaning, weeping, dying, should be as full of joy as my heart can hold? that a being of dust and darkness should be taken like Mordecai from captivity, and set next to the king? should be lifted like Daniel from a den and be made ruler of princes and provinces? Who can fathom immeasurable love? As far as the rational soul exceeds the senses, so does the spirit exceed the rational in its knowledge of thee. Thou hast given me understanding to compass the Earth, measure the Sun, Moon, Stars, Universe, but above all to know thee, the only true God. I marvel that the finite can know the Infinite, here a little, afterwards in full-orbed truth; now I know but a small portion of what I shall know, here in part, there in perfection, here a glimpse, there a glory. To enjoy thee is life eternal, and to enjoy is to know. Keep me in the freedom of experiencing thy salvation continually. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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Do I Not Have the Right to do What I Want with My Own Money? Or are You Envious Because I am Generous?

February 13, 2020 1:38 am

An optimist goes to the window every morning and says, “Good morning, God.” The pessimist goes to the window every morning and says, “Good God! Morning!” If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. “And to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11-12. If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a person, do not bother analyzing one’s ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much one is moved by noble ideas; if you watch one just laugh, you will get better results. If one laughs well, one is a good being. My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all people are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other person. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

A state also of equality, wherein in the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of one’s will, set one above another, and confer on one, by an evident and clear appoint, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. This equality of humans by nature must be built on the foundation of an obligation to mutual love amongst humans, on which one builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence one derives the great maxims of justice and charity. The like natural inducement hath brought people to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than themselves; for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every human’s hands, as any human can wish unto one’s own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the desire, which is undoubtedly in other beings, being of one and the same nature? #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

To have anything offered them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them: my desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully like the affection; from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no being is ignorant. However, though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though humans in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of one’s person or possessions, yet one has not liberty to destroy oneself, or so much as nay creature in one’s possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all humankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in one’s life, health, liberty, or possession: for humans being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

All the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the World by his order, not another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s. Every one, as one is bound to preserve oneself, and not to quit one’s station willfully, so by the like reason, when one’s own preservation comes not in competition, ought one, as much as one can, to preserve the rest of humankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. And that all humans may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every human’s hands, where every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that laws to such a degree, as may hinder its violations: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern humans in the World be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature may punish another for any evil one has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Not only does God sovereignly determine how and to what extent He will bless us, He often blesses those who, in our opinion, seem most unworthy. We see this demonstrated rather forcefully in Jesus’s recounting of two Old Testament incidents as recorded in Luke 4.25-27: “I assure you that there were many windows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a window in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” Luke recorded that “all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.” Why were these Jewish people who heard Jesus so enraged that, as verse 29 tells us, they wanted to kill Him? It was because the widow and Naaman were despised Gentiles. In the opinion of the Jewry, these people were most unworthy. The reaction was, “How could God bless those Gentiles instead of more deserving Jewish people?” The fact is, God did bless those two Gentiles while passing right by His own chose people. Were in the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian more “deserving” than anyone in Israel? Not all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The Old Testament record of one’s healing indicates that Naaman, by his anger and haughtiness, was very undeserving. God often does bless people who seem to us to be quite unworthy. However, that is what grace is all about, because we are all unworthy. We rejoice in the generosity of God’s grace as it is directed toward us, or toward our family or friends. However, how do we feel wen someone whom we think does not deserve it is blessed by God? Are we envious because of the generosity of God toward that person? Do we feel, as did the workers in the parable, who got paid as much for one hour of work as did those who slaved away in the hot Sun for twelve hours, that we have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day, and yet that other person has been blessed more than we have? The workers who labored all day did not grumble because they received too little pay, but because less deserving workers received the same as they. The “A” students in the modern version of the parable were not outraged because they received only an “A,” but because some obviously undeserving students received the same grade. The reality of the Christian life, though, is that there is no “A” students in God’s Kingdom. Some are more obedient than others, some have labored more and sacrificed more than others, but none of us measures up to an “A.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

None of us wants to get what we actually deserve. We all want God’s grace, but we cannot enjoy God’s grace when there is an attitude of comparing. See the two groups of labourers as they severally wend their way home that evening. As to amount of money in their pockets, they are all equal: but as to amount of content in their spirits there is a great difference. The last go home each with a penny [a denarius] in one’s pocket, and astonished glad gratitude in one’s heart: their reward accordingly is a penny, and more. The first, on the contrary, go home, each with a penny in one’s pocket, and corroding discontent in one’s soul: their reward accordingly is less than a penny. Arnot believed it was in this sense that “the last will be first, and first will be last,” reports Matthew 20.16. That is, the last workers hired ended up “first” because they had a day’s wages plus contentment, whereas the first workers hired ended up “last” because of their discontentment. While that is certainly a helpful observation about life, I understand Jesus’ two statements in Matthew 19.30 and 20.16 somewhat differently than Arnot does. I believe Jesus is asserting the sovereign prerogative of God to dispense His favours as He pleases. I do not think His statement, “So the last will be the first, and the first will be last,” is to be taken in absolute sense as if this would always be the case. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Rather, I think there is often no apparent correlation between what one seemingly “deserves” and what he or she receives. Remember, the whole point of the parable is to respond to Peter’s attitude as expressed in this statement: “The more we do, the more we earn, and the more God owes us.” If we are to succeed in living by grace, we must some to terms with the fact that God is sovereign in dispensing His gracious favours, and He owes us no explanation when His actions do not correspond with out system of merits. Indeed, as Paul said, “How unsearchable His decisions, and how mysterious His methods! For who has ever understood the thoughts of the Lord, or has even been His advisor?” reports Romans 11.33-34. We are left without any grounds for grumbling about the treatment we receive from God. God never becomes obligated to us, so He can always say to us, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you,” reports Matthew 20.13. At the same time God reserves the right to treat each of us differently, bestowing blessings as He sovereignly chooses. In the words of the landowner, God says to us, “Do I not have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” reports Matthew 20.15. Doing what you want—God’s way. What does that mean? It means that they will then for the first time be able to do what they want to do. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Of course they will be able to steal, lie, and murder all they want—which will be none at all. However, they will also be able to be truthful and transparent and helpful and sacrificially loving, with joy—and they will want to be. Their life will be in this way caught up in God’s life. They will want the good and be able to do it, the only true human freedom. The mind set on the spiritual is in that sense “life and peace,” reports Romans 8.6, because it lives from God and, “sowing into the spirit, out of the spirit reaps the eternal kind of life,” reports Galatians 6.8. So—and this is of utmost importance to those who would enter Christian spiritual formation—life as normally understood, where the object is securing myself, promoting myself, indulging myself, is to be set aside. “Can I still think about such things?” you may ask. Yes, you can. However, you increasingly will not. And when you do, as formation in Christlikeness progresses, they simply will not matter. In fact, they will seem ridiculous and uninteresting. Jesus’ words on not being anxious about what will happen to you and his admonitions to consider the flowers and birds, as reported in Luke 12.13-34, will seem obviously sane and right, whereas they previously sounded obviously crazy and wrong, or “out of touch with reality.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

From the perspective of interpersonal politics, this element of the relationship—congruence—gives a maximum space to be—for the client and for the therapist. The therapist is saying, in effect, “Here I am, as I am.” There is no hint of any kind of control over the client’s responses to one’s way of being. To the contrary, finding that the therapist is permitting oneself to be as one is, the client tends to discover that same freedom. The second attitude of importance in creating a climate for change is acceptance, or caring or prizing—unconditional beneficial regard. It means that when the therapist is experiencing an optimistic attitude, acceptant attitude toward whatever the client is at that moment, therapeutic movement r change is more likely. It involves the therapist’s willingness for the client to be whatever feeling is going on at that moment—confusion, resentment, fear, anger, courage, love, or pride. It is a nonpossessive caring. The therapist prizes the client in a total rather tan a conditional way. This resembles the love the parent sometimes feels toward the infant. Research indicates that the more this attitude is experienced by the therapist, the greater the probability that therapy will be successful. It is not, of course, possible to feel such an unconditional caring all of the time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

A therapist who is real will often have very different feelings, negative feelings toward the client. Hence it is not to be regarded as a “should,” that the therapist should have an unconditional optimistic regard for the client. It is simply a fact that unless this is a reasonably frequent ingredient in the relationship, constructive client change is less likely. What of the interpersonal politics of such an attitude? It is a powerful factor, but it is in no way manipulative or controlling in the relationship. There is no judgment or evaluation involved. Power over one’s own life is left completely in the hands of the client. It provides a nurturant atmosphere but not a forcing one. Another facilitative aspect of the relationship is empathic understanding. This means that the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and communicates this understanding to the client. At its best the therapist is so much inside the private World of the other that one can clarify not only the meanings of which the client is aware but even those just below the level of awareness. When the therapist responds at such a level of level the client’s reaction is of this sort: “Perhaps that is what I have been trying to say. I have not realized it, but yes, that is how I do feel!” This element of the relationship is perhaps the most easily improved through even brief training. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Therapists can learn, quite quickly, to be better, more sensitive listeners, more empathic. It is in part a skill as well as an attitude. To become more genuine or more caring, however, the therapist must change experientially, and this is slower and more complex process. Being empathic involves a choice on the part of the therapist as to what one will pay attention to, namely the inner World of the client as that individual perceives it. Thus it does change the interpersonal politics of the relationship. It in no way, however, exercises control over the client. On the contrary it assists the client in gaining a clearer understanding of, and hence a greater control over, one’s own World and one’s own behaviour. You may well ask why a person seeking help changes for the better when one is involved in a relationship with a therapist that contains these elements. Over the years I have come to see more and more clearly that the process of change in the client is a reciprocal of the attitudes of the therapist. As the client finds the therapist listening acceptingly to one’s feelings, one becomes able to listen acceptingly to oneself—to hear and accept the anger, the fear, the tenderness, the courage that is being experienced. As the client finds that therapist prizing and valuing even the hidden and awful aspects which have been expressed, one experiences a prizing and liking of oneself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

As the therapist is experienced as being real, the client is able to drop facades, to more openly be the experiencing within. Politically, by listening to the feelings within, the client reduces the power others have had in inculcating guilts and fears and inhibitions, and is slowly extending the understanding of, and control over, self. As the client is more acceptant of self, the possibility of being in command of self becomes greater and greater. The client possesses oneself to a degree that has never occurred before. The sense of power is growing. As the client becomes more self-aware, more self-acceptant, less defensive and more open, one finds at last some of the freedom to grow and change in the directions natural to the human organism. Life is not in one’s hands, to be lived as an individual. If there ever was a “man’s man,” it was Jonathan; and if there ever was a man who felt the need of a friend, I was Jonathan. The Philistines’ domination of Israel in that day was so complete that they allowed no blacksmiths in the land for fear they would make swords and spears for the Israelites. In fact, there were only two swords in the entire nation, those of King Saul and his son Jonathan. All Israel was in a dark storm of depression and despair—all, that is, expect Jonathan. Jonathan saw matters differently. He believed that if God willed it, Israel could be saved, even by a few. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

While others looked down, Jonathan looked up and saw a great and glorious God who could deliver hum anything He saw Fit. Armed with this conviction and his sword, Jonathan and his armour-bearer attacked a Philistine detachment alone. His sallying words say it all: “Come, let us go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few,” reports 1 Samuel 14.6. Assured that God would deliver them into his hand, Jonathan launched a horrifying single-handed attack. It was a mano a mano, hand-to-hand, man-to-man. Blood ran to the dust and white bone gleamed in the Sun as Jonathan sliced and hacked attacker after attacker, until twenty Philistine lay spread over a terrible half-acre. Blood-covered Jonathan was one tough Golden State Warrior! Jonathan’s heroics put some steel into his people, and a rebellion followed—and some good days for Israel. However, with Saul’s subsequent sin and rejection, Israel fell to even darker days than before (chapters 15-17), and Jonathan was more alone than ever. Even his greater heart was affected, as he too trembled before Goliath. There was no one of like mind, he thought—until he encountered David. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Jonathan could not believe his ears as David called out to the giant: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head…and the whole World will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” (17.45-47). Then David ran full-speed at Goliath and nailed him right between the eyes! Blood-smeared David stood holding the great gory head, talking calmly with Jonathan’s father, Saul. At last Jonathan had found someone whose heart was in tune with his—a friend. What followed was the flowering of a deep male friendship, one of the most celebrated friendships in all of literature. As such, it provides the essential elements and wisdom for all genuine friendships. “Little children cannot repent; wherefore, it is awful wickedness to deny the pure mercies of God unto them, for they are all alive in him because of his mercy. And one that saith that little children need baptism denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of one and the power of one’s redemption. Wo unto such, for they are in danger of death, hell, and an endless torment. I speak it boldly; God hath commanded me. Listen unto them and give heed, or they stand against you at the judgment-seat of Christ,” Moroni 8.19-21. #RandolpHarris 15 of 19

