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An Ocean Dim, Sprinkled with Many an Isle, Spreads Awfully Before Me!

July 29, 2020 1:28 am

Good name in man and woman, dear my Lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls; who steals my purse, steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ‘its his and has been slave to thousands; but one that filches from me my good name robes me of that which not enriches one, and makes me poor indeed. However, love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies themselves commit. Osmosis, the principle of absorption as a result of being with or near a thing or person, is active here as elsewhere. If the disciple sits relaxed in body and emptied in mind, one’s silent influence can lift up the other person’s inner being much more easily. With election season coming up, socialism has been an intensely debated topic, which most do not seem to truly understand, and most its principles do not represent American values. Socialism is a political value or ideology which places central value on equality or egalitarianism among persons and that is a good thing. However, socialism goes even further concerning issues of income or material wealth, and socialism does not preclude democracy. Essentially socialism is redistribution of wealth, which takes income from the wealthy and gives it to the less affluent. Wealth redistribution because institutionalized a century ago on the revenue side of the Federal budget with the passage of the 16^th Amendment allowing income taxation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

As money flooded in to governments from higher, broader and more progressive income taxation, wealth redistribution spread to the expenditure side of Federal and state budgets in the form of government welfare programs and payments. Many people believe that is acceptable because it is the government’s job to help those who cannot help themselves, and with the COVID-19 crisis so many people are living in fear and wondering how they will afford their mortgage, rent, food, electric bills, auto maintenance and other living and travel related expenses. However, another goal of socialism is end private property, the community would own the property. They also want to regulate the wages people get paid so that everyone can have a living wage by equalizing pay. That would mean essentially a doctor and a cashier might earn the same wage to ensure that someone with less skill can support themselves. And it does not stop there, government would own and control all factors of production and like they are doing right now, force your business to close at a certain hour because it seems like a reasonable thing to do. They could also mandate a mandatory curfew and establish a dictatorship which strips the public of their vote and appoints leaders into office. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Socialism has mainly become a democratic agenda. Our youth are being taught that economic freedom leads to wealth inequality and that wealth inequality and income inequality leads to poverty. However, everyone should have the option to earn money and become rich. There are measures at place in the system to make sure that people have a chance at equality. Not only do we have laws to outlaw discrimination, but education is a key factor that helps people generate more wealth because it allows them to get higher paying jobs. People can also learn skills and trades and becoming really good at what they do and get ahead in life. Karl Marx and his lifelong collaborator Friedrich Engels are commonly seen to be the founding fathers of communism, one form of socialism based upon the elimination of private property and thus the supposed material inequalities which stem from that. For Marx and Engels, the economic resources of society should be produced in accordance with the skills, abilities, or talents of each individual contributing to their best effort, and then distributed according to what each individual “needs.” This is usually captured by the slogan, “From each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s needs.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

That slogan means that individuals would not work because of self-interest or the incentive to maximize the “profit” from their labour, but would maximize their efforts for the collective good, even if this means that those who work less will receive more, presumably because their “needs” are greater than others. However, I am sure you could imagine how making everything equal would disrupt lives in America. People would have to demolish houses and build them all the same size, depending on the size and composition of families. The same would go with office space, it would all have to be equal. I guess cars would be assigned to people depending on their need, but while the public is giving up their rights and freedoms, you could be that appointed leaders would still be making more than everyone else. Today the countries in Western Europe and the United States of America have mixed economics, where there is a combination of private and state property, a mixture of free and state- or politically-controlled markets, a relatively greater recognition of the rights of women, First Nations people, racial and ethnic groups, and a range of welfare services or resources allotted to those considered in need of them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

We use the term “welfare states” to refer to these mixed economics, because they usually combine private property, some relatively free markets, and regulation of fair trading or business practices along with providing various “welfare rights” or “entitlements” to various groups designated for them by the political process in society. In the reading, “The Nonexistence of Basic Welfare Rights,” libertarian Tibor Machan calls into question whether there should be such welfare rights or entitlements, even for those who are poor, mentally or physically disabled, or elderly. Machan says that libertarians agree that such groups deserve their impoverished or disadvantaged condition because they have made significant contributions to their plight by choices they have made earlier in their life. This position is countered in John Rawls’ 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, which tries to combine the ideas of capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, and contract theory into a comprehensive theory of liberty and social justice. Rawls says that, if one stops to think and reflect, it is really in our best interests to support some basic welfare right or entitlements, because it is entirely possible that we or our beloved family members may find themselves in one of these less fortunate conditions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

The views of Machan and other libertarians are commonly taken to advocate a position for a limited or minimal state, that is, they would recognize the legitimacy of state powers only for doing those things which we cannot do for ourselves (such as national security or protecting national/coastal borders). Rawls and other like-minded liberals feel more comfortable with legitimizing state powers for various kinds of welfare right or entitlements. What these should be, and what should be the relative responsibilities for paying the costs of these services or entitlements is being hotly disputed in the United States of America as various partisans prepare for the 2020 national elections. The issues raised in these readings are still very much alive in our culture, and current politics are informed by these important ideas of the recent centuries. Nonetheless, some people think that no matter how you look at it, the World is being used as a weapon. Countries that are rich in natural resources of oil, gas, wood, coffee, beef, corn, tamarind, honey, lithium, diamonds, gold, and other resources are having these products extracted and exported. Corporate globalization, as a result, is producing considerable ecological destruction and agricultural plunder. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

And many of the resources being harvested, like in the Congo, a portion of the rainforest the size of Mississippi with trees hundred of years, was illegal logged because the government is poor and unable to enforce regulation, are leaving only a small portion of this vast wealth behind. The rest of the sizeable profits are being taken by the various levels of people who play an economic role intermediate between producer and retailer or consumer and the higher level investors and financiers. So global emphasis on economic growth leads to the disenfranchisement and disposability of local peoples. The power of corporate glocalization is the power to command the extraction of natural and human resources outside of its own domain; and this process, imposed on the rest of the World through current political structures and arrangements, creates vast economic injustices and material inequalities. Humans cannot be reduced to their material interests, incentives, or desires, their lives are actually multifaceted, multilayered, and deeply complex. Just as our Human Genome Project has only managed to raise many more questions about human biological and physical nature, so do these researcher and theories of human social and economic nature raise new questions and issues about human complexity. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Organizations—whether governmental, industrial, educational, or medical—have traditionally been administered through a hierarchical distributive of power. At the top is one person, as in a corporation or in the Catholic Church, or a small group, as in the Communist party. Though in various ways power flows to the top from those who are governed, the organization is usually experienced as a process of control flowing down from the top. This may be through the medium of others and regulations, or through selectively given rewards such as promotions and salary increases. In recent years many large American corporations have been modifying this extreme hierarchical control. They have endeavoured to diffuse authority, responsibility, and initiative throughout the organization, especially in all levels of management. In other countries—notably Sweden—experimentation is being carried further to the worker level. In all these efforts, those in control have tried to increase open communications in all directions: from below upward; from top management downward; horizontally from department to department, from skilled specialist to skilled specialist. Constructive effects have been felt in certain industries. Much has depended upon the genuineness of the desire of top management to create opportunities for individuals in the organization to maximize their personal development. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Such constructive trends, however, are often neutralized or contradicted by two elements. One is the fact that almost without exception management retains the “right” to hire and fire. The second is the fact that increasing profits, rather than the growing of persons, is seen as the primary goal. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to present to the heads of large corporations the possibility of a person-centered approach to administration. I distributed to the group in advance of our meeting some noes to provoke a discussion. These notes represent my personal view of the meaning of a person-centered administration. When it comes to leadership there are two extremes: Influence and Impact, and Power and Control. When it comes to Influence and Impact what donates them is giving autonomy to persons and groups, freeing people to do their thing, expressing own idea and feelings as one aspect of the group data, facilitating learning, stimulating independence, in thought and actions, accepting the unacceptable innovative creations that emerge, and delegating, giving full responsibility, offering feedback, and receiving it, encouraging and relying on self-evaluation, finding rewards in the development and achievements of others. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

What denotes power and control is making decisions, giving orders, directing subordinates’ behaviour, keeping own ideas and feelings reserved and secretive, exercising authority over people and organization, dominating when necessary, coercing when necessary, teaching, instructing, advising, evaluating others, giving rewards, being rewarded by own achievements. Here are my personal preferences, convictions, and experiences, which focus on the left end of the leadership continuum. I want very much to have influence and impact—by influencing and impact I mean behaviour on my part which makes a difference in the behaviour of others, but not through imposing my views on them, or exercising control over them—but I have rarely desired to, or known how to, exercise control or power. My influence has always been increased when I have shared my power or authority. By refusing to coerce or direct, I think I have stimulated learning, creativity, and self-direction. These are some of the products in which I am most interested. I have found my greatest reward in being able to say “I made possible for this person to be and achieve something he or she could not have been or achieved before.” In short I gain a great deal of satisfaction in being a facilitator of becoming. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

By encouraging people’s ability to evaluate themselves, I have stimulated autonomy, self-responsibility, and maturity. By freeing people to do their thing, I have enriched their life and learning, and my own as well. The element in myself I prize most is the degree of ability I have to create a climate of real personal freedom and communication around me. I love to be in contact with younger people, with their capacity for fresh thought and creative action, or with the fresh and growing portion of a person of any age. These were not simply theoretical ideas. They had grown out of a revolution in my own way of being as an administrator, of course, healthy and safety of employees is also in the forefront. In my establishment, for nearly twenty years, I have had administrative responsibility for staff groups of one sort or another. I had developed ways of handling administrative problems—ways which had become fairly well fixed. Certainly as I became more and more deeply interested in a client-centered type of counseling, it was furthest from my mind that it would ever affect the way in which I dealt with organizational problems. It is only in the las two or three years that I have been really aware of the revolution in administrative procedure which it might bring about. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

The effectiveness of a client-centered approach in counseling means that these concepts continually force themselves into other areas where one had not thought of using them. “For myself, I have found it both difficult and rewarding to attempt to apply these concepts in administration.” I did indeed find it both puzzling and difficult to practice a person-centered administration at the Counseling Center. We followed many directions in our attempts, and even some of those which seemed blind alleys at the time later proved to have value. In a staff group which grew to approximately fifty, there was always excitement and change and personal growth. I never seen such dedicated group loyalty, such productive and creative effort, as I saw during those twelve years. Working hours meant nothing, and at all hours of the day, far into the night, and on weekends and holidays, staff members were working because they to. I learned many strange things from the experience at the Counseling Center. It was quite dismaying to me at first that we never seemed to be able to finish the right way of operating the Center. First all decisions were made by consensus. That was too burdensome. We delegated decision-making to a small group. That proved slow. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

We chose a coordinator, and agreed to abide by her decisions, though like a prime minister she could be given a vote of no confidence. Only gradually did I realize that there is no right way. The life and vitality and growing capacity of the Center was closely bound up with its lack of rigidity, with its continually surprising capacity to change its collective mind, and to utilize a new mode of operation. When power was distributed, I have found that is was no big thing to be the coordinator or chairman of the budget committed or whatever. Consequently administrative tasks were very often sought by the newest members of the staff, because I was an avenue of becoming acquainted with the workings of the operation. An intern might chair a group making up next year’s budget. The newest staff member might head a planning group, or a group to pass on membership or promotions. We never did do away entirely with distinctions between secretarial staff, graduate students in training, interns, and staff members. Senior members of the group were freed to spend more time on research and therapy, knowing that if the various administrative task groups failed accurately to represent the sentiment of the members, their decisions would be rejected by the staff as a whole. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

I found the enormous importance of personal feeling sin administrative matters. Often the staff would spend hours (or so it seemed) in arguing some trivial issue, until a perceptive member would see and state the feelings underlying the issue—a personal animosity, a feeling of insecurity, a competition between two would-be leaders, or just the resentment of someone who had never really been heard. Once the feelings were out in the open, the issue which had seemed so important became a nothing. On the other hand when the staff was in open communication with one another, heavy issues such as the allocation of the budget for the following year, the election of a coordinator, the adoption of an important policy might take only minutes to decide. In a working group with close and often intimate communication, it is very difficult to terminate a member of the group. Only one in the twelve years was a person fired, and that after any many attempts to help the individual, and after several warnings that one’s questionable work and practices simply could not be tolerated by the group. On the other hand many of our appointments were to one-year internships, and we could not take all of these people onto our staff. Consequently in this area it might be a problem of selecting two people, and terminating four or five. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

For the staff, when we had to terminate people, it too was a very painful experience, and many were the compromises in the way of nominal and unpaid appointments, or part-time assignments, in order to find a human solution to a potentially hurtful termination. We developed quite effective ways of dealing with crises. When the threat or crisis arose from outside the group—a drastic budget cut back or an attack by the department of psychiatry, for example—the group tended to coalesce immediately and to delegate full authority to a member or members to deal with the crisis on the basis of their best judgment. When the crisis was internal—a smoldering feud between two staff member’s actions—then the tendency was always to call special meetings of the whole staff to air the personal feelings involved and to facilitate some sort of acceptable interpersonal solution. It is very rare for the impact of a person-centered approach to move upward in the organization. Our way of working in he Counseling Center did not change the administrative practices of the dean under whose supervision we operated. Certainly we had no effect on the total administration of the university, which was decidedly hierarchical. I believe this learning is simply one of the facts of life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

An individual with a person-centered philosophy can often carve out an area of freedom of action, as I did in my relationship with the dean, and then implement this philosophy to the full with those who are, in the organization chart, “under” him or her. However, it is not likely that this approach will seep upward in the organization unless there is a high degree of receptiveness to innovation among those in the top posts. There is one other learning which comes partially from my experience at the Counseling Center, but even more from experience with other groups. If I am somewhat insecure, not quite willing to share power and authority with the group, feeling some need to control, then I must be open about it. If it knows, clearly and unequivocally, those behaviours which will be controlled by the one in power and those areas in which the individual or the group is free to choose, it is perfectly possible for an organization or a group to function with some freedom and some control. This may not be an ideal situation, but it is a perfectly viable one. I have found, however, from bitter experience, that to grant to the group pseudo-control, which I may take from them in a crisis, is a devastating experience for all concerned. I have learned my wish to vest authority in the group must, above all else, be genuine. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

In Chapter 8 of The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi, Francis gives his friend Leo a teaching about what “perfect joy” is. They are trudging through the snow from Perugia to the home of their group at St. Mary of the Angeles. For their brotherhood to give a great example of holiness and edification in all lands would not be perfect joy, Francis says. 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 the soul. Nor would even the conversation of all unbelievers to faith in Christ! By this point brother Leo is amazed, and he begs Francis to teach him “wherein is perfect joy.” The reply is that if, 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 the suffering of our Blessed Lord, which we would share out of love for Him, write O Brother Leo, that here, finally, is perfect joy.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

A master may give out one’s teachings, methods, and instructions. Sooner or later some among one’s followers—if not one’s opponents—will twist them, reinterpret then, modify them, or even deform them. This process even starts during one’s lifetime, but becomes considerable and important only after that—when one is no longer present to attend to needed corrections. This shows that not all who hear one understand what they hear, and that there are different levels of capacity among the followers. “And now it came to pass that Alma returned from the land of Gideon, after having taught the people of Gideon many things which cannot be written, having established the order of the church, according as he had before done in the land of Zarahemla, yea, he returned to his own house at Zarahemla to rest himself from the labours which he had performed. And thus ended the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And it came to pass in the commencement of the tenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, that Alma departed from thence and took his journey over into the land of Melek, on the west of the river Sidon, on the west by the borders of the wilderness. And he began to teach the people in the land of Melek according to the holy order of God, by which he had been called; and he began to teach the people throughout all the land of Melek. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And it came to pass that the people came to him throughout all the borders of the land which was by the wilderness side. And they were baptized throughout all the land; so that when he had finished his work a Melek he departed thence, and traveled three days’ journey on the north of the land of Melek; and he came to a city which was called Ammonihah. Now it was the custom of the people of Nephi to call their lands and their cities, and their villages, yea, even all their small villages, after the name of him who first possessed them; and thus it was with the land of Ammonihah. And it came to pass that when Alma had come to the city of Ammonihah he began to preach the word of God unto them. Now Satan had gotten great hold upon the hearts of the people of the city of Ammonihah; therefore they would not hearken unto the words of Alma. Nevertheless Alma laboured much in the spirit, wrestling with God might prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people who were in the city; that he would also grant that he might baptize them unto repentance. Nevertheless, they hardened their hearts, saying unto him: Behold, we know that thou art Alma; and we know that thou art high priest over the church which thou hast established in many parts of the land, according to your tradition; and we are not of thy church, and we do not believe in such foolish traditions. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And now we know that because we are not of thy church we know that thou hast no power over us; and thou hast delivered up the judgment seat unto Nephihah; therefore thou art not the chief judge over us. Now when the people had said this, and withstood all his words, and reviled him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city, he departed thence and took his journey towards the city which was called Aaron. And it came to pass that while he was journeying thither, being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass while Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, beheld an Angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying: Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him. Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you. And behold, I am sent to command thee that thou return to the city of Amonihah, and preach again unto the people of the city; yea, preach unto them. Yea, say unto them, except they repent the Lord God will destroy them. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“For behold, they do study at this time that they may destroy the liberty of thy people, (for this saith the Lord) which is contrary to the statues, and judgments, and commandment which he had given unto his people. Now it came to pass that after Alma had received his message from the Angel of the Lord he returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah. And he entered the city by another way, yea, by the way which is on the south of the city of Ammonihah. And as he entered the city he was an hungered, and he said to a man: Will ye give to an humble servant of God something to eat? And the man said unto him: I am a Nephite, and I know that thou art a holy prophet of God, for thou art the man whom an angel said in a vision: Thou shalt receive. Therefore, go with me into my house and I will impart unto thee of my food; and I know that thou wilt be a blessing unto me and my house. And it came to pass that the man received him into his house; and the man was called Amulek; and he brought forth bread and meat and set before Alma. And it came to pass that Alma ate bread and was filled; and he blessed Amulek and his house, and he gave thanks unto God. And after he had eaten and was filled he said unto Amulek: I am Alma, and am the high priest over the church of God throughout the land. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“And behold, I have been called to preach the word of God among all this people, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy; and I was in this land and they would not receive me, but they cast me out and I was about to set my back towards this land forever. However, behold, I have been commanded that I should turn again and prophesy unto this people, yea, and to testify against them concerning their iniquities. And now, Amulek, because thou hast fed me and taken me in, thou art blessed; for I was an hungered, for I had fasted many days. And it came to pass that the people did wax more gross in their iniquities. And the word came to Alma, saying Go; and also say unto my servant Amulek, go forth and prophesy unto this people, saying—Repent ye, for this saith the Lord, except ye repent I will visit this people in mine anger; yea, and I will not turn my fierce anger away. And Alma went forth, and also Amulek, among the people, to declare the words of God unto them; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost. And they had power given unto them, insomuch that they could not be confined in dungeons; neither was it possible that any human could slay them; nevertheless they did not exercise their power until they were bound in bands and cast into prison. Now, this was done that the Lord might show forth His power in them. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

“And it came to pass that they went forth and began to preach and to prophesy unto the people, according to the spirit and power which the Lord had given them,” reports Alma 8.1-32. O Lord God, Thou art our preserver, governor, Saviour, and coming judge. Quieten our souls to call upon Thy name; detach us from the influence of the flesh and the senses; impress us with the power of faith; promote in us spirituality of mind that will render our services acceptable to Thee, and delightful and profitable to ourselves. Please bring us into that state which attracts thine eye, and prepare us to receive the proofs of Thy love. Please show us our danger, that we may fly to Thee for refuge. Please make us sensible of our sin’s disease, that we may value the good Physician. Placard to us the cross, that it may slay the enmity of our hearts. Please help us to be watchful over our ways, jealous over our tempers, diligent over our hearts. When we droop, revive us when we loiter, quicken us, when we droop, revive us, when we loiter, quicken us, when we go astray, restore us. Possess us with more of that faith which is the principle of all vital Godliness. May we be rich in Faith, strong in faith, live by faith, walk by faith, experience the joy of faith, do the work of faith, hope through faith. Perceiving nothing in ourselves, may we find in the Saviour wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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O God, the Fountain of goodness, and Source of kindness, Who dost not straightway condemn the sinner, but compassionately waitest for one’s repentance; I pray Thee to wipe away the foulness of my offences, and make me meet to preform the office laid upon me; and that I who have unworthily undertaken, and tremblingly execute, the ministration of Thine altar, may be rendered strong to perform it, and be found justified among those who have pleased Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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We are Just Illusion Makers and the Sun Will Always Shine and the Sky Will Always be Blue!

