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It is Time to Start Considering Your God—He is the All-Powerful Creator of the Universe!

March 1, 2020 1:45 am

Fear of failure brings fear of taking risks and you are never going to get what you want out of life without taking some risks. Diabasis is a center for dealing with acutely schizophrenic young persons that was established by John W. Perry, M.D., a respected Jungian analyst. Diabasis is a Greek word meaning “crossing over.” Dr. Perry had had twenty-five years of experience in dealing with psychotics in various settings. He had become increasingly convinced that most schizophrenic episodes were actually a chaotic but vital attempt at growth and self-healing, and that is such an “Individual” (he dropped the term patient) were treated as a person and provided with a close and trusting relationship, she could, in a relatively short time, live through this crisis and emerge stronger and healthier. Dr. Perry and Dr. Howard Levine, another Jungian analyst, set up Diabasis to implement this view more fully than could be done in a psychiatric hospital. The first step was to select a staff. Paper credentials were disregarded. The criteria for selection consisted of attitudes. They chose people, mostly young, who showed in their training seminars an ability to relate to withdrawn individuals who were preoccupied with events in their inner Worlds. Many of these young volunteers were members of the counter-culture. They knew that it was to be alienated. Often they had been on drug trips—good and bad. They were not frightened by bizarre thoughts or behaviour. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

The home that housed Diabasis had room for only six Individuals, plus volunteers and minimal house staff. It is a non-authoritarian, non-judgmental milieu in which each individual (staff as well as client) is allowed to express oneself in whatever modes one chooses, emotionally, artistically, and physically. Clients at every point of their psychosis are regarded as being in a legitimate state and are not compelled to conform to rational modes of behaviour. Instead the psychotic individual is accepted in two important ways. One is accepted by everyone in the house as going through a stressful period of growth during which one needs understanding and companionship. Of importance is the special relationship with one staff person, who thoroughly invests oneself in building a trusting closeness with the troubled person. Whenever possible the Individual selects this special person with whom to work. Dr. Perry describes well the reason for this special staff member. “The inner journey or renewal process tends to remain scattered, fragmented, and incoherent until the point at which the individual begins to open up to another person enough to entrust to one one’s inner experience as it unfolds. When this happens the content of one’s symbolic experience becomes intensified, and thereupon apparently moves ahead in a more progressive fashion toward its conclusion. It is often surprising how ‘psychotic’ and yet at the same time coherent the patient’s communication can be, providing one feels related to the therapist.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

The same point is made by a young man who worked for two years at Diabasis, first as a volunteer, recently on the paid staff. He says: “We feel that what is called madness can best be understood as a journey of exploration and discover, regulated by the psyche, in which the various elements of the personality can be recognized in a more fruitful and self-fulfilling way. This process can only occur, however, in an environment in which these altered states of consciousness are respected as valid ways of being, rather than being derided as ‘crazy’ and of no value.” The contrast with the medical model of treatment of psychosis could scarcely be greater. Under the medical model, this individual is first of all a patient rather than a person. She is diagnosed, and either explicitly or implicitly is given to know what she has an “illness,” a craziness, which is to be eliminated by heavy medication or shock therapy, or even restraint if necessary, until her “illness” is eradicated. It is clear that there is something “wrong” with her state. “In the traditional settings there is massive use of medication and behavioural restraint in the early phase of the treatment to suppress the psychotic material. There is no attempt to see the material as useful to the individual involved. Thus, after control of the psychosis has been established, no efforts are made to integrate the material into the ongoing life of the individual.” It is a politics of suppression and control by professional power, and it has a very poor record, as indicated by the “revolving door” syndrome of psychiatric hospitals. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

In Diabasis, as in any person-centered therapy, the politics is completely reversed. The philosophy of therapy is, in this case, not one of imposing order from above downwards by a regimen of strict management, but rather it is a more fluid one of sensitively following the Individual’s concerns as they evolve through the process in order to catalyze it. Then a democratic structure of the ward community is the appropriate form, in which ordering and integrating are expected to emerge from the spontaneous concerns and feelings and insights f both resident Individuals and staff together. This means that the Individual provides the leads, points the directions one needs to go. Empathically, the therapist and the other house staff act as companions in following those leads, without sacrificing their own feelings or their own personhood. The non-rational concerns of the client are given a full hearing and, to the best of the staff’s ability (which increases with experience) are empathically understood, as a necessary and deeply meaningful inner journey. The nurses take their cues from the Individual and these closer staff companions. The psychiatrist assists in helping them all understand the directions they are taking, but in no sense directs the process. Essential power and control thus flow upward from the psychotic person and one’s needs, to the dedicated house staff, to the nurses and psychiatrists. It is a complete reversal of traditional hierarchical, psychiatric treatment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

This focus on the person is evident in the highly equalitarian atmosphere. Staff and Individuals eat together, dress as they desire. The casual visitor would have no way of knowing who was client and who was staff. This whole atmosphere has permeated the organization as well. From the first the administration of Diabasis became the province of the whole staff rather than of a director. The power, responsibility, and decision-making are shared by all. Democracy can be recognized as a state of psychic development in which the ordering and ruling principle is realized as belonging essentially within the psychic life of the individual. The social structure and culture established in the therapeutic milieu should be a reflection of this natural need, a fitting external expression of what is happening in depth. In person-centered therapy, the traditional organization, with power flowing down from the top, becomes totally inappropriate and ridiculous. The immediate result of this whole program on the psychotic individual is dramatic. What has been most remarkable and beyond all of our expectations, is that individuals in acutely psychotic turmoils very rapidly settle down and become clear and coherent, usually within a period of a few days to a week, and without the use of medication. Thus severely disturbed behaviour becomes manageable when staff relate with feeling to the individual’s emotional state. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

Although the history of this unique place is brief, the outcome appears to be good. One indication is that four former clients (Individuals) are already on the staff of a conceptually similar small institution. They are now able to use their own past experience to help others. The cost is far less than in the usual facility. And it seems to have left behind the “revolving door” experience of the state hospital. It is reasonable to suppose that this innovative, helpful new mode of dealing with the young person during one’s first psychotic episode would be widely hailed and eagerly supported. Not so. To understand the reasons, we needs to look at the politics of Diabasis, and the threat it constitutes to the traditional politics. It is easy to see why orthodox psychiatrists and even Jungian colleagues look upon Diabasis with uneasiness and criticism. At Diabasis the best therapists often have proven to be relatively untrained paraprofessionals. This is disturbing to the ordinary professional. They are mostly volunteers, thus posing a vague economic threat. There is no strict medical control, in the ordinary sense. This offends physicians. The doctors do not even use their prerogative to prescribe medication. Dr. Perry thinks he has given two tranquilizers in the past ten months! The organization itself is not directed by physicians. They are simply facilitators of a process. This is staggering departure from tradition. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

Consequently there is grumbling and criticism about ow standards. Financial support is very difficult to come by. Like all person-centered therapy, it is revolutionary in its implications, and the professional establishment is fearful of it. To see psychiatrists relinquishing control of “patients” and staff, to see them serving only as successful facilitators of personal growth for deeply troubled “insane” persons rather than being in charge of these people is, I am sad to say, a very frightening scene to psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals. Revolutionaries are seen as dangerous—and there is no doubt that they are dangerous to the established order. A person-centered approach, when utilized to encourage the growth and development of the psychotic, the troubled, or the normal individual, revolutionizes the customary behaviours of members of the helping professions. It illustrates many things: A sensitive person, trying to be of help, becomes more person-centered, no matter what orientation one starts from, because one finds that approach more effective. When you are focused on the person, diagnostic labels become largely irrelevant. The traditional medical model in psychotherapy is discovered to be largely in opposition to person-centeredness. It is found that those who can create an effective professionally trained group. The more this person-centered approach is implemented and put into practice, the more it is found to challenge hierarchical models of treatment and hierarchical methods of organization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

The very effectiveness of this unified person-centered approach constitutes a threat to professionals, administrators, and others, and steps are taken—consciously and unconsciously—to destroy it. It is too revolutionary. This brings us to a core issue in understanding the relationship of the law of God to the grace of God. (Law is used here as a summation of God’s moral commands.) Under the reign of grace, is the moral will of God, considered as a whole, a request or a command? This question is not a theoretical exercise in semantics. The word request connotes desire; whereas the word command connotes authority to require. Response to a desire is optional; response to a command is not. So when Jesus said we love Him by obeying His commands, was He using the word command are we ordinarily understand it, or was He using it as an expression of God’s desire? In the realm of grace, does the moral will of God express the desire of God as to how He would like us to live, or does it express the requirement of God as to how are to live? Some people believe that, under grace, God’s law no longer has the meaning of requirement but is an expression of His desire. They would readily say God desires that we be holy, but God does not require that we be holy. They maintain that we have been freed, not only from the curse and condemnation resulting from breaking the law, but also from the requirements of the law as a rule of life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

They believe that to insist on obedience as a requirement for a Christian is to teach legalism instead of grace. In other words, to assign the concept of requirement to the will of God is legalism, but to assign the concept of desire to it is grace. I believe such a view is a misunderstanding of grace. God’s grace does not change the fundamental character of God’s moral law. Rather, the grace of God provides for the forgiveness and acceptance of those who have broken the law. The good news of the gospel is that God has removed the guilt we incur by breaking His law and has bestowed on us the righteousness of Christ, who perfectly kept His law. Legalism does no consist in yielding obedience to the law. Rather, it is to seek justification and good standing with God through the merit of works done in obedience to the law—instead of by faith in Christ. We need to always keep in mind that God is not only our Saviour and Heavenly Father through Christ, but He is also still God, the supreme Ruler and moral Governor of His creation. The sons and daughters of a kind are still under obligation to bey the laws their father has decreed for his realm, even thought they are his children. They are no more exempt from the laws than any other citizen. Even when the children of the king freely and willingly obey the laws, because they love their father and understand and agree with the laws he has pronounced, they are still subject to the laws of the realm. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

So we as God’s children are subject to the laws of His realm. Out of a response to His grace, we should obey in a loving and grateful way. And, because God has written His law on our hearts, we will, as a rule, be in agreement with His law written in His word. However, we are still to regard God’s law as commands to be obeyed, not merely as expressions of His desires. Along the highways in the United States of America we have white speed limit signs and yellow speed advisory signs. The speed limit signs declare the law of the state. The speed advisory signs caution you to slow down, perhaps because an upcoming curve is too tight to be rounded at the legal speed limit. You can be fined for exceeding the posted speed limit because you have broken the law of the state. You will not be fined for exceeding the advisory speed because you have not broken any law. The law of God is like the white speed limit sign. It is the declared law of the realm. Some have broken that law many times, but Christ has paid our “fine” (which is death) for us. However, His paying our “fine” did not abolish the law. Christ’s death did not, so to speak, change a speed limit sign to a speed advisory sign. God’s law has not become optional because of His grace, merely advisory to keep us from getting hurt as we go through life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

So the fundamental character of God’s law has not changed. What has changed is our reason for obedience, our motive under a sense of legalism, obedience is done with a view to meriting salvation or God’s blessing on our lives. Under grace, obedience is a loving response to salvation already provided in Christ, and the assurance that, having provided salvation, God will also through Christ provide all else that we need. There is no question that obedience to God’s commands prompted by fear or merit-seeking is not true obedience. The only obedience acceptable to God is constrained and impelled by love, because “love is the fulfillment of the law,” reports Romans 13.10. God’s law as revealed in His Word prescribes our duty, but love provides the correct motive for obedience. We obey God’s law, not to be loved, but because we are loved in Christ. I readily acknowledge that it is indeed difficult to keep in our minds and hearts the commandment nature of God’s will without falling into the trap of legalism. It is a hard lesson to live above the law, and yet to walk according to the law. However, this is the lesson a Christian has to learn, to walk in the law in respect of duty, but to live above it in respect of comfort, neither expecting favour from the law in respect of one’s obedience nor fearing harsh treatment from the law in respect of one’s failing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

Ironically, the law of God, viewed as commands to be obeyed, should actually promote living by grace. When we view God’s commands as optional—or think that as God’s children we are no longer under the law as a moral requirement—we subtly slip into a works mentality. If obedience to God’s law is optional, then in our minds we begin to accumulate merit or extra points. After all, we did not have to obey, so we must gain some merit by voluntary obedience. However, the person who knows that one is required to obey God’s commands, even as a child of God, will see more and more how far short one comes in obedience. And if that person understands the biblical concept of grace, one will be driven more and more into the arms of the Saviour and His merit alone. You have got to get people lost before you can get them saved. Only those who recognize they are lost will turn to the Saviour. The Lord Jesus stated the same principle: “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners,” reports Matthew 9.13. This principle applies to us even as believers living under grace. We do not have to get lost time and again, but we certainly need to be reminded that we are still sinners. The best way to do this is to take seriously the commands of God as a required rule of life. As we do, we will be continually reminded that we really are spiritually bankrupt—even as believers. And as redeemed sinners in a perpetual state of bankruptcy, we will come to appreciate more each say the superabounding grace of God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