And thus, in the state of nature, one being comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when one has got one in one’s hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of one’s own will; but only to retribute to one, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to one’s transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one being may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares oneself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of humans, for their mutual security; and so one becomes dangerous to humankind, the Simon clasp, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broke by one. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every being upon this score, by the right one hath to preserve humankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on anyone, who hath transgressed that law, as many make one repent the doing of it, and thereby deter one, and by one’s example of others, from doing the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground, EVERY PERSON HATH A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to some people: but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for any crimes one commits in their country. It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislative, reach not a stranger: they speak not to one, nor, if they did, is one bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority, by which they are in force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no power over one. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France, or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the World, beings without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every being hath not a power to punish offenses against it, as one soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to one, they can have no more power than what every being naturally may have over another. “Remember that The Maker knows all things, all that is past and present, all that has happened and will happen, and what might happen as well. Remember there is no past of future where The Maker is but only the vast present of all things living,” reports Anne Rice, Angel Time, page 132. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a being so far becomes degenerate, and declares oneself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other being receives damages by one’s transgression: in which case one who hath received any damages, has, besides the right of punishment common to one with other people, a particular right to seek reparation from one that has done it: and other person, who finds it just, may also join with one that is injured, and assist one in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm one has suffered. We beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy compassion to increase Thy faith in us; because Thou wilt not deny the assistance of Thy loving-kindness to those whom Thou bestowest a stedfast belief in Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us, O Lord, we pray Thee, to trust in Thee will our heart; seeing that as Thou dost always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so Thou does not forsake those who make their boast of Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Confirm, O Lord, in our minds the mysteries of the true faith, that as we confess Him Who was conceived by the Virgin to be Very God and Man, so by the power of His saving Resurrection we may be enabled to attain eternal joy; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

O Divine Redeemer, great was thy goodness in undertaking my redemption, in consenting to be made sin for me, in conquering all my foes; great was thy strength in enduring the extremities of divine wrath, in taking away the load of my inequities; great was thy love in manifesting thyself alive, in showing thy sacred wounds, that every fear might vanish, and every doubt be removed; great was thy mercy in ascending to Heaven in being crowned and enthroned there to intercede for me, there to succour me in temptation, there to open the eternal book, there to receive me finally to thyself; great was thy wisdom in devising this means of salvation; bathe my soul in rich consolations of thy resurrection life; great was thy grace in commanding me to come hand in hand with thee to the Father, to be knit to Him eternally, to discover in him my rest, to find in him my peace, to behold His glory, to honour Him who is alone worthy; in giving me the Spirit as teacher, guide, power, that I may live repenting of sin, conquer Satan, find victory in life. When thou art absent all sorrows are here, when thou art present all blessings are mine. Be gracious to our prayers, O merciful God, and guard Thy people with loving protection; that they who confess Thine Only-begotten Son as God born in our bodily flesh, may never be corrupted by the deceits of the devil; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Fools makes complaint that the Prophet brings to then this old message of the eternal Deity that wait to light all human heart and brings nothing new or fit for this age and hour. We may make a preamble to our answer with the statement that one indubitabtly gives such scientific and practical turn to one’s teachings as the time demands, but we must admi that one’s first and last words remain ever the same as the first and last words of all the illustrious divine teachers. For what other message can one give? When the soul hungers for a happiness it has hitherto been unable to find in its mudpits of sensuality or in its marketplaces of barter, is one to offer it a stone of some economic doctrine and not the bread of spiritual nourishment? Is one to come to confirm our self-deceptions and our self-govellings and to give the lie to the divine bliss one enjoys in the moment? One’s continual serenity, one’s unemotional manner may draw the admiration of the discerning few, but it will also provoke the exasperation of the undiscerning many.

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All We Ask is to be Let Alone—God Made this Country and Humans Made this Town!

February 6, 2020 2:48 am

We do not lose our sense of humour when we get older—we get older when we lose our sense of humour. It is great to be great, but it is greater to be human. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove,” reports St. Matthew 17.20. Today I want to consider the question of how we—as individuals, as groups, as a culture—will live in, will respond to, will adapt to, this brave new World. What stance will we take in the face of these new developments? Deny and Ignore—one attitude which we can take is to deny that these scientific advances are taking place, and simply take the view that there can be no study of human behaviour which is truly scientific. We can hold that the human being cannot possibly take an objective attitude toward oneself, and that therefore no real science of behaviour can exist. We can say that humans are always a free agent, in some sense that makes scientific study of one’s behaviour impossible. Not long ago, at a conference on the social sciences, curiously enough, I heard a well known economist take just this view. And one of this country’s most noted theologians writes, “In any event, no scientific investigation of past behaviour can become the basis of predictions of future behaviour.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

This attitude of the general public is somewhat similar. Without necessarily denying the possibility of a behavioural science, the being in the street simply ignores the developments which are taking place. To be sure one becomes excited for a time when one hears it said that the Communists have attempted to change the soldiers they have captured, by means of “brainwashing.” One may show a mild reaction of annoyance to these revelations which show how heavily, and in what manipulative fashion, the findings of the behavioural sciences are used by modern industrial corporations. However, by and large one sees nothing in all this to be concerned about, any more than one did in the first theoretical statements that the atom could be split. We may, if we wish, join one in ignoring the problem. We may go further, like the antiquated intellectuals, and looking at the behavioural sciences may declare that “there ain’t no such being.” However, since these reactions do not seem particularly intelligent I shall leave them to describe a much more sophisticated and much more prevalent point of view. Among behavioural scientists it seems to be largely taken for granted that the findings of such science will be used in the prediction and control of human behaviour. Yet most psychologists and other scientists have given little thought to what this would mean. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

An exception to this general tendency is Dr. B.F. Skinner of Harvard who has been quite explicit in urging psychologists to use the powers of control which they have in the interest of creating a better World. In an attempt to show what he means Dr. Skinner wrote a book some years ago entitled Walden Two, in which he gives a fictional account of what he regards as a Utopian community in which the learnings of the behavioural sciences are fully utilized in all aspects of life—marriage, child rearing, ethical conduct, work, play, and artistic endeavour. There are also some writers of fiction who have seen the significance of the coming influence of the behavioural sciences. Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, has given a horrifying picture of saccharine happiness in a scientifically managed World, against which humans eventually revolt. George Orwell, in 1984, in which the behavioural sciences are used as instruments of absolute control of individuals so that not behaviour alone but even thought is controlled. The writers of science fiction have also played a role in visualizing for us some of the possible developments in a World where behaviour and personality are as much the subject of science as chemical compounds or electrical impulses. I should like to try to present, as well as I can, a simplified picture of the cultural pattern which emerges if we endeavour to shape human life in terms of the behavioural sciences. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

There is first of all the recognition, almost the assumption, that scientific knowledge is the power to manipulate. We must accept the fact that some kind of control of human affairs is inevitable. We cannot use good sense in human affairs unless someone engages in the design and construction of environmental conditions which affect the behaviour of humans. Environmental changes have always been the condition for the improvement of cultural patterns, and we can hardly use the more effective methods of science without making changes on a grander scale…Sciences has turned up dangerous processes and materials before. To use the facts and techniques of a science of humans to the fullest extent without making some monstrous mistake will be difficult and obviously perilous. It is not time for self-deception, emotional indulgence, or the assumption of attitudes which are no longer useful. The next assumption is that such a power to control is to be used. It is seen as being used benevolently, though we recognize the danger of its being misused. Even if control is used with benevolent intent, it could actually create a nightmare. If such power of the behavioural sciences is used malignantly, the results will be that it will enhance the degree of regulation exercised by a dictatorial government. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Let us look at some of the elements which are involved in the concept of the control of human behaviour as mediated by the behavioural sciences. What would be the steps in the process by which a society might organize itself so as to formulate human life in terms of the science of humans? First would come the selection of goals. One possible goal is to be assigned to the behavioural technology is this: Let humans be happy, informed, skillful, well-behaved, and productive. Well, what do you say to the design of personalities? Would that interest you? The control of temperament? Give me the specifications, and I will give you the man! What do you say to the control of motivation, building the interests which will make humans most productive and most successful? Does that seem to you fantastic? Yet some of the techniques are available, and more can be worked out experimentally. Think of the possibilities! Let us control the lives of our children and see what we can make of them. What is essentially being said here is that the current knowledge in the behavioural sciences plus that which the future will bring, will enable us to specify, to a degree which today would seem incredible, the kind of behavioural and personality results which we wish to achieve. This is obviously both an opportunity and a very heavy burden. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

The second element in this process would be one which is familiar to every scientist who has worked in the field of applied science. Given the purpose, the goal, we proceed by the method of science—by controlled experimentation—to discover the means to these ends. If for example our present knowledge of the conditions which cause humans to be productive is limited, further investigation and experimentations would surely lead us to new knowledge in the field. And still further work will provide us with the knowledge of even more effective means. The method of science is self-correcting in thus arriving at increasingly effective ways of achieving the purpose we have selected. The third element in the control of human behaviour through the behavioural sciences involves the question of power. As the conditions or methods are discovered by which to achieve our goal, some person or group obtains the power to establish those conditions or use those methods. There has been too little recognition of the problem involved in this. To hope that the power being made available by the behavioural sciences will be exercised by the scientists, or by a benevolent group, seems to me a hope little support by either recent or distant history. It seems far more likely that behavioural scientists, holding their present attitudes, will be in the position of the rocket scientists specializing in guided missiles. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

First they worked devotedly for the aggressor to destroy Russia and the United States. Now depending on who captured them, they work devotedly for Russian in the interest of destroying the United States, or devotedly for the United States in the interest of destroying Russia. If behavioural scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probable that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power. However, this is, in a sense a digression. The main point of this view is that some person or group will have and use the power to put into effect the methods which have been discovered for achieving the desired goal. The fourth step in this process whereby a society might formulate its life in terms of the behavioural sciences is the exposure of individuals to the methods and conditions mentioned. As individuals are exposed to the prescribed conditions this leads, with a high degree of probability, to the behavioural which has been desired. People then become productive, if that has been the goal, or submissive, or whatever it has been decided to make them. To give something of the flavour of this aspect of the process as seen by one of its advocates. Now that we know rewarding reinforcement works, and why negative does not, we can be more deliberate and hence more successful, in our cultural design. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That is the source of the tremendous power of using rewards as a way to reinforce behaviour you want—there is no restraint and no revolt. By a careful design, we control not the final behaviour, but the inclination to behave—the motives, the desires, the wishes. The curious thing is that in that cause the question of freedom never arises. The neurotic, in contrast to the psychotic, cannot help registering with painful accuracy all the thousand little incidents of real life which do not fit in with one’s conscious illusion. Consequently one wavers in one’s self-valuation between feeling great and feeling worthless. At any minute one may shift from one extreme to the other. At the same time that one feels most convinced of one’s exceptional value one may be astonished that anyone takes one seriously. Or at the same time that one feels miserable and down-trodden one may feel furious that anyone should think one in need of help. One’s sensitivity can be compared with that of a person who is sore all over one’s body and flinches at the slightest touch. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

One easily feels hurt, despised, neglected, slighted, and reacts with proportionate vindictive resentment. Here again we see a “vicious circle” at work. While grandiose ideas have a definite reassurance value and afford some support, even though only in an imaginary way, they not only reinforce the tendency to recoil, but through the medium of sensitivity create greater rage and thereby greater anxiety. This is, to be sure, the picture of severe neuroses, but in minor degrees it can also be seen in less serious cases, where it may not even be recognized by the person concerned. On the other hand, however, a sort of lucky circle may start as soon as the neurotic is able to do some constructive work. By this means one’s self-confidence grows, and there is thus less necessity for one’s grandiose ideas. The neurotic’s lack of success—one’s falling behind others in any respect, whether it concern career or marriage, security or happiness—makes one envious of others and thus reinforces the attitude of begrudging envy which has developed from other sources. Several factors may lead one to repress one’s begrudging attitude, factors such as inherent nobility of character, a deep conviction that one has no right to demand anything for oneself, or simply failure to recognise one’s existing unhappiness. However, the more it is repressed the more it may be projected on others, resulting in a sometimes almost paranoid fear that others begrudge one everything. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

If something goof happens to one, a new job, a flattering recognition, a fortunate acquisition, good fortune in a love-relationship, this anxiety may be so great that one feels absolutely uneasy. Hence it may greatly reinforce one’s tendencies to refrain from having anything or getting anywhere. Leaving out all details, the main outlines of the “vicious circle” which develops out of the neurotic striving for power, prestige and possession may roughly indicate as follows: anxiety, hostility, impaired self-esteem; striving for power and the like; enhanced hostility and anxiety; tendency to recoil from competition (with accompanying tendencies toward self-belittling); failures and discrepancies between potentialities and achievements; enhanced grandiose ideas (with fear of envy); enhanced sensitivity (with renewed tendency to recoil); enhanced hostility and anxiety, which starts the cycle all over again. In order, however, to understand fully the role hat envy plays in neuroses, we have to regard it from a more comprehensive viewpoint. The neurotic, whether or not feels it consciously, is not only a very unhappy person indeed, but one does not see any chance of escaping one’s misery. What the outside observer describes as vicious circles developing out of attempts to get reassurance, the neurotic oneself feels as being hopelessly caught in a net. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

As a patient of mine has described it, he feels tied up in a Brooklyn Basement with many doors, and whichever door he opens leads only into new darkness. And all the time he knows that others are walking outside in Sunshine. All because he was looking for love in all the wrong places and ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Family secrets are revealed and he learns blood is not always thicker than water! I do not believe that one can understand any severe neurosis without recognizing the paralyzing hopelessness which it contains. Some neurotic persons express their exasperation in no uncertain terms, but in others it is deeply covered by resignation or by a show of optimism. It may be difficult then to see that behind all the odd vanities, demands, hostilities, there is a human being who suffers, who feels excluded from all that makes life desirable, who knows that even if one gets what one wants one cannot enjoy it. When one recognizes the existence of all this hopelessness it should not be difficult to understand what appears to be an excessive aggressiveness or even meanness, unexplainable by the particular situation. A person so shut out from every possibility of happiness would have to be a veritable Angel if one did not feel hatred toward a World one cannot belong to. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