July 23, 2020 12:11 am

Spring is here. Everything is burgeoning, the young women also. Their cloaks are laid aside; presumably my green one, too, has been hung up. This is the result of making a young lady’s acquaintance in the street, not in society, where on e is immediately told her name, her family, where she lives, whether she is engaged. The last is extremely important information for all sober and steady suitors, to whom it would never occur to fall in love with an engaged young lady. Such an ambler would then be in mortal distress if he were in my place; he would be utterly demolished if his efforts to obtain information were crowed with success and with the bonus that she was engaged. This, however, does not bother me very much. An engagement is nothing but a comic predicament. I fear neither comic nor tragic predicaments; they only ones I fear are the langweilige [boring] ones. So far, I have not come up with a single bit of information, although I certainly have left nothing untried and many times have felt the truth of the poet’s words: Nox et hiems longaque viae, saevique dolores mollibus his castris, et labour omnis inest [Night, storm, long journeys, cruel pains all kinds of pains are in his dainty camp]. Perhaps she does not live here in the city at all; perhaps she is from the country, perhaps, perhaps—I can fly into a rage over all these perhapses, and the angrier I become, the more the perhapses. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

I always have money at hand in order to be able to set out upon a journey. In vain do I look for her at the theater, at concerts, at dances, on the promenades. In a certain sense, I am pleased; a young woman who participates in such amusements a great deal is usually not worth conquering; she most often lacks the originality that for me is and remains the conditio sine qua non [indispensable condition]. It is not as incomprehensible to find a Preciosa among the gypsies as in the market places where young women are offered for marriage—in all innocence—good Heavens, who says otherwise! However, it is not right for the would-be disciple to take the new relationship as an excuse for releasing oneself from all personal responsibilities, all personal decisions. One should not expect the teacher to take entire charge of one’s entire life for one. Nor is it right for a teacher to accept such a position, to play a role consisting of father and mother and God combined into a single person toward an individual who has reached adult life. It will not help a disciple to let one evade one’s responsibilities and shrink one’s decisions. If the atmosphere between them is surcharged with emotion alone without the restraining balances of reason and common sense, this is the kind of situation which is likely to be brought about. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

A wise teacher will try to meet disciples upon the proper ground between accepting such helpless dependence and rebuffing it brusquely altogether. Any other meeting would be unhealthy emotionally and unsound intellectually. Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to one’s house, or know one’s mother and brothers and sisters? Why be visited by one at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let one be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from one I want, but not news pottage. I can get politics and chat, neighbourly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and as great as nature itself? In a social system animated by competition for property, the human personality was metamorphosed into a form of capital. Here it was rational to invest oneself only in properties that would produce the highest return. Personal feeling was a limitation since it distracted the individual from calculating one’s best interest and might pull one along economically counterproductive path. Although human personality remains a medium of competition, the competition is no longer confined to individuals. Institutional purposes are now tied to the workers’ psychological arts. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

It is not simply individuals who manage their feelings in order to do a job; whole organizations have entered the game. The emotion management that sustains the smile in a real estate representative competes with the emotion management that upholds the smile on other home builders. What was once a private act of emotion management is sold now as labour in public-contact jobs. What was once a privately negotiated rule of feeling or display is not set by the company’s Standard Practice Division. Emotional exchanges that were once idiosyncratic and escapable are now standardized and unavoidable. Exchanges that were rare in private life become common in commercial life. Thus a customer assumes a right to vent unmanaged hostility against a real estate representative who has no corresponding right—because one is paid, in part, to relinquish it. All in all, a private emotional system has been subordinated to commercial logic, and it has been changed by it. It does not take capitalism to turn feeling into a commodity or to turn our capacity for managing feeling into an instrument. However, capitalism has found a use for emotion management, and so it has organized it more efficiently and pushed it further. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

And perhaps it does take a capitalist sort of incentive system to connect emotional labour to competition and to go so far as to actually advertise a “sincere” smile, train workers to produce such a smile, supervise their production of it, and then forge a link between this activity and corporate profit. When people like you, they like the company you work for, too. It takes considerable sophistication for a company to make this into an ordinary, trivial thought for a worker to be urged to bear in mind. Massive people-processing—and the advanced engineering of emotional labour that makes it possible—is a remarkable achievement. It is also an important one, for a good part of modern life involves exchange between total strangers, who, in the absence of countermeasures and in the pursuit of short-term self-interest, might much of the time act out of suspicion and anger rather than trust and good will. The occasional lapses from the standard of civility that we take for granted remind us of the crucial steadying effect of emotional labour. However, like most great achievements, the advanced engineering of emotional labour leaves new dilemmas in its wake, new human costs, and I shall focus now on these. For without a clear understanding of these psychological costs, we can hardly begin to find ways of mitigating or removing them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

These are three stances that workers seem to take toward work, each with its own sort of risk. In the first, the worker identifies too wholeheartedly with the job, and therefore risk burnout. In he second, the worker clearly distinguishes oneself from the job and is less likely to suffer burnout; but one may blame oneself for making this very distinction and denigrate oneself as “just an actor, no sincere.” In the third, the worker distinguishes oneself from one’s act, does not blame oneself for this, and sees the job as absolutely requiring the capacity to act; for this worker there is some risk of estrangement from acting altogether, and some cynicism about it—“We are just illusion makers.” The first stance is potentially more harmful than the other two, but the harm in all three could be reduced, I believe, if workers could feel a greater sense of control over the conditions of their work lives. The first kind of worker does not see one’s job as one of acting. One has little or no awareness of a “false self.” One is likely to offer warm, personal service, but one is also warm on behalf of the company—“when people like you, they like the company too.” One offers personalized service, but one one’s self become identified with the ized part of it. One is not so good at depersonalizing inappropriately personal behaviour toward one. For these reasons, one is more likely to suffer stress and be susceptible to burnout. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Instead of removing the idea of a “self” from the job either by will or by art, such a person often reacts passively: one stops caring and becomes remote and detached from the people one serves. Some real estate representatives who describe themselves as poor at depersonalizing reported periods of emotional deadness: “I was not feeling anything. It was like I was not really there. The guy was talking. I could hear him. However, all I heard was dead words.” This sense of emotional numbness reduces stress by reducing access to the feelings through which stress introduces itself. It provides an exit from overwhelming distress that allows a person to remain physically present on the job. Burnout spares the person in the short term, but it may have a serious long-term cost. The human faculty of feeling still “belongs” to the worker who suffers burnout, but the worker may grow accustomed to a dimming or numbing of inner signals. And when we lose access to feeling, we lose a central means of interpreting the World around us. As a precaution against burnout many experienced workers develop a “healthy” estrangement, a clear separation of self from role. They may sometimes feel “phony”—because at a given moment they feel that they should not be acting at all or that they are not acting well enough. However, by differentiating between an acting and a nonacting side of themselves, they make themselves less vulnerable to burnout. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Now when the company institutes a speed-up—when it maintains its call for emotional labour but sets up conditions that make it impossible to deliver—the worker may become estranged from the acting itself. One may refuse to act at all, thus withdrawing one’s emotional labour altogether. Since the job itself calls for good acing, one will be seen as doing the job poorly. One may respond to the constantly negative consequences of this by trying not to take any consequences at all, by trying not to be there. If in the first stance the worker is too much present in the role, in the third stance, one is not present enough. In all three, the essential problem is how to adjust one’s self to the role in a way that allows some flow of self into the role but minimizes the stress the role puts on the self. In all three cases, the problem of adjusting self to role is aggravated by the worker’s lack of control over the conditions of work. The more often “tips” about how o see, feel, and seem are issued from above and the more effectively the conditions of the “stage” are kept out of the hands of the actor, the les one can influence one’s entrances and exits and the nature of one’s acting in between. The less influence one has, the more likely it is that one of two things will occur. Either one will overextend oneself into the job and burn out, or one will remove oneself from the job and feel bad about it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Worker control over the conditions of good acting boils down, in the end, to practical politics. The company wanted to take two real estate representatives off two of their sites, but the union was adamantly opposed, and they won. Now that is a multimillion-dollar decision. However, it is a good thing they won. They thought they could have some control over that decision. It was not just money they wanted. They wanted some say over their work lives so they could do the job like they wanted. However, even such actions by organized workers cannot solve the whole problem. For whenever people do acting for a living, even if they have some control over the stage, they inhabit their own stage faces with caution: behind the mask, they listen to their own feelings at low volume. Cheerfulness in the line of duty becomes something different from ordinary good cheer. This applies much more to the real estate representatives, who must try to be genuinely friendly to a line of strangers, than to the commissary worker, who can feel free to hate packing the three-hundredth vanilla Jell-O pudding cup onto a lunch tray. Yet, whoever entrusts oneself to a maser or one’s mind to a teaching, cannot escape one’s own personal responsibility for what one does. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

This is not to absolve either the self-actualized or the author of the teaching from one’s own responsibility, which they also have, but it is to make clear that the followers are it too. If history is seen as time between a beginning and an end, we can say that not beginning and end determine the center, as is the case in spatial measurements, but that he center of history determines its beginning and end from the meaning of an historical process. This means that history lasts as long as he revelatory power of its center is experienced, first by anticipation, then by participation. Before this here may be a pre-history, a meaningless time or, rather, a time whose meaning was unperceived. After it, one could conceive of a post-history, another stretch of time deprived of a center and which itself perhaps would be a pre-history before another center is expected. All this, however, is mere speculation; such a possibility is purely abstract. It helps us to see, nevertheless, that the important point of history is that which gives it meaning, its center. Everything else revolves around it. Properly speaking, the center of history is constitutive of it: the meaning of a period arises out of a revelatory situation. History is constituted by the fact that is center is constituted, or—since this is not an arbitrary act—by the fact that its center is constituted, or—since this is not an arbitrary act—by the fact that a center proves to be a center through creating history. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

By a series of well-timed steps, we have led the audience to the brink of the Christological affirmation. First, we have defined history as the meaning of time. Second, we have shown that his meaning comes to light in moments of intense experience of which one may say, “This is the acceptable time, the Kairos.” At that precise moment, the eternal invades he temporal. Third, we have shown that while each period of history may receive it only from a universal Kairos which will be its center. The fourth step, to which we are now coming, is that Jesus as the Christ is the center of history, the point where salvation manifests itself as the content of history. Before explaining this, I should mention an intriguing point. The center of history cannot be conceived of as future: It cannot be sought for in the future, for the meaning of the future is determined by it. We think that the future will be meaningful only on the basis of a principle which we already possess. However, this is not all: The center cannot lie in the present either. For the present has no historical meaning unless it explains the past too. It has such a meaning only if it is the point in which are joined the historical fate which is born in the past, and the historical decision which provides the future. This is to say that the present must itself refer to some meaningful point in the past, to a past Kairos in the light of which the present is meaningful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

No present can be a historical center for itself. As a matter of fact, every center of history in any religion or culture has always been seen as a point of reference in the past. If we remember in our analysis of time, the present is, in a sense, both the past and the future, this remark on the past character of the center of history is not as striking as it may seem. At any moment when we are grasped by the power of Kairos, we are in contact with a super-historical reality, and experience the presence of the past in the present. The conclusion which this imposes on Christology does not affect our conscious of the center of history in Jesus as the Christ. However, it does affect our view of the self-consciousness of the Christ. For if the advent of the Christ in Jesus is the center of history for us, it cannot have been the center of history for Jesus. The implications of this will claim our attention later. In 1899 four reporters from Denver, Colorado, met by chance on a Saturday night in a Denver railroad station. Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, and Hal Wilshire worked for the four Denver papers: The Post, the Times, the Republican and the Rocky Mountain News. Each had the unenviable task of finding a scoop for the Sunday edition. They hoped to spot a visiting celebrity arriving that evening by train. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

However, none showed up, so the reporters wondered what on Earth they would do. As they discussed options in a nearby saloon, Al suggested they make up a story. The other three laughed—at first. However, before long they were all agreed—they would come up with such a whopper that n one would question it and their respective editors would congratulate them on their find. A phony local story would be too obvious, so they decided to write about someplace far away. They agreed on China. “What if we say tha some American engineers, on their way to China, told us they are bidding on a major job: the Chinese government is planning to demolish the Great Wall?” Harold was not sure the story would be believable. Why would the Chinese ever tear down the Great Wall of China? “As a sign of international goodwill, to invite foreign trade.” By 11 P.M. the four reporters had worked out the details, and the next say all four Denver newspapers carried the story—on the front page. The Times headlines that Sunday read: “Great Chinese Wall Doomed! Peking Seeks World Trade!” Of course, the story was a ridiculous tall tale made up by four opportunistic newsmen in a hotel bar. However, amazingly their story was taken seriously and soon ran in newspapers in the Eastern United States of America and even abroad. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

When the citizens of China heard that the Americas were sending a demolition crew to dismantle the Great Wall, most were indignant, even enraged. Particularly angry were members of a secret society made up of Chinese patriots already against any kind of foreign intervention. Moved to action by the news story, they attacked the foreign embassies in Peking and murdered hundreds of missionaries from abroad. In the next two month twelve thousand troops from six countries, working together, invaded China to protect their country people. The bloodshed of that time, born out of a journalistic hoax fabricated in a saloon in Denver, was the time of violence known ever since as the Boxer Rebellion. What power the written or spoken word has! The Great Wall is very precious to the people of China, it is a sacred monument, much like a church, and natives often get dressed up like they are going to church to visit the spiritual center. It is also a major tourist attraction. The Great Wall of China receives more than 10 million visitors per year. So it is never good to threaten World Wonders. Nations have risen and nation have fallen to the tongue. Lives have been elevated and lives have been cast down by human speech. Goodness has flowed like a sweet river from out mouth, and so has the cesspool. The tiny tongue is a mighty force indeed. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Words have the power to hurt or to heal, to bring down, or to raise up. And the words we say to ourselves are quite possibly the most powerful words of all. We need to watch ourselves, and our thoughts, and our words, and our deeds, especially as followers of Christ. “And it came to pass that the Nephites who were not slain by the weapons of war, after having buried those who had been slain—now the number of the slain were not numbered, because of the greatness of their number—after they had finished burying their dead they all returned to their lands, and to their houses, and their wives, and their children. Many women and children had been lain with the sword, and also many of their flocks and their herds; and also many of their fields of grain were destroyed, for they were trodden down by the hosts of humans. And now as many of the Lamanites and the Amlicites who had been slain upon the bank of the river Sidon were cast into the waters of Sidon; and behold their bones are in the depths of the sea, and they are many. And the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

“Now the heads of the Lamanites were shorn; and they were naked, save it were skin which was girded about their loins, and also their armour, which was girded about them, and their bows, and their arrows, and their stones, and their slings, and so forth. And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men. And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women. And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction. And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed. Therefore, whosoever suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and there was a mark set upon him. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