So, then, God’s law, as a rule of life, is not opposed to grace. Rather, used in the right sense, it is the handmaid of grace. Or, to use an analogy, it is like a sheepdog that keeps driving us back into the fold of grace, when we stray out into the wilderness of works. The difference between the impossible and the possible is possessed in a person’s determination. Do those persons who are muted to self, who easily and regularly deny their self, have any mere sensitivity to self left? I think we will never be totally above such sensitivity. There is no reason we should be. Mere sensitivity to self is not itself wrong or sinful, so long as we do not welcome it or allow it to take over our actions and lives. (Recall the distinctions earlier drawn between the “thought of sin,” inclination, or temptation and sin itself.) As I grew older, some of the things I liked as a child, like video games, and climbing trees I grew out of. Yet, I became quite vain and dependent upon what others thought and said about me. A major part of my spiritual struggle in my late teens and early twenties was with vanity. I wanted to praise. In time. By God’s grace I became substantially—not totally—delivered, through prayer on Scripture, general studies, solitude, prayer, service to others, and just experience, along with the movements of grace in my heart and soul. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Perhaps I am rarely governed by vanity now—others, of course, must be the judge of that—but it is still something I frequently feel. And I know that it could be something that controls my feelings and behaviour were I to let it or were God to abandon me to it. Choose evermore rather to have less than more. Seek ever the lower place and to be under all. Desire ever to pray that the will of God be all and wholly done. So, such a one enters the land of peace and quiet. If this plan were followed and were sufficiently accompanied by the movements of God’s spirit within us, we might make substantial progress toward the Character of Christ. One’s desire, is the one design of one’s life, namely not to do our own will, but to do the will of God. One’s only intention at all times and in all things is, not to please oneself, but God whom our souls love. One has a body full of light and is focused on God. Indeed, where the loving eye of the soul is continually fixed upon God, there can be no darkness at all, but the whole is light; as where the bright shining of a candle doth enlighten the house. God then reigns alone. All that is in the soul is holiness to the Lord. There is not a motion in one’s heart, but is according to God’s will. Every thought that arises points to God, and in one’s obedience to the law of God. This may be a bit more than many people could find credible for this life, but it is clearly the direction in which we can and should be moving as apprentices of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

What we surely can say is that those who are dead to self are not controlled in thought, feeling, or action by self-exaltation or the will to have their own way, but are easily controlled by the love of God and neighbour. They still have some sensitivity to self-will, no doubt, and are never totally beyond the possibility of falling under subjugation to it. Only a proper discipline and grace will prevent this from actually happening. However, they no longer are locked in a struggle with it. Signs of Contract, are either Expressed, or By Inference. Expressed, are words spoken with understanding of what they signify; and such words are either of the time Present, or Past; as, I Give, I Grant, I Have Given, I Have Granted, I Will That This Be Yours: Or of the future; as, I Will Give, I Will Grant; which words of the future, are called Promise. Signs by Inference, are sometimes the consequences of Words; sometimes the consequences of Silence; sometimes the consequences of Actions; sometimes the consequence of Forbearing an Action: and generally a sign by Inference, of any Contract, is whatsoever sufficiently argues the Will of the Contractor. “And gain, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, though the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without a spot,” reports Moroni 10.33. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

We beseech Thee, O Lord, be gracious to Thy people, that they, abhorring day by day the things which displease Thee, may be more and more filled with the love of Thy commandments, and being supported by Thy comfort in this mortal life may advance to the full enjoyment of life immortal; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, may Thy Spirit speak in me that I may speak to thee. I have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for me. I am undeserving, but I look to Thy tender mercy. I am full of infirmities, wants, sin; thou art full of grace. I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my willful sin; all my powers of body and soul are defiled: A fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. There are chambers of foul images within my being; I have gone from one odious room to another, walked in a no-man’s-land of dangerous imaginations, pried into the secrets of my fallen nature. I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself; I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles; I am a fading lead that the wind drives away; I live bare and barren as a Winter tree, unprofitable, fit to be hewn down and burnt. Lord, doest Thou have mercy on me? Thou hast struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false God of self, and I lie in pieces before thee. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

However, Thou hast given me another Master and Lord, Thy Son, Jesus and now my heart is turned towards holiness, my life speeds as an arrow from a bow towards complete obedience to thee. Help me in all my doings to put down sin and to humble pride. Save me from the love of the World and the pride of life, from everything that is natural to fallen human, and let Christ’s nature be seen in me day by day. Grant me grace to bear Thy will without repining, and delight to be not only chiseled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long; and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ forever. Make us, O Lord, to flourish like pure lilies in the courts of Thine house, and to show forth to the faithful the fragrance of good works and the example of a Godly life, though Thy mercy, O God. God, Whoever lovest what is true, and bringest to light what is hidden, Who wast pleased to come into the Virgin’s womb for the Word’s salvation; sprinkle us with the hyssop of Thy word, and purify us from our iniquities; and mercifully pour into our souls a right spirit to call upon Thee; through Thy mercy, and love we may be saved. You are equipped, empowered, and anointed by the Creator of the Universe for all He has planned for you. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

CRESLEIGH MEADOWS AT PLUMAS RANCH

Plumas Lake, CA | from the mid $300’s

Now Selling!

It is time for us all to stand and cheer the doer, the achiever–the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it. Cresleigh Meadows is now selling! Found just north of Feather River Boulevard, Cresleigh Meadows is home of the largest neighborhood in Plumas Ranch as well as the popular Bear River Park. With four floor plans available, ranging from approximately 2,000 – 3,500 square feet offering, three to five bedrooms, we are certain you will find the home that fits your needs and lifestyle.

Popular design elements include open floor plans, large kitchen islands, and flex spaces are staples in Cresleigh homes. Multi-generational living options also available in select homes. Featured above is residence 3 which is 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bedrooms and 2,871 square feet all on one level, which is larger than most two story homes, so it feels expansive! Integrity is honesty carried through the fibers of the being and the whole mind, into thought as well as action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential of leadership. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-3/

No Dreams Put in Your Heart by God are too Big to Accomplish!

February 28, 2020 11:58 pm

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong. Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it is amazing what they can accomplish. If we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern people, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. I have come a long way and laid a lot of ink on the pulp of dead trees; it is not time to justify this expenditure of nature’s bounty, not to mention the reader’s indulgence. The only way to do this would be to show that what we know about humans tells us about the possibilities for humans, even though we have sketched a rather pathetic portrait of them. If we have really gotten at what makes people act the way they do, at basic human motives, then we have really gotten at what makes people act the way they do, at basic human motives, then we can really talk intelligently to the question that is the most intimate to our heart—what people have always yearned to know, namely, What is possible? As far as the science of humans is concerned, many thinking since the Enlightenment have believed that everything is possible for a science of society. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

Rousseau, Marx, Owens—the whole school of utopian socialists and still today modern revolutionaries in all continents believe that everything is possible for a science of society. All we have to do, they claim, is to change the structure of things and a new society will emerge like a splendid phoenix free of all impurity and evil, because evil lies not in the hearts of humans but in the social arrangements that people take for granted. Humans forget, how things were in the beginning, free and equal under tribalism; they grow up under the news system of kingship and the state and so they imagine that things were always this way and they accept them without complaint. Some even say it is a “sign of the times.” In other words, they are saying dysfunction and deviance is normal and we should get used to it. “And wo unto them who shall do these things away and die, for they die in their sins, and they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God; and I speak in accord to the words of Christ; and I lie not,” reports Moroni 10.26. People live abased under tyranny and self-delusion because they no longer understand the conditions of natural freedom. Revolutionaries still today trumpet this philosophy of history as the fall of pure humans into corrupt social structures. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

The reason the philosophy is so attractive is that people need hopes and ideals to urge them on—they need possibility, belief in themselves in order to even try to make things better. All truths are part-truths as far as creatures are concerned, and so there is noting wrong with an illusion that is creative. Up to a point, of course: the point at which the illusion lies about something very important, such as human nature. If it is false to that, then it becomes oppressive, because if you try falsely to make a new beginning you fail. I know that this bit of wisdom is already stale to our epoch, but even in its staleness we cannot let go of it. We still live in its shadow: the state tyranny is steady, daily, empirical reminder of the costs of ignoring the psychology of humans. Marxism in its traditional form is simply not a correct guide for a new society. However, the irony is that we simply do not know what to do with the stale truth. That is why there is such a crisis in Marxist thought, in leftist-humanist thought. What is a truly mature, sophisticated Marxism? And if we put such a thing together, where does it point on the problems of society? Does the union of Marx and Dr. Freud eclipse the Enlightenment vision for a science of society? If not, what kind of science can we imagine and work toward? These are the vital, aching questions of the contemporary scientific conscience; what kind of answers does our present knowledge suggest? #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

Well, for one thing—one great thing—we now see history as it really has been in terms of overall psychodynamics. Fromm the outside a saga of tyranny, violence, coercion; from the inside, self-delusion and self-enslavement. From earliest times people asked to be mystified, and right away there were those ready to fill the role. People put on the chains imposed by the powers of dead ancestors, then shamans, priests, divine kings, heads of state. Today we understand the inner dynamics of this long history of self-abasement: people need transference in order to be able to stand life. People immunize themselves against terror by controlling their fascination, by localizing it and developing working responses toward the sources of it. The result is that one becomes a reflex of small terrors and small fascinations in place of overwhelming ones. It is a force and necessary barter: the exchange of unfreedom for life. From this point of view history is the career of a frightened animal who has to deaden oneself against life in order to live. And it is this very deadening that takes such a toll of others’ lives. All organisms want to perpetuate themselves, continue to experience and to live. It is a great mystery that we do not understand but observe every day: we are amazed, as we try to club a concerned pest, how frantically he or she wants to live. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

All animals are this frantic, without even knowing what death means; they probably only sense the danger of crushing opposing power; this is as far as the “instinct of self-preservation” takes them, out of the way of what threatens to overwhelm and engulf them. For all organism, then, opposing and obliterating power is evil—it threatens to stop experience. However, people are truly sorry creatures because they have made death conscious. They can see evil in anything that wounds them, causes ill health, or even deprives them of pleasure. Consciousness means too that they have to be preoccupied with evil even in the absence of any immediate danger; their lives comes a meditation on evil and a planned venture for controlling it and forestalling it. The result is one of the great tragedies of human existence, what we might call the need to “fetishize evil,” to locate the threat to life in some special places where it can be placated and controlled. It is tragic precisely because it is sometimes very arbitrary: people make fantasies about evil, see it in the wrong places, and destroy themselves and others by uselessly thrashing about. This is the great moral of Melville’s Moby Dick, the specific tragedy of a man driven to confine all evil to the person of a white whale. The result is that he pulls down around his shoulders the lives of almost all those he comes in contact with. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

However, remember, God revealed Himself through Israel’s pain as the God Who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, of history. A complete national breakdown alone made the remnants of Israel ready to receive this revelation in its universal significance. However, whenever the Jewish nation used the revelation as an excuse for national pride, and transformed God into a merely national god, another breakdown followed. For God as a national god is always condemned by God the God of history. The mystery of Judaism today lies in that fact. Our prophet describes two very great figures: Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, the World-figure of his time, called by the prophet the shepherd and the anointed, the man of God’s counsel; and the servant of God who represents the saving power of innocent suffering and death. The glorious founder of the Empire had to be the servant of the servant of God. He had to liberate the remnants of Israel, out of which the suffering servant arose. I feel that the only solution of the historical problem today lies in the prophetic concept. For there are two forces in our battered World. One is the force of those who, like the suffering servant of God, exist, unseen, in all countries. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

We do not know where these servants live, or what they will make of the future. However, we know that they exist, and that their suffering is not vain. They are the hidden tools of the God of history. They are the aged and the children, the young men and the young women, the persecuted and the imprisoned, and all those sacrificed for the sake of the future, for one small stone in the building of the Kingdom of God, the cornerstone of which is the perfect Servant of God. And the second force of the World is the force of those who, like Cyrus, rules Empires, and incorporate all the shame and greatness of Empires. They are the people of God’s counsel, because they carry through His purposes in the service of the suffering servants of God. However, they are not aware that they are instruments, as Cyrus was not aware that he was God’s man of counsel. They do not know what shall become of their deeds. And if we look to them in our attempts to grasp the future, we shall now know either; if we look to them, we shall always remain in darkness. However, if we turn to the true servants and to the true God whom they serve, the God of history, we shall know the future. We can find the solution of the riddle of history as a whole, and of our particular history, in the figure of Cyrus in the service of the servant of God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

Whensoever a person Transferreth one’s Right, or Renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some Right reciprocally transferred to oneself; or for some other good one hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every person, the object is some Good To Oneself. And therefore there be some Rights, which no human can be understood by any words, or other signs to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a person cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault one by force, to take away one’s life; because one cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any Good to oneself. The same may be said of Wounds, and Chains, and Imprisonment; both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another be wounded, or imprisoned: as also because a person cannot tell, when one seeth people proceed against one by violence, whether they intend one’s death or not. And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring or Right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a human’s person, in one’s life, and in the means of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a person by words, or other signs, seem to despoil oneself of the End, for which those signs were intended; one is not to be understood as if one meant it, or that it was one’s will; but that one was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