Coming back now to the problem of envy, this gradually developing hopelessness is the basis from which envy is constantly generated. It is not so much an envy of something special, but what is described as Lebensneid, a very general envy of everyone who feels more secure, more poised, more happy, more straightforward, more self-confident. If such a feeling of hopelessness has developed in a person, regardless of whether it is close to one’s awareness or far away, one will attempt to account for it. One does not see it—as the analytical observer does—as the outcome of an inexorable process. Instead one sees it as caused either by others or by oneself. Often one will blame both sources, though usually one or the other is in the foreground. When one puts the blame on others an accusatory attitude results, which may be directed toward fate in general, toward circumstances, or toward special persons: parents, teachers, husband, physician. Neurotic demands on others, as we have pointed out frequently, are to be understood largely from this point of view. It is as if the neurotic thought along these lines: “Since you are all responsible for my suffering, it is your duty to help me, and I have a right to expect it from you.” In so far as one seeks the source of evil in oneself, he feels that one has deserved one’s misery. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

Speaking of the neurotic’s tendency to put the blame on others may give rise to a misunderstanding. It may sound as if one’s accusations were unwarranted. As a matter of fact one has definite good reasons to feel accusatory, because one has indeed been dealt with unfairly, particularly in childhood. However, there are also neurotic elements in one’s accusations: they often take the place of constructive efforts toward beneficial goals and usually they are blind and indiscriminate. They may be directed, for example, toward persons who want to help one and at the same time one may be entirely incapable of feeling and expressing accusations against those persons who really injure one. When the floodtides of evil break across the television screen or wash the pages of print media in what is now called “news,” people roll their eyes helplessly and say, “Why?” They never say “Why?” when something good happens. However, they would if they ever faced up to the reality of the ruined soul. However, they simply cannot deal with the actual content of the human heart, mind, body, social context, and soul. In intellectual circles (and do not we all live there now?) evil, like sin, is a non-category. It is impolite and politically incorrect to speak seriously of it, even if it is the most tragic event that has ever taken place in modern history. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Some years ago a leading media personality had a high-level conference in Aspen, Colorado USA, on the topic of evil. (Should not that meeting have been held elsewhere? South Los Angeles or Sacramento?) The outcome was that one or two participants out of a large group thought that there was such a thing as evil. However, most were either noncommittal on the point or certain that evil did not exist at all. When you heard their comments it was clear that they simply could not conceptualize the evil to be seen flourishing abundantly around them in the twentieth century. One of the most glaring evidences of the bankruptcy of contemporary ethical thinking is that it cannot deal with evil. A recent proposal to found a field of “Evil Studies” within academia will not be enthusiastically received. We should be very sure that the ruined soul is not one who has missed examination at the end of life. Hell is not an “oops!” or a slip. One does not miss Heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. “Outer darkness” is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the Universe actually is. It is for those who are disastrously in error about their own life and their place before God and humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

The ruined soul must be willing to hear of and recognize its own ruin before it can find how to enter a different path, the path of eternal life that naturally leads into spiritual formation in Christlikeness. Spiritual formation is not something that may, or may not, be added to the gift of eternal life as an option. Rather, it is the path that the eternal kind of life “from above” naturally takes. It is the path one must be on if one is to be an eternal kind of life. It is not a project of life enhancement, where the life in question is the usual life of normal human beings—that is, life apart from God. It is, rather, the process of developing a different kind of life, the life of God himself, sustained by God as a new reality in those who have confidence that Jesus is the anointed One, the Son of God. “Believing in him we have life in his name,” reports John 20.31. Those “in Christ”—that is, caught up in his life, in what he is doing, by the inward gift of birth from above—“are of a new making. The ‘old stuff’ no longer matters. It is the new that counts,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.17. Here in this new creation is the radical goodness that alone can thoroughly renovate the heart. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which one hath 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 hum, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as one is pure. Amen,” Moroni 7.48. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

Almighty and everlasting God, Who adornest the sacred body of Thy Church by the confessions of holy Martyrs; grant us, we pray Thee, that both by their doctrines and their pious example, we may follow after what is pleasing in Thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Mercifully give us, O Lord, an increasing of faith in Thee; that as it glorifies Thy holy Martyrs who held it fast even unto blood, it may also justify us who follow it in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that as we welcome with a temporary service the commemoration of Thy Saints, so we may rejoice in beholding them perpetually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God of my exodus, great was the joy of Israel’s sons, when Egypt died upon the shore, far greater the joy when the redeemer’s foe lay crushed in the dust. Jesus strides forth as the victor, conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing might; He bursts the bands f death, tramples the powers of darkness down, and lives for ever. He, my gracious surety, apprehended for payment of my debt, comes forth from the prison house of the grave free, and triumphant over sin, Satan, and death. Show me herein the proof that his vicarious offering is accepted, that the claims of justice are satisfied, that the devil’s sceptre is shivered, that one’s wrongful throne is levelled. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

Give me the assurance that in Christ I died, in him I rose, in his life I live, in his victory I triumph, in his ascension I shall be glorified. Adorable redeemer, thou who wast lifted up upon a cross art ascended to highest Heaven. Thou, who as Man of sorrows wast crowned with throns, art now as Lord of life wreathed with glory. Once, no shame more deep than thine, no agony more bitter, no death more cruel. Now, no exaltation more high, no life more glorious, no advocate more effective. Thou art in the triumph BMW M5 leading captive thine enemies behind thee. What more could be done than thou hast done! Thy death is my life, thy resurrection my peace, thy ascension my hope, thy prayers my comfort. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that the examples of Thy Saints may stir us up to a better life, so that we who celebrate their solemnities, may also imitate their actions; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who permittest us to celebrate the commemoration of all Thy Saints, grant that we Thy servants may enjoy their fellowship in eternal gladness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, Who dost enkindle the flame of Thy love in the hearts of the Saints, grant to our minds the same faith and power of love; that as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may profit by their examples; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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Better is a Dinner of Herbs Where Love is, than a Stalled Ox and Hatred therewith!

January 30, 2020 1:38 am

Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I am not there, I go to work. “With God all things are possible,” reports St. Matthew 19.26. The sciences which deal with behaviour are in an infant state. This cluster of scientific disciplines is usually thought of as including psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and biology, though sometimes the other social sciences such as economics and political science are included, and mathematics and statistics are very much involved as instrumental disciplines. Though they are all at work trying to understand the behaviour of beings, and though research in these fields is growing by leaps and bounds, it is still an area in which there is undoubtedly more confusion than solid knowledge. Thoughtful workers in these fields tend to stress the enormity of our scientific ignorance regarding behaviour, and the paucity of general laws which have been discovered. They tend to compare the state of this field of scientific endeavour with that of physics, and seeing the relative precision of measurement accuracy of prediction, and elegance and simplicity of the discovered lawfulness in this latter field, are vividly aware of the newness, the infancy, the immaturity, of the behavioural science field. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Without in any way denying the truthfulness of this picture, I believe it is sometimes stressed to the point where the general public may fail to recognize the other side of the coin. Behavioural science, even though in its infancy, has made mighty strides towards becoming an “if—then” science. By this I mean that it has made striking progress in discerning and discovering lawful relationships such that is certain conditions exist, then certain behaviours will predictably follow. I believe that too few people are aware of the extent, the breadth, and the dept of the advances which have still been made in recent decades in the behavioural sciences. Still fewer seem to be aware of the profound social, educational, political, economic, ethical, and philosophical problems posed by these advances. Each general statement I shall makes is supported by reasonably adequate research, though like all scientific findings each statement is an expression of a given degree of probability, not of some absolute truth. Furthermore each statement is open to modification and correction or even refutation through more exact or more imaginative studies of the future. In behavioural sciences there is an element of prediction which is prominent. The pattern of each of these can be generalized as follows: If an individual possesses measurable characteristics a, b, and c, then we can predict that there is a high probability that one will exhibit behaviours x, y, and z. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Thus, we know how to predict, with considerable accuracy, which individuals will be successful college students, successful industrial executives, successful insurance agents, and the like. I will not attempt to document this statement, simply because the documentation would be so extensive. He whole field of aptitude testing of vocation testing, of personnel selection is involved. Although the specialists in these fields are rightly concerned with the degree of inaccuracy in their predictions, the fact remains that here is a wide area in which the work of the behavioural sciences is accepted by multitudes of hardheaded industries, universities and other organizations. We have come to accept the fact that out of an unknown group the behavioural scientist can select (with a certain margin of error) those persons who will be successful typists, practice teachers, filing clerks, or physicists. This field is continually expanding. Efforts are being made to determine the characteristics of the creative chemist, for example, as over against the merely successful chemist, and, though without outstanding success, efforts have been and are being made to determine the characteristics which will identify the potentially successful psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. Science is moving steadily forward in its ability to say whether or not you possess the measurable characteristics which are associated with a certain type of occupational activity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

We know how to predict success in schools for military officer candidates, and in combat performance. To select one study in this field, Williams and Leavitt (31) found that they could make satisfactory predictions regarding a Marine’s probably success in Officer Candidates School (OCS) and in later combat performance by obtaining ratings from one’s “buddies.” They also found that in this instance the human’s fellow soldiers were better psychological instruments than were the objective tests they used. There is illustrated here not only the use of certain measures to predict behaviour, but a willingness to use those measures, whether conventional or unconventional, which are demonstrated to have predictive power. We can predict how radical or conservative a potential business executive will be. Whyte (30), in his recent book cites this as one of many examples of tests that are in regular use in industrial corporations. Thus in a group of young executives up for promotion, top management can select those who will exhibit (within a margin of error) whatever degree of conservatism or radicalism is calculated to be for the best welfare of the company. They can also base their selection on knowledge of the degree to which each person has a latent hostility to society, or latent homosexuality, or psychotic tendencies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Testing giving (or purporting to give) such measures are in use by many corporations both for screening purposes in selection of new management personnel, and also for purposes of evaluation of beings already in management position, in order to choose those who will be given greater responsibilities. We know how to predict which members of an organization will be troublemakers and/or delinquent. A promising young psychologist (10) has devised a short, simple pencil and paper test which has shown a high degree of accuracy in predicting which of the employees hired by a department store will be unreliable, dishonest, or otherwise difficult. He states that it is quite possible to identify, with considerable precision, the potential troublemakers in any organized group. This ability to identify those who will make trouble is, so far as the technical issues are concerned, simply an extension of the knowledge we have of prediction in other fields. From the scientific point of view it is no different from predicting who will be a good typesetter. We know that a competent clerical worker, using a combination of test scores and actuarial tables, can give a better predictive picture of a person’s personality and behaviour, than can an experienced clinician. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Paul Meehl (18) has shown that we are sufficiently advanced in our development of personality tests, and in information accumulated through these tests, that intuitive skill and broad knowledge, experience, and training, are quite unnecessary in producing accurate personality descriptions. He has shown that in many situations in which personality diagnoses are being made—mental hygiene clinics, veteran’s hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and the like, it is wasteful to use well-trained professional personnel to make personality diagnoses through the giving of tests, interviewing the person and the like. He has shown that a clerk can do it better, with only a minimum and impersonal contact with the patient. First a number of tests would be administered and scored. Then the profile of scores would be looked up in actuarial tables prepared on the basis of those measurement, appraisal and evaluation of human characteristics, and the prediction of certain behaviour patterns on the basis of those measurements. Indeed, there is no reason why Meehl’s clerk could not also be eliminated. With proper coded instruction there is no reason why an electronic computer could not score the tests, analyze the profiles and come up with an even more accurate picture of the person and his predicted behaviour than a human clerk. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

We have all seen it—and perhaps done it! The father walks in the door after a pressured day, preoccupied, with brow furrowed. His three-year-old comes running to him, but Dad is busy unburdening himself to his wife. “Just a moment, Leo.” Leo tugs at his father’s britches—no response. He tugs again! His father explodes, picks him up, and taps his little legs for being “rude.” The Lord knows how many children “lose heart” because their fathers have “hard days.” Life is sometimes like the cartoon where the boss is grouchy toward a worker; his employee, in turn, comes home and is irritable with the children; his son then kicks the dog; the dog runs down the street and bites the first person he sees—the boss! We fathers must never let our pressures drive us into this unhappy cycle. The costs are too high. Some say you treat your fellow humans on the level. However, when you are home with the wife and kids, are you as mean as the Devil? Your kids know. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,” reports St. Matthew 7.15. Few things will exasperate a child more than inconsistency. Pity the horse that has a rider who gives it mixed signals, digging his heels into its side and pulling the reins at the same time. Pity the child even more who has the rules changed by a capricious father, and who is always exasperated because of the conflicting messages one receives. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Fathers, you may forgive yourself by saying, “I am so busy…Memory is not my thing…I am just a spontaneous person!” However, your children will not. Be consistent. Never ever make a promise to your children you do not keep! Do any unfulfilled promises come to mind? Horseback riding that never happened? Trips to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop, Winchell’s Donut, New Lai Wah Chinese food, of Giant Burgers, or to watch a Golden State Warrior’s Game on an A’s baseball game? You may forget, but you have a little boy or a girl who will remember it eighty years from now. One of the most exasperating and damning sins a father can commit against his children is favourtism. I say this despite being the last one who would suggest you should treat all your children alike. Some children need more discipline, some need more independence. Some need more structure, some need less. Some need more holding than others. Some need more encouragement. However, no child should be favoured over another. Favouritism was the damning sin of Isaac, who favoured Esau over Jacob. Ironically, it was also the damning sin of Jacob, who favoured Joseph over his brothers. Like favouring father, like rejected son! How crushing, how disheartening to know that you are less favoured—less loved. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