“And it came to pass that whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites, but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and also in the tradition of their fathers, which were correct, who believed in the commandments of God and kept them, were called the Nephites, or the people of Nephi, from that time forth—and it is they who have kept the records which are true of their people, and also of the people of the Lamanites. Now we will return again to the Amlicites, for they also had a mark set upon them; yea, they set the mark upon themselves, yea, even a mark of red upon their foreheads. Thus the word of God is fulfilled, for these are the words which he said to Nephi: Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed, and I will set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and Thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them. And again: I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren, that they may be cursed also. And again: I will set a mark upon him that figheth against thee and thy seed. And again, I say he that depareth from thee shall no more be called thy seed; and I will bless thee, and whomsoever shall be called thy seed, henceforth and forever; and these were the promises of the Lord unto Nephi and to his seed. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“Now the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads; nevertheless they had come out in the open rebellion against God; therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them. Now I would that ye should see that they brought upon themselves the curse; and even so doth every human that is cursed bring upon oneself one’s own condemnation. Now it came to pass that not many days after the battle which was fought in the land of Zarahemla, by the Lamanites and the Amlicites, that there was another army of the Lamanites came in upon the people of Nephi, in the same pace where the first army met the Amlicites. And it came to pass that there was an army sent to drive them out of their land. Now Alma himself being afflicted with a wound did not go up to battle at this time against the Lamanites; however, he sent up numerous army against them; and they went up and slew many of the Lamanites, and drove the remainder of them out of the borders of their land. And then they returned again and began to establish peace in the land, being troubled no more for a time with their enemies. Now all these things were done, yea, all these wars and contentions were commenced and ended in the fifth year of the reign of the judges. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“And in one year were thousands and tens of thousands of souls sent to the eternal World, that hey might reap their rewards according to their works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal World, that they might reap eternal happiness or eternal misery, according to the spirit which they listed to obey, whether it be a good spirit or a bad one. For every human receiveth wages of one whom one listeth to obey, and this according to the words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth. And thus endeth the fifth years of the reign of the judges,” reports Alma 3.1-27. The disciple’s reverence for the Master can still hold room for sight of the latter’s failings and imperfections. If one gets enough inspiration from the Master to help one’s spiritual life, it would be a foolish decision to leave one because of those failings and imperfections. Graciously cast Thy light, O Lord, upon go on and prosper, and its pastors, by Thy governance, may become acceptable to Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Most High God, the Universe with all its myriad creatures is Thine, made by Thy word, upheld by Thy power, governed by Thy will. However, Thou art also the Father of mercies, the God of all grace, the bestower of all comfort, the protector of the saved. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Thou hast been mindful of us, hast visited us, preserved us, given us a goodly heritage—the Holy Scriptures, the joyful gospel, the Saviour of souls, we came to Thee in Jesus’ name, make mention of His righteousness only, plead His obedience and sufferings who magnified the law both in its precepts and penalty, may we be justified by His blood, saved by his life, joined to His Spirit. Let us take up His cross and follow Him. May the agency of Thy grace prepare us for Thy dispensations. Makes us willing that Thou shouldest choose our inheritance and determine what we shall retain or lose, suffer or enjoy; if blessed with prosperity may we be free from its snares, and use, not abuse, its advantages; may we patiently and cheerfully submit to those afflictions which are necessary. When we are tempted to wander, hedge up our way, excite in us abhorrence of sin, wean us from the present evil World, assure us that we shall at last enter Immanuel’s land where none is ever sick, and the Sun will always shine. Many have a lack of compassion. Almighty please give service to our successful course and people like you are in your heart pleasing because Thou art holy. May the President that commands the nation keep society in their right mind. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

Cresleigh Homes

Our homes in our latest community at #PlumasRanch took influence from modern design trends, like patterned tile and spacious center work islands. The end result is definitely drool-worthy. 🤤

We have TWO homes in the Riverside community that are move-in ready! Check them out on our website. Link in bio. 🙌 https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/move-in-ready-home-site-77/

O merciful God and eternal King, please give a prosperous course to our service; and that we may become pleasing in Thy sight by means of the devotion of Thy people, do Thou preside over Thy holy flock; and guide Thou the wills of all into the observance of Thy commands. During your church, O Lord, thy goodness, shine; and the flocks are everywhere, and to Thy I guarantee my heart. #CresleighHomes

Only the Power of Divine Holiness, Having Touched Our Existence, Can Bring Us Near to God!

July 17, 2020 1:07 am

I scarcely know myself. My mind roars like a turbulent sea in the storms of passion. If someone else could see my soul in this state, it would seem to one that it, like a skiff, plunged prow-first down into the ocean, as if in its dreadful momentum it would have to steer down into the depths of the abyss. One does not see that high on the mast a sailor is on the lookout. Roar away, you wild forces, roar away, you powers of passion; even if your waves hurl foam toward the clouds, you still are not able to pile yourselves up over my head—I am sitting a calmly as the king of the mountain. I am almost unable to find a foothold; like a water bird, I am seeking in vain to alight on the turbulent sea of my mind. And yet such turbulence is my element. I build upon it as the Alcedo ispida builds its nest upon the sea. Cockatiels ruffle their feathers when they see red. So it goes with me when I see green, every time I see a green cloak, and since my eyes often deceive me, all my expectations sometimes run aground on a porter from Frederik’s Hospital. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each had six wings; with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: The whole Earth is so full of his glory. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

“And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make heir ears heavy, and shut their eyes; least they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. However, yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: As a teil tree, and as an oak, Whose substance is them, when they cast their leaves: So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof,” reports Isaiah 6. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

This is one of the greatest in the Old Testament (OT). It clearly reveals the essence of Biblical religion. The prophet describes the vision of his vocation in words and pictures which express at the same time his fundamental experience of God, his interpretation of human existence, and his conception of the prophet’s task. His experience of God is an experience of the holiness of God. He interprets human’s condition as one of uncleanness and inability to face God. The prophet’s task is paradoxically set against the natural meaning of prophecy. These three ideas belong together and comprise perhaps the highest expression ever given to the prophetic spirit. The prophet does not describe God Himself in any way. He speaks only of the train which filled the temple, of the Angels surrounding the Lord’s throne, of the shaking of the foundation, and of the smoke filling the house. In this manner he indicates that the revelation of God is at the same time the veiling of God. God can reveal Himself only by reaming veiled. However, even the veiled revelation makes Isaiah feel that he is perishing. If the Master had no patience with His disciples, He and they would soon part. If He had no belief in their eventual evolution, He and hey would never join in the Kingdom of Heaven. The facing of God, even if it be a mere approaching to His sphere, even if God Himself remain hidden, means the annihilation of humans. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

The same feeling is expressed in the cry of the seraphim “Holy” has a double meaning, as he context clearly shows. It means the majesty of which the World is full; and it means purity as against human impurity. Glory without purity is the character of all pagan gods. And purity without glory is the character of all the humanistic ideas of God. Humanism has transformed the inaccessibility of God into the sublimity of His moral commands. Humanism has forgotten that God’s majesty, as experienced by the prophet, implies the shaking of the foundation wherever He appears, and the veil of smoke whenever He shows Himself. When God is identified with an element in human nature, as in humanism, the terrifying and annihilating encounter with majesty becomes an impossibility. However, “holy” means also moral perfection, purity, goodness, truth, and justice. God’s glory can fulfill all World, only because He is holy in this double sense. The glory of the gods who are not holy in this double sense can fulfill only one country, one family or tribe, one nation or state, or one sphere of human life. Consequently, they do no possess the truth and justice and purity of God Who is really God. They are demons aspiring to holiness, but excluded from it, because their glory is majesty without purity. Therefore, let us say, during this time particularly, “Thou only art holy!” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

The prophet confesses that he is a man of unclean lips, and that he lives in the midst of a people with unclean lips. He emphasized his lips, because his work is preaching; but the impurity of his lips symbolizes the impurity of his entire existence, and of the existence of individuals and society as a whole. Isaiah exhibits profound insight, when he identifies himself with his unclean people in the very moment that he is made worthy of his exceptional vision. The difference between mystical and prophetic religion lies in that insight. For even in the greatest ecstasy, a prophet does not forget the social group to which one belongs, and its unclean character which he cannot lose. Consequently, the prophetic ecstasy, as opposed to the mystical ecstasy, is never an end in itself, but rather he means of receiving the divine commands which are to be preached to the people. Isaiah’s vision reveals the two conditions for prophetic existence. The lips of the prophet must first be purified by fire. He can then hear the Voice of God, the condition of his being sent by God. Nobody can be the prophet of God through his own strength; and nobody can absolve oneself. Only the power of Divine Holiness, having touched our existence, can bring us near to God. Something of our existence, sin, iniquity, or uncleanness must be burned away, must be annihilated. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Only through such annihilation can God speak to us and through us. However, whether or when He speaks to us at all does not depend upon us in any way. Isaiah did not produce either the vision or the purification. He was overcome with terror and awe. And he had to ac. For God asks, “Who will go for us?” God waits for the answer. He does not compel. Isaiah’s decision to go must be free. Freedom of decision is the second condition for prophetic existence. A prophet must decide whether or not one will dedicate oneself to the task. With respect to our fate and vocation we are free; with respect to our relation to God we are powerless. The majesty of God is evident in either case. The prophet then describes the content of the divine command. “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes.” Our natural mora feelings refuse to accept such a paradox. For if we speak, we wish to make ourselves heard; and when we preach, we wish to convert and to heal. However, the prophet accepts the divine command. And when one’s natural feeling impels one to ask, “How long?” one receives the answer, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate!” No hope or promise is expressed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

What is the meaning of that paradox? It means that the true prophets are in the actualization of His judgment against humankind. They are instruments in so far as the prophetic word always excites the opposition of humans with respect to both one’s vital existence and one’s moral and religious existence—indeed, particularly with respect to one’s religious existence. All people desire false prophets, who, through the glorification of their gods, glorify their followers and themselves. People long to be flattered in regard to their desires and virtues, their religious feeling and social activity, their will to power and utopian hopes, their knowledge and love, their family and race, their class and nation. And a false prophet can always be found to glorify the demon they worship. However, when the voice of the true prophet is raised, they shut their ears, they contradict one’s statements, and they ultimately persecute and kill one, because they are not able to receive one’s message. The order endures until the prophet’s words are fulfilled, and the cities are destroyed, and the land is made desolate. We are all eager for the prophetic spirit. We are anxious to lead the people to a new justice and to a better social order. We long to save the nations from the threatening doom. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

However, does our word, if it be God’s word, have a better effect than that which Isaiah saw in his vision and experienced in his life? Are we more than he was? Are our people today less devoted to demons than his people were? If not, can we expect anything other than what he was told to expect through his vision? We must pray for the prophetic spirit which has been dead for so long in the Churches. And one who feels that one has been given the prophetic task must fulfill it as Isaiah did. One must preach the message of a new justice and of a new social order in the name of God and His honour. However, one must expect to be opposed and persecuted not only by his enemies, but also by his friends, party, class, and nation. One must expect to be persecuted to the degree to which one’s word is the word of that God Who alone is holy, that God Who alone is able to create a holy people out of the remnant of every nation. One great advantage of the path of personal discipleship is that it requires no intellectual capacity, no special gifts of any kind, to get its profits and makes progress along its course. What could be simpler than remembering the master’s name and face? What could be easier than mentally turning to one every day in faith, reverence, humility and devotion? #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The advantage of having a living master is immense. Humans are so sense-bound that it is easier for one to follow an embodies ideal than a disembodied one, easier to understand truth in action than truth in the abstract. Should anyone have the god fortune to be taken under the wing of God, one’s progress will go forward at a far quicker rate than would otherwise be possible. It is not a little thing that one had someone to turn one in the right direction or that one’s movement in this direction is guided by an experienced pioneer. Although the master cannot do the disciple’s work for one, one can put the disciple in command of the special knowledge derived from long experience which can help one do the work more efficiently and more successfully. The master will teach with love what the student must learn with reverence. As the Master brings the disciple to clarify one’s own thinking and knowledge and awareness, the latter turns one’s attention to what is that one really does believe. The zeal of the Master will by slow degrees permeate the heart of the disciple. Under the Sunshine of this encouragement, inspiration, and stimulation, the inner life expands. Only those who have themselves feel it can understand how one is able to exert such drawing power and arouse such fervid devotion in disciples. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

The interpretation of history lies at the core of the modern situation. The interpretation of history is a philosophical, a political and a theological question. Coming out of the German philosophical tradition, we have been influenced by the historical thinking of the German idealist. In theology, the recurring question of the Church’s relation to culture and the modern emphasis on eschatology correspond to this primacy of history in modern thinking. If Christology implies an inquiry into the relation of Jesus the Christ to human thought and human life, then the Christological question is essentially historical: does the message of the New Being in Jesus as the Christ convey a reading of history which would be impossible without the Christ? To speak of history is to speak of past, present and future. However, nobody knows either past or present, present and future. Thus the present is the past; and it is equally true to say that the present is the future. The interrelationship of the past out of which the present is born, and the future of which the present is the matrix, constitutes the problem of time. This problem is further complicated by the fact that it is not enough to say, the present is also the past, and the present is the future. Besides a horizontal relation to past and future, the present as a vertical relation to the eternal: the present is eternity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

If it was deprived of an ultimate meaning, if it was but a moving, a flowing, a becoming and decaying, time would not be important. Thus the experience of the flow of time raises two distinct, yet connected, questions. To be on the mysterious boundary-line of the present, between the past which is no longer and the future which is not yet, raises the question of the meaning of time. The borderline is the truly propitious place for acquiring knowledge. Placed at the borderline which is the present, humans try to find the sense of the past and the direction of the future. They attempt to determine this sense in history. History is what gives meaning to time. So, it is important that we leave our monuments up, even if people do not understand them or are offended by them. In other words, history is essentially interpretative. It is not a collection of documents, a museum of facts, or a list of dates. This may be called erudition, but it is not history. Nor is history the past events themselves: it is their interpreted sense as we may discern it. As to the dimension of eternity in the present, it is religion, properly speaking. If it has an unconditional meaning, an unconditional depth, an unconditional reality, the flow of time is really. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

As we have seen, the perception of the Unconditional is the work of faith. Faith perceives the eternal dimension of the present. No interpretation of history can be ultimately satisfactory, unless it grasps the meaning of past and future in the light of the present as eternity. In this sense an interpretation of history is always implicitly religious. It is clear, then, that the concept of history has far-reading implications. If history is the meaning of time, it must be creative. The seasonal cycle of nature is not history, for it needs no explanation: it is complete as being, without lack, without need for something new or something better or something perfect. Instead, history deals with time as past and future seen through the present. And the future, since it is not yet, will be new. Accordingly, there is no history without the choice of a future; and there is no choice without freedom. History gives meaning to time through the mediation of a free decision or choice. The new, which occurs wherever history occurs, is meaning. In creating meaning, being gains freedom from itself, from the necessity of its nature. History exists where meaning is realized by freedom. The new which is produced by history is really new because it is produced by freedom. Freedom is the leap in which history transgresses the realm of pure being and creates meaning. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

To make my desires paramount is what Paul again descried as having a “flesh mine” or “mind of flesh,” which is a state of death, as reported in Romans 8.6. Such a mind “sows to one’s own flesh”—invests only in one’s natural self—and “out of that flesh reaps corruption,” reports Galatians 6.8. Corruption or coming apart is the natural end of the flesh. Flesh can only be preserved by being caught up within the higher life of the kingdom of God and this losing the life peculiar to it. In other words, when Jesus says that those who find their life or soul shall lose it, he is pointing out that those who think they are in control of their life—“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,” as the poet William Ernest Henley said—will find that they definitely are not in control: they are totally at the mercy of forces beyond them, and even within them. They are on a sure course to disintegration and powerlessness, of lostness both to themselves and to God. They must surrender. By contrast, if they give up the project of being the ultimate point of reference in their life—of doing only what they want, of sowing to the flesh or to the natural aims and abilities of a human being—there can be hope. If they in that sense lose their life in favour of God’s life, or for the sake of Jesus and what he is doing on Earth—remember the ongoing World revolution he is now conducting—then their soul (life) will be preserved and thus given back to them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

There is an intimacy in the fellowship between teacher and disciple which is unique. There is an impersonality in this most personal of human relationships which is equally unique. No other relationships, whether familial or friendly, can compare with this relationship in depth or beauty or value. Mosiah forbids persecution and enjoins equality—Alma the younger and the four sons of Mosiah seek to destroy the Church—an angel appears and commands them to cease their evil course—Alma is struck dumb—all humankind must be born again to gain salvation—Alma and the sons of Mosiah declare glad tidings. About 100-92 Before Christ. And now it came to pass that the persecutions which were inflicted on the church by the unbelievers became so great that the church began to murmur, and complain to their leaders concerning the matter; and they did complain to Alma. And Alma laid the case before their king, Mosiah. And Mosiah consulted with his priests. And it came to pass that king Mosiah sent a proclamation throughout the land round about that there should not any unbeliever persecute any of those who belonged to the church of God. And there was a strict command throughout all the churches that there should be no persecutions among them, that there should be an equality among all humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

“That they should let no pride nor haughtiness disturb their peace; that every human should esteem one’s neighbour as oneself, labouring with their own hands for their support. Yea, and all their priests and teachers should labour with their own hands for their support, in all cases save it were in sickness, or in much want; and doing these things, they did abound in the grace of God. And there began to be much peace again in the land; and the people began to be very numerous, and began to scatter abroad upon the face of the Earth, yea, on the north and on the south, on the east and on the west, building large cities and villages in all quarters of the land. And the Lord did visit them and prosper them, and they became a large and wealthy people. Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of he sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father; nevertheless, he became a very wicked and an idolatrous man. And he was a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities. And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

“And now it came to pass that while he was going about to destroy the church of God, for he did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandment of God, or even the king—and as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the Earth to shake upon which they stood; and so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the Earth, and understood not the words which he spake unto them. Nevertheless he cried again, saying: Alma, arise and stand forth, for why percecutest thou the church of God? For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people. And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard they prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightiest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to conceive thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

“And now behold, can ye dispute the power of God? For behold, doth not my voice shake the Earth? And can ye not also behold me before you? And I am sent from God. Now I say unto thee: Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam, and in the land of Nephi; and remember how great things he has done for them; for they were in bondage, and he has delivered them. And now I say unto thee, Alma, go thy way, and seek to destroy the church no more, that their prayers may be answered, and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off. And now it came to pass that these were the last words which the angel spake unto Alma, and he departed. And now Alma and those that were with hum fell again to the Earth, for great was their astonishment; for with their own eyes they had beheld an angel of the Lord; and his voice was as thunder, which shook the earth; and they knew that there was nothing save the power of God that could shake the Earth and cause it to tremble as though it would part asunder. And now the astonishment of Alma was so great that he became dumb, that he could not open his mouth; yea, and he became weak, even that he could not move his hands; therefore he was taken by those that were with him, and carried helpless, even until he was laid before his father. And they rehearsed unto his father all that had happened unto them; and his father rejoiced, for he knew that it was the power of God. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