The mutual transferring of Right, is that which people call CONTRACT. There is difference, between transferring of Right to the Thing; and transferring, or tradition, that is, delivery of the Thing itself. For the Thing may be delivered together with the Translation of the Right; as in buying and selling with ready money; or exchange of goods, or lands: and it may be delivered some time after. Again, on of the Contractors, may deliver the Thing contracted for on one’s part, and leave the other to perform one’s part at some determinate time after, and in the mean time be trusted; and then the Contract on one’s part, is called PACT, or COVENANT: Or both parts may contract now, to perform hereafter: in which cases, one that is to perform in time to come, being trusted, one’s performance is called Keeping Of Promise, or Faith; and the failing of performance (if it be voluntary) Violation Of Faith. When the transferring of Right, is not mutual; but one of the parties transferreth, in hope to gain thereby friendship, or service from another, or from one’s friends; or in hope to gain the reputation of Charity, or Magnanimity; or to deliver one’s mind from the pain of compassion; or in hope of reward in Heaven; this is not a Contract, but GIFT, FREE GIFT, GRACE: which words signify one and the same thing. “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,” reports 1 John 5.3. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

One issue believers frequently struggle with is the relationship between living by grace and obedience to God’s commands. However, nothing you ever do or do not do will make God love you any more of any less. Rather, God accepts you strictly by His grace through the merit of Jesus Christ alone. Such an unqualified statement about the love of God sounds exceedingly dangerous, leaving me open to the charge of saying in effect that God does not care whether you sin or not. But consider the alternative: “God loves you if you are obedient and does not love you if you are disobedient. Since God’s love is conditioned on obedience and you are never perfectly obedient, God never loves you perfectly of accepts you completely.” Such a bald description of the all-too-common works/merit way of thinking about our relationship with God puts the issue into focus. We are accepted by God, not only in salvation but also in our present relationship with Him, either on the merit of Jesus Christ or on the basis of our own performance. Are we to conclude, then, that since we are saved by grace and accepted by God continuously by grace He does not care whether we sin or not? To use Paul’s strong exclamation in Romans 6.2, “By no means!” Such a conclusions files in the face of all the ethical commands of the New Testament. Such a conclusion also ignores the very clear relationship that Jesus insisted on between love for Him and obedience to His commands. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

Our love for God, expressed through obedience to Him, is to be a response to His love, not a means of trying to earn it. “We love because he first loved us,” reports 1 John 4.19. It is not clear whether John was saying that we love God because He firs loved us, or that we love one another because God first loved us. It really does not make any difference in this discussion because both are true. Jesus said that love for God and for one another essentially sum up all this commands (see Mathew 22.36-40). So one clear evidence that we are living by grace is a loving obedience to the commands of God. Anyone who thinks, Since God’s love is not conditioned on my obedience, I am free to live as I please, is not living by grace, nor does one understand grace. What one perceives as grace is really a caricature of grace. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commands. Now a command suggests two things. First, it gives clear direction. We are told what to do or not to do. We are not left in doubt as to how we are to live. The commands in the Bible provide a clear set of moral standards. One very popular philosophy today is “situation ethics,” in which actions are morally evaluated in terms of a “loving” response to the situation at hand rather than by application of moral absolutes. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

Situation ethics knows no external, objective standard of behaviour. Rather, it responds to what “seems right at the moment.” The problem with this philosophy is, as Scripture says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure,” reports Jeremiah 17.9. Therefore, anything can be made to “seem right.” And because of the sinful nature still at work in us, this description of the heart is true to varying degrees even among believers. Through “Christianized” situation ethics, all kinds of sinful actions have been committed in the name of “love.” Christians have engaged in adultery—illicit pleasures of the flesh—on the pretense that they were acting in love toward a “lonely” or “hurting” person. Recently I heard of a man who allegedly conspired to have his incurably ill wife put to sleep because “she would be happier with Jesus.” This is the type of trap even Christians fall into when we do not let the commands of God give definition to love. An objective standard of love such as, “love does not commit adultery,” or “love does not murder,” should at least give people pause and certainly leaves them without excuse. God’s commands provide us this objective standard and, when obeyed, keep us from falling into situation ethics. “Do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is,” reports Ephesians 5.17. His will as used here is not His particular will for us in some issues of personal guidance; rather, it is His moral will as used, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 4.3: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

We should find out what pleases the Lord. To understand what the Lord’s will is and to find out what pleases the Lord are essentially the same; both expressions refer to the specific directions given in the ethical commands of Scripture. However, these verses are themselves commands. That is, we are commanded to know and understand the commands contained in Scripture. And quite obviously, we are to seek to know God’s will to obey it. As my first Bible study leader said many years ago, “The Bible was not given just to increase your knowledge, but to guide your conduct.” A command, however, is more than a set of directions. We have all heard the humorous statement, “When everything else fails, read the directions.” Such a statement suggests that direction are optional, that sometimes we can “muddle through,” sort of figuring out tings on our own without bothering to read the directions. Some Christians seem to think the commands of Christ are nothing more than a set of directions. If we follow them, they will helps us get through life without falling on our face and getting hurt too many times. However, the word command carries the idea of authority. The most basic meaning of the words is “to direct with authority.” A command does not just give guidance that one may accept or reject; a command implies that the one giving it has the authority to require obedience and the intention of doing so. This is true of the commands of God. As the Sovereign God of the Universe, he has the authority to require obedience and He does insist that we obey Him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

O God, Who didst mitigate the flames of fire for the Three Children; grant, we beseech Thee, that we Thy servants may not be burned by the flame of sins, through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who dwellest in the holy, and forsakes not pious hearts, deliver us from Earthly desires and carnal appetites; that no sin may reign in us, but that we may with free spirits serve Thee, our only Lord; though Jesus Christ. “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love of God with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God,” reports Moroni 10.33. O Changeless God, under the conviction of thy Spirit I learn that the more I do, the worse I am, the more I know, the less I know, the more holiness I have, the more sinful I am, the more I love, the more there is to love. O wretched human that I am! O Lord, I have a wild heart, and cannot stand before thee; I am like a bird before a man. How little I love thy truth and ways! I neglect prayer, by thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly, by knowing thou hast saved my soul. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite, who sins ore safely because grace abounds, who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them, who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for he is saved, who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives unholy. My mind if bucket without a bottom, with no spiritual understand, no desire for the Lord’s Day, ever learning but never reaching the truth, always at the gospel-well but never holding water. My conscience is without conviction or contrition, with nothing to repent of. My will is without power of decision or resolution. My heart is without affection, and full of leaks. My memory has no retention, so I forget easily the lessons learned, and thy truths seep away. Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. Pour out, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit of grace upon Thy family, and cast out from them whatever evil they have incurred by the fraud of the devil or by Earthly corruption; that being cleansed within and without, they may never render unto Thee a pure worship, and may the more readily obtain what they fitly and reasonable ask; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Uncommon faith believes above and beyond and gives you a boldness and a confidence to believe for the extraordinary. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

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God Has Blessed You with Gifts and Talents so that You May Impress this Generation!

February 28, 2020 12:50 am

Whatever natural endowments we bring to the role of leadership, they can be enhanced; nurture is far more important than nature in determining who becomes a successful leader. The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. God has in Himself all the power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you. However, there are times that try human’s souls. Historically we saw how this has worked in the dialogue between masses and power figures; but we also saw how human energy and fear created evil on the simplest levels of social organization. We talked mostly about spirit-power motives and guilt, but sometimes it was more simple and direct: it could be a matter of sheer physical appetite. Some tribes loved the taste of human flesh and incorporated captive men, women, and children with joy and gusto, with simple stomach motives, we might say—as in Melanesia and among some South American tribes. Sometimes men went to war out of personal frustration in the tribe, to work off jealousy dealing with pleasures of the flesh and grief, or even simple boredom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Life on primitive levels could be monotonous, and warfare was often the main source of new experience, travel, real stimulation. In fact, on the primitive level it is almost transparent that warfare was a “game” for appropriating others and enmeshing one’s life with them; we see this clearly among the Plains Indians, where warfare was often really a kind of athletic contest between tribes. However, organismic urges are by their nature sadistic, and primitive beings often wreaked evil on a captured enemy because of one’s desire to gloat and strut; one tortured to affirm oneself, to increase one’s own sense of importance by humiliating others. And so we see that even without spiritual motives, without otherworldly ambitions of any kind, humans cause evil as an organism by enjoying their feelings of animal power. Again, sheer energy causes evil. We can have no psychological evil unless we stress the driving personal motives behind human’s urge to heroic victory. It may seem on the surface that empty, passive, disinterested people are led like sheep to perform vicious acts, that humans easily loses their judgment in the crowd, that one gets carried away by numbers, by shouts, by cleverly phrased slogans and colourful banners—this we might call the “impressionable spectator” theory of aggression. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

No doubt there is considerable stimulus given to humans by the size and enthusiasm of the group around one. After all, one worships power and had to respond to the obvious power of numbers, thrill to the spectacle of masses; it is visible proof that nature favours humans if she has made their kind multiply so; she seems on the side of human’s victory. Another thing we see is that humans are stimulated to believe in their heroic destiny by the sight of another human face: it shows the miracle of creation shining out of humans, and the fact that this miracle has deep in its eyes and in its head the same beliefs as you, gives you the feeling that your very beliefs are supported by natural creation. Little wonder that the sight and feel of thousands of such miracles moving together with you gives such absolute righteous conviction. So there is no argument about the fact of mass enthusiasm; the question is how important it is as a cause of aggression. Perhaps it is the most important case, due to mental contagion and the herd mind. Why the contagion from the herd? The motive is in the person and not the character of the herd. We know how mobs can be stopped by stopping their leaders, or how panic breaks out when the leader is killed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Mobs identify with the leader, but beyond that we also see that humans bring their motives in with them when they identify with power figures. One is suggestible and submissive because one is waiting for the magical helper. One gives in to the magic transformation of the group because one wants relief of conflict and guilt. One follows the leader’s initiatory act because one needs priority magic so that one can delight in holy aggression. One moves in to kill the sacrificial scapegoat with the wave of the crowd, not because one is carried along by the wave, but because one likes the psychological barter of another life for one’s own. “You die, not me.” The motives and the needs are in people and not in situations or surroundings. It is true that human’s urge to self-transcendence, one’s devotion to a cause, has made more butchery than private aggressiveness in history, and the devastating group is hatred is fed by the love of its members, their willingness even to die in its name. We know that as soon as primitives developed identifiable gods and a large social conglomerate to give their loyalty to, their own natural sadistic appetites were translated into the large-scale sacrifices of others that we see in history: one no longer looked for a skull to eat the brains from, or to shrink for magic power, or to plant in ground facing the enemy so as to mock them—one now could not get enough skulls for paving the temple floor, as in Polynesia or West Africa. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

It is true that Adolf Eichmann, a German-Austrian SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, felt physically sick on the one occasion when he actually watched the deadly gas at work, which proves that he was not personally a sadist—but does not prove that he had no personal stake in the killing. People are torn in two by the contradictions that result from their needs and not by what they innocently get caught up in. When they are at their most sheepish and submissive, they are giving vent to the Agape urge in their nature; when they twist and turn to please the leader and the group, they are trying to qualify for absolute goodness and purity so as to be worthy of being included in their transcendence. The individual gives oneself to the group because of one’s desire to share in its immortality; we must say, even, that one is willing to die in order not to die. Another way of looking at this is to say that the basic general motive of humans—their need for self-esteem, for a feeling of primary value—is not a neural vessel. True, its contents vary with each individual and with each society; people learn different ways of feeling warm self-value. I myself have written and argued that the self-esteem motive is elastic and neutral, but I now see that this is not quite so. True, there are no instincts that absolutely determine when people should feel good about themselves. However, self-esteem is equivalent to “righteousness” or feeling “right.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Because self-esteem is linked to righteousness or feeling right, this means that self-esteem is based on an active passion: humans cannot feel right unless they live for the heroic victory over evil, the assurance of immortality. From the beginning, then, the self-esteem is loaded with this task universally, and given its form by how it resolves this task. Which, of course, is another way of saying that the self-esteem is based on the cultural continuation of the causa sui project in the child. This is how it has always been understood, only now we add that the character of this causa sui project is definite and inflexible: the securing of immortality (in whichever way this is understood by the individual and the society). Along with the we have to make an important addition to the approach to aggression. It is true that frustrated, deprived, weak, unindividuated people commit aggression very readily; clinical records are eloquent on this. It is true too that there are mechanical people who fear life, who need to control things with secure sense of power, who prefer inanimate objects to living ones, excreta. These are call “necrophiles,” or lovers of death, in opposition to “biophiles,” or lovers of life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