Men, the great “do not” of fatherhood is, “Do not exasperate your children”—and life tells us what the resulting “do nots” of this are: Do not be critical, do not be over strict, do not be irritable, do not be inconsistent, do not show favouritism. God has created our children with their hearts turned toward ours. Our power is awesome! We must take God’s Word to heart. We can select those persons who are easily persuaded, who will conform to group pressures, or those who will not yield. Two separate but compatible studies (15, 16) show that individuals who exhibit certain dependency themes in their responses to the pictures of the Thematic Apperception Test, or who, on another test, show evidence of feelings of social inadequacy, inhibition of aggression, and depressive tendencies, will be easily persuaded, or will yield to group pressures. These small studies are by no means definitive, but there is every reason to suppose that their basic hypothesis is correct and that these or other more refined measures will accurately predict which member of a group will be easily persuaded, and which will be unyielding even to fairly strong group pressures. We can predict, from the way individual perceive the movement of a spot of light in a dark room, whether they tend to be prejudiced or unprejudiced. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

There has been much study of ethnocentrism, the tendency toward a pervasive and rigid distinction between ingroups and outgroups, with hostility toward outgroups, and a submissive attitude toward, and belief in the rightness of, ingroups. One of the theories which has developed is that the more ethnocentric person is unable to tolerate ambiguity or uncertainty in a situation. Operating on this theory Block and Block (5) has subjects report on the degree of movement they perceived in a dim spot of light in a completely dark room. (Actually no movement occurs, but almost all individuals perceive movement in this situation.) They also gave these same subjects a test of ethnocentrism. It was found, as predicted, that those who, in successive trials, quickly established a norm or the amount of movement they perceived, tended to e more ethnocentric than those whose estimates of movement continued to show variety. This study was repeated, with slight variation, in Australia (28), and the findings were confirmed and enlarged. It was found that the more ethnocentric individuals were less able to tolerate ambiguity, and saw less movement than the unprejudiced. They also were more dependent on others and when making their estimates in the company of another person, tended to conform to the judgment of that person. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Hence it is not too much to ay that by studying the way the individual perceives the movement of a dim light in a dark room, we can tell a good deal about the degree to which one is a rigid, prejudiced, ethnocentric person. This hodgepodge of illustrations of the ability of the behavioural sciences to predict behaviour,and hence to select individuals who will exhibit certain behaviours, may be seen simply as the burgeoning applications of a growing field of science. However, what these illustrations suggest can also cause a cold chill of apprehension. The thoughtful person cannot help but recognize that these developments I have described are but the beginning. One cannot fail to see that if more highly developed tools were in the hands of an individual or group, together with the power to use them, the social and philosophical implications are awesome. One can begin to see why a scientist like von Bertalanffy warns, “Besides the menace of physical technology, the dangers of psychological technology are often overlooked.” Why then do we not experience more of this endless supply of God’s grace? Why do we do often seem to live in spiritual poverty instead of experiencing life to the full as Jesus promised (John 10.10)? #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

There are several reasons that may or may not apply to a particular believer, but for the purposes of our study on grace, I would like to look at two that probably apply to most of us. First, is our frequent misperception of God as the divine equivalent of Ebeneezer Scrooge; the God who demands the last ounce of work out of His people and then pays them poorly. That may sound like an overstatement of our perception of God, but I believe it is a fairly accurate representation of how many Christians think. Consider the following words from one of John Newton’s hymns: Come, my soul, thy suit prepare: Jesus loves to answer prayer; he himself has bid thee pray, therefore will not say thee nay. Thou art coming to a King, Large petitions with thee bring; for his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much. How many Christians really believe those words? How many of us really believe Jesus loves to answer prayer? How many of us believe His grace and power are such that we can never ask too much? Rather, we tend in the direction of believing God is reluctant to answer prayers and His grace and power are not sufficient to fulfill our needs, let along our requests. We should not forget that Satan’s very first temptation of humankind was based on questioning the goodness and generosity of God (see Genesis 3.1-5). #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

And this vicious attack on the patriarch Job was designed to cause Job to question God’s goodness so that he would then curse God (see Job 1.16-11). Satan has not changed his strategy today. This perception of God as the reluctant giver comes right from Satan and must be resisted by us if we are to experience the fullness of God grace. “Remember this. Talk to God. No matter how you are feeling, no matter what you are facing, no matter what happens to hurt you or disappoint you or confuse you. Talk to God. And never stop talking to Him. You understand me? Talk to Him. Realize that because things go bad in this World, because they go well, because they come easy or they come with difficulty, well, it does not mean that He is not here. I do not mean here in this chapel. I mean here everywhere. Talk to Him. No mater how many years pass, no matter what happens, always talk to Him. Would you try to remember to do that? Anytime you want. You start now with or without words, and you just keep talking and you never never let anything come between you and talking to God,” Page 27, Of Love and Evil by Anne Rice. Many believers do not comprehend the superabundance of God’s grace and generosity, we ask Him for paltry blessings, when we could be drawing on the abundance of His riches. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The apostle Paul told us that God “has blessed us in the Heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ,” and “[He] will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” reports Ephesians 1.3, Philippians 4.19. Within the scope of these two scriptures, God promises to meet every one of our needs, both spiritual and temporal. The God who was gracious to Adam and Eve both before and after the Fall, who rejoiced in doing good to the Jewish nation in captivity, who was the “God of all grace” to Peter, is the same gracious and generous God today. Grace is part of the very nature of God, and He cannot change. He is indeed the generous landowner of the parable, continually going to the marketplace of life to find those in need of “a day’s wages” so that He can bring them into His vineyard and then reward them out of all proportion to their labors. Perhaps the larger reason why we do not experience more of God’s grace is our misconception that, having been saved by grace, we must now, at least to some degree, “pay our own way” and earn God’s blessings in our daily lives. An accepted maxim among people today, “there is no such thing as a free lunch” (which may be true in our society), is carried by us into our relationship with God. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

In fact this misconception that we must pay our own way is more than a mistaken theological notion. It actually springs from the perverse disposition of our hearts—the disposition of pride. Perhaps the most difficult task for us to perform is to rely on God’s grace and God’s grace alone for our salvation. It is difficult for our pride to rest on grace. Grace is for other people—for beggars. We do not want to live by a Heavenly welfare system. We want to earn our own way and atone for our sins. We like to think that we will go to heaven because we deserve to be there. When considering the subject of the grace of God in salvation, the problem of pride described is applicable to living the Christian life. Not only do we think we must pay our own way, at least to some degree, we subtly insist on paying our own way. Grace is for other people—for beggars, but not for us. Let me illustrate from my own experience. After the death of my first wife, Eleanor, God very soon brought into my life another charming and Godly lady whom Eleanor and I had known for a number of years. Just over a year Eleanor’s death, Jane and I were married. A few months later I began to realize I was experiencing a vague sense of guilt despite confidence that God had guided in our marriage. One day I realized my sense of guilt was due to the feeling that I had not “paid my dues” in long months of grief and loneliness unlike some of my friends who have lost their spouses. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

I felt I did not “deserve” such a tremendous blessing from God so soon after Eleanor’s death. In fact, I discovered I was unconsciously not allowing myself to enjoy the full riches of the blessing God had so obviously given me. I had lapsed into the World’s way of thinking that we somehow must earn God’s blessings through our suffering or sacrifice or hard work. It can be humbling, sometimes humiliating, to realize we have not paid our own way. Think of the workers in the parable who worked only one hour. How did they feel when they realized they had received as much pay as those who had worked twelve long hours through the heat of the day? Did they feel grateful for the generous gift they had received, or guilty that they had not earned their pay? If they were living by a philosophy of works as we so often do, they would have felt guilty. They would have experienced the gracious generosity of the landowner, but they would not have enjoyed it. You and I actually experience the grace of God in our lives far more than we realize. However, all too often we do not enjoy His grace because we are trying to live by merit, not by grace. In looking for our own goodness by which we hope to earn the blessing of God, we fail to see the superabundance of the goodness and grace of God in our lives. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
O God, Who wast pleased to send Thy disciples the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in the burning fire of Thy love, grant to Thy people to be fervent in the unity of faith; that evermore abiding in Thee, they may be found both stedfast in faith and active in work; through Jesus Christ our Lord. May the Spirit, the Paraclete, O Lord, Who proceedeth from Thee, illuminate our minds, and, as Thy Son hath promised, lead us into all truth; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ. May the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, O Lord, cleanse our hearts, and make them fruitful with its plenteous dew; through our Lord Jesus Christ. “And God also declared unto prophets, by his own mouth, that Christ should come. And behold, there were divers ways that he did manifest things unto the children of humans, which were good; and al things which are good cometh of Christ; otherwise humans were fallen, and there could no good thing come unto them. Wherefore, by the ministering of Angels, and by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, humans began to exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing; and thus it was until the coming of Christ,” reports Moroni 7.23-25. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Blessed Lord Jesus, before thy cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused thee to be “made a curse,” the evil that excites the severity of divine wrath. Show me the enormity of my guilt by the crowns of thorns, the pierced hands and feet, the bruised body, the dying cries. Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God, its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought. Infinite must be the evil and guilt that demands such a price. Sin is my malady, my monster, my foe, my viper, born in my birth, alive in my life, strong in my character, dominating my faculties, following me as a shadow, intermingling with my every thought, my chain that holds me captive in the empire of my soul. Sinner that I am, why should the Sun give me light, the air supply breath, the Earth bear my tread, its fruits nourish me, its creatures subserve my ends? Yet thy compassions yearn over me, thy heart hastens to my rescue, thy love endured my curse, thy mercy bore my deserved stripes. Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths of humiliation, bathed in thy blood, tender of conscience, triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation. “And after that he came humans also were saved by faith in his name; and by faith, they become the sons of God. And as surely as Christ liveth he spake these words unto our fathers, saying: Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you,” reports Moroni 7.26. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

The readiness with which one once plunged into other people’s affairs to help the, as one believed, will dissolve and disappears. One knows now that their real troubles remain unaffected by this surface acid, that meddling in their problems is not the right way. One is surrounded by an aura which makes one a crowd of fawning disciples and flattering admirers. However, one could not accept such a role because one knows that they will refuse to let one be oneself and will expect one to be different from what one really is. One does not care to face an attitude which is hostile or indifferent; one does not even need to talk to beings who begin by disbelieving one. No self-actualized person looks down on others from one’s pedestal, but that does not alter the distancer that extends from their ignorance to one’s knowledge. One does not require idolatrous homage from them and indeed shrinks from it. One unaffected nature renders one desirous of being treated no better than others. One passes among others a hidden existence, a secret inner life. The conventional World is so tied to, and therefore so deceived by appearances, that it is only a tiny handful of people who meet such a being with the understanding and sympathy one deserves. It is not personal desire which makes one refrain from communicating oneself to others, but public circumstances. In this one obeys the Greek verse, “When to be wise is all in vain, be not wise at all.” Why should one communicate the oracles of Heaven to those whose minds run only to trivialities? #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Such a Prophet is Like a Bell, Calling its Hearers to Attend the True Church Within themselves!

January 27, 2020 1:22 pm

If you do not think that everyday is a great day, try going without one. Absence from who we love is worse than death. God moves in mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” reports Micah 6.8. What are the conditions within the individual which are most closely associated with a potentially constructive creative act? I see these as possibilities. Openness to experiences: Extensionality. This is the opposite of psychological defensiveness, when to protect the organization of the self, certain experiences are prevented from coming into awareness except in distorted fashion. In a person who is open to experiences each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system without being distorted by any process of defensiveness. Whether the stimulus originates in the environment, in the impact of form, colour, or as a memory trace in the central nervous system, it is available to awareness. This means that instead of perceiving in predetermined categories (“trees are green,” “college education is good,” “modern art is silly”) the individual is aware of this existential moment as it is, thus being alive to many experiences which fall outside the usual categories (this tree is lavender; this college education is damaging; this modern sculpture has a powerful effect on me). #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

This last suggests another way of describing openness to experience. It means lack of rigidity and permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs, perceptions, and hypotheses. It means a tolerance for ambiguity where ambiguity exists. It means the ability to receive much conflicting information without forcing closure upon the situation. It means what the general semanticist calls the “extensional orientation.” This complete openness of awareness to what exists at this moment is, I believe, an important condition of constructive creativity. In an equally intense but more narrowly limited fashion it is no doubt present in all creativity. The deeply maladjusted artist who cannot recognize or be aware of the sources of unhappiness in oneself, my nevertheless be sharply and sensitively aware of form and colour in one’s experience. The tyrant (whether on a petty or grand scale) who cannot face the weakness in oneself may nevertheless be completely alive to and aware of the areas that still need to be adjusted in the psychological armour of those with whim one deals. Because there is the openness to one phase of experience, creativity is possible; because the openness is only to one phase of experience, he product of this creativity may be potentially destructive of social values. The more the individual has available to oneself a sensitive awareness of all phases of one’s experience, the more sure we can be that one’s creativity will be personally and socially constructive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

An internal locus of evaluation: perhaps the most fundamental condition of creativity is that the source or locus of evaluative judgment is internal. The value of one’s product is, for the creative person, established not by the praise or criticism of others, but by oneself. Have I created something satisfying to me? Does it express a part of me—my feeling or my thought, my pain or my ecstasy? When one is being creative, these are the only questions which really matter to the creative person, or to any person. This does not mean that one is oblivious to, or unwilling to be aware of, the judgments of others. It is simply that the basis of evaluation is possessed within oneself, in one’s own organismic reaction to and appraisal of one’s products. If to the person it has the “feel” of being “me in action,” of being an actualization of potentialities in oneself which heretofore have not existed and are not emerging into existence, then it is satisfying and creative, and no outside evaluation can change that fundamental fact. The ability to toy with elements and concepts is probably less important than openness to experience and an internal locus of evaluation, it seems to be a condition of creativity. Occasionally one feels one is not worthy enough to contact a spiritual teacher because one does not have a “clean heart.” This is a wrong mental attitude. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