“And he caused that a multitude should be gathered together that they might witness what the Lord had done for his son, and also for those that were with him. And he caused that the priests should assemble themselves together; and they began to fast, and to pray to the Lord their God that he would open the mouth of Alma, that he might speak, and also that his limbs might receive their strength—that the eyes of the people might be opened to see and know of the goodness and glory of God. And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two night, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them o be of good comfort: for, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit. And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all humankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; and thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

“Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God. My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more. I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come, and ha he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. Yea, every knew shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all humans shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the World, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye. And now it came to pass that Alma began from this time forward to teach the people, and those who were with Alma at the time the angel appeared unto them, traveling round about through all the land, publishing to all the people things which they had heard and seen, and preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

“However, notwithstanding all this, they did impart much consolation to the church, confirming their faith, and exhorting them with long-suffering and much travail to keep the commandments of God. And four of them were the sons of Mosiah; and their names were Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni; these were the names of the sons of Mosiah. And they traveled throughout all the land of Zarahemla, and among all the people who were under the reign of king Mosiah, zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done to the church, confessing all their sins, and publishing all the things which they had seen, and explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desired to hear them. And thus they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer. And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth,” reports Mosiah 27.1-37. O LORD our God, Who by Thine own presence dost shed the abundance of Thy Holy Spirit on those who are set apart, by Thine inscrutable power, to become Ministers, and to serve Thy spotless Mysteries; keep Thy servant, whom Thou hast willed to be promoted to the ministry of a Deacon, that he may hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience, with all virtue. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Please vouchsafe him the grace given to Thy first Martyr Stephen, who was first called by Thee to the work of this ministry; and enable him to administer according to Thy goodness,–for they that minister rightly purchase to themselves a god degree;–and fill him, by the presence of Thy holy and life-giving Spirit, with all faith, and love, and power, and sanctification. For Thou art our God, and to Thee we render glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. O LORD, we commune with Thee every day, but week days are Worldly days, and secular concerns reduce Heavenly impressions. We bless Thee therefore for the day scared to our souls when we can wait upon Thee and be refreshed; we thank Thee for the institutions of religion by use of which we draw near to Thee and Thou to us; we rejoice in another Lord’s Day when we call off our minds from the cares of the World and attend upon Thee without distraction; please let our retirement be devout, our conversation edifying, our reading pious, our hearing profitable, that our souls may be quickened and elevated. We are doing to the house of prayer, pour upon us the spirit of grace and supplication; we are going to the house of praise, awaken in us every grateful and cheerful emotion; we are going to the house of instruction, give testimony to the word preached, and glorify it in the hearts of all who hear; may it enlighten the ignorant, awaken the careless, reclaim the wandering, establish the weak, comfort the feeble-minded, make ready a people for their Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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O God, great in power, unsearchable in understanding, wonderous in counsels towards the children of humans, do Thou fill with the gift of the Holy Spirit him whom Thou hast willed to undertake the degree of the Priesthood; that he may be worthy to stand before Thy holy Altar unblameably, to announce the Gospel of Thy kingdom, to administer the Word of Thy truth, to offer gifts and spiritual Sacrifices unto Thee, and to renew Thy people in the laver of Regeneration; that at the second coming of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Thine Only-begotten, Son, he may go fort to meet Him and by the multitude of Thy mercies receive his reward: for Thy venerable and majestic Name is blessed and glorified. Please be a sanctuary to all who cannot come, forget not those who never come, and do thou bestow upon us benevolence towards our dependans, forgiveness towards our enemies, peaceableness toward our neighbours, openness towards our fellow-Christians. #CresleighHomes

There Was a Young Lady Named Bright Whose Speed Was Faster than Light!!!!!!

July 15, 2020 12:23 am

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. The master gives a candidate the seeds and teaches one how to cultivate them: how to water, nourish, and tend the plants which sprout up from them. The highest type of teacher does not want and will not encourage a blind unquestioning acceptance of one’s own views. In reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity, which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such objects. And though none but a fool or a mad person will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life; it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least, as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience, and makes us draw advantage from that similarity, which nature has placed among different objects. From cases, which appear similar, we expect similar effect. It is only after a long course of uniform experiments in any kind, that we attain a firm reliance and security with regard to a particular event. Now where is that process of reasoning, which, from one instance draws a conclusion, so different from that which it infers from a hundred instances, that are nowise different from that single one? #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

This question I propose as much for the sake of information, as with an intention of reasoning. However, I keep my mind still open to instruction; if any one will vouchsafe to bestow it on me. The true teacher interprets the divine will for one’s disciple but does not impose in on one. Such a guide may proffer advice and tender suggestions but one will never issue orders and dictate decisions. Instead of trying to deprive the student of one’s capacity to intuit truths for oneself, the disinterested teacher will try to create it. Should it be said, that, from a number of uniform experiments, we infer a connexion between the sensible qualities and the secret powers; this, I must confess, seems the same difficulty, couched in different terms. The question still recurs, on what process of argument this inference is founded? Where is the medium, the interposing ideas, which join propositions so very wide of each other? It is confessed, that the colour, consistence, and other sensible qualities of bread appear not, of themselves, to have any connexion with the secret powers of nourishment and support. For otherwise we could infer these secret powers from the first appearance of these sensible qualities, without the assistance of experience; contrary to the sentiment of all philosophers, and contrary to plain matter of fact. Here then is our natural state of ignorance with regard to the powers and influence of all objects. How is this remedied by experience? #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

A genuine teacher will not seek to dominate the soul of a student, will not strive to impose one’s own will upon one. For the teacher desires to see a natural and not a forced artificial growth, to free humans and not to enslave them. The real master spiritualizes one’s disciple but does not debilitate one. The guru who does not want to enslave disciples, will guide them to do what they themselves ought to be doing, but are weakly and foolishly expecting one to do for them. A prudent master prefers not to help people but to help them to help themselves. If you do not put into one’s hands the knowledge and equipment wherewith one can acquire strength, it is a merely a mockery to admonish a weakling to become strong. It is the teacher’s duty to foster one’s disciple’s creativeness, not one’s imitativeness—to encourage the disciples to develop one’s own inspiration. It shows us a number of uniform effects, resulting from certain objects, and teaches us, that those particular objects, at that particular time, were endowed with such powers and forces. When a new object, endowed with similar sensible qualities, is produced, we expect similar powers and forces, and look for a like effect. From a body of like colour and consistence with bread, we expect like nourishment and support. However, this surely is a step or progress of the mind, which wants to be explained. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

The average teacher takes from one’s own personal experience what helped one most or what one’s own teacher led one to, and passes it on to the student as being “the Path,” the only way to God, the sole method of arriving at truth—whether this particular way or method suits the individual type or one’s degree of development or not. Even if it is contrary to the latter’s entire temperament or need, one almost forces it on the student. As if nothing good existed outside them, the meager student finds oneself imprisoned and locked up in one’s teacher’s personal opinions and practices. The wisest master lets the disciple develop in one’s own way, according to one’s own individuality. However, we all know sometimes it is best to be a stringent teacher and give the pupil guidance and encouragement, but also tear them down a little in the process so they can believe that they have what it takes to succeed and that it takes diligence and hard work to success. Students do not always know what is best for them and putting more effort into their education could save them from hardship. If a student thinks a class will be too hard for him or her, that is the perfect time to send one to the guidance counselor and request a parent teacher meeting. So many youth are so eager to get into the adult World, but they are not ready to deal with comes along with that. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

Education is really the only way for a student to gain freedom and it is best for them to stay in school and learn while they are young and be amongst their peers, so that when they graduate from high school and college they will have the skills necessary to advance and avoid some of the hardships out there looking to prey on our youth. Often times failure and being held back is what causes a student to fear trying to class that may be more difficult, but fear is what robs the mind of all its power and perhaps missing the mark is just what a student needs. The good thing about school is you can always makes a class up, and just like sometimes you need to read an article or a book more than once to understand it, you may also need to repeat a class so you can master it. Also, when you are young, that is when your brain is developing and if you challenge while you are a pupil, it will grow in ways you cannot image as you mature and it will be stronger. The brain is a muscle and it is a lot better to build that must while it is fresh, before you have to work hard to burn off the dead brains cells to get all your neurons to operate properly. The simpler the organism, the more simply and easily these connections are made—the faster, too, and the more enduringly the dendrite and axons work. Enduring changes in the pathways affect the reception and organization of messages. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Such a teacher will be the student’s motivating influence while, paradoxically, encouraging one to preserve one’s independence. When a person says, I have found, in all past instances, such sensible qualities conjoined with such secret powers: And when one says, similar sensible qualities will always be conjoined with similar secret powers; one is not guilty of a tautology, nor are these propositions in any respect the same. You say that the one proposition is an inference from the other. However, you must confess that the inference is not intuitive; neither is it demonstrative: Of what nature is it then? To say it is experimental, is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there by any suspicion, that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not, that, for the future, it will continue so. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence, may change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes, and with regard to some objects: Why may it not happen always, and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. However, you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point; but as a philosopher, who has some share of curiosity, I will not say scepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading, no enquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty, or give me satisfaction in a matter of such importance. Can I do better than propose the difficulty to the public, even though, perhaps, I have small hopes of obtaining a solution? If we do not augment or knowledge, we shall at least, by this means, be sensible of our ignorance. What the wise teacher does is to wait for the right situations to develop in which one’s own efforts can be most fruitful. One has waited for years, reserving the full expression of one’s powers until the crucial hour when the aspirant is ready to receive one. Until then, one must conceal one’s identity. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

One’s wisdom in refusing to influence the students’ decisions will not be apparent at first. Indeed it will be regarded as unwisdom—and one’s attitude will be felt as unsympathetic. It is not the business of a master to save the disciple from suffering so much as to save one from the faults in one’s self which create suffering. One may suggest and advise but never impose one’s will upon yours. One turns a lamp upon your problems but leaves you free to work them out for yourself. I must confess, that a human is guilty of unpardonable arrogance, who concludes, because an argument has escaped one’s own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess, that, though all he learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude absolutely, that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension. Even though we examine all the sources of our knowledge, and conclude them unfit for such a subject, there may still remain a suspicion, that the enumeration is not complete, or the examination not accurate. However, with regard to the present subject, there are some considerations, which seem to remove all this accusation of arrogance or suspicion of mistake. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

It is the mark of a well-qualified teacher that one adapts one’s advice to fit each disciple individually. If everyone is recommended to practise the same method irrespective of one’s competence, one’s personal history and temperament, one’s grace of development and capacity, one’s character-traits and tendencies, in a number of cases it will be largely ineffectual. One’s long-range work is to lift the disciples to one’s own level, but one’s short-range work is necessarily concerned with their levels. One’s refusal to give everything out to everyone must be judged by this light, this recognition of the fact that there exist various levels of understanding, and hence of readiness to learn these things. A teacher of spiritual culture, ideals, principles, and practices must think of the intellectual level of those one seeks to instruct, and address one’s message to that. Because there are different levels of aspirants, different levels of teaching are necessary. It is certain, that the most ignorant and stupid peasants, nay infants, nay even brute beasts, improve by experience, and learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the effects, which result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching a flame or a candle, one will be careful not to put one’s hand near any candle (not recommended); but will expect a similar effect from a cause, which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

If you assert, therefore, that the understanding of a child is led into this conclusion by any process of argument or ratiocination, I may justly require you to produce that argument; nor have you any pretence to refuse so equitable a demand. You cannot say, that the argument is abstruse, and may possibly escape your enquiry; since you confess, that it is obvious to the capacity of mere infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a moment, or if, after reflection, you produce any intricate or profound argument, you, in a manner, give up the question, and confess, that it is not reasoning which engages us to suppose the pas resembling the future, and to expect similar effects from causes, which are, to appearance, similar. This is the proposition which I intended to enforce in the present section. If I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be indeed a very backward scholar; since I cannot now discover an argument, which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me, long before I was out of my cradle. The question of helping students more individually is a question of practical functioning. The teacher is not to create a philosophical elite for its own sake but for the larger sake of humankind. There was a young lady named Bright, whose speed was far faster than light; she set out one day in a relative way, and returned home the previous night. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

It is possible to think of rare and dramatic failings as those most suitable for the analysis here employed. However, it would see that exotic differentness is most useful merely as a means of making one aware of identity assumptions ordinarily so fully satisfied as to escape one’s own awareness. It is also possible to think that established groups who have been marginalized can provide the best objects for this kind of analysis. This could easily lead to imbalance of treatment. Sociologically, the central issue concerning these groups is their place in the social structure; the contingencies these persons encounter in face-to-face interaction is only one part of the problem, and something that cannot itself be fully understood without reference to the history, the political development, and the current policies of the group. It is also possible to restrict the analysis to those who possess a flaw that uneases almost all their social situation, leading these unfortunates to form a major part of their self-conception reactively, in terms of their responsive plight. This report argues differently. The most fortunate of normals is likely to have one’s half-hidden failing, and for every little failing there is a social occasion when it will loom large, creating a shameful gap between virtual and actual social identity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Therefore the occasionally precarious and the constantly precarious form a single continuum, their situation in life analyzable by the same framework. (Hence persons with only a minor differentness find they understand the structure of the situation in which the fully stigmatized are placed—often attributing this sympathy to the profundity of their human nature instead of to the isomorphism of human situations. The fully and visibly stigmatized, in turn, must suffer the special indignity of knowing that they wear their situation on their sleeve, that almost anyone will be able to see into the heart of their predicament.) It is implied, then, that it is not to the different that one should look for understanding or differentness, but to the ordinary. The question of social norms is certainly central, but the concern might be less for uncommon deviations from the ordinary than for ordinary deviations from the common. It can be assumed that a necessary condition for social life is the sharing of a single set of normative expectations by pariciptants, the norms being sustained in part because of being incorporated. When a rule is broken restorative measures will occur; the damaging is terminated and the damage repaired, whether by control agencies or by the culprit oneself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

However, the norms dealt with in this paper concern identity or being, and are therefore of a special kind. Failure or success a maintaining such norms has a very direct effect on the psychological integrity of the individual. At the same time, mere desire to abide by the norm—mere good will—is not enough, for in many cases the individual has no immediate control over one’s level of sustaining the norm. It is a question of the individual’s condition, not one’s will; it is a question of conformance, not compliance. Only by introducing the assumption that the individual should know and keep one’s place can a full equivalent in willful action be found for the individual’s social condition. Further, while some of these norms, such as sightedness and literacy, may be commonly sustained with complete adequacy by most persons in the society, there are other norms, such as those associated with physical comeliness, which take the form of ideals and constitute standards against which almost everyone falls short at some stage in one’s life. And even where widely attained norms are involved, their multiplicity has the effect of disqualifying many persons. For example, in an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, White, urban, northern, heterosexual Protestant father of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height, and a recent record in sports. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

Any male who fails to qualify in any of these ways is likely to view oneself—during moments at least—as unworthy, incomplete, and inferior; at times one is likely to pass and at times one is likely to find oneself being apologetic or aggressive concerning known-about aspect of oneself one knows are probably seen as undesirable. The general identity-values of a society may be fully entrenched nowhere, and yet they can cast kind of shadow on the encounter encountered everywhere in daily living. Moreover, more is involved than norms regarding somewhat static status attributes. The issues is not merely visible but obtrusiveness; this means that failure to sustain the many minor norms important in the etiquette of face-to-face communication can have a very pervasive effect upon the defaulter’s acceptability in social situations. Therefore it is not very useful to tabulate the numbers of persons who suffer the human predicament outlined in this book. The number would be as high as one wanted to make it; and when those with a courtesy stigma are added, and those who once experienced the situation or are destined, if for no other reason than oncoming agedness, to do so, the issues becomes not whether a person has experience with a stigma of one’s own, because one has, but rather how many varieties one has had one’s own experience with. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

One can say, then, that identity norms breed deviations as well as conformance. Two general solutions to this normative predicament were cited earlier. One solution was for a category of person to support a norm but be defined by themselves and others as not the relevant category to realize the norm and personally to put it into practice. A second solution was for the individual who cannot maintain an identity norm to alienate oneself from the community which uphold the norm, or refrain from developing an attachment to the community in the first place. Even if it is one that occurs in small amount all the time, this is of course a costly solution both for society and for the individual. The process detailed here constitute together a third main solution to the problem of unstained norms. Through these processes the common ground of norms can be sustained far beyond the circle of those who fully realize them; this is a statement, of course, about the social function of these processes and not about their cause of their desirability. Passing and covering are involved, providing the student with a special application of the arts of impression management, the arts, basic in social life, through which the individual exert strategic control over the image of oneself and one’s products that others glean from one. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Also involved is a form of tacit cooperation between normals and the stigmatized: the deviator can afford to remain attached to the norm because others are careful to respect one’s secret, pass lightly over its disclosure, or disattend evidence which prevents a secret from being made of it; these other, in turn, can afford to extend this tactfulness because the stigmatized will voluntarily refrain from pushing claims for acceptance much past the point normals find comfortable. God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” God, who is “the God of all grace” reports 1 Peter 5.10, is the giver of grace, but that does not mean we Christians are passive recipients of it. Rather, we are to appropriate His grace. Paul urged Timothy to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” reports 2 Timothy 2.1. Grammatically, the verb is in the imperative mood; that is, it expresses a command or respect. Paul wanted Timothy to do something; he wanted Timothy to appropriate God’s grace and be strong in it. Timothy apparently had a problem with timidity. In the same letter Paul had already said, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity,” and “So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner,” reports 2 Timothy 1.7-8. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

And to the Corinthian believers Paul had written, “If Timothy comes, see to it that he has nothing to fear while he is with you,” reports 1 Corinthians 16.10. Timothy had a problem with timidity, and Paul wanted him to deal with it by appropriating the grace of God, “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” We are not simply passive recipients of God’s grace. Just as the Israelites had to gather day-by-day the manna God graciously provided, so we must appropriate day-by-day the grace that is always sufficient for every need. There is one more truth I want us to see from Paul’s words to Timothy. Timothy needed moral strength because he was prone to timidity. So Paul wrote, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” What is your greatest need just now? Is it contentment in a very difficult situation? Paul would say to you, “Be content in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Is it patience or forbearance in very trying circumstances? Then be patient in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. It is moral purity in a romantic relationship? Then be pure in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Whatever you need at this time, you too can experience the reality of God’s words to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God’s grace is sufficient. It is sufficient for all your needs; it is sufficient regardless of the severity of any one needs. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