This is a valuable distinction in character structures because it helps us to focus on different ways of bringing up children which might lead to one or the other general orientation—to a love of life which develops sentiments of warm humanity or to a “syndrome of decay” which stifles these sentiments. If we could, we would certainly want to avoid raising generations of young who respect computers more than they do others. One explanation of the fact the World is now bordering on nuclear destruction, biological warfare, and the widespread prevalence of a modern Homo mechanicus. It may be that people do not fear total destruction because they do not love life, or are indifferent to it, or even are attracted to death, fascinated by the prospect of total destruction. From all we know, I think it would be nearer the truth to talk about a cultural type of being who earns ones immortality from identifications with the power of machines, rather than a simple lover of death, Mass destruction committed under the reign of God the Machine is a tribute to the expansion of an implacable, efficient force with which modern humans can identify—it would not be an attraction to the stillness of death itself. This attraction seems to me more of a Buddhistic sentiment—that is, the achievement of a certain kind of maturity and transcendence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The mechanical humans may scorn and fear living things, but I think it is precisely because one feels that they do not have the power over life and death that machines have; one’s eternity symbol is then the machine which transcends both life and death. Even for Hitler death was not an end in itself, but a power transformation. However, the fundamental Law of Nature, by which people are commanded to endeavour Peace, is derived that humans be willing, wen others are so too, as far-forth, as for Peace, and defence on oneself one shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other people, as one would allow other people against oneself. For as long as every being holdeth this Right, of doing anything one liketh; so long are all people in the condition of War. However, if other people will not lay down their Rights, as well as one; then there is no Reason for anyone, to devest oneself of one’s: For that were to expose oneself to Prey, (which no person is bound to) rather than to dispose oneself to Peace. This is that Law of the Gospel; “Whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. And that Law of all humans, Quod tibi feiri non vis, alteri ne feceris. To Lay Down a human’s Right to anything, is to Devest oneself of the liberty, of hindering another of benefit to one’s own Right to the same. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

For one that renounceth, or passeth away one’s Right, giveth not to any other human a Right which one had not before’ because there is nothing to which every human had not Right by Nature: but only standeth out of one’s way, that one may enjoy one’s own original Right, without hindrance from one; not without hindrance from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one human, by another humans defect of Right, is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of one’s own Right original. Right is laid aside, either by simply Renouncing it; or by Transferring it to another. By Simply RENOUNCING; when one cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By TRANSFERRING; when one intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person, or persons. And when a human hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away one’s Right; then is one said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that one Ought and it one’s DUTY, not to make void that voluntary act of one’s own: and that such hindrance is INJUSTICE, and INJURY, as being Sine Jure; the Right being before renounced, or transferred. So that Injury, or Injustice, in the controversies of the World, is somewhat like to that, which in the disputations of Scholars is called Absurdity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

For as it is there called an Absurdity, to contradict what one maintained in the Beginning one had voluntarily done. The way by which a person either simply Renounceth, or Transferreth one’s Right, is a Declaration, or Signification, by some voluntary and sufficient sign, or signs, that one doth so Renounce, or Transfer; or hath so Renounced, or Transferred the same, to one that accept it. And these Signs are either Words only, or Actions only; or (as it happeneth most often) both Words and Actions. And the same are the BONDS, by which people are bound, and obliged: Bonds, that have their strength, not from their own Nature, (for noting is more easily broken than a person’s word), but from Fear of some evil consequence upon the rupture. However, all this simply a minor dilemma of clarification of cultural and clinical types; it will take very much more work to sort these things out, and we may never be able to do it in any but a very gross and suggestive way. There is something much more crucial at stake. And we right away know what it is: not only weak, or mechanical, or pathological, or primitive and elemental types aggress, but also well fed, jolly ones—people who have had abundant childhood care and love. The man who dropped the atomic bomb is the warm, gentle boy who grew up next door. The kings of Dahomey who signaled annually for the heads of hundreds of murdered prisoners to be piled in heaps very likely had a child-rearing experience that could have been written about favourably. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The reason is absolute and simple: people aggress not only out of frustration and fear but out of joy, plenitude, love of life. People kill lavishly out of the sublime joy of heroic triumph over evil. Voila tout. What are clinical classifications and niceties going to do with that? It is true, I think, that a weak being will more easily, if punished, buy off one’s own death by taking another, and that strong being will be less likely to do this. It is true, too, that most people will not usually kill unless it is under the banner of some kind of fight against evil; in which one is tempted to blame the banner, the propaganda and artificial belief system, and not the people. However, banners do not wrap themselves around people: people invent banners and clutch at them; they hunger for believable words that dress life in convincing meaning. If they did not have nice words to speak (to make sense out of their occasions), people would die. They would die, not because words are nice trimmings to life, but because without words action stop dead, and when actions stops the gnawing realization of impotency and the dumb futility of animal life beings. Words abolish fear and embody hope in themselves. I think it is time for social scientists to catch up with Hilter as a psychologist, and to realize that if people are persuaded about the legitimacy of a cause, they will do anything for heroic belonging to a victorious cause. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

And I know no psychology, and so far no conditions on this Earth, which would exempt people from fulfilling one’s urge to cosmic heroism, which means from identifying evil and moving against it. In all cases but one this means moving also against individuals who embody evil. The one case, of course, is the teaching of the great religions, and in its modern guise pacifism, no nonviolence. This is a 2,000-year-old ideal at which descriptive psychology stops, since it is an ideal that has hardly yet made a dent in the affairs and minds of people. If you give people political and economic equality, they will still welcome unfreedom in some form. Conservatives must know that the freedom to obey or not to obey, to delegate one’s power to authority, is not so free: it is coerced in the very beginning and by the very nature of human’s perceptions of power and majesty. The talents that people use to amass wealth and social privilege may be due to some real differences in quality of mind and body; but the talent to mystify others is the queen of tyranny, and it is not all natural and neutral, but partly human-made—made by ignorance, thirst for illusion, and fear. As such, it is part of the scientific problem of human liberation, and is not destined to remain wholly in the natural order of things. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

If the complexities of the psychological dimensions of inequality and the unfreedom at the heart of human nature are sure to please no one who is firmly embedded in an ideological camp, then it becomes even more difficult to know what we are going to do about them or how we are going to approach them. However, few things seem clear: although the radicals may not like it, the science of society will have to go much more slowly and modestly than was at first realized by Rousseau and Marx. Unless, of course, it subserves violent revolution—in which case, as we have learned to our sorrow, the new society that comes into beings has even less a chance of being scientific. As for the conservatives, although they may shrink back in fear, there is nothing to prevent the science of humans from being absolutely critical and meliorative science of society that was envisioned in the Enlightenment. There is nothing in human nature that dooms in advance the most thoroughgoing social changes and utopian ambitions. It used to be thought, for example, that if human’s innate aggressiveness was a drive that had to find expression, then all societies had to have some means of “hate satisfaction.” Many of our best minds have been tortuously struggling with the implications of this: it did not seem possible to have any kind of humanistic, liberating social theory if humans carried within themselves the seeds of destructiveness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

And certain the facts of history of war and scapegoating seem to have been born out of a basic drive r a quantum of instinct, or instead results from the fear of death and impotency and can be relieved by a heroic victory over a hate object. A science of humans in society is possible even while admitting the most destructive motives of humans, precisely because these motives become open and amenable to clear analysis, to a tracing out of their total structure in the full field of human affairs as those affairs reflect the torments of human’s inner life, one existential paradoxes. A social ideal could be designed that takes into account human’s basest motives, but now an ideal not directly negated by those motives. In other words, hate object need not be any special class or race or even human enemy, but could be things that take impersonal but real forms, like poverty, disease, oppression, natural disasters excreta. Or, if we know that evil takes human form in oppressors and hangmen, then we could at least try to make our hatreds of people intelligent and informed: we could work against the enemies of freedom, those who thrive on slavery, on the gullibilities and weaknesses of their fellow humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

People hate and love according to their individual understandings and personal needs. The whole thrust of the science of humans since the Enlightenment has been after all a promise that objectivity about evil is possible. This objectivity about evil introduces what we might call the possibility of objective hatred. This clarification of hatred allows us, once more, to makes the circle on the timeless pleas for a moral equivalent to natural sadism, to hope to translate our self-expansion into a furtherance of life instead of the destruction of it. Finally, if we know that we ourselves hate because of the same needs and urges to heroic victory over evil as those we hate, there is perhaps no better way to begin to introduce milder justice into the affairs of humans. This is the great moral that was drew from our demonic times. when we expressed the moving hope that a day would come when each person would proclaim in one’s own fashion the superiority of being wrong without killing others than being right in the quiet of the charnel house. It is imperative that we grown in grace. The term growing in grace is most often used to indicate growth in Christian character. While I think that usage has merit, a more accurate meaning is to continually grow in our understanding of God’s grace, especially as it applies to us personally, to become progressively more aware of our own continued spiritual bankruptcy and the unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favour of God. May we all grow in grace in this sense. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

As we grow in grace this way, we will grow in our motivation to obey God out of a sense of gratitude and reverence to Him. Our obedience will always be imperfect in performance in this life. We will never perfectly obey Him until we are made perfect by Him. In the same way, our motives will never be consistently pure; there will frequently be some “merit points” mentality mixed in with our genuine reverence for God. So, if you realize your motives have been largely merit-oriented, do not be discouraged. Just begin now to move toward grace motives. Begin to think daily about the implications of the grace of God in your life. Memorize and pray frequently on such Scripture passages as Romans 12.1 and 2 Corinthians 5.14-15. Pray about the aspects of truth in those passages and ask God to motivate you by His mercy and love. When you recognize merit-oriented motives at work in you, renounce them and cast yourself completely on the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ. As you grown in grace in this way, you will indeed discover that His love compels you to live, not for yourself, but for Him who died for you and was raised again. The cultivation of a disposition to glorify God saves souls, as well does a knowledge of Scriptures. However, to imagine that none can teach you but those who are themselves saved form sin, is a very great and dangerous mistake. Give not place to it for a moment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

This over-idealization of the guru, so widespread could indicate an elementary stage. We may extend great reverence to the person who is worthy of it—saint or self-actualized—but we may bend the knee in worship only to the everlasting Spirit. No human being has the right to receive it, much less demand it, and it is idolatry to give it. One is a human being, after all, a person not a demigod. Worship of the human is not only irrelevant but also, in a sense, irreverent. We may admire one for one’s fine qualities but that does not mean we have to agree with one in all one’s views. So many teachers come to us with their doctrines. Who of them is right and who is wrong? Not because you think, “Our teacher is one to whom great deference is due,” should you accept a doctrine. A superficial emotional approach to truth is less concerned with the message than with the messenger, with thee ideas taught than with their human origin. Many people suffer from the bad consequences of an exaggerated respect for their spiritual guides whereas others may suffer from the consequences of an insufficient respect for them. “And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking our of the dust?” reports Moroni 10.27. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

In Thy mercy and majesty, O Lord, behold Thy household, that they may be neither stained with vices of their own, nor held in bondage by the sins of others; but that being ever freed and cleansed from both, they may do service unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Hear us, O Lord our God, and separate the hearts of Thy faithful people from the wickedness of the World; that they who call thee Lord with their own voice may not fall back into the service of the devil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, bend my hands and cut them off, for I have often struck thee with a wayward will, when these fingers should embrace thee by faith. I am not yet weaned from all created glory, honour, wisdom, and esteem of others, for I have a secret motive to eye my name in all I do. Let me not only speak the word sin, but see the thing itself. Give me to view a discovered sinfulness, to know that though my sins are crucified they are never wholly mortified. Hatred, malice, ill-will, vain-glory that hungers for and hunts after human’s approval and applause, all are crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in my sinful heart. O my crucified but never wholly mortified sinfulness! O my life-long damage and daily shame! O my indwelling and besetting sins! O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart! Destroy, O God, the evil guest within whose hidden presence makes my life a hell. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Yet Thou hast not left me here without grace; the cross still stands and meets my needs in the deepest straits of the soul. I thank thee that my remembrance of it is like David’s sight of Goliath’s sword which preached forth thy deliverance. The memory of my great sins, my many temptations, my falls, bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of thy great help, of thy support from Heaven, of the great grace that saved such a wretch as I am. There is no treasure so wonderful as that continuous experience of thy grace toward me which alone can subdue the risings of sin within: Give me more of it. “I declare these things unto the fulfilling of the prophecies. And behold, they shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the everlasting God; and his words shall hiss forth from generation to generation. And God shall show unto you, that that which I have written is true. And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, not the unclean thing,” reports Moroni 10.28-30. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that pressing onwards in Thy way with devout minds, we may escape the snares of the sins that beset us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray Thee, O Lord, be present to Thy suppliants; and amid the snares of a wicked World, protect our weakness with never-failing love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Immeasurable, Limitless, Surpassing Favour is Coming that Will Take You Beyond Previous Limitations!