One needs assistance in getting this “clean heart” and there is nothing wrong in seeking such help. Associated with the openness and lack of rigidity described in the section about openness to experience is the ability to play spontaneously with ideas, colours, shapes, relationships—to juggle elements into impossible juxtapositions, to shape wild hypotheses, to make the given problematic, to express the ridiculous, to translate from one form to another, to transform into improbable equivalents. It is as though out of the wasteful spawning of thousands of possibilities there emerges one or two evolutionary forms with the qualities which give them a more permanent value. When these three conditions obtain, constructive creativity will occur. However, we cannot expect an accurate description of the creative act, for by its very nature it is indescribable. This is the unknown which we must recognize as unknowable until it occurs. This is the improbably that become probable. Only in a very general way can we say that a creative act is the natural behavior of an organism which has a tendency to arise when that organism is open to all of its inner and outer experiencing, and when it is free to try out in flexible fashion all manner of relationships. It is a grave mistake for one to eject what a favourable destiny thus offers one. However, sinful one be, there is also a fact that one aspires to rise above one’s sins, else one would not feel sorry for them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Out of this multitude of half-formed possibilities the organism, like a great computing machine, selects this one which most effectively meets an inner need, or that one which forms a more effective relationship with the environment, or this other one which discovers a more simple and satisfying order in which life may be perceived. There is one quality of the creative act which may, however, be described. In almost all the products of creation we note a selectivity, or emphasis, an evidence of discipline, an attempt to bring out existence. The artist paints surfaces or textures in simplified form, ignoring the minute variations which exist in reality. The scientist formulates a basic law of relationships, brushing aside all the particular events or circumstances which might conceal its unveiled beauty. The writer selects those words and phrases which give unity to one’s expression. We may say that this is the influence of the specific person, of the “I.” Reality exists in a multiplicity of confusing facts, but “I” bring a structure to my relationship to reality; I have “my” way of perceiving reality, and it is the (unconsciously?) discipline personal selectivity or abstraction which gives to creative products their esthetic quality. It needs some humility and more discernment to approach this benefit of knowledge, insight, experience, and wisdom—all of which are unusual and rare. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Though this is as far as we can go in describing any aspect of the creative act, there are certain of its concomitants in the individual which may be mentioned. The first is what we may call the Eureka feeling—“That is it!” “I have discovered!” “This is what I wanted to express!” Another concomitant is the anxiety of separateness. I do not believe that many significantly creative products are formed without the feeling, “I am alone. No one has ever done just this before. I have ventured into territory where no one has been. Perhaps I am foolish, or wrong, or lost, or abnormal.” You will walk a long time or visit many cities before you find another illuminate. Greet one well, therefore, and think of one well, that you may make something of this fortunate meeting. Still another experience which usually accompanies creativity is the desire to communicate. It is doubtful whether a human being can create, without wishing to share one’s creation. It is the only way one can assuage the anxiety of separateness and assure oneself that one belongs to the group. One may confide one’s theories only to one’s private diary. One may put one’s discoveries in some cryptic code. One may conceal one’s poems in a locked drawer. One may put away one’s paintings in a closet. Yet one’s desires to communicate with a group which will understand one, even if one must imagine such a group. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

One does not create in order to communicate, but once having created one desires to share this new aspect of oneself-in-relation-to-one’s-environment with others. If such a being’s presence, face, bearing, and teaching show something Godlike in one, we should not hesitate to give one the benefit of recognition as being inspired, even if we are not willing to give more. From the very nature of the inner conditions of creativity it is clear that they cannot be forced, but must be permitted to emerge. The farmer cannot make the germ develop and sprout from the seed; one can only supply the nurturing conditions which will permit the seed to develop its own potentialities. So it is with creativity. How can we establish the external conditions which will foster and nourish the internal conditions descried above My experience in psychotherapy leads me to believe that by setting conditions of psychological safety and freedom, we maximize the likelihood of an emergence of constructive creativity Let me spell out these conditions in some detail, labelling them as X and Y. X. Psychological safety. This may be established by three associated processes. Accepting the individual as unconditional worth. Whenever a teacher, parent, therapist, or other person with a facilitating function feels basically that this individual is of worthy in one’s own right and in one’s unfolding, no matter what one’s present condition or behavior, one is fostering creativity. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

This attitude can probably be genuine only when the teacher, parents, ex cetera, senses the potentialities of the individual and this is able to have an unconditional faith in one, no matter what one’s present state. Among living mortals there is one with whom one may find this link, one whom one may never meet in the flesh but only through a photo, a work of art, a name uttered by someone, or perhaps through a piece of published writing. Among those who no longer live in the body, but with whom the link was made in former births, the echo will return and the idea itself will suffice. We can hope to find today is no longer a teacher to instruct our minds nor a master to guide our steps but an inspirer to set us aflame, to show us the World as God see it. There is for each seeker only one being in the whole World who can do that. One and one alone can work this miracle. It is a strange mystery why destiny has decreed that these seekers after God should have to depend on this one being’s lit mind and strong heart for the help they need more than on any other being’s. Strange, because until they find one their search seems to have a great lack in it which almost brings one to anguish. The attraction which makes a being select someone as one’s master and makes the master willing to help one is analogous to chemical affinity. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

It is not that they deliberately and consciously choose one another, but that they cannot help doing so. The master knows, automatically and immediately by one’s own intuition, whether a candidate for discipleship is in affinity with one or not, and hence whether to accept or reject the being or not. If one is sensitive and aspiring, and if there is any real spiritual power in the other being, one will feel involuntarily an internal excitement and intuitive expectancy almost from the first minute of their meeting. However, if one is also at sufficient degree of readiness and longing to learn, and if there is personal affinity with this other being, then one will feel shaken to the depths of one’s being, capture in mind and heart. For one will feel the beginnings of discipleship. With the meeting, the aspirant’s supreme chance has come. When an aspirant comes into contact with an advanced soul, one’s own longing is like a magnet which itself spontaneously attracts spiritual force and thought from the other being. Thereupon one experiences an uplift and an enlightenment. If the meeting is a personal one this result is at its fullest. If through a book or letter written by the other being, it is still present but in a weaker degree. Providing a climate in which external evaluation is absent—when we cease to form judgments of the other individua from our own locus of evaluation, we are fostering creativity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

For the individual to find oneself in an atmosphere where one is not being evaluated, not being measured by some external standard, is enormously freeing. Evaluation is always a threat, always creates a need for defensiveness, always means that some portion of experience must be denied to awareness. If this product is evaluated as good by external standards, then I must admit my own dislike of it. If what I am doing is bad by external standards, then I must not be aware of the fact that it seems to be me, to be part of myself. However, if judgments based on external standards are not being made then I can be more open to my experience, can recognize my own likings and dislikings, the nature of the materials and of my reaction to them, more sharply and more sensitively. I can begin to recognize the locus of evaluation within myself. Hence I am moving toward creativity. To allay some possible doubts and fears in the reader, it should be pointed out that to cease evaluating another is not to cease having reactions. It may, as a matter of fact, free one to react. “I do not like your idea” (or painting, or invention, or writing), is not an evaluation, but a reaction. It is subtly but sharply different from a judgment which says, “What you are doing is bad (or good), and this quality is assigned to you from some external source.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The first statement permits the individual to maintain one’s own locus of evaluation. It holds the possibility that I am unable to appreciate something which is actually very good. The second statement, whether it praises or condemns, tends to put the person at the mercy of outside forces. One is being told that one cannot simply ask oneself whether this product is a valid expression of oneself; one must be concerned with what others thing. One is being led away from creativity. Understanding empathically—it is this which provides the ultimate in psychological safety, when added to the other two. If I say that I “accept” you, but know nothing of you, this is a shallow acceptance indeed, and you realize that it may change if I actually come to know you. However, if I understand you empathically, see you and what you are feeling and doing from your point of view, enter your private World and see it as it appears to you—and still accept you—then this safety is indeed. In this climate you can permit your real self to emerge, and to express itself in varied and novel formings as it relates to the World. This is a basic fostering of creativity. Y. Psychological freedom—when a teacher, parent, therapist, or other facilitating person permits the individual a complete freedom of symbolic expression, creativity is fostered. This permissiveness gives the individual complete freedom to think, to feel, to be, whatever is most inward within oneself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

It fosters the openness, and the playful and spontaneous juggling of precepts, concepts, and meanings, which is a part of creativity. Note that t is complete freedom of symbolic expression which is described. To express in behavior all feelings, impulses, and formings may not in all instances be freeing. Behaviour may in some instances be limited by society, and this is as it should be. However, symbolic expression need not be limited. Thus to destroy a hated object (whether one’s mother or a rococo building) by destroying a symbol of it, is freeing. To attack it in reality may create guilt and narrow the psychological freedom which is experienced. (I feel unsure of this paragraph, but it is the best formulation I can give at the moment which seems to square with my experience.) The permissiveness which is being described is not softness or indulgence or encouragement. It is permission to be free, which also means that one is responsible. The individual is as free to be afraid of a new venture as to be eager for it; free to bear the consequences of one’s mistakes as well as of one’s achievements. It is this type of freedom responsibly to be oneself which fosters the development of a secure locus of evaluation within oneself, and hence tends to bring about the inner conditions of constructive creativity. The goodwill which one shows to all people is devoid of any self-seeking motive, is a natural expression of the love which one finds in the innermost chambers of one’s soul. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

I have endeavoured to present an orderly way of thinking about the creative process, in order that some of these ideas might be put to a rigorous and objective test. My justification for formulating this theory, and my reason for hoping that such research may be carried out is that the present development of the physical sciences is making an imperative demand upon us, as individuals and as a culture, for creative behavior in adapting ourselves to our new World if we are to survive. I have a deep concern that the developing behavioral sciences may be used to control the individual and to rob one of one’s personhood. I believe, however, that these sciences might be used to enhance the person. The function of theology, Catholic or Protestant, is to purify the faith of believers through an enlightened criticism of empirical Christianity. Catholic theology achieves this—or should achieve it were theologians always conscious of their function—through a self-criticism whereby the theologian brings one’s own Christianity as thought and experience in line with the requirements of the Word of God spoken in Scripture and echoed in the Church of yesterday and today. Thence, from human to human, from teacher to student, from lecturer to listener, from writer to reader, a continuous self-reformation tends to spread abroad. This is why all great theology is prophetic. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Announcing the Word of God, it prepares the members of the Church to receive it in its pureness, as the Baptist prepared one’s disciples for the coming of Christ While never speaking in the name of the Church, a prophetic theology gives the lead to the Church of tomorrow by helping beings to welcome the hierarchical teaching into a fully scriptural and traditional background. It is perfectly true that method and system determine each other and that no method can be developed without a prior knowledge of the object to which it is applied. Neither the prophets of whom I speak, nor any of the others stood in the substance or essence of God, as the Scriptures testify; they did not see or explain the nature of God. The norm of theology is then the cloud that enshrounds God’s glory. Guided by the Spirit the believer seeks “theo-logy,” knowledge of God, intimacy with him, inside faith and its darkness. Theological contemplation is a symposium of knowledge and no-knowledge. Speaking generally, the medieval theologians shifted the norm of theology from the level of an anagogical awareness of the presence of God in his absence to the level of a sacramental experience of creation. Everything is then reduced to the sacramentalism of creation, of which the Christian sacrament form the acme. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

All things, whether natural or supernatural, are images of God, mirrors wherefrom the face of the Christ beckons to beings to take up their cross and follow him. Temporality is a prism through which eternity is seen. God is Light of the intellect. The apostle John wrote that Jesus was “full of grace and truth,” and “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another,” reports John 1.14-16. The idea portrayed in verse 16 is analogous to the ocean waves crashing upon the beach. One wave has hardly disappeared before another arrives. They just keep coming from an inexhaustible supply. So it is with the grace of God through Christ. He is full of grace and truth, and it is from His inexhaustible fullness that we receive one blessing after another. We have translated verse 16 as follow: “For out of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” Notice we did not receive just grace, but grace upon grace. The meaning of verse 16 is that believers are constantly receiving grace in the place of grace. One manifestation of the unmerited favour of God in Christ is hardly gone when another arrives; hence grace upon grace. The concept grace upon grace, an incessant supply of grace, harmonizes better with the idea from one’s fullness than does the simple term grace. The limitless supply or reservoir indicated by the words his fullness would seem to suggest a limitless outflow: grace upon grace. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

The human body becomes the primary area of pleasure for the person who does not live honestly and interactively with God, and also the primary source of terror, torture, and death. So it is an obvious thing to turn to for those who worship and serve “the creature rather than the Creator,” reports Romans 1.25. And because bodily enjoyments is what they want, what they choose to pursue, God abandons them to their pursuit of every pleasurable sensation they can wring out of the body—primarily pleasures of the flesh, for that usually gives the greatest kick, but bodily violence is a close second. This is the spiritual room of obsession with the pleasures of the flesh and violence in decadent societies, whether our own or those of other times and place. “Free love,” as it is euphemistically but falsely called, along with various forms of perversion, are simply an extension of body worship (verses 26-27)—even the worship of female private parts and the male phallus witnessed to by both archeology and modern life (and the “abs” and “buns” of today). As logic teaches us, everything logically follows from a falsehood. If what is false is true, then everything is. So anything goes. However, then it turns out that sensuality cannot be satisfied. It is not self-limiting. That is partly because the effect of engaging in the practices of sensuality is to deaden feeling. Then awakens the relentless drive, the desperate need, simply to feel something. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