The Israelites never exhausted God’s supply of manna. It was always there to be gathered every day for forty years. And you will never exhaust the supply of God’s grace. It will always be there every day for you to appropriate as much as you need for whatever your need is. “Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,” reports Ephesians 3.8. The descendants of Mulek at Zarahemla become Nephites—they learn of the people of Alma and Zeniff—Alma baptizes Limhi and all his people—Mosiah authorizes Alma to organize the Church of God. About 120 Before Christ. And now king Mosiah caused that all the people should be gathered together. Now there were not so many of the children of Nephi, or so many of those who were descendants of Nephi, as there were of the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness. And there were not so many of the people of Nephi and of the people of Zarahemla as there were of the Lamanites; yea, they were not half so numerous. And now all the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they were gathered together in two bodies. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And it came to pass that Mosiah did read, and caused to be read, the records of Zeniff to his people; yea, he read the records of the people to Zeniff, from the time they left the land of Zarahelma until they returned again. And he also read the account of Alma and his brethren, and all their afflictions, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time they returned again. And now, when Mosiah had made an end of reading the records, his people who tarried in the land were struck with wonder and amazement. For they knew not what to think; for when they beheld those that had been delivered out of bondage they were filled with exceedingly great joy. And again, when they thought of their brethren who had been slain by the Lamanites they were filled with sorrow, and even shed many tears of sorrow. And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God. And again, when they thought upon the Lamanites, who were their brethren, or their sinful and polluted state, they were filled with pain and anguish for the welfare of their souls. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And it came to pass that those who were the children of Amulon and his brethren, who had taken to wife the daughters of the Lamanites, were displeased with the conduct of their fathers, and they would no longer be called by the names of their fathers, therefore they took upon themselves the name of Nephi, that they might be called the children of Nephi and be numbered among those who were called Nephites. And now all the people of Zarahemla were numbered with the Nephites, and this because the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi. And now it came to pass that when Mosiah had made an end of speaking and reading to the people, he desired that Alma should also speak to the people. And Alma did speak unto them, when they were assembled together in large bodies, and he went from one body to another, preaching unto the people repentance and faith on the Lord. And he did exhort the people of Limhi and his brethren, all those that had been delivered out of bondage, that they should remember that it was the Lord that did deliver them. And it came to pass that after Alma had taught the people many things, and had made an end of speaking to them, that king Limhi was desirous that he might be baptized; and all his people were desirous that they might be baptized also. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“Therefore, Alma did go forth into the water and did baptize them; yea, he did baptize them after the manner he did his brethren in the waters of Mormon; yea, and as many as he did baptize did belong to the church of God; and this because of their belief on the words of Alma. And it came to pass that king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church. Now this was done because there were so many people that they could not all be governed by one teacher; neither could they all hear the word of God in one assembly; therefore they did assemble themselves together in different bodies, being called churches; every church having their priests and their teachers, and every priest preaching the word according as it was delivered to one by the mouth of Alma. And thus, notwithstanding there being many churches they were all one church, yea, even the church of God; for there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God. And now there were seven churches in the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that whosoever were desirous to take upon them the name of Christ, or of God, they did join the churches of God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“And they were called the people of God. And the Lord did pour out his Spirit upon them, and they were blessed, and prospered in the land,” reports Mosiah 25.1-24. We beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that the relief from anxiety which Thy mercy has bestowed upon us may not make us negligent, but rather cause us to become more acceptable worshippers of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O my LORD, may I arrive where means of grace cease and I need no more to fast, pray, weep, watch, be tempted, attend preaching and sacrament; where nothing defiles, where is no grief, sorrow, sin, death, separation, tears, pale face, languid body, aching joints, feeble infancy, decrepit age, peccant humours, pining sickness, griping fears, consuming cares; where is personal completeness; where the more perfect the sight, the more beautiful the object, the more perfect the appetite, the sweeter the food, the more musical the ear, the more pleasant the melody, the more complete the soul, the more happy its joys, where is full knowledge of Thee. Here I am an ant, and as I view a nest of ants so dost Thou view me and my fellow-creatures; but as an ant knows not me, my nature, my thoughts, so here I cannot know three clearly. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

However, there I shall be near thee, dwell with my family, stand in Thy presence chamber, be an heir of Thy kingdom, as the spouse of Christ, as a member of his body, one with him who is with Thee, and exercise all my powers of body and soul in the enjoyment of Thee. As praise in the mouth of Thy saints is comely, so teach me to exercise this divine gift, when I pray, read, see, do, in the presence of people and of my enemies, as I hope to praise Thee eternally hereafter. All the ways of humans are open to God’s eyes. God knows singular things. For all perfections found in creatures pre-exist in God in a higher way, as is clear from the foregoing. Now to know singular things is part of our perfection. Hence God must know singular things. Even the Philosopher considers it incongruous that anything known by us should be unknown to God. If He did not know discord, God would be most ignorant. Now the perfections which are divided among inferior beings, exist simply and unitedly in God; hence, although by one faculty we know the Universal and immaterial, and by another we know singular and material things, nevertheless God knows both by His simple intellect. The aim of a teacher is not to create a philosophical elite for its own sake but for the larger sake of humankind. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Cresleigh Homes

If you do not hear from us, look in this cloud-like comforter at @HUBApts. But only after naptime is over. 😉☁️

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We humbly beseech and implore Thy Majesty, O Lord, that as Thou hast delivered us from impending dangers, so Thou wouldest graciously absolve us from our sins; that Thou mayest both bestow upon us greater benefits, and make us obedient to Thy commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

The Harris family have been farming for over 100 years. The Fresno County farm has been under continuous family operations since 1937. Since its founding, Harris Farms has grown into one of the largest agribusinesses in the nation.

Originally growing primarily cotton and grain Harris Ranch now boasts a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and nut crops. These include everything from carrots, lettuce, garlic, onions, and tomatoes to melons, oranges, lemons, walnuts, almonds and wine grapes.

Seen here is the founder Jack Harris with his son and owner John Harris. We would like to thank John for providing an environment so conducive to success. We are proud to be a part of the Harris Family, and are honored to carry on the Harris vision and ideas.

Happy Birthday John!

We Mortal Cross the Ocean of this World Each in One’s Average Cabin of a Life

July 14, 2020 12:01 am

If you get simple beauty and nought else, you get about the best thing God invents. There is a very interesting consequence of repression. If we make people conscious of the real motives behind their actions, they react with resistance. They reject the information. Even information offered them in their own interests and with the best of will is violently rejected. They refuse to see this reality in themselves. They do not respond to this information the way the driver of an automobile would, for example, if someone else tells one his door is not shut tight or his headlights are not working. The driver is grateful for that information. Not so the people whom we make aware of their repressed motives. They respond with resistance. In all the cases of repression we have discussed in the recent past, if we were to explains to the individuals involved what was really going on inside them, if we told them what their inner reality was as opposed to the fiction they have built up about themselves, we would expect that they would put up resistance. How do people showing resistance behave? A typical reaction is anger, rage, aggression. When people hear what they do not want to hear, they become angry. They want, as it were, to wipe out the witness to their crimes. They cannot very well end the life of him or her—that is a bit too risky—so they dispose of one in a symbolic way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Aggressors blow up and say, “You are speaking out of jealousy, out of some base motive. You hate me. You get pleasure out of saying nasty things about me.” And so on. Sometimes they become so angry that they can become absolutely dangerous. To what extent they show their anger will depend on the circumstances. If it is not politic to sow anger (as in the case of subordinate and one’s chief), then the individual will probably prefer to say nothing and will wait until one goes home, where one may then vent one’s wife or husband. However, when there are no such constraints, as, for example, when the offended individual is the boss oneself, then one can respond to the criticism of a subordinate (and we are always speaking here of criticism that is correct and hits the mark) in as high-handed a manner as one likes. The boss can rub in the subordinate’s inferiority, or one can simply fire the subordinate. And of course the chief does for fire him or her with any awareness that the subordinate has wounded the boss—how, after all, could such a mere underling ever harm the boss? The boss fires one instead with the rationalization that this little person is a slanderer, a mean-spirited person. Another and simpler method a person can use to put up resistance is to ignore what one does not want to hear. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

People ignore what they do not want to hear because unwelcome information will often be either misunderstood or completely ignored, particularly if it comes in the form of a brief remark that can be pushed aside or if the speaker delivering it does not insist on being heard. It is not always possible to turn a deaf ear, but doing so still remains the simplest and most common form of resistance. Another form is exhaustion or depression. That is the route many marriage partners take with each other. When one partner says something that reveals the true motives behind the other’s actions, the accused partner sinks into gloom and resignation of one’s own: “Just look what you have done. Now I am depressed again because of that remark you made.” Whether the remark is true or not is of no importance. However, whichever partner made the remark will soon learn to refrain from unearthing the other’s unconscious motives again. One knows that one will pay dearly if one does. Another form resistance can take is running away. This often happens in marriages when we feel that our partner has discovered something we would rather keep hidden. We may not even be aware that a game of hide-and-seek is going on, but then one of us feels that the other is seeing more than we are. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

We can put up with the game; we do not want to grant the other’s insight any validity, because we do not want to change. We want to stay the way we are, so the only solution is to go away. The same thing happens frequently in psychoanalysis. If the analyst says something they do not want to hear, patients will often break off treatment. And then the patient is likely to say: “I quit treatment because the analyst is crazy himself. He said things about me that prove he is crazy. How could anyone but a madman have said things like that?” Everyone else will see that the analyst was quite correct (assuming they are not being paid to be fictitious), but the person directly affected, who is terrified of working any changes in one’s self, can respond only with violence (and all the modes of resistance we have discussed here are forms of violence): “Get out of my sight. I do not want to hear that ever again.” When a person is ready for change, the picture is entirely different. When is read to understand oneself, when one is read to know the real truth about oneself so that one can begin to change, then one will tend to react not with anger or by running away. One will be grateful that someone will tell one what one needs to know for the sake of one’s own growth. One will be as grateful as one would be to a physician who diagnoses an illness for one. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

However, most people are not intent on changing. All they want is proof that it is not they but everyone else who should change. Now we come to the concept of transference. Dr. Freud describes transference as the tendency of a patient to perceive the analyst as a personage from one’s early childhood, as one’s father or mother. The patient’s reaction to the analyst is therefore not appropriate to the person who is actually siting across from one or behind one. The patient sees that analyst as someone else (father or mother or possibly a grandparent) and ascribes to the analyst the role that personage played in one’s childhood. Let me cite an example that vividly illustrates this point. An analyst once told me about a female patient who had been coming to see one for three weeks. As she was about to leave his office one day, she looked at him closely and said, “What You do not have a beard?” The analyst had never worn a beard. For three weeks she had thought he had a beard, because her father had worn a beard. The analyst was a cipher for her. Not even visually had se perceived him as a real human being. As far as she was concerned, he was her father, and therefore he had a beard. But the concept of transference has significance far beyond its application in psychoanalytical therapy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Transference is probably one of the most common reasons for human error and conflict in sizing up reality. It makes us see the World through the glasses of our own wishes and fears and consequently makes us confuse illusion with reality. We do not see other people as they really are but the way we want then to be or fear that they are. Those illusions about other people take the place of reality. We do not perceive others as they are but as they appear to us to be, and when we react to them, we are reacting not to real human beings in their own right but to products of our imagination. Now let us look at a few examples. Take two people who fall in love. This happens less frequently than it used to, because there are simpler means for achieving the same ends these days, but I do not want to get sidetracked on that issue. So let us assume that two people fall genuinely in love. They are totally overwhelmed by the beauty, the virtues, the noble qualities of the other and are hugely attracted to each other. All this may lead to marriage, but then, six months later, both partners discover that they are not married to the person they fell in love with. This is somebody else altogether. They had both fallen in love with phantoms, with transference objects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

They saw in the other only what they wanted to see in these phantoms with transference objects qualities they may not really be there. Such as goodness, cleverness, honesty perhaps, or perhaps qualities their mothers or fathers had had. And they had not noticed that they were dealing with an illusion. Then what often happens is that both partners wind up hating each other, because they feel their partner has disappointed them. However, what they have both really done is deceive themselves; they saw only illusion and not reality. However, things do not have to happen that way; they should not happen that way. And in fact, if people would only learn to understand transference, they would not happen that way. The same phenomenon can be observed in the realm of politics. Consider for a moment the kind of wild enthusiasm that millions upon millions of people can develop for political leaders (it has happened not only in Germany but in other countries as well). Sometimes those leaders have been bad; sometimes they have been good. That, however, is not the key question here, important though that question may be. More significant for our discussion is the fact that most people—and perhaps we should say “Thank God” here, although the tendency is also extremely dangerous—have a deep longing for someone who will come alone and save the World, someone who will speak the truth, who will make us safe, who will lead, who means well by us. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

And when someone comes along who knows how to play the part of this well-meaning leader, then people transfer their expectations into one and are convinced that one is their saviour, their redeemer, even when one is in fact a destroyer who will bring catastrophe down on them and their country. Even minor leaders often exploit people’s expectations. Many politicians make deliberate and conscious use of the people’s tendency for transference and achieve great successes by ding so. They manage to impress the voters because they have a good TV presence, because they tell people what they want to hear, because they kiss babies, and because they reinforce the illusion that they mean well. After all, if they adore children, they cannot be all bad. If people understood more about transference, if they took the trouble to notice when their own expectations colour what they see and when they perceive things impartially, if they would finally try to be a bit critical, none of this would happen. Sometimes small, seemingly insignificant actions are more revealing than a person’s major speeches or what one chooses to emphasize about oneself. If all of us could learn to see through the illusions born of transference, our loves, our marriages, and our political lives could be essentially freed of a great curse. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

By seeing through the illusion born of transference, people could also be freed of the confusion between reality and fictitious images. It is not easy to distinguish between those two things. It requires study; it requires daily practice. Our everyday lives offer us an ample field for such practice. Also, along with many disadvantages it has, television offers us one great advantage: It is very revealing of human character, because it allows us to observer faces, gestures, and expressions at close range. We can learn a great deal about a political leader by watching one and hearing one speak on the television. However, we will not learn much about one unless we have developed our powers of observation. From everything I have been saying here we can see how important an understanding of transference could be in improving the quality of our personal and political lives. During the recent protests following a few highly contested uses of force by law enforcement, a bystander said on a TV interview how surprised she was the people were acting like animals. What was unclear was why this should surprise anyone, given that we are taught in public school that this is exactly what we are—evolved animals. That idea may be why people act like wild animals and not civilized human beings. However, “I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them,” reports Moses 2.27. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Our bodies are sacred. They were created in the image of God. They are marvelous, the crowing creation of Deity. No camera has ever matched the wonder of the human eye. No pump was ever built that could run so long and carry such heavy duty as the human heart. The ear and the brain constitute a miracle. These, with others of our parts and organs, represent the divine, omnipotent genius of God. God our Father has ears with which to hear our prayers. He has eyes with which to see our actions. He has a mouth with which to speak to us. He has a heart with which to feel compassion and love. He is real. He is living. We are his children made in his image. We look like him and he looks like us. There are many who think their bodies are their own and that they can do with them what they will but Paul makes it plain that they are not their own, for they are bought with a price, and that “If any human defile the temple of God, one shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are,” reports 1 Corinthians 3.17. So, while some aspects of the theory of evolution are true, it is false that we are evolved animals and should never want to compare ourselves to them. Portions of the theory of evolution are in place to remove God from our lives and make us forget that we have divine parents and must behave with respect and dignity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

You notice people in the royal family are not out in the streets shouting and screaming like they lost their minds, nor manipulating people, nor harassing them, and that is because they have a legacy to maintain, and are children of God, we all do. “We should come to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent,” reports Joh 17.3. To know God is to think what he thinks, to feel what he feels, to have the power he possesses, to comprehend the truths he understands, and to do what he does. Those who know God become like him, and have his kind of life, which is eternal life. Did your mother and father ever remind you to remember that you are a child of God and must act accordingly? Missionaries wear a badge as a constant reminder to dress modestly and comely, to treat people with politeness, and to strive to have Christ’s image in their countenances. By covenant, we too have all taken up ourselves Christ’s name. His name should be engraven inwardly upon our hearts. Likewise, we are expected to act as worthy children of Heavenly Father, who, at least figuratively, has sent us to Earth with admonition, “Remember who are!” Our judgements about right and wrong, virtue ad vice, and appropriate or inappropriate lifestyles depend largely upon what we take a human being to be. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

More personally, an individual’s sense of well-being is in good measure a function of one’s self-concept. Thus, a proper grasp of what we are and how we function is foundational to a well-ordered society and a life well lived. The Bible has a rich, deep anthropology expressed in terms like soul, spirit, heart, and mind. Properly understood, they convey important insights about what we are and how we function. Terms in a language have a wide field of meaning. The term “red” can mean a colour, being embarrassed, or being a communist. Caution should be exercised in grasping just exactly how the term is used in a specific context. For example, “my book is red” is not saying that my book is embarrassed or communist, even though these are correct meanings for “red” in other contexts. “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down. High treason, and betray of a scared trust, the blasphemy is so great that it awakened the dormant indignation of the American people has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted and warped thinkers are swept from the national ugly so ugly that we may have a new birth of national honesty and decency in government,” Senator Joseph McCarthy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

The method of a philosophic teacher is not to make the decisions of the pupil for one, but rather to lead one to make them for oneself. The teacher will outline the process of arriving at the correct conclusion, but one will not deprive the pupil of the responsibility of trusting that process and accepting its outcome. The teacher may even make available information which will be helpful to the student in arriving at a decision, but beyond that one cannot go if the student is to arrive at independence and maturity. The relationship which we find in mystical or Old-World circles, which leaves the pupil completely or continuously dependent upon one’s guide and causes one to come constantly running hither and tither for advice as to what one should do next, will only increase the helplessness of the pupil. The philosophic way is to help one develop one’s own ability to dispose of problems and confront situations effectively. The philosophic method is to lead the pupil to the point where one requires no teacher. The mystical method is to lead one to the point where one cannot do without a teacher. The teacher who demands blind obedience from one’s pupil belongs to a vanishing age. The teacher who strives to make one’s pupil’s own mind understand each step of the way one travels belongs to the coming age. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