February 27, 2020 2:02 am

We are in a giving society—but we cannot give what we do not have. It is impossible to be an inspirational leader on an empty spirit. We sometimes forget the importance of living balanced lives when the workload seems all-consuming of our time and energies. We seek to make order out of chaos. We need to take the time for infilling and reflection so that we have the inner resources that will enable us to continue to give to others. We know what a person thinks not when one tells us what one thinks, but by one’s actions. There is always war of everyone against every one hereby it is manifest, that during the time people live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war, as is of every person, against every person. For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battel is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of War; as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foul weather, lyeth not in shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: So the nature of War, consisteth not in actually fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

Whatsoever there is consequent to a time of War, where every being is Enemy to every being; the same is consequent to the time, wherein people live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place of Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of humans, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It may seem strange to some people, that has not well weighed these things; that Nature should thus dissociate, and render people apt to invade, and destroy one another: and one may therefore, not trusting to this Inference, made from the Passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by Experience. Let one therefore consider with oneself, when taking a journey, one arms oneself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, one locks one’s doors; when even in one’s house one locks one’s chests. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

And all these precautions are taken when one knows there are Laws, and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done one; what opinion one has of one’s fellow subjects, when one rides armed; of one’s fellow Citizens, when one locks one’s doors; and of one’s children, and servants, when one locks one’s chests. Does one not there as much accuse humankind by one’s actions, as I do by my words? However, neither of us accuse human’s nature in it. The Desires, and other Passions of humans, are in themselves no Sin. No more are the Actions, that proceed from those Passions, till they know a Law that forbids them; which till Laws be made they cannot know: nor can any Law be made, till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it. It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the World: but there are many places, where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small Families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be, where there were no common Power to fear; by the manner of life, which people that have formerly lived under peaceful government, used to degenerate into, in a civil War. To this war of every person against every person, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice. Force, and Fraud, are in war the two Cardinal virtues. Justice, and Injustice are none of the Faculties neither of the Body, nor Mind. If they were, they might be in a being that were alone in the World, as well as one’s Senses, and Passions. They are Qualities, that relate to people in Society, not in Solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no Property, no Dominion, no Mine and Thine distinct; but only that to be every humans that can get; and for so long, as one can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition, which humans by mere Nature is actually placed in; through with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the Passions, partly in one’s Reason. The Passions that incline people to Peace, are Fear of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

And Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace, upon which humans may be drawn to agreement. These Articles, are they, which otherwise are called Laws of Nature. The RIGHT OF NATURE, which Writers commonly call Just Naturale, is the Liberty each person hath, to use one’s own power, as one will oneself, for the preservation of one’s own Nature; that is to say, of one’s own Life; and consequently, of doing anything, which in one’s own Judgement, and Reason, one shall conceive to be the attest means thereunto. By LIBERTY, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external Impediments: which Impediments, ay often take away part of one’s power to do what one would; but cannot hinder one from using the power left one, according as one’s judgment, and reason shall dictate to one. A LAW OF NATURE, (Lex Naturalis,) is a Precept, or generall Rule, found out by Reason, by which a person is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of one’s life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which one thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound Just, and Lex, Right and Law; yet they ought to be distinguished; because RIGHT, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbeare; Whereas LAW, determineth, and bindeth to one of them: so that Law, and Right, differ as much, as Obligation, and Liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

And because the condition of Humans, is a condition of War of every one against every one; in which case everyone is governed by one’s own Reason; and there is nothing one can make use of, that may not be a help unto one, in preserving one’s life against one’s enemies; it followeth, that in such a condition, every human has a Right to everything; even to one anothers body. And therefore, as long as this natural Right of every human to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any person, (how strong or wise soever one be,) of living out the time, which Nature ordinarily alloweth people to live. And consequently, it is a precept, or general rule of Reason, “That every person, ought to endeavour Peace, as far as one has hope of obtaining it; and when one cannot obtain it, that one may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of War.” The first branch, of which Rule, containeth the first, and Fundamental Law of Nature; which is, “To seek Peace, and follow it.” The Second, the sum of the Right of Nature; which is, “By all means we can, to defend ourselves.” In the New Testament no one understood this better than the Apostle Paul. In fact, in his letter to the Philippians, after alluding to guarding the heart Paul prescribed his personal program in one sublime sentence: “Finally, brothers, 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. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

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. I have great sympathy for those whose past has been a series of bad choices. I understand that if over the years one has chosen the impure and the illusory and the negative, it is very difficult to change. However, as a Biblical thinker I give no quarter to myself or anyone else who rationalizes one’s present choices by the past. As Christians we are free to have a Christian mind. It is within our reach, and it is our duty. If anything is shoddy or unworthy of praise—do not think about those things. There is a dark side of human experience. So we must law down as fundamental to our Christianity this truth: a Christian mind demands conscious negation; a Christian mind is impossible without the discipline of refusal. As believers in God we must take control of our minds—what comes in and what goes out. “I will walk in my house with a blameless heart. I will set before my eyes no vile thing,” reports Psalm 101.2-3. We must focus our minds on truth, nobility, rightness, purity, loveliness, admirability, excellence, and praiseworthiness with a deliberate and prolonged contemplation as if one is weighing a mathematical problem. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

We are to think about the wonderful elements God wants us to put into our computer. God calls us in His Word to a massive and absolute discipline of the mind. Justification by faith means that every principle that every human-made action, formulation or idea must be protested against inasmuch as it tends to undermine God’s transcendence (and it necessarily does so). This Universal protest entails an affirmation of the Universal power of God. It must protest even against itself, whenever justification by faith is shifted from the status of a principle to that of a doctrinal datum. Justification by faith, not only justifies human’s experience as sinner and just at the same time (simul peccator et Justus); it also justifies one’s experience as right and mistaken at the same time, as having the truth and denying it, as believing and doubting. Justification by faith opens the realm of the intellect to the dominion of Christ alone. When we are farthest from God we are nearest to him. When we process atheism we believe. For our adhesion to intellectual truth is not human-made; it is the outcome of out justification by grace alone. The principle of protest must make us deny human’s self-complacency in respect to beliefs or doctrines that one can grasp, and label one’s own. It must urge us to affirm God’s victory in human’s defeat, God’s truth in human’s untruth. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

No intellectual work justifies; what justifies the intellect is faith alone, grace alone. When one justifies by grace, the Incarnate Word makes humans into a new being, which has substance in one alone and is perceived by faith alone. This New Being is the norm of theology. However, let us be careful lest the Protestant protest indict us even here. The New Being comes from Jesus. Yet it flows from his Universal function as the Christ, as showing forth the divine, as mediating the infinite. It is related to Jesus as the Christ, that is, as interpreted by faith alone. Among medieval theologians the question was often raised: Is theology concerned with Christ? or as we would say, Is it “Christocentic?” It is indeed Christocentric, with the role of Jesus as the Christ, as bearer of the New Being for every human and every creature, beyond what humans have formulated concerning that New Being, beyond even human’s consciousness of it. A picture is emerging from our glance at Holy Scripture, a portrait of the mature Christian life in which the intellectual life, the careful development of our faculty of reason, is an essential, valuable component. The spiritual journey is certainly more than loving God with out minds, but just as surely, that journey is at least a life of such intellectual devotion. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

As we grow in our love for God and seek to be like Him, we make it our intention to become as well-informed and knowledgeable as we can, given that our intellectual development must be balanced with devotion to growth in other aspects of our human selves. Wisdom results when a respectful heart is united with a disciplined mind. Knowledge is the fruit of study, and knowledge is necessary for wisdom. Holy Scripture is the central object of study in loving God with the mind. However, it is not the only object of such study. God has revealed Himself and various other truths on a number of topics outside the Bible. As Christians have known throughout our history, common sense, logic, and mathematics—along with the arts, humanities, sciences, and other areas of study—contain important truths relevant to life in general and to the development of a careful, life-related Christian Worldview. According to the Bible, wisdom comes from studying ant as well as learning Scripture (Proverbs 6)! The true God must be He Who is the Lord of history. God knows the past and the future, the beginning and end, of all things. The gods of the nations cannot answer. For they did not know of the act; they did not predict it; and they did not perform it. These gods are all vain, their words are as nothing, and their images are as mere wind and illusion. Only God, is the God of history. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Seldom in history have people been as disturbed about history as we are today. We desire urgently to catch at least a glimpse of the future, of wisdom and prophecy. Tens of millions from all over the World are trying passionately to penetrate the darkness of their future. And with them, a great many other people long for a strong, inspiring word concerning the future. However, those who have the power to shape the future fundamentally contradict each other. Political leaders declare solemnly that it is almost impossible to carry the burden of their office at this time. Ministers at home and in the army can only describe in negative terms the object of their people’s sacrifice. Those who have to speak to the people of the enemy soon realize that they can say nothing of real promise on the political plane. Only the prophets of disaster-without hope given evidence of complete certainty. However, they are not the prophets of God. We should not expect the darkness of our history to be dispersed soon, either by new conferences or by clever political strategy. Our darkness, uncertainty, and helplessness in regard to the future have depths that are more profound. We do not receive an answer concerning the future, because we ask questions of those who cannot know the future, the gods who are as vanity, the gods of the nations, who are nothing beside the God of history. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Every person tries to wrest an oracle from the god of one’s nation through the mouths of one’s priests, the mighty and wise. And every human succeeds. All people throughout the World are flooded with oracles from the gods of their nations and the gods of other nations. All people compare their oracles with others, and attempt to determine the most credible ones. However, the darkness simply increases. We have seen a number of spiritual teachers either arise in the West or come here from the East and each one seems to find a certain number of adherent. These teachers and their teachings are of varying quality and may be helpful to many of those who join them. However, it is necessary to give a measure of warning against exaggerations made by the teachers about themselves or, if not, made by their followers. It is easy for untrained and inexperienced seekers to be taken in by confident claims to the highest enlightenment. It is better to look for the signs of humility and impersonality. The excessive importance given to the guru, the exaggerated devotion given to one, can only have value in the earlier stages of the quest. The point of view then present has so much ego in it that the aspirant would not be satisfied unless one had a guru. However, it is still an attachment, this relationship, so it has to be let go later on. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

All people speak of the future in terms of their own nations. Yet even the greatest nation is as nothing to the God of history. For no nation or alliance of nations can say that it is the meaning, the purpose of history, that it is the nation or alliance which holds the knowledge of the past and the power to shape the future. The entire assembly of national gods must fall finally under the judgment of God, which condemns it as a thing of naught, as a thing incapable of doing anything at all. We receive so many oracles, but no prophecies, only because we refuse to turn to the source of prophecy, the God of history. Along with a sense of profound gratitude of God for His grace, I also find myself motivated to obedience by a deep sense of reverence for Him. We must be motivated to do good by God’s reverence so we do not forfeit or blessings. It is important to be concerned about disobedience to a sovereign, holy God, even though things may happen to us that cause us to suffer. “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God,” reports 2 Corinthians 7.1. God will protect us, so we must make a complete break with every form of unhealthy compromise. Promises come before duty and that duty flows out of a heartfelt response to the promises of God. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Reverence is a sense of profound awe, respect, and devotion. It is a recognition of God’s intrinsic worthiness, the infinite majesty of His being, and the infinite perfection of His character. Because of who God id and what God is, God is infinitely worthy of our most diligent and loving obedience, even if we have never received a single blessing from His hand. The fact is, of course, we all have received innumerable blessings from God. However, His worthiness is intrinsic withing Himself; it is not conditioned on the number of blessings we receive from Him. “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being,” reports Revelations 4.11. God is worthy of our loving obedience because of who He is, not because of what He does. And parents, remember, make sure your children are comfortable expressing their mistakes to you so they can create a chain of communication and seek guidance. You do not want your children to fear talking to you and make mistakes and try to hide them, instead of finding a reasonable solution. Our motivation to obey and serve God cannot rise to such heights until we learn to live daily by grace and to experience freedom each day from the bondage of the performance treadmill. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

I believe a genuine heart response to the worthiness of God is the highest possible motivation for obedience and service to God. However, we cannot break through to that level of motivation until we are first motivated by His grace, mercy, and love. We cannot be free to think about God’s worthiness and God’s glory as long as we are struggling to earn our own acceptance with Him. The outstanding fact is that different group leaders vary enormously in the way of relating. Some are highly authoritarian and directive. Others make maximum use of their experiences and games to reach the goals they have chosen. Others feel little responsibility toward group members: “I do my thing and you do your thing.” Others, including me, endeavour to be facilitative, but in no way controlling. Each leader should probably be considered as an individual if we are to assess the politics of one’s approach. One new approach appears to be sweeping the country. It is the extreme of the leader-dominated type of group. Members are held to an absolute discipline, subjected to long hours of ridicule and abuse. All their beliefs are “nonsense,” and they themselves are all “nobody.” This leads to such confusion that eventually the unquestioned authority of the leader is established. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