This drive is rooted in basic human nature. We have to have feeling, and it needs to be deep and sustained. However, if we are not living the great drama of goodness in God’s kingdom, sensuality through the body is all that is left under our “kingdom.” Paul observes to the Ephesians that the Gentiles [those not knowing God] also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, exclude from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness (Ephesians 4.17-19). This is the natural progression in the flight from God. The drive to self-gratification opens up into a life without boundaries, where nothing is forbidden—if one can get away with it. Why is replaced with Why not? And because this is what these gods want—total license—God abandons them to a worthless or nonfunctional (adokimon) mind—that is, a mind that simply does not work. “As they did not see fit to center their knowledge upon God, God released them into the grip of a non-functional mind, to do what is indecent,” reports Romans 1.28. The outcome is a humanity “filled with unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

And although they still know of the condemnation of Go on such things, “they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them,” reports Romans 1.29-32. O Lord, Who hast borne our weak flesh to be glorified with Thee in Heavenly places, take away the foulness of our sins, and restore to us the dignity of our first estate; that by believing in Thee we may be able thither to ascend, wither we now believe Thee to have really ascended. “And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged. Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly be a child of Christ,” reports Moroni 7.18-19. Lord God Almighty, thy understanding is unsearchable and infinite, thy arm cannot be stayed, thy agency extends through limitless space, all works hang on thy care, with three time is a present now. Holy is thy wisdom, power, mercy, ways, works. How can I stand before thee with my numberless and aggravated offences? I have often loved darkness, observed lying vanities, forsaken thy given mercies, trampled underfoot thy beloved Son, mocked thy providences, flattered thee with my lips, broken thy covenant. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

It is of thy compassion that I am not consumed. Lead me to repentance, and save me from despair; let me come to thee renouncing, condemning, loathing myself, but hoping in the grace that flows even to the chief of sinners. At the cross my I contemplate the evil of sin, and abhor it, look on one whom I pierced, as one slain for me, and my me. May I never despise his death by fearing its efficacy for my salvation. And whatever cross I am required to bear, let me see him carrying a heavier. Teach me in health to think of sickness, in the brightest hours to be ready for darkness; in life prepare me for death. Thus may my soul rest in thee, O immortal and transcendent one, revealed as thou art in the Person and work of thy Son, the friend of sinners. Saviour and Lord, Who, ascending into Heaven, wast pleased to show Thyself in glory to the eyes of beholders, while Thou didst promise to come as our Judge in like manner as Thou hadst ascended; make us to welcome this feast-day of Thine Ascension with pure and devout hearts; that we may in such wise ascend continually in Thee to a better life, that when Thou comest to the judgment, we may see Thy face and not be confounded. O God, Who hast gone up on high, leading captivity captive, bestow on beings the gifts of eternal peace: and as by ascending into Heaven Thou hast withdrawn Thyself corporeally from human eyesight, be Thou graciously pleased to enter our hearts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Knowledge of the HOLY One is Understanding—I Know that is a Secret, for it is Whispered Everywhere!

January 21, 2020 2:35 am

War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace. You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Today’s pressures on the principalship show no signs of decreasing their intensity. Future challenges include encouraging dispersed yet centered leadership, creating a cohesive community out of increasingly diverse populations, being responsible without being in charge, changing rapidly in response to social needs without leaving people behind, building trust and confidence in an openly cynical society, and caring for people while challenging them to grow. Together, these challenges will continue to fill every day with problems to solve, puzzles to unravel, and paradoxes to manage and endure. The whole ask of psychotherapy is the task of dealing with a failure in communication. The emotionally maladjusted person, the “neurotic,” is in difficulty first, because communication within oneself has broken down, and second because, as a result of this, one’s communication with others has been damaged. If this sounds somewhat strange to you, then let me put it in other terms. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

In the “neurotic” individual, parts of oneself which have been termed unconscious, or repressed, or denied to awareness, become blocked off so that they no longer communicate themselves to the conscious or managing part of oneself. As long as this is true, there are distortions in the way one communicates oneself to others, and so one suffers both within oneself, and in one’s interpersonal relationships. The task of psychotherapy is to help the person achieve, through a special relationship with a therapist, good communication within oneself. Once this is achieved one can communicate more freely and more effectively with others. We may say then that psychotherapy is good communication, within and between people. We may also turn that statement around and it will still be true. Good communication, free communication, within or between beings, is always therapeutic. It is, then, from a background of experience with communication in counseling and psychotherapy, that I want to present to you tonight two ideas. I wish to state what I believe is one of the major factors in blocking or impeding communication, and then I wish to present what in our experience has proven to be a very important way of improving or facilitating communication. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

I would like to propose, as an hypothesis for consideration, that the major barrier to mutual interpersonal communication is our very natural tendency to judge, to evaluate, to approve or disapprove, the statement of the other person, or the other group. Let me illustrate my meaning with some very simple examples. As you leave the meeting tonight, one of the statements you are likely to hear is, “I did not like that man’s talk.” Now what do you respond? Almost invariably your reply will be either approval or disapproval of the attitude expressed. Either you respond, “I did not either. I thought it was terrible,” or else you tend to reply, “Oh, I thought it was really good.” In other words, your primary reaction is to evaluate what has been said to you, to evaluate it from your point of view, your own frame of reference. Or take another example. Suppose I say with some feeling, “I think the Republicans are behaving in ways that show a lot of good sound sense these days,” what is the response that arises in your mind as you listen? The overwhelming likelihood is that it will be evaluative. You will find yourself agreeing, or disagreeing, or making some judgment about me such as “He mist be a conservative,” or “He seems solid in his thinking.” Or let us take an illustration from the international scene. Russian says vehemently, “The treaty with Japan is a war plot on the part of the United States.” We rise as one person to say “That is a lie!” #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

This last illustration brings in another element connected with my hypothesis. Although the tendency to make evaluations is common in almost all interchange of language, it is very much heightened in those situations where feelings and emotions are deeply involved. So the stronger our feelings the more likely it is that there will be no mutual element in the communication. There will be just two ideas, two feelings, two judgments, missing each other in psychological space. I am sure you recognize this from your own experience. When you have not been emotionally involved yourself, and have listened to a heated discussion, you often go away thinking, “Well, they actually were not talking about the same thing.” And they were not. Each was making a judgment, an evaluation, from one’s own frame of reference. There was really nothing which could be called communication in any genuine sense. This tendency to react to any emotionally meaningful statement by forming an evaluation of it from our own point of view, is, I repeat, the major barrier to interpersonal communications. However, is there any way of solving this problem, of avoiding this barrier? I think that we are making exciting progress toward this goal and I would like to present it as simply as I can. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Real communication occurs, and this evaluative tendency is avoided, when we listen with understanding. What does this mean? It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, to sense how it feels to one, to achieve one’s frame of reference in regard to the thing one is talking about. Stated briefly, this may sound absurdly simple, but it is not. It is an approach which we have found extremely potent in the field of psychotherapy. It is the most effective agent we know for altering the basic personality structure of an individual, and improving one’s relationships and one’s communications with others. If I can listen to what one can tell me, if I can understand how it seems to one, if I can see its personal meaning for one, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for one, then I will be releasing potent forces of change in one. If I can really understand how one hates one’s father, or hates the university, or hates corruption—if I can catch the flavor of one’s fear or of insanity, or one’s fear of atom bombs, or of Russia—it will be of the greatest help to one in altering those very hatreds and fears, and in establishing realistic and harmonious relationships with the very people and situations toward which one has felt hatred and fear. We know from our research that such empathic understanding—understanding with a person, not about one—is such an effective approach that it can bring about major changes in personality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Some of you may be feeling that you listen well to people, and that you have never seen such results. The changes are very great indeed that your listening has not been of the type I have described. Fortunately I can suggest a little laboratory experiment which you can try to test the quality of your understanding. The next time you have words with your wife, or your friend, or with an experiment, institute this rule. “Each person can speak up for the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker’s satisfaction.” You see what this would mean. It would simply mean that before presenting your own point of view, it would be necessary for you to really achieve that other speaker’s frame of reference—to understand one’s thoughts and feelings so well that you could summarize them for the individual. Sounds simple, does it not? However, if you try it you will discover it is one of the most difficult things you have ever tried to do. However, once you have been able to see the other’s point of view, your own comments will have to be drastically revised. You will also find the emotion going out of the discussion, the differences being reduced, and those differences which remain being of a rational and understandable sort. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

If it were projected into larger areas, can you imagine what this kind of an approach would mean? What would happen to a labor-management dispute if it was conducted in such a way that labor, without necessarily agreeing, could accurately state management’s point of view in a way that management could accept; and management, without approving labor’s stand, could state labor’s case in a way that labor agreed was accurate? It would mean that real communication was established, and one could practically guarantee that some reasonable solution would be reached. If then this way of approach is an effective avenue to good communication and good relationships, as I am quite sure you will agree if you try the experiment I have mentioned, why is it not more widely tried and used? I will try to list the difficulties which keep it from being utilized. In the first place it takes courage, a quality which is not too widespread. If you really understand another person in this way, if you are willing to enter one’s private World and see the way life appears to one, without any attempt to make evaluative judgments, you run the risk of being changed yourself. You might see it one’s way, you might find yourself influenced in your attitudes or your personality. This risk of being changed is one of the most frightening prospects most of us can face. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

It I enter, as fully as I am able, into the private World of a neurotic or psychotic individual, is not there a risk that I might become lost in that World? Most of us are afraid to take that risk. Or if we had a Russian communist speaker here tonight, or Senator Joseph McCarthy, how many of us would, after the shock of him being alive wore off, dare to try to see the World from each of these points of views? The great majority of us could not listen; we would find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening would seem too dangerous. So the first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it. However, there is a second obstacle. It is just when emotions are strongest that it is most difficult to achieve the frame of reference of the other person or group. Yet, if communication is to be established, this is the time the attitude is most needed. We have not found this to be an insuperable obstacle in our experience in psychotherapy. A third party, who is able to lay aside one’s own feelings and evaluations, can assist greatly by listening with understanding to each person or group and clarifying the views and attitudes each holds. We have found this very effective in small groups in which contradictory or antagonistic attitudes exist. When the parties to a dispute realize that they are being understood, that someone sees how the situation seems to them, the statements grow less exaggerated and less defensive, and it is no longer necessary to maintain the attitude, “I am 100 percent tight and you are 100 percent wrong.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The influence of such an understanding catalyst in the group permits the members to come closer and closer to the objective truth involved in the relationship. In this way mutual communication is established and some type of agreement becomes much more possible. So we may say that though heightened emotions make it much more difficult to understand with an opponent, our experience makes it clear that a neutral, understanding, catalyst type of a leader or therapist can overcome this obstacle. This last phrase, however, suggests another obstacle to utilizing the approach I have described. Thus far all our experience has been with small face-to-face groups—groups exhibiting industrial tensions, religions tensions, racial tensions, and therapy groups in which many personal tensions are present. In these small groups our experience, confirmed by a limited amount of research, shows that a listening, empathic approach leads to improved communication, to greater acceptance of others and by others, and to attitudes which are more beneficial and more problem-solving in nature. There is a decrease in defensiveness, in exaggerated statements, in evaluative and critical behavior. However, these findings are from small groups. What about trying to achieve understanding between larger groups that are geographically remote? Or between face-to-face groups who are not speaking for themselves, but simply as representatives of others, like the delegates at the United Nations? #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Frankly we do not know the answers to these questions. I believe the situation might be put this way. As social scientists we have a tentative test-tube solution of the problem of breakdown in communication. However, to confirm the validity of this test-tube solution, and to adapt it to the enormous problems of communication breakdown between classes, groups, and nations, would involve additional funds, much more research, and creative thinking of a high order. Even with our present limited knowledge we can see some steps which might be taken, even in large groups, to increase the amount of listening with, and to degrease the amount of evaluation about. To be imaginative for a moment, let us suppose that a therapeutically oriented international group went to the Russian leaders and said, “We want to achieve a genuine understanding of your views and even more important, of your attitudes and feelings, toward the United State of American. We will summarize and resummarize these views and feelings if necessary, until you agree that our description represents the situation as it seems to you.” Then suppose they did the same thing with the leaders in our own country. If they then gave the widest possible distribution to these two views, with the feelings clearly described but not expressed in name-calling, might not the effect be very great? It would not guarantee the type of understanding I have been describing, but it would make it much more possible. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

We can understand the feelings of a person who hates us much more readily when one’s attitudes are accurately described to us by a neutral third party, than we can when one is shaking one’s fist at us. However, even to describe such a first step is to suggest another obstacle to this approach of understanding. Our civilization does not yet have enough faith in the social sciences to utilize their findings. The opposite is true of the physical sciences. During the war when a test-tube solution was found to the problem of synthetic rubber, millions of dollars and an army of talent was turned loose on the problem of using that finding. If synthetic rubber could be made in milligrams, it could and would be made in the thousands of tones. And it was. However, in the social science realm, if a way is found of facilitating communication and mental understanding in small groups, there is no guarantee that the finding will be utilized. If may be a generation or more before the money and the brains will be turned loose to exploit that finding. Our research and experience to date would make it appear that breakdowns in communication, and the evaluative tendency which is the major barrier to communication, can be avoided. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