The first often ends by enslaving one’s followers, whereas the second ends by liberating them. The first is a dictator, the second a companion. The first creates nonentities, the second, humans. A wise teacher will not lecture to one’s students, will not try the superficial way of telling them every detail of truth. However, by discussion questions and encouragement one will help them to elicit it for themselves and thus enable them to make it deeply and lastingly their own. The right way to teach people is to propose truth, not impose it. Self-denial must never be confused with self-rejection; or is it to be thought of as a painful and strenuous act, perhaps repeated from time to time against great internal resistance. It is, rather, an overall, settled condition of life in the kingdom of God, better described as muting of self. In this and in this alone lies the keys to the soul’s restoration. Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of muting of the self an cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained. However, what is his self-denial or muting of the self, which goes hand in hand with restoration of the soul and eventually that whole person? At first it sounds like some dreadfully negative thing that aims to annihilate us. And frankly, from the point of view of the ruined soul, self-denial is and will always be every bit as brutal as it seems to most people on first approach. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The ruined life is not to be enhanced but replaced. We must simply lose our life—that ruined life about which most people complain so much anyway. “Those who have found their life (soul) shall lose it,” Jesus said, “while those who have lost their life (soul) for my sake shall find it,” reports Matthew 10.39. And again, “Whatever aims to save their life shall lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake shall find it. For what have you gained by possessing the entire World if in the process you forfeit your life (soul)—lose yourself. What would you trade for your very soul? We must always remember, in hearing these words of Jesus about the worth of the soul, that the art of the great teacher is to put things in ways you will remember even if you do not yet understand them. In that way you can keep working on them (and they on you) until you do understand them. Jesus is the master teacher of the human race, and he teaches accordingly. And we have, I think, an intuitive sense that he is right about the worth of the soul. A German soldier fighting in the trenches along France’s Marne river in World War I, where one million soldiers died on the Western front in 1914, wrote home: “What is the good of escaping all the bullets and shells if my soul is injured.” Some losses are so great that nothing on Earth can make recompense for them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify humankind upon a cross of gold. “And it came to pass that Amulon did gain favour in the eyes of the king of the Lamanites; therefore, the king of the Lamanites granted unto him and his brethren that they should be appointed teachers over his people, yea, even over the people who were in the land of Shemlon, and in the land of Shemlon, and in the land of Shilom, and in the land of Amulon. For the Lamanites had taken possession of all these lands; therefore, the king of the Lamanites had appointed kings over all these lands. And now the name of the king of the Lamanites was Laman, being called after the name of his father; and therefore he was called king Laman. And he was king over a numerous people. And he appointed teachers of the brethren of Amulon in every land which was possessed by his people; and thus the language of Nephi began to be taught among all the people of the Lamanites. And they were a people friendly one with another; nevertheless they knew not God; neither did the brethren of Amulon teach them anything concerning the Lord their God, neither the law of Moses; nor did they teach them the words of Abinadi. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

“However, they taught them that they should keep their record, and that they might write one to another. And thus the Lamanites began to increase in riches, and began to trade one with another and wax great, and began to be a cunning and a wise people, as to the wisdom of the World, yea, a very cunning people, delighting in all manner of wickedness and plunder, except it were among their own brethren. And not it came to pass that Amulon began to exercise authority over Alma and his brethren, and began to persecute him, and cause that his children should persecute their children. For Amulon knew Alma, that he had been one of the king’s of priests and that it was he that believed the words of Abinadi and was driven out before the king, and therefore he was worth with him; for he was subject to king Laman, yet he exercised authority over them, and put tasks upon them, and put taskmasters over them. And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosever should be found calling upon God should not be put to death. And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

“And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this I will do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage. Now it came to pass that Alma and his people in the night-time gathered their flocks together, and also of their grain; yea, even all the night-time were they gathered their flocks together. And in the morning the Lord caused a deep sleep to come upon the Lamanites, yes, and all their task-masters were in a profound sleep. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

“And Alma and his people departed into the wilderness; and when they had traveled all day they pitched their tents in a valley, and they called the valley Alma, because he led their way in the wilderness. Yea, and in the valley of Alma they poured out their thanks to God because he had been merciful unto them, and eased their burdens, and had delivered them out of bondage; for they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it were the Lord their God. And they gave thanks to God, yes, all their men and all their women and all their children that could speak lifted their voices in the praises of their God. And now the Lord said unto Alma: Haste thee and get thou and this people out of this land, for the Lamanites have awakened and do pursue thee; therefore get thee out of this land, and I will stop the Lamanites in this valley that they come no further in pursuit of this people. And it came to pass that they departed out of the valley, and took their journey into the wilderness. And after they had been in the wilderness twelve days they arrived in the land of Zarahemla; and king Mosiah did also receive them with joy,” Mosiah 24.1-25. A philosophic teacher often prefers to let the student make one’s own discoveries on the basis of clues provided rather than lead one into rigid imprisoning doctrines and covenants. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

O LORD of exceeding goodness, Maker of the Universe, Whose mercy is immeasurable, Whose benignity is incomprehensible, Who didst take away all our iniquities and nail them to Thy Cross, that Thou, the sinless One, mightiest sanctify us; before Thee we venture to fall down in supplication, O forbearing Lord, and looking upon the great deep of Thine ineffable and immeasurable benignity, to cry unto Thee, our Lord, Who are easy to be reconciled, “Save us.” Not in the spirit of the Pharisee, but in the spirit of the Publican, do we offer Thee our worship; nor d we imitate that heartless robber, but like that other good-hearted and grateful one, we cry to Thee with the Prayer, “Remember.” Remember us, O Lord, in mercy and compassions; send down to us the holy guardian Angel to whom Thou hast entrusted our life, that he may rescue us from this terrible raging death, and this unexpected sword; that through this deliverance and release, we may glorify Thee. O LORD, I live here as a fish in a vessel of water, only enough to keep me alive, but in Heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have a little air in me to keep me breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales; here I have a bream of Sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall live in light and warmth forever. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

My natural desires are corrupt and misguided, and it is Thy mercy to destroy them; my spiritual longings are Thy planting, and Thou wilt water and increase them; quicken my hunger and thirst after the ream above. Here I can have the World, there I shall have Thee in Christ; here is a life of longing and prayer, there is assurance without suspicion, asking without refusal; here are gross comforts, more burden than benefit, there is joy without sorrow, comfort without suffering, love without inconstancy, rest without weariness. Please give to me the eye affects the heart, and the continual viewing of Thy beauty keeps the soul in continual transports of delight. Please give me to know that Heaven is all peace, where error, pride, rebellion, passion raise no head. Please give to me to know that Heaven is all joy, the end of believing, fasting, praying, mourning, humbling, watching, fearing, repining; and lead me to it soon, please. We render thanks to Thee, O Lord, Who relievest us from the pressure of temporal affliction, that Thou mayest set us forward on the way to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We intreat Thy mercy with our whole heart, that as Thou defendest us against things adverse to the body, so Thou wilt set us free from the enemies of the soul; and as Thou grantest us to rejoice in outward tranquility, so vouchsafe to us Thine inward peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

MILLS STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

Residence Two at Mills Station is a two story home that has all the conveniences of a single story! At 2,317 square feet, this home features the Owner’s suite on the first floor with two secondary bedrooms on the “pop top” second story. Take advantage of the vaulted ceilings offered in this plan! The open floor plan includes three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, Home Hub, Loft and more! Walk into the great room and feel the height of the ceilings and all the light brought in from the high windows.

The kitchen opens directly to the dining room allowing for perfect flow. The large kitchen island makes food prep and entertaining easy while the walk in pantry provides ample storage. The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is located on the first floor of this home providing easy access and eliminating the hassle of climbing stairs daily. The Owner’s bathroom is spacious and tranquil including a large free standing soaking tub, walk in shower and large walk-in closet. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-2/

This home is designed with Universal Design concepts meaning that its well equipped for life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more about this unique feature by speaking with a sales associate today! #CresleighHomes

Almighty and everlasting God, Who healest us by chastening, and preservest us by pardoning; grant unto Thy suppliants, that we may both rejoice in the comfort of the tranquility which we desired, and also use the gift of Thy peace for the effectual amendment of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Soldiers, Consider that from the Summit of these Pyramids, Forty Centuries Look Down Upon You!

July 13, 2020 2:15 am

Humans are indeed controlled by their own environment, but we must remember, for the most part, it is an environment largely of their own making. The evolution of a culture is a gigantic exercise in itself of control. Justice is a complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the active exercise of complete virtue; and it is complete because its possessor can exercise it in relation to another person, and not only by oneself. Many communities have created restorative justice programs, yet these programs are often reactionary. They typically focus on trying to heal the offender, victim, and the community only after a criminal act has occurred. While these alternative justice programs are important components in restoring justice within communities, they are hampered by Western-imposed structures and Eurocentric concepts of crime and punishment. In the United States of American today, the American criminal justice system holds approximately 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. Every year, 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (about 160,000 on any given day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanor under a year; at least 25 percent of people who go to jail will be arrested again within that same year—often those dealing with poverty, mental illness, and substance abuse disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration. It is thought that the use of judgement and punishment actually works against the healing process. An already unbalanced person is moved further out of balance. What the threat of incarceration does do is generally keep people from coming forward and taking responsibility for the hurt they are causing. It reinforces the silence, and therefore promotes, rather than breaks, the cycle of violence that exists. In reality, rather than making the community a safer place, the threat of jail places the community at more risk. If people committed crimes by accident and were truly sorry, that argument would be true. However, many people commit crimes because they want to and believer they will not be caught. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

When a person knows what they are doing is wrong, but keeps doing it, they do not need therapy nor rehabilitation, they need punishment to serve as an inhibitor to breaking the law. Yet, it true that some people do break the law by accident or necessity and rehabilitation may help those individuals, much like it does first time offenders. That is why in some branches of the law judges rely on standards rather than strict rules and precedents, enjoying, in effect, wide discretion, or the law authorizes administrators to decide cases on their merits in the light of very general cans of policy, subject only to procedural safeguards of impartiality. The dominant American justice paradigm is not an extension of the slavery catch and release program and some officers are extremely lenient with suspects, but in many cases it is perceived as a further imbalance and disrespect, for justice does not always seek to restore or heal the offender, the immediate family, friends who are also victims, or the entire community that is forced out of balance by the transgression. Today, it is mostly without social structures, practices, and teachings that could help prevent injustice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

Although there is much cultural diversity among North American Indian nations, traditional practices emphasize civil rather than criminal sanctions. The goal of indigenous justice is to promote peace, heal the network of relationships, and eradicate political, spiritual, and emotional injustices. And that model may be a blue print that people consider using, but then it may lead to imprisoning people for not paying debts, or it would allow the wealthy to commit crimes without ever being held accountable. The Great Circle of Justice consists of interrelated socialization structures and practices that provide a multidimensional system of checks and balances that work in unison to retain diversity and harmony within communities and society. The preventative mechanisms are found within the traditional teachings—for examples, in ceremonies, songs, dance, television programs, movies, news, stories, novels, history, kinship relations, education and religion. Society should plant in the minds of people, in order to keep harmony, the concepts of compassion, cooperation, love, unity, equity, coexistence, power, respect, generosity, reciprocity, friendliness, unselfishness, peacefulness, and all other beneficial values which create an intense, diffuse, and enduring solidarity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

Peace should be maintained to heal the body and mind, and to establish diversity and harmony, which will prevent injustices to the natural World and protect future generations. The keepers of knowledge can help identify and provide invaluable insights into the traditional teachings found within ceremony, prayer, and foundational narratives and stories. Narratives and stories are not extrinsic niceties, but are basic life forces needed to establish and to preserve communities and develop a common culture of shared understandings, and deeper, more vital ethics. Narratives are relevant because they serve as more than just entertainment. Narratives preserve cultural teachings and history; they transmit knowledge of the community’s norms and values. Teachings can show people how they are to live with each other and the natural World and so them what happens to people who violate the law. The duties and responsibilities of each person in the society are given and reaffirmed every time the people come together for ceremonies and social activities. This is a holistic way to strengthen the prevention of injustice, and restore balance when a transgression occurs. Church helps people, it is a system of checks and balances that depends not only on people not wanting to commit a transgression, but also know that is they commit a violent act that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” report Romans 6.23. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

Many American Indian nations’ wedding preparation involve young couples being instructed in the importance of marriage to the nation as well as in acceptable behaviour, which includes not abusing each other. Traditional Haudenosaunee marriages, which still occur today, are more than the combining of two people, for they bring together clans and extended family. All present the joining of the couple are reminded of these acceptable norms and their duty in making sure that they are not broken. Such indigenous justice is multidimensional, and a balancing process that contains and is dependent on numerous practices and social structures that function as preventative and restorative mechanisms in the maintenance of justice. For centuries, North American indigenous socialization practices worked to maintain balance within societies. Colonization and imposed Western structures, values, and beliefs, however, have displaced major indigenous political and spiritual structures. The displacement of these traditional structures, practices, values, and beliefs as created disharmony within many communities. Mandatory boarding schools, laws to prevent spiritual practices, and imposed political structures have been implemented to strip North American Indians of their cultural identity, languages, ceremonies, and other cultural values and practices needed to maintain healthy societies. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

With displacement of traditional indigenous practices has come fractionalization and an increase in the criminal activity, arrest, and incarceration of American Indians. The Bureau of Justice and Statistics has concluded that additional external controls in the form of stricter laws, additional law enforcement officers, and funding are needed to decrease crime. Stricter laws and forms of enforcement, however, are not the answer to the prevention of crimes, and neither will they heal and protect the character of diverse communities, which is why the United States of America’s Supreme Court ruled that 3 million acres of eastern Oklahoma—including most of Tulsa—remains American Indian reservation land. This should help restore the Great Circle of Justice, by identifying, understanding and, where possible, recreating cultural social practices and structures to maintain social balance, diversity, and harmony with their societies. Imposed forms of government and laws via colonization, the loss of lands, and policies to assimilate the North American Indian have caused many of the traditional indigenous justice mechanism to become lost or damaged. Today there are numerous tribal courts that only replicate the Western-imposed beliefs and practices of an adversarial system of justice, instead of using traditional indigenous justice methods and values. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

Such tribal courts and forms of governance may be a form of internalized colonialism. These types of court continue assimilation and cause disharmony within the community as they do not preserve cultural traditions, and neither do they heal the community. This replication of imposed laws, practices, and ideas had seeped into many aspects of North American Indian governments. Many tribal codes, for example, are now merely restatements of federal and state law and devoid of indigenous knowledge, values, and norms. The Great Circle of Justice needs to be restored within American Indian restoration practices. Peacemaking and tribal courts are often transformed gradually into bureaucratic reactive models unless care is paid to the traditional codes. An important part of traditional codes is their grounding in tradition and their connection with nature. If we follow the traditional codes, then the indigenous “justice-as-healing” paradigm will replace the case-processing, primarily reactive dominant justice paradigm and its adversarial foundation. For the system to work properly, for there to be a needs-meeting justice, communities must assert their power by redefining and redesigning imposed structures. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

The traditional teachings, socialization practices, and structures that once worked to prevent social injustices can be replanted. As realists, we recognize that there are practices that probably cannot be replicated, such as living in a long house with one’s entire matrilineal, extended family. We suggest, however, that some of the traditional indigenous teachings contain the seeds of how people can once again live in Skennen (peace) or Hozho (balance and Harmony). Prior to colonization, “law” was relatively direct and accessible to indigenous North Americans since it was based on concrete notions of the individual and collective good rather than on a modern abstraction imposed by the nation-state as the ideal (largely for political purposes) to which people must conform (or be punished) in order ostensibly to have security and private property. For most North American Indians, law was accessible: the oral tradition allowed it to be carried around as part of them, rather than confined to legal institutions and inaccessible experts who largely control the language as well as the cost of using the law. Social diversity, the recognition that humans are part of nature (not separate from it), and harmony are essential to justice are what is really meant by the right to equal consideration—to be treated alike unless relevant differences have been proved. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

Communal restorative justice is essential. It can reduce social and economic injustice and it can continue to limit the impact of imprisonment, especially imprisonment that is directly related to unemployment, debt, suicide, and innumerable diseases. We need to achieve a rational understanding of human emotions, particularly the irrational ones. It is important to understand what the cases or breeding grounds are for hate, love, submissiveness, destructiveness, envy, jealousy—for all the emotions that the greater writers (take Shakespeare or Balzac or Dostoevski, for example) have treated so incisively in their plays and novels. We want to make all those emotions the subject of scientific inquiry. What are the human emotions and how can we understand them? All the psychiatrists want to know is how people can be cured of symptoms that either cause them pain or interfere with their adjustment to society and with their own success in life. However, there is also a moral purpose. We want human beings to be able to understand themselves, to discover their unconscious, so that they can achieve independence. The goal is a rule of reason, the destruction of illusion. We want to see people become free and mature. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

Our moral goals are those of the Enlightenment, or rationalism. However, these goals go beyond what other psychologists set as their own goals or understand the goals of their field to be. The only goal those psychologists set themselves was to help people function better. The human model we envision as our goal coincides in many respects with that projected by the great philosophers of the Enlightenment. An important concept is unconscious or of repression. This concept is usually forgotten today. When people think of psychoanalysis, the first thing that come to their minds are the ego, the superego, and the id; the Oedipus complex; and the theory of libido. So let us begin with repression. We often act on motives of which we are completely unconscious. A little example will show what I mean. Not so long ago I received a visit from a colleague who I know does not particularly like me. Indeed, I was rather amazed that he wanted to come see me at all. He rand the doorbell; I opened the door; he held out his hand cheerfully: “Goodbye.” Translation: His unconscious mind was already wishing he could be gone. He had not been looking forward to this visit, and he revealed that by saying “goodbye” instead of “hello.” What could either of us do? Nothing at all. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