The final damning statement is that “You are nothing but a machine! And you cannot be anything but what you are.” Then comes the optimistic revelation that “if you accept the nature of your mind and take responsibility for having created all the mechanisms it comprises, then in effect you have freely chosen to do everything you have ever done and to be precisely what you are. In that instant you become exactly what you always wanted to be!” A great many of the group experience conversion-type experiences and feel their lives have been greatly changed for the better. From this point of view of interpersonal politics, two things impress me. One is the leader’s assumption of absolute control. Though some resent this, the majority who surrender to the will of the leader indicates what a large proportion of persons desires to be dependent on a guru. The second point is that in the authoritarian approaches, the ends justifies the means. In the person-centered approach, the process is all-important, and the changes are only partially predictable. Knowledge of different exercises can feed into the realness and spontaneity that is the essence of a person-centered group. A leader is a person who you would follow to a place you would not go by yourself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Learning is the essential fuel for the leader, the source of high-octane energy that keeps up the momentum by continually sparking new understanding, new ideas, and new challenges. It is absolutely indispensable under today’s conditions of rapid change and complexity. Very simply, those who do not learn do not survive as leaders. “And wo be unto the children of men if this be the case; for there shall be none that doeth good among you, no not one. For if there be one among you that doeth good, one shall work by the power and gifts of God,” reports Moroni 10.25. We beseech Thee, O Lord, to renew Thy people inwardly and outwardly, that as Thou wouldest not have them to be hindered by bodily pleasures, Thou mayest make them vigorous with spiritual purpose; and refresh them in such sort by things transitory, that Thou mayest grant them rather to cleave to things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal Father, Thou art good beyond all thought, but I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind; my lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways reluctant to amend. I bring my soul to Thee; break it, wound it, bend it, mould it. Unmask to me sin’s deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it. My faculties have been a weapon of revolt against Thee; as a reel I have misused my strength, and served the foul adversary of they kingdom. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Give me grace to bewail my insensate folly, grant me to know that they way of transgressors is hard, that evil paths are wretched paths, that to depart from Thee is so lose all good. I have seen the purity and beauty of thy perfect law, the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns, the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls, yet I daily violate and contemn its precepts. Thy loving Spirit strives within me, brings me Scripture warnings, speaks in startling providences, allures by secret whispers, yet I choose devices and desires to my own hearts, impiously resent, grieve, and provoke him to abandon me. All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon. Work in me more profound and abiding repentance; give me the fullness of Godly grief that trembles fears, yet ever trusts and loves, which is ever powerful, and ever confident; grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross. Protect, O Lord, Thy suppliants, support their weakness, and wash away their Earthly stains; and while they walk amid the darkness of this mortal life, do Thou ever quicken them by Thy light; deliver them in Thy mercy from all evils, and grant them to attain the heights of good: through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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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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Managers are People Who do things Right and Leaders are People Who do the Right thing!

February 20, 2020 1:49 am

Those who inspire us to better ourselves, certainly deserve our gratitude and even deserve our love. Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have it the ability to take on responsibility. The original idea of emotions was probably a reference to the demons that now and then disturb ordinary behaviour. Demons or no, let it be observed that this was an inference from behaviour, demons not being easily seen by most people. Very much later a quite different idea appeared, and is still current. Emotion is now generally thought of as an awareness, a distinctive conscious process that is quite separate from the intellectual process. This notion has led to a good deal of confusion, for it has gradually become clear that no such distinct kind of awareness exists. In the same way, it may have been a hindrance to the development of our understanding, that traditional psychology and traditional neurophysiology discuss perception and emotion in different areas. This is not surprising or wrong, since they originate in such very different systems, but it does impede the imagination. Never mind where sight originates anatomically or physiologically! Never mind what hormones and what patch of brain-tissue is required for aggression! #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The Central Nervous System is sufficiently complex to have vision and aggression going on at the same time, and room to spare. Just as “black” and “striped,” come from two sets of nerve cells originally yet arriving simultaneously at some central point, give the experience of “black stripes,” just in the same way “nice” and “black” can be experienced simultaneously although the messages come from very different sources. Whatever their origins, messages of feelings can be organized along with other messages. In come corners of the thinking World this is an obvious statement. However, not everywhere. There is, lurking in the thoughts of many, a conviction that feelings are special kind of psychological phenomenon, different from other phenomena in being intangible, coming from nowhere, unpredictable. That may be how we usually experience feelings, but it does not make them inaccessible to systematic study. We do well to heed this warning that although affects, feelings, and emotions are commonly treated as though they were discrete entities, it is quite inappropriate so to treat them. To speak of “an affect,” “a feeling,” or “an emotion,” as though it were an atom or an orange, is as inadmissible as it would be to speak of a “redness” or “a squareness.” Instead, feeling is to be regarded as a property that certain processes connected with behaviour from time to time come to possess. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Feelings is not a thing but a process experienced or studied from a particular point of view. The viewpoint adopted here, with the diffidence necessary in a field so strewn with boulders, is well expressed by stating that some reflections of a neurologist concerned to understand voluntary control of muscle. It will be with feeling that we shall be largely concerned for sensory symptoms so commonly are a complaint of patients with dysfunction of voluntary movement. My hand feels funny when I try to move it. Pondering on this, the natural use of the words feel, seems, numb, clumsy, heavy, helpless, stiff, is to describe what turns out to be motor dysfunction. So, how is it that events neurophysiological can break through to feeling. Feel is a verb. To say that what is felt is a feeling may well be deceptive: the phenomenon usually described as a feeling is really that an organism feels something, for instance, that something is felt. What is felt is a process within the organism. This leads on to “Being self,” which is a phase of the process itself. By phase, what is meant is one of the many modes in which something may appear without anything having meanwhile been added to our subtracted from it. As an illustration, consider the heating and cooling of an iron. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

When iron is heated to a critical degree it becomes red; yet its redness is not a new entity which must have gone somewhere else when it is no longer in the iron. It was a phase of the iron itself, at high temperature. As soon as feeling is regarded as a phase of a physiological process instead of a product of it—namely a new entity metaphysically different from it—the paradox of the physical and the psychical disappears. Thus, the question is no longer one of how a physical process can be transformed into something non-physical in a physical system, but how the phase of being felt is attained, and how the process may pass into unfelt phases again. “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature,” reports 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 some 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 wide men belong to the ranks of 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. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

In some way, the whole problem of the possibility of Christian existence is implied in this combination of divine foolishness and human maturity. However, perhaps it is not only the problem of the possibility of Christian existence; perhaps it is the problem of the possibility of human existence as such—how to unite divine foolishness with human maturity. Certainly, it is as valid for everyone outside the church as for those inside, when Paul says—“Whoever of you imagines that one is wise with this World’s wisdom must become a fool is one is really to be wise,” reports 1 Corinthians 3.18. It is not this foolishness that conflicts with maturity, but the state of spiritual infancy, the state of being a babe in thinking, unable to receive solid food, milk-fed only. Paul complains that even not the Corinthians are not ready for solid food, that they are still immature, as shown in their theological jealousies and quarrels, that they are still far away from the divine foolishness, which is what makes them immature. What does it mean to be mature in thinking? We speak of maturity in scholarly education, tested by examination and scientific work. In some countries the basic examination for high education is called “examination of maturity.” However, are those who have passed and become students in a professional school really mature in thinking? #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Are their teachers mature in thinking? Is the great scholar mature in thinking? If maturity means having mastered one’s professional field and being able to work creatively in it, the great scholar, the good teacher, and one’s best pupils, are mature. And most of us then who are gathered here today should be able to call ourselves mature. We should not need the admonition—be mature in thinking! However, we do need it, both those who live within the Christian tradition and those who are outside it. We are not mature in thinking, not even those among us who are called outstanding scholars within and beyond the Christian horizon. Our immaturity is our lack of divine foolishness. It might be well first to consider those who feel at home within the churches. It seems that faithful and active members often feel more certain of their own maturity than do those who stand aside in criticism and about. However, their belief witnesses to their immaturity. This sense of certainty is understandable, however, when one realizes that it stems from an institution that has matured through centuries in life and though, and whose foundation is the picture of the most mature personal life, that of Jesus as the Christ, in whom, at the same time, divine foolishness is manifest in every moment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Belonging to this community gives the members a feeling of being mature themselves. However, they are not, and, as Protestants, we must add that not even their churches are. For who is mature? A mature being is one who has reached one’s natural power in life and thought and is able to use it freely. Maturity in thinking does not mean reaching the end of one’s thinking, but rather the state in which the human power of thought is at one’s disposal. This is the state we are asked to attain, but this is where we always fall short—first, the Christians, and then those who question Christianity. The Christian churches and individuals often bury their power of thinking, because they believe that radical thought conflicts with divine foolishness that underlies all wisdom. However, this is not true, certainly not for Biblical thinking. Radical thought conflicts with human foolishness, with spiritual infancy, with ignorance, superstition and intellectual dishonesty. It is the temptation of the churches in all generations to justify their human foolishness by calling it divine foolishness. This is their defense against becoming mature in thinking. However, although Christianity is based on the message of the divine foolishness, it knows that, out of the acceptance of this message, mature thinking can grow courageously and abundantly. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

What prevents it from growing is that that the guardians of the messages, churches and individual Christians, imprison the divine foolishness in vessels ad forms that are produced by a wisdom that is mixed with foolishness, as is all human wisdom. And if these forms and vessels are declared indestructible and unchangeable, the way to maturity in thinking is barred. For the decisive step to maturity is risking the break away from spiritual infancy with its protective traditions and guiding authorities. Without a “no” to authority, there is no maturity. This “no” need not be rebellious, arrogant, or destructive. As long as it is so, it indicates immaturity by this very attitude. The “no” that leads to maturity can be, and basically always is, experienced in anxiety, in discouragement, in guilt feelings, and despairing inner struggles. For the infant spiritual state with its traditions and authorities is invested with the holiness of human’s ultimate concern and gives spiritual security and primitive strength. It is hard to break away from it. And, certainly, the way to maturity in thinking is a difficult path. Much must be left behind: early dreams, poetic imaginations, cherished legends, favoured doctrines, accustomed laws and ritual traditions. Some of them must be restored on a deeper level some must be given up. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Despite this price, maturity can be gained—a manly, self-critical, convincing faith, not produced by reasoning, but reasonable, and at the same time rooted in the message of the divine foolishness, the ultimate source of wisdom. A church that is able to show this way to its members, and to follow the path itself, has certainly reached maturity. We have loaded down the gospel of the grace of God in Christ with a lot of “ought.” “I ought to do this,” and “I ought to do that.” “I ought to be more committed, more disciplined, more obedient.” When we think or teach this way, we are substituting duty and obligation for a loving response to God’s grace. Let me very clear at this point. I firmly believe in and seek to practice commitment, discipline, and obedience. I am thoroughly committed to submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of my life. And I believe in and seek to practice other commitments that flow out of that basic commitment. I am committed to my wife “until death do us part.” I am committed to integrity and fairness in business relationships. I am committed to seek to act in love toward everyone. However, I am committed in these areas out of a grateful response to God’s grace, not to try to earn God’s blessings. Most of my understandings of scriptural truths has come gradually through my personal study and the teaching of pastors and other capable teachers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

On a few rare occasions the Lord has been pleased to enlighten my understanding of some aspect of His truth in a rather sudden fashion, like someone turning on a light in a dark room. I did not suddenly learn a new spiritual fact, rather I understood some truth in a new and more scriptural way. This was the case in my understanding of the sovereign grace of God. I had been confirmed legalist, and I dutifully sought to live the Christian life that way. I was sometimes overwhelmed with what I thought were the “oughts” of the Christian life. However, suddenly one day, I understood God’s grace in an entirely new way. I am now convinced, after many years, that it is a more biblical understanding. So what was my reaction to a new and better understanding of the grace of God? Did I abandon my commitment and give up my spiritual disciplines? Not at all. I remember well what I did. I was spending a half day with God, seated in a basement room with a cold, hard, tile floor. As my understanding of God’s grace was enlightened, Romans 12.1 came to mind: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—it is your spiritual worship. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

I fell on my knees on that cold, hard floor and said something like this to God: “Lord, I have presented my body to You as a living sacrifice before, but I have never understood as I do not Your mercy and Your grace. And in view of my deeper understanding of Your grace, I now present myself to You in a new and deeper way. I give myself wholly to You without any reservation.” I am still building on the commitment I made in the basement room that morning. However more than that, I still seek to grow in my understanding of God’s grace, because I know that only my growing understanding of His grace will make the commitment stick “through thick and thin.” Even if I granted all that I have been refuting, the friends of despotism would be no better off. There will always be a great difference between subduing a multitude and ruling a society. Even if scattered individual were successively enslaved by one person, however numerous they might be, I still see no more than a master and his slaves, and certainly not a people and its ruler; I see what may be termed an aggregation, but not an association; there is as yet neither public good nor body politic. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The man question, even if one has enslaved half the World, is still only an individual; one’s interest, apart from that of others, is still a purely private interest. If this same human comes to die, one’s empire, after one, remains scattered and without unity, as an oak falls and dissolves into a heap of ashes when the fire has consumed it. A people can give itself to a kind. Then, a people is a people before it gives itself. The gift is itself a civil act, and implies public deliberation. It would be better, before examining the act by which a people gives itself to a kind, to examine that by which it has become a people; for this act, being necessarily prior to the others, is the true foundation of society. Indeed, if there were no prior conventions, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred people who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least. But this understanding of the goodness of giving—and hence of not making oneself the absolute point of reference—must be supported. In laying down my life I must experience much more than “my strength, my wealth, my power.” There must be a realism to it. Otherwise one is in danger of falling into the same kind of cheery falseness that characterizes so much currently talk of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