The solution is provided by creating a situation in which each of different parties comes to understand the other from the other’s point of view empathically, and who thus acts as a catalyst to precipitate further understanding. This procedure has important characteristics. It can be initiated by one party, without waiting for the other to be ready. It can even be initiated by a neutral third person, provided one can gain a minimum of cooperation from one of the parities. This procedure can deal with the insincerities, the defensive exaggerations, the lies, the “false fronts” which characterize almost every failure in communication. These defensive distortions drop away with astonishing speed as people find that the only intent is to understand, not judge. This approach leads steadily and rapidly toward the discovery of truth, toward a realistic appraisal of the objective barriers to communication. The dropping of some defensiveness by one party leads further dropping of defensiveness by the other part, and truth is thus approached. This procedure gradually achieves mutual communication. Mutual communication tends to be pointed toward solving a problem rather than toward attacking a person or a group. It leads to a situation in which I see how the problem appears to you, as well as to me, and you see how it appears to me, as well as to you. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Thus accurately and realistically defined, the problem is almost certain to yield to intelligent attack, or if it is in part insoluble, it will be comfortably accepted as such. This then appears to be a test-tube solution to the breakdown of communication as it occurs in small groups. Can we take this small scale answer, investigate it further, refine it, develop it and apply it to the tragic and well-nigh fatal failures of communication which threaten the very existence of our modern World? It seems to me that this is a possibility and a challenge which we should explore. When my first wife—who is not with the Lord—and I were married, we asked that the following Scripture, which we felt God had given us as a promise, be read at our wedding: “They will by my people, and I will be their God, I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul,” reports Jeremiah 32.28-41. Note the expression of God’s goodness. He will give us singleness of heart for our own good of our children. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

God will never stop doing good to us, in fact He will rejoice in doing us good. This sounds appropriate, does it not, for two young people committed to service in full time? However, this assurance of God’s goodness was not originally given to people who were serving God or who “deserve” His goodness. Instead it was given to a group of people who were described by God as those who “have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth” (verse 30). These people were in captivity in Babylon because of their sins over many generations. Just a few chapters before in Jeremiah, God has said to these people: This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” reports Jeremiah 29.10-11. The goodness of God is demonstrated in His assurance of plans to prosper them and not to harm them. Note in verse 10 that God refers to His gracious promise, that is, a promise given freely without regard to the fact that they obviously did not deserve it. Here we see a vivid illustration of the truth of Samuel Storms’ statement that grace is no longer grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the present of human demerit. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

If anyone qualified for demerits, surely the Israelites in captivity did. Yet God promised to prosper them, to rejoice in doing them god. Another insight into God’s gracious disposition is found in the prophecy of Joel. Joel prophesied judgment through a tremendous invasion of locusts that would devour all the trees and plants, resulting in widespread famine in the land. Then Joel looked forward to a day of restoration, a day when the trees would again bear fruit, the threshing floors would again be filled with grain, and the vats overflow with new wine and oil. In the midst of the prophecy of restoration, God made the following promise: “I will replay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locust and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you,” reports Joel 2.25. Consider the amazing generosity of God. He does not limit His promise merely to restoring the land to its former productivity. He says He will repay them for the years the locusts have eaten, years that they themselves forfeited to the judgment of God. God could well have said, “I will restore your land to its former productivity, but it is too bad about those years you lost. They are gone forever. That is the prince you pay for sin.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

God would have been generous just to have restored them, but He went beyond that. God would cause their harvests to be so abundant they would recoup the losses from the years of famine. God says He will repay them, though He obviously owes them nothing. From time to time I have opportunity to minister individually to people who in some way have really “blown it” in life. For some, it may have been before they became Christians; for others it occurred while they were believers. Usually these people lament their “lost” years, the years when they served sin instead of God, or years that were wasted as Christians. I try to encourage these people about the grace of God. I cannot promise them God will “repay” those lost years as He did for the Israelites, but I can assure them that it is God’s nature to be gracious. I encourage them to pray to this end and to realize, as they pray, that they are coming to a God who does not withhold His grace because of demerits. “For behold, if a person being evil giveth a gift, one doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto one the same as if one had retained the gift; wherefore one is counted evil before God. And likewise also is it counted evil unto a being, if one shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it porfiteth one nothing, for God recevieth none such,” reports Moroni 7.8-9. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast vouchsafed the Paschal mystery in the covenant of a being’s reconciliation; grant unto our souls, that what we celebrate by our profession we may imitate in our practice; through Jesus Christ our Lord who will bless us with everlasting love and eternal life. O God the Holy Spirit, Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son, have mercy on me. When thou didst first hover over chaos, order came to birth, beauty robed the World, fruitfulness sprang forth. Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart; take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts; life the mists and darkness of unbelief; brighten my soul with the pure light of truth; make it fragrant as the garden of paradise, rich with every goodly fruit, beautiful with Heavenly grace, radiant with rays of divine light. Fulfill in me the glory of thy divine offices; be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier; take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul; through thee may I daily learn more of God’s love, grace, compassion, faithfulness, beauty; lead me to the cross and show me His wounds, the hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan; may I there see my sins as the nails that transfixed him, the cords that bound him, the thorns that tore him, the sword that pierced him. Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, “It is finished.” Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of atonement achieved, expiation completed, satisfaction made, guilt done away, my debt paid, my sins forgiven, my person redeemed, my soul saved, hell vanquished, Heaven opened, eternity made mine. O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons. Write them upon my heart, that my walk be sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ-loving; and suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me. O God, Who by Christ’s Resurrection restores us to life eternal; raise us up to the Author of our salvation, Who is seated at Thy right hand that He Who came to be judged for our sake, may come to judge in our favour, Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, Who with thee we may enter he shrine of Heaven, and that we may abandon bleak despair and hard cynicism. Lord, please keep us from becoming engulfed in the agency of moral wickedness. Let us take your unseen hand and may you be our personal saviour or spiritual guide, whether dead or alive—someone who we believe to have come to enlighten human kinds. Lord, become our secret refuge, and may we deserve your grace. May our intellectual effort be sustained beyond the stage of ordinary beings in which we now rest. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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Tell Me that I Will Always be the One that You Want, Do Not Know What I Would do if I Ever Lose You!

January 15, 2020 4:59 am

Well, now, there is a remedy for everything except death. Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that! It is not what name others call you that matters, but name you respond to that truly determines who you are. If asked in a poll, although most people would say they believe in God, and though church attendance still remains high and confessions of atheism are relatively rare, it is still perfectly clear that the crisis in modern society has also had a negative effect on religion. Theologians themselves have realized this and have spoken quite openly about the anguish religion as we know it is currently going through. The development began centuries ago, but the closer we come to the present, the greater its rate of acceleration has been. Because religion fulfills a double function, its collapse leaves us with a double loss. Our religion, based primarily on the Judeo-Christian tradition, provides us with both an explanation of the natural World and moral principles—an ethic. Those two functions have nothing to do with each other, for how you explain the natural World is one thing, and what moral principles and values you have is quite another. However, the two functions were not originally separated, and there are a number of reasons why not. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

First of all, the idea that the World was created by a God who incorporated in Himself the highest intelligence, wisdom, and power was a plausible, indeed, a rational hypothesis. And even if you are a convinced Darwinist who sees the development of the World and of humans as a consequence of natural selection or mutation, you may still feel that the population of God the Creator is much easier to understand and accept than the rather complex alternative; for evolutionary theory claims that humans in their present form are the product of certain principles that went into effect hundreds of millions of years ago and that are to some degree subject to pure chance or, at best, to the laws of natural selection. Dr. Darwin’s explanation of the natural World seems altogether logical and plausible, but despite that it remains alien to our minds. Here is a story illustrating the profound corruption of the soul. It is a story about a church that would generally be regarded as successful or prosperous. Whether real or imagined, I leave you to ponder. In actuality you will find many churches that are a close fit to this description. The church in question was founded out of conflict in another church. It called its first pastor, and things seemed to be going well until that pastor committed adultery, and used to church funds to buy a brand new Mercedes Benz because one of the young women in the church had the most expensive Mercedes-Benz. The pastor also committed various other improper financial acts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

The congregation dismissed the pastor, and a second pastor was appointed. He was very popular and the church grew, but he resigned after four years from stress, or an episode of neurosis, depending on whom you believed. A third pastor came and was quite popular. Again, the church grew, but after a while he started giving himself salary raises, which the congregation did not knowingly approve. After ten years he left, started another church within ten miles of his former church, and took three hundred members with him. A fourth pastor was called. Everything seemed fine. Then he has an affair involving pleasures of the flesh with another man, which he eventually disclosed to his board and staff, after being caught in the church bathroom with his britches down around his ankles in the throes of passion, and he expected them to cover it up. In the midst of much lying and discord in the board and staff, the church seemed to go on as before. Of course the people in the community came to know about the affair anyway. A year or so later the pastor received a call from a larger church a two-hour drive away. He took the position, leaving behind a congregation, board, and staff full of strife and anger. This all happened in cone congregation over a period of thirty-six years. I use this story because, in the language of Peter, “judgment must begin at the house of God.” It is there we see soul ruin at its greatest. If we cannot simply do what is right there, where can we? #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The story is also illustrative of the extent to which sin, in a form everyone plainly recognizes as such, undermines even the efforts of Christ’s own people to be his people. That is its power. Although the degree and details differ, the story of this church is—in spite of come very fine exceptions—all too common. (Leading Christian magazines now feature regular sections where the sad story is told month by month.) I have also chosen the story as an illustration because a major part of the response by Christians to manifest sin, in this case, was to cover it up. This is not uncommon. No doubt it was “for the sake of the ministry,” as is usually said. The “confessions” of various pastors were often half-truths or less and were clearly matters of a formality which would, supposedly, allow the pastors and staff members to “get on with God’s business.” The exist of the last pastor left the church board and staff bitterly divided over the issues of loyalty to the former pastor and over whether or not the truth of what had happened should be publicly stated. A long period followed in which almost every meeting was filled with anger and tension and in which people retreated into their various camps, hardly speaking to each other. The words of James ring true: “Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice,” reports James 3.16. Most Christians have never been in an intimate fellowship where the corrupted condition of the human soul did not in fact prevail—that is, in a fellowship in which they could assume that everyone would do what everyone knew to be right. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

And many people in our culture have, on the basis of their experiences, simply given up on the church—many of them in the name of God and righteousness. However, it is still a known fact that you have had church members who have tried to kill others by poisoning them and stating that they have a right to do so. What kind of God are those type of people serving? Satan. In a period of a few weeks, some years back, three nationally known pastors in California were publicly exposed for sins involving pleasures of the flesh. That is wat is now called “news.” However, pleasures of the flesh are far from being the only problem. The presence of vanity, egotism, hostility, fear, indifference, racism, homophobia, class discrimination, and down right meanness can be counted on among professing Christians. Maybe the need artificial sweetener in their sweet tea to add a little more Southern charm and pleasantness to their personality? Their opposites cannot be counted on or simply assumed in the “standard” Christian group; and the rare individual who exemplified them—genuine purity and humility, death to selfishness, freedom from rage and depression, and so on—will stand out in the group with all the obtrusiveness of a sore thumb. He or she will be a constant hinderance in the group process and will be personally conflicted by those processes, for he or she will not be living on the same terms as the others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Now for the rest of the verse from Peter: “If judgment first begins at the house of God, what shall be the outcome for those who give no heed to the gospel of God? And if it is difficult for the righteous to be saved, what will happen to the Godless and rebellious,” reports 1 Peter 4.17. It really may be about the same outside as within. The daily news, courts, law offices, community, family, and educational and penal institutions provide a constant outpouring of wrongness and wrongdoing that wells up from the malformed human spirit, mind, soul, body, and social context. Diogenes, the ancient Greek, lit a lantern and walked the streets of Athens at noonday looking for an honest man. He never found one, it is said. However, as in the church, so in life generally, a few ready to deal with the realities of the deeper self, in themselves or in others. And those few are not exactly welcomed by others. Sokrates tried to deal with the realities of the soul Athens and was killed for it. This is the customary fate of the “prophet.” Jesus was not crucified for saying, “Behold the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they spin,” but for saying, “Behold the Pharisees, how they steal.” Humans have always had a need, even in their earliest, most primitive stages, to form a picture of the World and of its creation. One version of the creation that goes back in time claims that human beings were made out of blood that flowed from someone who had been killed. Not everyone was made of that blood, however. Only the brave were. Cowards and women were made from the flesh of the two legs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

That is an ancient version of the theory that Konrad Lorenz has put forward, namely, that human beings have n inborn instinct to kill, a blood lust. It was nice, of course, of the people who believed in the myth to exempt women from that blood lust, but it was not so nice of them then to throw women in with the cowards. Things have not changed much even today. According to the prejudices of modern society, women have less conscience, are more vain and cowardly, and are less realistic than men. Now all those claims are notoriously false. In many cases the shoe could easily be put on the other foot. Most women know what a pathetic figure a man can cut when he is unwell. He is much more given to self-pity and much less secure than a woman, in some cases. However, no one admits that for fear of destroying the myth. We see the same thing happening here that we see in racial stereotypes. What men say about women has no more basis in fact that what democrats say about republicans. Even Dr. Freud claimed that women have less conscience than men. Now I find it hard to imagine how anybody could have less conscience than men. What those claims, are, of course, is nothing more than propaganda about the inferiority of an enemy, which is a tactic the main stream media uses against anyone they do not like these days. The news should actually be called the propaganda department, much of what they report is sleezy gossip and malicious lies. The meteorologist used to be considered the biggest liars and unreliable, now it is the anchors and field reporters who are consider liars and incompetent. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