Being a psychoanalyst himself, he realized that he had given himself away. He could not apologize by saying: “That is not what I meant to say.” That would have been hopelessly naïve, for we both knew that what a psychoanalyst does with a slip of the tongue is see what it really reveals, not try to make it mean something else after the fact. The situation could be nothing but embarrassing, and we both said nothing. That is just one example of the kind of thing that happens hundreds of times. Or take another example: a sadistic father who beats his son. I think it occurs less often today than it did one hundred years ago, but let us take this example: a sadistic father, a man who takes pleasure in causing others pain or in exercising strict control over them. If you should ask hum why he does what he does (and ordinarily you will not have to bother asking, because such people are usually quite willing to volunteer the information), he will say, “I have to do it so that my son will become (or remain) a decent person. I do it out of love for him.” Do you believe that? Maybe, and then maybe not. However, just look at his face. Notice his expression when he gives his son a whipping. You will see strong emotion in his eyes. What you will see in the face of a man who is full of hate and at the same time fully of joy at being able to beat another human being. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

The same quality of hate and joy at hurting others turns un in a police officer (not, of course, all of them), in nurses, in prison guards, and in any number of private relationships. Such people will hide is quality more or less, depending on how much self-interest demands that they hide it. However, let us go back to our example of the sadistic father. If we see him in action, we know that his motive is not what he claims it is. It is not his son’s well being that interests him. That is a “rationalization.” His real motive is his sadistic impulse, but he is totally unaware of that. Or take an example of much greater historical importance: Adolph Hitler. In his conscious mind Hitler always assumed he wanted only what was best for Germany: Germany’s greatness, Germany’s vitality, Germany’s position of power in the World, and who know what all. Although he issued the cruelest of orders, he never clearly felt—as far as we can tell—that he acted out of cruelty. He always felt he was acting out of a desire to help Germany. He was acting to make manifest the laws of history; he was acting in the name of fate, in the name of race, in the name of Providence. He was not aware that he had become a man who enjoyed destruction. He could not bear the sight of dead soldiers or destroyed buildings. That is why Hitler never visited the front during World War II. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

The explanation is not personal cowardice on Hitler’s part but rather a reluctance to see the concrete consequences of one’s own lust to destroy. We observe a similar phenomenon in people who wash compulsively. Their conscience desire is to be clean all the time. However, when we analyze such individuals, we find that they know, in their unconscious minds, that they have blood or filth on their hands. They want to free themselves from what they are consciously carrying about with them: a crime, perhaps only a potential one, a criminal intent they have to be constantly washing away. Therefore, the manifestation of COVID-19, and the need to keep social distancing and washing of the hands could be symbolic that Jesus did not die in vain and the fact that human beings are paying the consequences for continuing in sin and inequity, after all “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Chris Jesus or Lord,” reports Romans 6.23. Hitler himself had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was not a compulsive washer, but many observers noticed that he was fastidious beyond the limits of normal cleanliness. There is a parallel between Hitler and the sadistic father. Hitler did not want to own up to the reality of his destructive impulses, but perhaps that is because there was more to his motive than just simple destructiveness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26

Nonetheless, Hitler repressed his destructive impulses and admitted only his good intentions. Hitler was getting revenge because he felt the Jewish people had taken over Germany and were ruining it economically and also because a Jewish doctor had killed his mother. So he believed that he was a Messiah and was protecting the German race. Much like sadistic fathers have a reason from projecting their hatred on to their sons. It usually has to do with something they suffered in childhood that they want to inflict on their own child as an act or revenge or because they truly believe that their sadistic behaviour will save their son from suffering something they had to endure. In general, however, sadists have a pure lust for destruction. It is usually always present, but remains repressed and rationalized until, one day, there is no keeping I secret any longer. Examples like this—dramatic ones and undramatic ones—can be found everywhere every day. People remain unaware of their real motives because, for any number of reasons, they cannot bear to know things about themselves that either go against their own consciences or against public opinion. If they became aware of their real motives, they would find themselves in a very uncomfortable situation. And so they prefer to remain unconscious of those things and not to come into conflict with what they regard as their “better selves” or what most “respectable people” think. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

During a family time one evening, my two-year-old daughter, Annie, complained that if she only could see God, say, sitting in a chair, then prayer would be much easier. I pointed out that not only has she never seen God, neither had she ever seen me. She could see my body, but she could not see my I, myself, my ego, nor could she see my thoughts, feelings, and so forth. Persons, I told her, are invisible objects and, since God is too big to have a body, He is not perceivable in the same way a chair or a person’s body is. That evening, I expressed to Annie the Christian understanding of human persons. Historically and biblically, Christianity has held to a dualistic notion of human being. A human being is a unity of two distinct realities—body and soul. More specifically, I am my soul and I have a body. The soul, while not by nature immortal, is nevertheless capable of entering an intermediate disembodied state upon death and, eventually, being reunited with a resurrected body. The forma; name for this position is “substance dualism.” The soul (which is the same thing as the self or the I) is that immaterial, invisible thing that makes me a conscious, living human being. The soul is what I am aware of when I engage in various acts of introspection in which I am aware of what is going on “inside” me. I go where my soul goes. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

If God took my soul and put it into your body and placed your soul into my body, we would have different bodies. If my soul leaves my body, I leave my body because I am my soul. All reasoning may be divided into two kinds, namely demonstrative reasoning, or that concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning, or that concerning matter of fact and existence. That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case, seems evident; since it implies no contradiction, that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary efforts. May I not clearly and distinctively conceive, that a body falling from the clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will flourish in December and January, and decay in May and Just? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori. If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgment, these arguments must be probable only, or such as regard matter of fact and real existence, according to the division above mentioned. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

However, that there is no argument of this kind, must appear, if our explication of that species of reasoning be admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said, that all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition, that the future will be conformable to past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this past supposition by probably arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question. In divine knowledge there is no discursion; the proof of what is as follows. In our knowledge there is a twofold discursion: one is according to succession only, as when we have actually understood anything, we turn ourselves to understand something else; while the other mode of discursion is according to causality, as when through principles we arrive at the knowledge of conclusions. The first kind of discursion cannot belong to God. For many things, which we understand in succession if each is considered in itself, we understand simultaneously if we see them in some one thing; if, for instance, we understand the parts in the whole, or see different things in a mirror. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

Now, God sees all things in one (thing) which is Himself. Therefore God sees all things together, and not successively. Likewise the second mode of discursion cannot be applied to God. First, because this second mode of discursion presupposed the first mode; for whosoever proceeds from principles to conclusions does not consider both at once; secondly, because to discourse thus is to proceed from the known to the unknown. Hence it is manifest that when the first is known, the second is still unknown; and thus the second is known not in the first, but from the first. Now the term discursive reasoning is attained when the second is seen in the first, by resolving the effects into their causes; and then the discursion ceases. Hence as God sees His effects in Himself as their cause, His knowledge is not discursive. Although there is only one act of understanding in itself, nevertheless many things may be understood in one (medium), as shown above. God does not know by their causes, known as it were previously, effects unknow; be He knows the effects in the cause; and hence His knowledge is not discursive, as was shown above. God sees the effect created causes in the causes themselves, much better than we can; but still not in such a manner that the knowledge of the effects is caused by him by the Knowledge of the created causes, as is the case with us; hence His knowledge is not discursive. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

“And now Alma, having been warned of the Lord that the armies of king Noah would come upon them, and having made it known to his people, therefore they gathered together their flocks, and took of their grain, and departed into the wilderness before the armies of king Noah could not overtake them to destroy them. And they fled eight days’ journey into the wilderness. And they came to a land, yea, even a very beautiful and pleasant land, a land of pure water and they pitched their tents, and began to till the ground, and began to build buildings; yea, they were industrious, and did labour exceedingly. And the people were desirous that Alma should be their king, for he was beloved by his people. However, he said unto them: Behold, it is not expedient that we should have a king; for thus saith the Lord: Ye shall not esteem one flesh above another, or one humans shall not think oneself above another; therefore I say unto you it is not experience that yet should have a king. Nevertheless, if it were possible that ye could always have just humans to be your king it would be well for you to have a king. However, remember the iniquity of king Noah and his priests; and I myself was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord, which caused me sore repentance. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26

“Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his has in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth. Nevertheless, in this I do not glory of myself. And now I say unto you ye have been oppressed by king Noah, and have been in bondage to him and his priests, and have been brought into iniquity by them; therefore ye were bound with the bands of iniquity. And now as ye have been delivered by the power of God out of these bonds; yea, even out of the hands of king Noah and his people, and also from the bonds of iniquity, even so I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free, and that ye trust no human to be a king over you. And also trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, expect one be a human of God, walking in God’s ways and keeping God’s commandments. Thus did Alma teach his people, that every human should love one’s neighbour as oneself, that there should be no contention among them. And now, Alma was their high priest, he being the founder of their church. And it came to pass that none received authority to preach or to teach expect it were by one from God. Therefore God consecrated all their priests and all their teachers; and none were consecrated except they were just humans. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

Therefore they did watch over their people, and did nourish them with things pertaining to righteousness. And it came to pass that they began to prosper exceedingly in the land; and they called the land Helam. And it came to pass that they did multiply and prosper exceedingly in the land of Helman; and they built a city of Helam. Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. Nevertheless—whosever puteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus is was with this people. For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even that God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob. And it came to pass that he did deliver them, and he did show forth his mighty power unto them, and great were their rejoicings. For behold, it came to pass that while they were in the land of Helam, yes, in the city of Helam, while tilling the land round about, behold an army of the Lamanites was in the borders of the land. Now it came to pass that the brethren of Alma fled from their fields, and gathered themselves together in the city of Helam; and they were much frightened because of the appearance of the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

“However, Alma went forth and stood among them, and exhorted them that they should not be frightened but that they should remember the Lord their God and he would deliver them. Therefore they hushed their fears, and began to cry unto the Lord that he would soften the hearts of the Lamanites, that they would spare them, and their wives, and their children. And it came to pass that the Lord did soften the hearts of the Lamanites. And Alma and his brethren went forth and delivered themselves up into their hands; and the Lamanites took possession of the land of Helam. Now the armies of the Lamanites, which had followed after the people of king Limhi, had been lost in the wilderness for many days. And behold, they had found those priests of king Noah, in a place which they called Amulon; and the had begun to possess the land of Amulon and had begun to till the ground. Now the name of the leader or those priests was Amulon. And it came to pass that Amulon did plead with the Lamanites; and he also sent forth their wives, who were there daughters of the Lamanites to plead with their brethren, that they should not destroy their husbands. And the Lamanites had compassion on Amulon and his brethren and did not destroy them, because of their wives. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

“And Amulon and his brethren did join the Lamanites, and they were traveling in the wilderness in search of the land of Nephi when they discovered the land of Helam, which was possessed by Alma and his brethren. And it came to pass that the Lamanites promised unto Alma and his brethren, that if they show them the way which led to the land of Nephi that they would grant unto them their lives and their liberty. However, after Alma had shown them the way that led to the land of Nephi the Lamanites would not keep their promise; but they set guards round about the land of Helam, over Alma and his brethren. And the remainder of them wen to the land of Nephi; and a part of them returned to the land of Helman, and also brought with them wives and the children of the guards who had been left in the land. And the king of the Lamanites had granted unto Amulon that he should be a kind and a ruler over his people, who were in the land of Helman; nevertheless he should have no power to do anything contrary to the will of the king of the Lamanites,” reports Mosiah 23.1-39. Please spare and forgive us, O benignant Master; please stay the scourge which is deservedly coming down upon us. Please let the multitude of Thy compassions overcome the hateful mass of our sins; please let the great deep of Thine infinite goodness cover the bitter sea of our wickedness. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

We have eminent examples of Thy benignity in robbers, and harlots, and publicans, and the prodigal son; like them we also make our confession unto Thee, and fall down before Thee; please receive us, O Master, and although we fall short of their conversion and their sincere repentance, let Thine infinite goodness make up for the defect, yea, make up for everything, for in everything we utterly fall short. Every scourage and plague, and every form of destruction, which is bearing down upon us, is slight and small in comparison of our innumerable transgressions. Wherefore on account of the multitude of our sins we have no ground of confidence, O Lord the righteous Judge, whereon to supplicate of Thy goodness a relief from this terrible menace,–but the exceeding greatness of Thy tenderness and the abyss of Thy compassions, O Master full of pity, please compel us boldly to entreat what is beyond our desverings. For this cause, O God of exceeding goodness, O Lord of mercy, we beseech Thee, of Thy gentleness, to stay this sharp sword of untimely death. Please accept, O benignant Lord, the common contrition and heart-felt sorrow of us all, as Thou didst accept the tears of Hezekiah in the affliction of his heart, and didst rescue him from death. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

Please remember, O benignant One, Thy Cross and Death voluntary Passion, which Thou didst endure for us the condemned. From Thee alone do we beg assistance and relief from these horrors; for with Thee alone are possible things which are impossible with humans. Blessed art Thou forever. Lord Jesus, true God, everlasting Life, redeemer of sinners, I give my body, soul, intellect, will affection to Thee. I call the day, Sun, Earth, trees, stones, wind, rain, frost, snow, my home, bed, table, food, books, drink, clothes, to witness that I come to Thee for rest of soul from the thunders of guilt and dread of eternity. Please grant me a circumcised heart that I may love Thee, a right spirit that I may seek Thy glory, a principle within which Thou wilt own, an interest in the blood that cleanses, the righteousness that justifies, the redemption that delivers, that I may not be found a hypocrite on Judgement Day. For the sake of Thy cruel death take my time, strength, gifts, talents, usefulness, piety, which in full purpose of heart I consecrate to Thee. Let not sin find a place in my heart to becloud my vision, and may no foolish act wither my gift. Please preserve me from the falls by which others stumble, that Thy name may not be blasphemed or wounded, that Thy people may not be grieved, the Thine enemies may not be hardened, that my peace may not be injured. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

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Please give me a heart full of love to Thyself and to others. Please let me discover in this life what I am before Thee, that I may not find myself another character hereafter. Prepare me for death, that I may not die after long affliction or suddenly, but after sort illness, with no confusion nor disorder, and a quiet discharge in peace, with adieu to brethren. Please let not my days end like rubbish, but give me a silent removing from the World to another. Inscribe these petitions in Thy book, present them to Thy Father, Set Thine Amen to them, as I do on my part of the covenant. We do not keep silence, O Lord, from praising Thee; because by releasing us from the evils which we deserved, Thou enablest us to celebrate Thy good gifts with gladness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

It is Not Found in the Solid Earth or Twinkling Stars, but When the Skies Grow Dark, the Stars Begin to Shine!

July 9, 2020 2:01 am

In the United States of America there is more space where nobody is then where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is. As we know, there is no human experience, nor would experience be possible at all, without the intervention of a subjective aptitude. What is this subjective aptitude? Ultimately it consists in an innate psychic structure which allows humans to have experiences of this kind. Thus the whole nature of humans presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. The human system is tuned in to woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite World where there is water, light, air, slat, carbohydrates, excreta. The form of the Word into which humans are born is already inborn in them as a virtual image. Likewise parents, wife, children, birth, and death are inborn in humans as virtual images, as psychic aptitudes. These a priori categories have by nature a collective character; they are images of parents, wife, and children in general, and are not individual predestinations. We must therefore think of these images as lacking in solid content, hence as unconscious. They only acquire solidity, influence, and eventual consciousness in the encounter with empirical facts, which touch the unconscious aptitude and quicken it to life. They are in a sense the deposits of all our ancestral experience, but they are not the experiences themselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

So at least it seems to us, in the present limited state of our knowledge. (I must confess that I have never yet found infallible evidence for the inheritance of memory images, but I do not regard it as positively precluded that in addition to these collective deposits which contain nothing specifically individual, there may also be inherited memories that are individually determined.) An inherited collective image of woman exists in a man’s unconscious, with the help of which he apprehends the nature of woman. This inherited image is the third important source for the femininity of the soul. Now, everything that is true of the persona and of all autonomous complexes in general also holds true of the anima. She likewise is a personality, and this is why she is so easily projected upon a woman. So long as the anima is unconscious she is always projected, for everything unconscious is projected. The first bearer of the soul-image is always the mother; later it is borne by those women who arouse the man’s feelings, whether in a positive or a negative sense. Because the mother is the first bearer of the soul-image, separation from her is a delicate and important matter of the greatest educational significance. Accordingly among primitives we find a large number of rites designed to organize this separation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

The mere fact of becoming adult, and of outward separation, is not enough; impressive initiation into the “men’s house” and ceremonies of rebirth are still needed in order to make the separation from mother (and hence from childhood) entirely effective. Just as the father acts as a protection against the dangers of the external World and thus serves his son as a model persona, so the mother protects him against the dangers that threaten from the darkness of his psyche. In the puberty rites, therefore, the initiate receives instruction about these things of “the other side,” so that he is put in a position to dispense with his mother’s protection. The modern civilized man has to forgo this primitive but nonetheless admirable system of education. The consequence is that the anima, in the form of the mother-imago, is transferred to the wife; and the man, so soon as he marries, becomes childish, sentimental, dependent, and subservient or else truculent, tyrannical, hypersensitive, always thinking about the prestige of his superior masculinity. The last is of course merely the reverse of the first. The safeguard against the unconscious, which what his mother meant to him, is not replaced by anything in the modern man’s education; unconsciously, therefore, his ideal of marriage is so arranged that his wife has to take over the magical role of the mother. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

Under the cloak of the ideally exclusive marriage he is really seeking his mother’s protection, and thus he plays into the hands of his wife’s possessive instincts. His fear of the dark incalculable power of the unconscious gives his wife an illegitimate authority over him, and forges such a dangerously close union that the marriage is permanently on the brink of explosion for internal tension—or else, out of protest, he files to the other extreme, with the same results. That little episode opens up a whole train of thought about inner Worlds and separate realities. What do we make of the vision or dream that Johnny Owen has at the age of three? He saw a large mysterious underground cavern, with all the light focused on a great pillar of flesh with something like a head on top, enthroned on a royal chair. Twenty years passed before he fully understood this experience, when he rediscovered this same vision in the phallic rituals of some primitive tribes. How had that vision come to him at the age of three? In what real World does this phenomenon belong? Read the story of Robert Monroe (1971), a hardheaded businessman and engineer, who, after some puzzling experiences, found himself one night floating up to the ceiling of his room, looking down on his own body and that of his wife. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