The necessary support for giving and forgiving is abundantly supplied by Jesus through the reality of the kingdom of God that he brings into our lives. He makes this available to us in response to our confidence in Him. Only with this in support can we live in Jesus’ teaching, “Give, and it will be given to you; good measures, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap,” reports Luke 6.38. For there will be periods of time when, from the human point of view, our lap is empty: when we experience cross and tomb, but resurrection is not yet. We must then know with assurance the reality in Paul’s words that “God loves a cheerful giver” and that he “is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed,” reports 2 Corinthians 9.7-8. Jesus’ resurrected presence with us, along with his teachings, assures us of God’s care for all who let him be God and let him care for them. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom,” reports Luke 12.32. It is love of God, admiration and confidence in his greatness and goodness, and the regular experience of his care that free us from the burden of “looking out for ourselves.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

What remarkable changes this introduces into your day-to-day life! Personally, at the beginning of my day—often before arising—I commit my day to the Lord’s care. Usually I do this while meditatively praying through the Lord’s Prayer, and possibly the twenty-third Psalm as well. Then I meet everything that happens as sent or at least permitted by God. I meet it resting in the hand of his care. This helps me to “do all things without grumbling or disputing” reports Philippians 2.14, because I have already “placed God in charge” and am trusting him to manage them for my good. I no longer have to manage the weather, airplanes, and other people. Experience-based confidence in God’s loving care allows all six dimensions of the human self progressively to come into harmony with each other and enables us to be generous in every respect to those around us. Only love of God frames and supports love of neighbour, giving it right direction and the power to carry out its aims of goodness within the kingdom. And love of God and neighbour gradually pulls the entire structure of the person into proper alignment. Without such support in God, talk of “giving being the highest expression of potency,” and so on, will quickly degenerate into empty words, bravado, self-deception, hypocrisy—or even more self-deification, as in much of the human potential and new age movements today. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

It will be totally me-centered and thus will perpetuate the soul’s ruin rather than its renovation. A great deal of attraction of the new age outlook and practice is its insistence that “I am God.” Today friendship has fallen on hard times. Few men have good friends, much less deep friendships. Individualism, autonomy, privatization, and isolation are culturally cachet, but deep, devoted, vulnerable friendship is not. This is a great tragedy for self, family, and the Church, because it is in relationships that we develop into what God wants us to be. However, if we value them as we ought, and if we practice some simple disciplines of friendship–deep friendships and friendships in general (close friendships, good friendships, and casual friendships) are there to be made. We must pray specifically for God’s help in effecting inward changes that will expand our capacities for friendship. And we must pray for the opportunity to develop friendships. Such relational requests may not occur naturally to the minds of most men, but they are prayers which God delights to answer, as my own experience, and that of many other Christian men, amply testifies. Need some good friendships? Spiritual logic demands that prayer is the place to begin. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

A wise old farmer was working beside the road when a family moving to a nearby town stopped and asked him if that town was “friendly.” The farmer said he could not really say. However, the people pressed him for an answer, so e asked them what the town was like that they came from. They answered that it was terrible—the people were rude and small-minded. The old farmer replied, “That is just how you will find this town.” No matter what our disposition, we need to work at friendliness. We need to be consciously cheerful. We need to ask questions. We need to place ourselves in situations where friendships happen. If you are a regular church attender but do no more than attend morning worship, you are depriving yourself and the church of the friendship so desperately needed by all. People, we must place ourselves in the ways of friendship: an adult Sunday school class, a home Bible study, a men’s breakfast group, men’s retreats, and especially, service in ministry of the church. Women are so much better at this than men. We must learn from them to take the initiative. Few of the truly valuable things in life just happen. Usually when they do, it is because we recognize their value and go for it. If you work for it, you can have just about anything you like. If you want to make a million dollars badly enough, you can do it. If you want to earn a Ph.D. and are willing to pay the price, you can do it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

We generally get what we set our sights on. It is the same with friendship. Those who have friends place importance on them. This is why women have more friends than me. If we will work at affirming others, we will have friends. I can live for two months on a compliment. I have a friend who sends me a note every two or three months that is meant to affirm me and encourage my steadfastness. Compliments have huge buoying power. Be liberal with honest affirmation, and you will have friends. Even more, men, if you will work at being a good listener, you will develop friends. Eloquence is with the audience and that is not only true for public speaking but of general conversation. Listen well, and you will be pronounced a brilliant conversationalist! What is more, people will discover they are important to you, which if the key to friendship. Life is filled with small rejections—a sarcastic smile, innuendos, awkard silences, club atmospheres—so that many walk through the day with their guard up. If we discipline ourselves to be accepting, others will see the sparkle in our eyes, the tilt of our head, the ethos of our voice—and will know that acceptance is there. An open, accepting soul is like a well-lit home on a cold dark night. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Almighty and merciful God, unto Whose everlasting blessedness we ascend, not by the frailty of the flesh, but by the activity of the soul; make us ever, by Thine inspiration, to seek after the courts of the Heavenly City, and, by Thy mercy, confidently to enter them; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us, O Lord, not to mind Earthly things, but to love things Heavenly; and even now, while are we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; though Jesus Christ our Lord. “Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts,” reports Moroni 9.3. O Thou giving God, my heart is drawn out in thankfulness to thee, for thy amazing grace and condescension to me in influences and assistance of thy Spirit, for special help in prayer, for the sweetness of Christian service, for the thoughts of arriving in Heaven, for always sending me needful supplies, for raising me to new life when I am like one dead. I want not the favour of man to lean upon for Thy favour is infinitely better. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Thou art eternal wisdom in dispensations toward me; and it matters not when, nor where, nor how I serve thee, nor what trials I am exercised with, if I might but be prepared for Thy work and will. No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more than I do, and yet none abuses it more than I have done, and still do. How heartless and dull I am! Humble me in the dust for not loving thee more. Every time I exercise any grace renewedly I am renewedly indebted to thee, the God of all grace, for special assistance. I cannot boast when I think how dependent I am upon thee for the being and every act of grace; I never do anything else but depart from thee, and if ever I go to Heaven it will be because Thou willest it, and for no reason beside. I live, as a feeble, afflicted, despised creature, to cast myself on Thy infinite grace and goodness, hoping for no happiness but from thee; give me special grace to fit me for special services, and keep me calm and resigned at all times, humble, solemn, mortified, and conformed to thy will. Incline our heart, O Lord, unto Thy testimonies, and turn it away from beholding vanity: that Thou mayest detach us from the love of Earthly things, and unite our affection to things in Heaven. Bless us with a nature that is sensitive to the serenity, benevolence, and wisdom radiating from divine grace. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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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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The power of personal example is the essence of true leadership. Coming together is a beginning. Staying to together is a process. Working together is success.
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Upon Some Mountain-Top Until I Feel a Glowing Splendour Round About Me Hung!

February 18, 2020 12:54 am

What you do speaks so loudly, they cannot hear what you say. Example is a powerful teacher! If as inspirational leaders we are dedicated to helping others grow through their works, then we must strive to model the values, attitudes and actions that we wish to see in those we lead. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us. Dr. Freud postulates two basic feelings, Lust and Unlust—pleasure and distress—mirror images of each other. This seems to reflect something in our common thinking. Neurophysioogically, however, they belong to very different bodily systems. Although in our culture we think of them as opposites, both systems can contribute simultaneously to our experience, and indeed, often do. Both systems are very complex and wide-branching, so there need be no difficulty in imagining that these experiences, of pleasure and of pain, can also be connected with other experiences, and organized together, just as “black” and “stripes” are organized in purely visual material. Some messages register as “pain”. There is general agreement that there are nerve endings which generate the messages which are ultimately interpreted as pain. These sensory nerve endings are found in the skin, in the sheath surrounding muscles, in the internal organs, and in the membrane surrounding bones. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Just about any kind of manipulation that causes tissue damage will cause pain, and thus most investigator believe that pain receptors are chemically stimulated by substances liberated by damages tissues. The experience of pain is like our experience of “orange” or “bitter” or other information brought in by the senses, in that there are various specialized sensory nerve-endings which can be activated and which in due course produce the experience of “pain”. There are different kinds of pain, with different kinds of nerve-endings concerned with each. There are chemical substances, drugs, which can alter the way messages register because a cell’s receptivity can be affected by chemical substances in the bloodstream—in effect such drugs relieve the perception of pain or change our perception of how unbearable it is. There is also evidence now that the body can itself produce morphine-like substances (a narcotic, psychoactive compound with sleep-inducing properties, which will relieve pain) to regulate the registration of pain—endorphins. Some messages register as “pleasure”. The experience of pleasure seems much more diffuse than the experience of pain, and does not depend on sensory nerve-endings as pain does. On the other hand, distinct areas of the brain are again concerned. Experiments with animals have made it clear that there is an area in the medial forebrain, which can be called a “pleasure-centre”. If stimulated electrically, it produces an effect which the animal seeks to repeat. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Birds were trained to press two levers—one delivered rewarding electrical brain stimulation (ESB), the other one produced food pellets. The animals were allowed to press the levers for only one hour each day, and some of them spent so much time at the bar that delivered ESB that they starved to death. When food and ESB are continuously available, however, birds will alternately eat, press the lever for ESB, and sleep; they will not remain at the lever for ESB to the exclusion of other activities. What excites a pleasure-centre in normal circumstances (that is not because of an electrode implanted in the brain by an experimenter) is not yet clear. However, neural messages must be involved, and that must mean that the experience of pleasure is available to be organized with other experiences, just as a sound is, or a touch or a smell or a pain. There is evidence suggesting that when the pleasure-centre is stimulated, this tends to arouse the biological drives, so that animals who have access to increased pleasure-stimulation also explore more, eat more, drink more, copulate more. Pleasure is thus a general arouser of activity—an anti-depressant! After suffering a tragedy, people who have watched comedy shows like 2 Broke Girls, reported laughing so much that it helped hasten their recovery from the event. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Aggression and fear can also be produced in the laboratory. In one study cats could be induced to attack a target or flee from a cage in response to electrical stimulation of the brain. Various hormone-like chemicals, some linked to pleasures of the flesh, increase or decrease the amount of aggression or fear which might otherwise be produced or experiences by a person. For our purpose we do not need to understand the details. We need only to notice that just as information is available to the nervous systems about where our limbs are or our head, so there is information available about the amount o pain or pain-inhibition, or aggression, or fear, or pleasure, or pleasures of the flesh stimulus, floating in our bloodstream, contracting a muscle, or distending a vessel. In the manifest picture of neuroses guilt feelings seem to play a paramount role. In some neuroses these feelings are expressed openly and abundantly; in others they are more disguised but their presence is suggested by behaviour, attitudes and ways of thinking and reacting. A neurotic person is often inclined to account for one’s sufferings by feeling that one does not deserve any better. This feeling may be quite vague and indefinite, or it may be attached to thoughts or activities which are socially tabooed, such as masturbation, incest wishes, death wishes towards relatives. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Such a person who has manifested deviant thoughts usually tends to feel guilty at the slightest occasion. If someone asks to see one one’s first reaction is to expect recrimination for something one has done. If friends do not come or write for some time one asks oneself whether one has offended them. If anything goes wrong one assumes that it is was one’s fault. Even if others are blatantly in the wrong, have definitely mistreated one, one still manages to blame oneself for it. If there is any collision of interests or any argument one is inclined to assume blindly that the others are right. There is but a fluctuating distinction between these latent guilt feelings, waiting to creep up on any occasion, and what has been interpreted as unconscious guilt feelings, evident in depressive conditions. The latter take the form of self-accusations that are often fantastic or at least grossly exaggerated. Also the neurotic’s everlasting efforts to appear justified in one’s own and in others’ eyes, particularly when the enormous strategical value of such efforts is not clearly recognized, suggest the existence of free-floating guilt feelings which have to be kept in abeyance. The existence of diffuse guilt feelings is suggested further by the neurotic’s haunting fear of being found out or of being disapproved of. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