That kind of propaganda turns up whenever one group dominates another and discourages rebellion by holding the self-confidence of the dominated group down to an absolute minimum. That is by way of a little footnote to one of the functions of religion I mentioned above, to wit, an explanation of the natural World. Everything went along just fine until sin and dysfunction became acceptable. Dr. Darwin taught us that if we looked at creation of the World and of humans from a rational and scientific point of view we could dispense with the idea of God and explain those phenomena by the laws of evolution. It is easier for the average person to grasp the idea of God, but for science after Dr. Darwin the creation was no longer a mystery. In the light of the theory of evolution, “God” was reduced to a working hypothesis and the story of the creation of the World and of humans to a myth, a poem, a symbol, which clearly expressed something but could no longer be regarded as scientific truth. We have rejected the attempt to restrict love to its emotional element. However, there is no love without the emotional element, and it would be a poor analysis of love which did not take this element into consideration. The question is only how to relate it to the ontological definition of love. One can say that love as an emotion is the anticipation of the reunion which takes place in every love-relation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Love, like all emotions, is an expression of the total participation of the being which is in an emotional state. In the moment in which one is in the fulfillment of the desire for reunion is anticipated and the happiness of this reunion is experienced in imagination. This means that the emotional element in love does no precede the others ontologically but that the ontologically founded movement to the other one expressed itself in emotional ways. Love is a passion: this assertion implies that there is a passive element in love, namely the state of being driven towards reunion. Infinite passion for God, no less then the passion of the flesh, a consequence of the objective situation, namely of the state of separation of those who belong together and are drive towards each other in love. The ontology of love is tested by the experience of love fulfilled. There is a profound ambiguity about this experience. Fulfilled love is, at the same time, extreme happiness and the end of happiness. The separation is overcome. However, without the separation there is no love and no life. It is the superiority of the person-to-person relationship that it preserves the separation of the self-centered self, and nevertheless actualizes their reunion in love. The highest form of love and that form of it which distinguishes the Old World and the New World cultures is the love which preserves the individual who is both the subject and the object of love. In the loving person-to-person relationship Christianity manifests its superiority to any other religious tradition. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

To be everywhere primarily and absolutely, is proper to God. Now to be everywhere primarily is said of that which in its whole self is everywhere; for if a thing were everywhere according to its parts in different places, it would not be primarily; thus if a being has white teeth, whiteness belongs primarily not to the man but to his teeth. However, a thing is everywhere absolutely when it does not belong to it to be everywhere accidentally, that is, merely on some supposition; as a grain of millet would be everywhere, supposing that no other body existed. It belongs therefore to a thing to be everywhere absolutely when, on any supposition, it must be everywhere and this properly belongs to God alone. For whatever number of places be supposed, even if an infinite number be supposed besides what already exist, it would be necessary that God should be in all of them; for nothing can exist except by Him. Therefore to be everywhere primarily and absolutely belongs to God and is proper to Him: because whatever number of places be supposed to exist, God must be in all of them, not as to a part of Him, by as to His very self. The universal, and also primary matter are indeed everywhere; but not according to the same mode of existence. Number, since it is an accident, does not, of itself, exist in place, but accidentally; neither is the whole but only part of it in each of things numbered; hence it does not follow that it is primarily and absolutely everywhere. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

The whole body of the Universe is everywhere, but not primarily; forasmuch as it is not wholly in each place, but according to its parts; nor again is it everywhere absolutely, because, supposing that other places existed besides itself, it would not be in them. If an infinite body existed, it would be everywhere; but according to its parts. Were there one animal only, its soul would be everywhere primarily indeed, but only accidentally. When it is said that the soul sees anywhere, this can be taken in two senses. In one sense the adverb “anywhere” determines the act of seeing on the part of the object; and in this sense it is true that while it sees the Heavens, it sees in the Heavens; and in the same way I feels in the Heavens; but it does not follow that it lives or exists in the Heavens, because to live and to exist do not import an act passing to an exterior object. In another sense it can be understood according as the adverb determines the act of the seer, as proceeding from the seer; and thus it is true that where the soul feels and sees, there it is, and there it lives according to this mode of speaking; and thus it does not follow that it is everywhere. Once the religious explanation of the natural World lost its power to convince, religion lost some authority. All that remained for it to stand on was the propagation of moral postulates. “Love thy neighbor,” the Old Testament says. “Love the stranger.” The New Testament says, “Love your enemies.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

How can anyone who takes those instructions seriously be successful in modern society? Anyone who follows those precepts is a fool. One will fall behind, not get ahead. We preach the moral precepts of the Bible but do not practice them. We run on two separate tracks. Altruism is praised; we are supposed to have love for our neighbors. However, at the same time the pressure to succeed keeps us from practicing these virtues. In my opinion it is altogether possible in our society to be a good Christian or a good Jew, that is, a loving human being, without starving to death. What matters is your level of competence and the courage needed to adhere to the truth and persist in love rather than give yourself up for the sake of your career. However, all that notwithstanding, it remains a fact that Christian or Jewish morality maybe incompatible with the morality of success, of ruthlessness, of selfishness, of not giving, of not sharing. Since that point will be obvious to anyone who reflects on it, I need not dwell on it here. Anyway, this double standard in our morality has been described and criticized often. To sum up, then, the ethic that dominates in modern capitalism has amputated religion’s others foundation of authority. Religion no longer functions as a promulgator of values, for people no longer trust it in that role either. God has abdicated both as the creator of the World and as the spokesperson for values like love of neighbor and the overcoming of greed. However, humanity does not seem either willing or able to do without religion entirely. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Humans do not live by bread alone. One has to have a vision, a faith, that awakens one’s interest and elevates one above mere animal existence. A regression to earlier heathenism and worship of idols holds no attraction for modern humans, but I think we can say that our century is developing a new religion, one I would like to call the religion of technology. There are two particular aspects of this religion I would like to mention here. One is the promise the Trump Tower, the dream of unlimited and instant gratification. New needs are being produced every minute; there is no end to them; and humankind, like an eternal suckling babe, waits with an open heart, expecting to receive consideration and concern and unconditional love, and expecting to be fed more and more delicious food and sweet, nourishing nectar. This is a paradise of total gratification, a paradise of superfluity that makes us lazy and passive. Technology’s goal becomes the elimination of effort. The other aspect of this religion is more complex. Ever since the Renaissance, humanity has concentrated its intellectual efforts on penetrating and understanding nature’s secrets. However, nature’s secrete were, at least to some extent, also the secrets of nature’s creator. For four hundred years humans have invested their energies in plumbing nature’s mysteries so that one will be able to control nature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

One’s most deep-seated motive was to cease being a mere spectator of the natural World and to become able to create that World oneself. It is difficult to express precisely what I want to say here, but if I were to state what I mean in its most radical form, I would have to say: Humans wanted to become God. What God was able to do, humans wanted to be able to do, too. I think the spectacle and the enthusiasm we witnessed when the astronauts first set foot on the Moon had the quality of a pagan religious ceremony. That moments represented the human’s first step on the way to overcoming one’s human limitations and becoming God. Even Christian newspapers were saying that the conquest of the Moon was the greatest thing to happen since the creation of the Universe. Now it is a bit imprudent of Christians to say that—after the creation itself—there is another event more important tan the Incarnation. However, that was all forgotten in the moment when people were themselves witness to the fact of human’s stepping outside the laws that hard limited one before, overcoming the force of gravity, and setting on a path to infinity. It is God making the impossible possible, much like he may one day allow humans to discover the secrete to resurrection and immortality. I mean, in the 1970s, liver transplants where not possible, in the 1800s, humans could not fly into space and now they can. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Technology emerging as a new God, perhaps an extension of God’s power. That is why scientists have to coverup what they are doing and humans rationalize their advancements because there are things most people do not have the mental ability to recreate. Technology is becoming the Great Mother who will feed all her children and satisfy all their demands. Technological capability has become a moral obligation, and has become the very source of our morality. If God is dead, then anything would be permitted, but then the World He created would also cease to exist. If people no longer believe in God, if God was no longer a reality that forms their thoughts and actions, then we have a good reason to ask whether they will not become totally immortal, whether they will not stop looking to any kind of moral principles for guidance. That is a question we have to take seriously, and if we are feeling pessimistic, we may conclude that it is exactly what has happened and that our morality is continuing to decline all the time. There are significant differences between now and earlier times. In 1914, for example, the warning nations adhered to two internationally accepted rules. Civilians were not killed, and no one was tortured. Today it is taken for granted that civilians will be killed in the course of any and all hostilities, because warring parties no longer accept any limitations on their use of forces. Then, too, technology cannot make allowances for that kind of differentiation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Technology kills anonymously, like Agent Orange, which was manufactured by Dole, the same people you buy fruits and vegetables from. And if you did not know, Agent Orange not only killed people, but it caused cancer and alter army’s DNA and some of them passed on birth defects to their children. Leaders kill these days with sprays or by pressing a button, and unlike people impacted by 9/11 or other weed killer, Dole has never had to compensate their victims. Because people do not see their opponent of their fighter supporting them, they are not moved by sympathy or compassion. Some people actually find it funny to tease people who have cancer or who have been injured because of war, because it makes them feel better about their pathetic lives, unattractiveness and lack of success. And torture is the rule today, not the exception. Everyone tries to deny that, but it is generally known fact. The use of torture to obtain information is widespread and even used by politics like Jerry Brown, Kevin Johnson, Gavin Newsom and Darrel Steinberg. We would be astonished to know in how many counties, cities, states, and countries of the World torture is used. Perhaps we need not say that cruelty is on the increase, but it would be hard to deny that humanity and the moral prohibitions that go with it are declining. That has brought about a great change in the World, but on the other hand we can see that new moral principles are coming to the fore; we find them in the younger generation, for example, in their struggle for peace, for life, against destruction and war. They are not just mouthing empty phrases. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Many people and not just young ones are insisting that we learn to live in a World of law and order, kindness and fairness, love and harmony. They are reestablishing their allegiance to God. Billions of people have become sensitive to the destruction of life on so many fronts, to inhumane wars in which there is not even a pretense of self-defense. We see a new mortality of love taking shape, too, in opposition to the consumer society. The new morality may have its flaws, but it remains impressive in its protest against empty forms and words. We see evidence of a new morality, too, in the self-sacrifices made in the political realm, in the numerous struggles for liberation and self-determination that are going on today. Those are encouraging developments. God and other religions like Buddhism provide us with a glowing example of how come cultures develop moral principles. Those principles are rooted and flourish in humane soil. Human beings cannot live and be happy without God because when they do not acknowledge His authority, they seem to lose sight of what is good and righteous. We cannot, however, force God on people, he granted them free will. To be of God is something that has to emerge from them. People have to be deeply rooted in need to act morally. Immortality cases them to lose their inner harmony and balance. And it is immortality going under the guise of mortality if people are told that they have to kill, that they have to obey, that they should pursue only their own selfish interests, that sympathy will be a hindrance to them, and so forth. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

If voices of that kind grow too loud they can drown out a person’s own inner voice, the voice of one’s humanistic conscience. That it why so many people are turning the news and radio off. It is evil mixed in with entertainment. Otherwise they will get the idea that God is dead, politicians are their only hope, and everything is permitted. “And the church did meet together off, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls. And they did meet together oft to partake in nourishment in remembrance of the Lord Jesus,” reports Moroni 6.5-6. It is very meet and right, with all powers if heart and mind, and with the service of the lips, to praise the invisible God, the Father Almighty, and His Only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, Who paid the debt of Adam for us to the eternal Father, and effaced the bond of the ancient guilt by the Blood poured forth in loving-kindness. For this is the Paschal festival in which that true Lamb is slain, and the door-posts hallowed by His Blood: in which first Thou didst bring our fathers, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, and madest them to pass over the Red Sea dry-shod. This then is the night which cleared away the darkness of sin by a pillar of radiance. This is the night which now throughout the World restores to grace and unties to holiness believers in Christ, separated from Worldly vices and from the gloom of sin. This is the night in which Christ broke the bonds of death, and ascended a Conqueror from the grave. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

For to be born had been no blessing to us, unless we could have been redeemed. O the wonderous condescension of Thy loving-kindness towards us! O the inestimable tenderness of Thy love! To redeem the servant, Thou gavest up the Son. This holy night, then, puts to flight offences, washes away sins, and restores innocence to the fallen, and joyousness to the sad. O truly blessed night which spoiled the Egyptians and enriched the Hebrews—the night in which Heaven and Earth are reconciled! We pray Thee therefore, O Lord, that Thou wouldest preserve Thy servants in the peaceful enjoyment of this Eternal happiness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord Jesus, if I love thee my soul shall seek thee, but can I seek thee unless my love to three is kept alive to this end? Do I love thee because thou art good, and canst alone do me good? It is fitting thou shouldest not regard me, for I am vile and selfish; yet I seek thee, and when I find thee there is no wrath to devour me, but only sweet love. Thou dost stand as a rock between the scorching Sun and my soul, and I live under the cool lee-side as one elect. When my mind acts without thee it spins nothing but deceit and delusion; when in my affections act without thee noting is seen but dead works. O how I need thee to abide in me, for I have no natural eyes to see thee, but I live by faith in one whose face to me is bright than a thousand Suns! #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

When I see that all sin is in me, all shame belongs to me; let me know that all good is in thee, all glory is thine. Keep me from the error of thinking thou dost appear gloriously when some strange light fills my heart, as if that were the glorious activity of grace, but let me see that the truest revelation of thyself is when thou dost eclipse all my personal glory and all the honour, pleasure and good of this World. The Son breaks out in glory when he shows himself as one who outshines all creation, makes people poor in spirit, and helps them to find their good in one. Grant that I may distrust myself, to see my all in thee. It is my experience of World-wandering that those who most know truth are themselves the least known among people. This is partly because so few seek that kind of truth which is theirs—the highest—partly because it is their own wish to remain inaccessible to all except these few seekers, and partly because their completely ego-free character is utterly without any ambition to put themselves forward in public under any pretext whatsoever, whether to gain the benefits and advantages of such a position or to practise so-called service. However, eager a Master may be to reveal truth, one is forced, by indifference and miscomprehension of the World, to conceal it. It is not an isolation due to arrogance, to too high a notion of one’s own status. It is the others who are really apart, by their animalism or egotism. One is not alien to humanity but only alien to what is low and bestial in humanity. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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A Well-Written Life is Almost as Rare as a Well-Spent One!

January 10, 2020 4:52 am

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Randolph Harris II International Institute

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