In one’s discussion with the analyst one may act as if the relationship were that between a criminal and judge, thus making it very difficult for one to be co-operative in the analysis. Every interpretation that is given to the individual one will take as a reproach. If the analyst has shown one, for example, that there is a lurking anxiety behind a certain defensive attitude, one will answer, “I knew that I was a coward.” If the analyst explains that one has not dared to approach people for fear of being rejected, one will take blame on one’s shoulders for having thus, as one interprets it, tried to make life easy for oneself. The compulsive striving for perfection develops to a large extent out of this need to avoid any disapproval. Finally, a neurotic person may feel definitely more at ease, even lost certain of one’s neurotic symptoms, if an adverse event occurs, such as losing a fortune or incurring an accident. Observation of this reaction, and also the fact that sometimes one seems to arrange or provoke adverse happenings, if only inadvertently, may lead to an assumption that the neurotic person has guilt feelings so strong that one develops a need for punishment in order to get rid of them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Thus there seems to be a great deal of evidence not only for the existence of particularly keen guilt feelings in a neurotic person but also for the power they exert on one’s personality. However, in spite of this apparent evidence it must be questioned whether the conscious guilt feelings of the neurotic person are really genuine and whether symptomatic attitudes suggestive of unconscious guilt feelings do not allow another interpretation. There are several factors which give rise to such doubts. Guilt feelings, like inferiority feelings, are not at all unwelcome; the neurotic person is far from eager to get rid of them. In fact one insists on one’s guilt and vigourously resists every attempted to exonerate one. This attitude alone would suffice to indicate that behind one’s insistences on feeling guilty there must, as in inferiority feelings, be a tendency which has an important function. And another factor should be kept in mind. It is painful to feel honestly regretful or ashamed of something, and more painful still to express the feeling to someone else; in fact a neurotic person, even more than others, will refrain from doing so, because of one’s fear of disapproval. What we have called guilt feelings, however, one expresses very readily. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Furthermore, the self-recriminations which are so frequently interpreted as indicating underlying guilt feelings in the neurotic are characterized by distinctly irrational elements. Not only in one’s specific self-accusations, but also in one’s diffuse feelings of not deserving any kindliness, praise, success, one is likely to go to any extreme or irrationality, from gross exaggerations to sheer phantasy. Another factor suggesting that self-recriminations are not necessarily the expression of genuine guilt feelings is the fact that unconsciously the neurotic oneself is not at all convinced of one’s unworthiness. Even when one seems to be submerged in guilt feelings, one may become very resentful if others show a tendency to takes one’s recriminations seriously. A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty, and the improbable does not exist for it. Inclined as it itself is to all extremes, a group can only be excited by an excessive stimulus. Anyone who wishes to produce an effect upon it needs no logical adjustment in one’s arguments; one must paint in the most forcible colours, one must exaggerate, and one must repeat the same thing again and again. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness. It wants to be ruled and oppressed, and to fear its masters. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

And, finally, groups have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two. A group is an obedient herd, which could never live without a master. It has such a thirst for obedience that it submits instinctively to anyone who appoints oneself as its masters. However, for some, these views seems not only heretical but highly dangerous: that the human organism is, at its deepest level, trustworthy; that human’s basic nature is not something to be feared, but to be released in responsible self-expression; that small groups (in therapy or in classrooms) can responsibly and sensitively build constructive interpersonal relationships and choose wise individual and group goals; that all of the foregoing will be achieved if a facilitative person assists by creating a climate of realness, understanding an caring. Yet, if there is no one told control an individual’s innately destructive core, a dangerous psychopath may be produced. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.14-15. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Living by grace instead of by works means you are free from the performance treadmill. It means God has already given you an “A” when you deserve an “F,” He has already given you a full day’s pay even though you may have worked only one hour. It means you do not have to perform certain spiritual disciplines to earn God’s approval. Jesus Christ has already done that for you. You are loved and accepted by God through the merit of Jesus, and you are blessed by God through the merit of Jesus. Nothing you ever do will cause Him to love you any more or any less. He loves your strictly by His grace given to you through Jesus. How does this emphasis on God’s free and sovereign grace make you feel? Does it make you a little nervous? Does it seem a bit scary to hear that nothing you do will ever make God love you any more or bless you any more? Do you think, Well, if you take the pressure off like that and tell me all of my effort will never earn me one blessing, then I am afraid that I will slack off and stop doing the things I need to do to live a disciplined Christian life? The Bible recognizes the possibility that the grace of God can be misunderstood and even abused. It speaks of “Godless people, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality,” reports Jude 4. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Anticipating the question, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Romans 6.1), it warns us not to use our freedom to indulge the sinful nature (Galatians 6.13). All of these passages recognize the possibility that the Bible’s teaching that grace alone is the basis for God’s blessing can be misconstrued as an excuse for indulgent, slothful living. When a giver and a receiver share an expectation about how much sincerity is owed, gestures can be judged as paying less or more than what is owed. Thus, when the receiver of a favour responds less generously than expected, the giver might openly say, “So that is all the thanks I get?” Or one might respond to the thanks in a cold and resentful manner, which indicated that one is rejecting the thanks and considers the other party still in one’s debt. Alternatively, the giver may offer more, as when ne discounts the very need for a thanks by redefining the gift as a voluntary act of pleasure: “Oh on, there is nothing to thank me for. It was a pleasure to read your manuscript.” The sincerity of such a statement, and perhaps the effort needed to sustain it, is a gift in addition to the gift. It is the gift of not seeing the first gift as something to feel grateful for at all because that is just the kind of nice person the giver is. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

How much in the way of displaying sincerity or of working to feel truly sincere (and working, too, at hiding the effort) seems right to us depends on the depth of the bond in question. In trivial exchanges, when no deep bond exists, less debt is passed back and forth, and the range of qualities, actions, and things that are given and received is reduced. In the case of deeper bonds—as between wife and husband, or between lovers, or between best friends—there are many more ways available to repay a debt; emotion work is only one of them. Most of the time, gratitude comes naturally, thoughtlessly, and without effort. Only when it comes hard do we recognize what has been true all along: that we keep a mental ledger with “owed” and “received” columns for gratitude, love, anger, guilt, and other feelings. Normally, we are unaware of this; indeed, the very idea of consciously keeping such a ledger is repellent. Yet moments of “inappropriate feeling” may often be traced to a latent prior notion of what had been felt all along to be owed or owing. Often, feeling rules are unshared. “Poor communication” and misunderstanding sometimes boils down to conflicting notions about what feelings are owed to another. It is psychologically analogous to disagreeing on the exchange rate of dollars to euros. A husband, for example, may latently feel that he is owed more gratitude for sharing housework then his wife gives him and more gratitude than he gives her for doing the same thing. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

In straight exchange, the focus is on making a gesture toward observing a rule, not on the rule itself. In improvisational exchange, the rule itself is called into question or played with. Consider the following exchange, observed at the San Francisco International Airport. Two airline ticket agents are working behind the counter; one is experiences, the other is new on the job. The new agent is faced with a difficult ticket: it needs to be reissued for a different date and at a lower fare, with the extra money already paid to be credited to an air travel card. His experienced compassion and instructor is gone. He struggles with the ticket for ten minutes while a long line of people wait their turn, shifting position restlessly and staring intently at him. When the experienced agent returns, the novice says, “I was looking for you. You are supposed to be my instructor.” The instructor answers ironically, “Gee, I am really sorry, I feel so bad,” and both laugh together. The experienced agent is not sorry that he was not available to help the novice. His apparently misfitting feeling does not put him in debt, however, because the more general feeling rule—“We should both take this seriously”—is poked fun at. His meaning seems to be this: “Do not take it personally that I did not feel guilty or regretful about my late return. Neither of us really wants to be here because it is an awful job, and you understand how I appreciate that ten-minute break.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Irony is composed of just such playing with perspectives—now mine, now yours, now the company’s. It is the jazz of human exchange. As in improvisational music, in order to play with some perspectives, others have to be fundamentally understood and occasionally acknowledged. This is why humour and irony are often reserved for later stages of an acquaintanceship because they acknowledge a deep bond that can be played with. Sometimes improvisational exchanges themselves become crystallized into custom. A graduate student of mine from the Untied Kingdom once gave me two masks with wildly happy eyes and broad smiles. These masks, he explained, where used by European royalty when confronting their parents on specified occasions; holding the smiling masks over their faces, they were fee to voice their complaints at them. The masks paid the emotional respect due to the King and Queen and left the children free to respectfully say what they feel uneasy about. Empowering leaders bring joy, enthusiasm, and optimism to the World of those they touch, every day. Empowering leaders are proactive, inspiring, and willing to take the initiative. Empowering leaders have the ability to both give and get authority and the responsibility necessary to improve performance on every level. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless one transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. However, are we never to have an explanation of the phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will—at most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Suppose for a moment that this so-called “right” exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that maters is to act so as to become the strongest. However, what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word “right” adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing. Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power. Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs. The spirit is never at rest. Bodily changes and movements not manifestly influenced by the external senses—growth, maintenance of body functions, and decay—are explained by the natural powers of the spirit. The material nature of spirit is something like that of a particle, and particles possess powers of giving and receiving, the chief forms of attraction being appetite and consent. All kinds of change, movement, and behaviour must ultimately rely on sense activity or on something analogous to it. The spirit is assigned to sensory function in organic process. In inorganic processes, the lifeless spirit acts as if it has sensory power. In all human behaviour of which people can become conscious, the basic data of experience is undoubtedly supplied by the sense. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

If an individual remains fiercely loyal to another being, their friendship will grow. People make oaths not to harm their friends. Loyalty is indispensable to the survival of friendship. How many once-prosperous friendships have faded because of disloyal talk? I set this down as fact, that is all men knew what each other said of the other, there would not be four friends in the World. You will never know a deep friendship unless there is mutual loyalty and trust. When all the World is plotting against you, a friend will help you find strength in God. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. A friend’s encouragement means more than everything is going to be okay. One will strengthen your hand in God. This undoubtedly involves instruction, prayer, and mutual worship. God will also offer comfort to the downcast so that one’s joy will be greater than ever and this can all be hastened by the golden touch of an encouraging friend. The elements catalogued in a beautiful friendship are—mutuality, love, commitment, loyalty, and encouragement. Repeated mutual commitment began to mark the friendship of remarkable people. There should also be the apex of commitment with the mutual promise to care for one another’s family, should one be taken—“I will take care of yours, and you take care of mine.” Friend bind their lives and their children’s lives to one another, and this creates unexpected heights of devotion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Male friendship has reached Heaven when men make such promises to each other. I treasure a sacred moment when my old childhood friend, married and with family, met my wife and me on vacation in the Colorado mountains and said, after a late-evening meal, “If anything happens to you, Edward, Sarah and I will look out for Katherine and the children.” It was a sacredness I gladly reciprocated. Some men believe that their friendships are more wonderful than the love of men. Some believe that this is because the marriage is not good and monogamous, and is a testimony of the poverty of one’s relationship with one’s wives, an inevitable result of the sin of multiplying wives. However, there is no hint of sensuality here, but simply a celebration of a deep friendship—one’s mutuality of soul, one’s commitment, one’s loyalty, and one’s encouragement—elements one would never know in any other relationship. This is what deep friendships should be. Friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all others. This is certainly what the friendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible does for us. It reveals the beauties that can be ours in a deep male relationship grounded in God and sets the standards for all deep friendships. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Confirm, O Lord, we pray Thee, the hearts of Thy children, and strengthen them with the power of Thy grace; that they may both be devout in prayer to Thee, and sincere in love for each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O, God, Who makest all things profitable to them that love Thee, grant to our heart an invincible power of love, that the desires which have been convinced by Thine inspiration may not be changed by any temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Most dear and precious above all things is chastity and virtue. I recommend thee unto God, and I trust in Christ that thou wilt be saved; and I pray unto God that he will spare thy life, to witness the return of his people unto him.” reports Moroni 9.9 and 22. Dear God, Thou Creator, upholder, proprietor of all things, I cannot escape from thy presence or control, nor do I desire to do so. My privilege is to be under the agency of omnipotence, righteousness, wisdom, patience, mercy, grace. Thou art love with more than parental affection; I admire thy heart, adore thy wisdom, stand in awe of thy power, abase myself before thy purity. It is the discovery of thy goodness alone that can banish fear, allure me into thy presence, help me to bewail and confess my sins. When I review my past guilt and am conscious of my present unworthiness I tremble to come to thee, I whose foundation is in the dust, I who have condemned thy goodness, defied by power, trampled upon thy love, rendered myself worthy of eternal death. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

However, in my recovery cannot spring from any cause in me, I can destroy but cannot save myself. Yet thou has laid help on One that is mighty, for there is mercy with thee, and exceeding riches in thy kindness through Jesus. May I always feel my need of him. Let thy restored joy be my strength; may it keep me from lusting after the World, bear up heart and mind in loss of comforts, enliven me in the valley of death, work in me the image of the Heavenly, and give me to enjoy the first fruits of spirituality, such as Angels and departed saints know. Give strength, O Lord, to those who seek Thee, and continually pour into their souls the holy desire of seeking Thee; that they who long to see Thy face may no crave the World’s pernicious pleasure. Abba, Father, fulfill the office of Thy Name towards Thy servants; do Thou govern, protect, preserve, sanctify, guide, console them; let them be so enkindled with love for Thee, that they may not be despised by Thee, O most merciful Lord, most tender Father! Just as Jesus was in reality greater than the rabbis whose unquestioned authority dominated the people of Israel, so any being today who reflects in all its purity God’s light, unshadowed by one’s personal opinions, is in reality greater than the impressively robed dignitaries of Church and State. Remember that time is money. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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This Love Will Pay Great Dividends Because Honest, Unselfish Love Has Irresistible Drawing Power!

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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Randolph Harris II International Institute

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