His account of these experiences, in which he tells of his initial fright, then his increasing willingness to take journeys out of his body, is startling indeed, and often very convincing. One cannot help but ponder the question: What reality can encompass such experiences, as well as the real experiences I know? How about Don Juan, the ageless Yaqui Indian, who opened whole new Worlds to the stubbornly skeptical anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda? Worlds of magical events, of flights through the air, of a nonordinary reality where death is not different from life, where the man of knowledge has a spirit ally, where the impossible is experienced. Rubbish, you say? His own experiences were enough to force Castaneda to recognize that there exist separate realities completely alien to the thinking of the modern scientific mind. I think of John Lilly, a scientist trained at the California Institute Technology, who went on to study neuroanatomy, medicine, and psychiatry, and who is perhaps best known for his twelve years of work with dolphins, trying to communicate with these animals, who he believes are at least as intelligent as human beings. To trace his path from his beginnings as a scientist who believed only in mechanical models of reality, to his present view that there are various levels of altered consciousness (which he had achieved and helped others to achieve), is mind-boggling. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

Along the way, he came convinced that the dolphins could read his thoughts. Lilly’s experiences in a sensory deprivation tank, where he floated in warm water with absolutely minimal input of sight, sound, touch, or taste—were fascinating. He discovered that the inner World, without any external stimuli, was incredibly rich, sometimes frightening, often bizarre. In trying to understand this inner World, he experimented with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), with both illuminating and terrifying results. This led to meditation, unbidden thought transmission, and higher and higher state of consciousness in which he—like many before him, who were called mystics—experienced the Universe as a unity, a unity based on love. Quite a distance from this Caltech training! These and other accounts cannot simply be dismissed with contempt or ridicule. The witnesses are too honest, their experiences too real. All these accounts indicate that vast and mysterious Universe—perhaps an inner reality, or perhaps a spirit World of which we are all unknowingly a part—seems to exist. Such a Universe delivers a final crushing blow to our comfortable belief that we all know what the real World is. Where have my thoughts led me in relation to an objective World of reality? It clearly does not exist in the objects we can see and feel and hold. It does not exist in the technology we admire so greatly. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

It is not found in the solid Earth or the twinkling stars. It does not lie in a solid knowledge of those around us. It is not found in the organizations or customs or rituals of any one culture. It is not even in our own known personal Worlds. It must take into account mysterious and currently unfathomable separate realities, incredibly different from an objective World. I, and many others, have come to a new realization. It is this: The only reality I can possibly know is the World as I perceive and experience it at this moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the World as you perceive and experience it at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many real Worlds as there are people! This creates a most burdensome dilemma, one never before experienced in history. From time immemorial, the tribe or the community or the nation or the culture as agreed upon what constitutes the real World. To be sure, different tribes or different cultures might have held sharply different World views, but at least there was a large, relatively unified group which felt assured in its knowledge of the World and the Universe, and knew that this perception was true. So the community frowned upon, condemned, persecuted, even killed those who did not agree, who perceived reality differently. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

Copernicus, even though he kept his findings secret for many years, was eventually declared a heretic. Galileo established proof of Copernicus’s views, but in his seventies, he was forced to recant this teaching. Giordano Brun was burned at the stake in 1600 for teaching that there were many Worlds in the Universe. Executioners set the stake up in line with the scaffold, then the trunk and the rest were covered with logs and faggots, and the fire was put to the straw mixed with this wood, and they stunk a match and watched him go up in flames are he screamed, “My God, have pity on me! Jesus, Help me!” Individuals who deviated in their perceptions of religious reality were tortured and killed. In the mid-1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis, an intense young Hungarian physician-scientist, was driven insane by his persecutors because he made the then absurd claim that childbed fever, that dread scourge of the maternity room, was carried from one woman to another by invisible germs on the hands and instruments of the doctors. Obvious nonsense, in terms of the reality of his day. In our own American Colonies, those who were even suspected of having psychic powers were considered witches and were hanged or crushed under great sones. History offers a continuing series of examples of the awful price paid by those who perceived a reality different from the agreed-upon real World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

Although society has often come around eventually to agree with its dissidents, as in the instances I have mentioned, there is doubt that this insistence upon a known and certain Universe has been par of the cement that holds a culture together. Today we face a different situation. The ease and rapidity of Worldwide communication means that everyone of us is aware of dozens realities; even though we may thin some of them absurd (like reincarnation) or dangerous (like communism which is becoming a staple in California’s democratic party), we cannot help but be aware of them. No longer can we exist in a secure cocoon, knowing that we all see the World in the same way. Because of this change, I want to raise a very serious questions: Can we today afford the luxury of having “a” reality? Can we still preserve the belief that there is a “real World” upon whose definition we all agree? I am convinced that this is a luxury we cannot afford, a myth we dare no maintain. Only once in recent history has his been fully and successfully achieved. Millions of people were in complete agreement as to the nature of social and cultural reality—an agreement brought about by the mesmerizing influence of Adolph Hitler. This agreement about reality marked the destruction of Western culture. I do not see it as something to be emulated. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

In Western culture during this century—especially in the United States of America—there has also been an agreed-upon reality of values. This gospel can be stated very briefly: “More is better, bigger is better, faster is better, and modern technology will achieve all three of these eminently desirable goals.” However, now that credo is a crumbling disaster in which few believe. It is dissolving in the smog of pollution, the famine of overpopulation, the Damocles’ sword of the nuclear bomb. We have so successfully achieved the goal of a “bigger bang for a buck” that we are in danger of destroying all life on this planet. Our attempt, then, to live in the “real World” which all perceive in the same way have, in my opinion, led us to the brink of annihilation as a species. I will be so bold as to suggest alternative. It appears to me that they way of the future must be to base our lives and our education on the assumption that there are as many realities as there are persons, and that our highest priority is to accept that hypothesis and proceed from there. Proceed where? Proceed, each of us, to explore open-mindedly the many, many perceptions of reality that exist. We would, I believe, enrich our own lives in the process. We would also become more able to cope with the reality in which each one of us exist, because we would be aware of many more options. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

A World with the possibility of countless realities might well be a life full of perplexity and difficult choices, demanding greater maturity, but it would be an exciting and adventurous life. The question may well be raised, however, whether we could have a community or a society based on this hypothesis of multiple realities. Might not such a society be a completely individualistic anarchy? That is not my opinion. Suppose my grudging tolerance of your separate World view became a fully acceptance of you and your right to have such a view. Supposed that instead of shutting out the realities of others as absurd or dangerous or heretical or stupid, I was willing to explore and learn about those realities? Suppose you were willing to do the same. What would be the social result? I thin that our society would be based not on a blind commitment to a cause or creed or view of reality, but on a common commitment to each other as rightfully separate persons, with separate realities. The natural human tendency to care for another would no longer be, “I care for you because you are the same as I,” but, instead, “I prize and treasure you because you are different from me.” Idealistic, you say? It surely is. How can I be so utterly naïve and “unrealistic” as to have any hope that such a drastic change could conceivably come about? #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

I base my hope partly on the view of World history so aptly stated by Charles Beard: “When the skies grow dark, the stars begin to shine.” So we may see the emergence of leaders who are moving in this new direction. I base my hope, even more solidly, on the view enunciated by Lancelot Whyte, the historian of idea, in his final book before his death. It is his theory, in which he is not alone, that great steps in human history are anticipated, and probably brought about, by changes in the unconscious thinking of thousands and millions of individuals during the period preceding the change. Then, in a relatively short space of time, a new idea, a new perspective, seems to burst upon the World scene, and change occurs. He gives the example that before 1914, patriotism and nationalism were unquestioned virtues. Then began the faint unconscious questioning which built an unconscious tradition reversing a whole pattern of thought. This new perspective burst into open between 1950 and 1970. “My country, right or wrong” is no longer a belief to live by. Nationalistic wars are out of date and out of favour, and even though they continue, World opinion is deeply opposed. Whyte (1974) points out that “at any moment the unconscious levels are ahead of the conscious in the task of unifying emotion, thought and action!” (p.107) #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

For me, this line of thought is entirely congenial. I have stated that we are wiser than our intellects, that our organisms as a whole have a wisdom and purposiveness which goes well beyond our conscious thought. I believe that this idea applies to the concept I have been presenting thus far. I think that men and women, individually and collectively, are inwardly and organismically rejecting the view of one single, culture-approved reality. I believe they are moving inevitably toward the acceptance of millions of separate, challenging, exciting, informative, individual perceptions of reality. I regard it as possible that this view—like the sudden and separate discovery of the principles of quantum mechanics by scientists in different countries—may begin to come into effective existence in many parts of the World at once. If so, we will be living in a totally new Universe, different from any in history. Is it conceivable that such a change can come about? Here lies the challenge to educators—probably the most insecure and frightened among any of the professions—battered by public pressures, limited by legislative restrictions, essentially conservative in their reactions. Can they possibly espouse such a new of multiple realities as I have been describing? Can they begin to bring into being the changes in attitudes, behaviours, and values that such a World view would demand? #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

Certainly, by themselves they cannot. However, with the underlying change in what Whyte calls “the unconscious tradition,” and with the assistance of the new person whom I and many others see emerging in our culture, it is just conceivable that they might succeed. If nations follow their past ways, then, because of the speed of World communication of separate views, each society will have to exert more and more coercion to bring about a forced agreement as to what constitutes the real World and its values. Those coerced agreements will differ from nation to nation, from culture to culture. The coercion will destroy individual freedom. We will bring about our own destruction through the clashes caused by differing World views. However, I have suggested an alternative. If we accept as a basic fact of all human life that we live in separate realities; if we can see those differing realities as the most promising resource for learning in all the history of the World; if we can live together in order to learn from one another without fear; if we can do all this, then a new age could be dawning. And perhaps—just perhaps—humankind’s deep organic sensing are paving the way for just a change. “And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.11. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

One of the amazing things about the human being is that it is capable of restoration, and indeed of a restoration that makes it somehow more magnificent because it has been ruined. This is a hopeful but strange thought. How it is so should become clear as we proceed. However, for now we want to see clearly what goes on within the person who is “unruined,” as we might say. In particular, we must see what is the basic shift (given regeneration and forgiveness) that can lead to the reordering of the six universal dimensions of the human self in subordination to God. The key to understanding the overall reordering is provided by what we learned about the human ruin in the past. For as the surest source of destruction to humans is to obey themselves, so the only haven for safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let thus, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our mind to the service of God. With theses words, we simply restate the basic point of view of Christ’s people through the ages. By service, I mean not only that which consists in verbal obedience, but that by which the mind, diverted of its own carnal feelings, implicitly obeys the call of the Spirit of God. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

It is part of the task of a spiritual director to point out tactfully but firmly the faults and deficiencies of one’s disciples, to make them more aware of what is needed in their moral self-correction. The spiritual directors who is over-severe in one’s correction of the aspirant’s faults, needs correcting oneself. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve that God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will,” reports Romans 12.2. The spiritual leader who is always soft and sentimental may help some of one’s pupils but one would help them more if, at the same time, one were also hard and firm. The first attitude will attract more to one, but without the second to balance it neither one nor they will get the proper view of life. A true teacher must warn one’s followers against false expectations and irredeemable promises, “And to be renewed in the sprit of your minds,” reports Ephesians 4.23. It is not enough to one has the penetration to perceive the truth; one must also have the courage to tell it to one’s disciples, even though one knows it will shock them. There is a need for people to have caution, discernment, and even secrecy in this matter. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” reports Galatians 2.20. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Disciples often go to a spiritual leader for their emotional comfort, they do not come for their ego’s emotional quietus. They want to remain enclosed in its little circle, not to be taken completely out of it. “Now there was a place in Shemlon where the daughters of the Lamanites did gather themselves together to sing, and to dance, and to make themselves merry. And it came to pass that there was one day a small number of them gathered together to sing and to dance. And now the priests of king Noah being ashamed to return to the city of Nephi, yea, and also fearing that the people would slay them, therefore they durst not return to their wives and their children. And having tarried in the wilderness, and having discovered the daughters of the Lamanites, they laid and watched them; and when there were but few of them gathered together to dance, they came forth out of their secret places and took them and carried them into the wilderness; yea, twenty and four of the daughters of the Lamanites they carried into the wilderness. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites found that their daughters had been missing, they were angry with the people of Limhi, for they thought it was the people of Limhi. Therefore they sent their armies forth; yea, even the king himself went before his people; and they went up to the land of Nephi to destroy the people of Limhi. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

“And now Limhi had discovered them from the tower, even all their preparation for war did he discover; therefore he gathered his people together, and laid wait for them in the fields and in the forests. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites had come up, that the people of Limhi began to fall upon them from their waiting places, and began to slay them. And it came to pass that the battle became exceedingly sore, for they fought like lions for their prey. And it came to pass that the people of Limhi began to drive the Lamanites before them; yet they were not half so numerous as the Lamanites. However, they fought for their lives, and for their wives, and for their children; therefore they exerted themselves and like dragons did they fight. And it came to pass that they found the king of the Lamanites among the number of their dead; yet he was not dead, having been wounded and left upon the ground, so speedy was the flight of his people. And they took him and bound up his wounds, and brought him before Limhi, and said: Behold, here is the king of the Lamanites; he having received a wound has fallen dead, and they have left him; and behold, we have brought him before you; and now let us slay him. However, Limhi said unto them: Ye shall not slay him, but bring him hither that I may see him. And they brought him. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

“And Limhi said unto him: What cause have ye to come up to war against my people? Behold, my people have not broken the oath that I made unto you; therefore, why should ye break the oath which ye made unto my people? And now the kind said: I have broken the oath because thy people did carry away the daughters of my people did carry away the daughters of my people; therefore, in my anger did I cause my people to come up to war against thy people. And now Limhi had heard nothing concerning this matter; therefore he said: I will search among my people and whosoever has done this thing shall perish. Therefore he caused a search to be made among his people. Now when Gideon had heard these things, he being the king’s captain, he went forth and said unto the king: I pray three forbear, and do not search this people, and lay not this thing to their charge. For do ye not remember the priests of thy father, whom this people sought to destroy? And are they not in the wilderness? And are not they the ones who have stolen the daughters of the Lamanites? And now, behold, and tell the king of these things, that he may tell his people that they may be pacified towards us; for behold they are already preparing to come against us; and behold also there are but few of us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

“And behold, they come with their numerous hosts; and expect the king doth pacify them towards us we must perish. For are not the words of Abinadi fulfilled, which he prophesied against us—and all this because we would not hearken unto the words of the Lord, and turn from our iniquities? And now let us pacify the king, and fulfill the oath which we have made unto him; for it is better than we should lose our lives; therefore, let us put a stop to the shedding of so much blood. And now Limhi told the kind all the things concerning his father, and the priests that had fled into the wilderness, and attributed the carrying away of their daughters to them. And it came to pass that the king was pacified towards his people; and he said unto them: Let us go forth to meet my people, without arms; and I swear unto you with an oath that my people shall not play thy people. And it came to pass that they followed the king, and went forth without arms to meet the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they did meet the Lamanites; and they king of the Lamanites did bow himself down before them, and did plead in behalf of the people of Limhi. And when the Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them, and returned with their king in peace to their own land,” reports Mosiah 20.1-26. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

God of all Good, I bless Thee for the means of grace; please teach me to see in them Thy loving purposes and the joy and strength of my soul. Thou hast prepared for me a feast; and though I am unworthy to sit down as guest, I wholly rest on the merits of Jesus, and hide myself beneath his righteousness; when I hear his tender invitation and see his wonderous grace, I cannot hesitate, but must come to Thee in love. By Thy Spirit enliven my faith rightly to discern and spiritually to apprehend the Saviour. While I gaze upon the emblems of my Saviour’s death, may I ponder why he died, and hear him say, ‘I gave my life to purchase yours, presented myself an offering to expiate your sin, shed my blood to blot out your guilt, opened my side to make you clean, endure your curses to set you free, bore your condemnation to satisfy divine justice.’ O May I rightly grasp the breadth and length of this design, draw near, obey, extend the hand, take the bread, receive the cup, eat and drink, testify before all humans that I do for myself, gladly, in faith, reverence and love, receive my Lord, to be my life, strength, nourishment, joy, delight. In the supper I remember his eternal love, boundless grace, infinite compassion, agony, cross, redemption, and receive assurance of pardon, adoption, life, glory. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

As the outward elements nourish my body, so may Thy indwelling Spirit invigorate my soul, until that day when I hunger and thirst no more, and sit with Jesus at his Heavenly feast. O God, Who desirest not the death, but the repentance of sinners, we beseech Thee, in Thy loving-kindness, to turn Thy people to Thyself; that when they devote themselves to Thee, Thou mayest remove the scourges of Thine anger; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to drive away from Thy faithful, together with their own errors, the destructive fury of diseases; that as Thou deservedly scourgest them when they go astray, Thou mayest cherish them with Thy pity when they are brought back; through Jesus Christ our Lord. The kind of master needed and sought after by those who are on the religio-mystic-occult path is one who will take a keen interest in their personal life as well as spiritual welfare, one who is willing to help them with any and every problem, one who by virtue of residence or correspondence is always and quickly available to them. The philosophic master is not like this but of a different kind. One is not a missionary telling others that they must follow the Quest but an educator telling them that they may follow it if they so choose. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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We beseech Thee, O Lord, give effect to our devout supplication, and mercifully turn away the famine (or the pestilence); that the hearts of humans may know that these scourges both proceed from Thine indignation, and cease by Thy compassion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

Ours is the Only Country Deliberately Founded on a Good Idea!

July 8, 2020 12:43 am

The American continents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any other powers. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States of America and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any external power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. However, with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any external power, in any other lights than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United Sates of America. Still, Manifest Destiny is a religious scripture, which has declared that the United States of America is ordained—by God, to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire World through globalization, free trade, and legal immigration. Yet, each solution still gives rise to a new question as difficult as the foregoing, and leads us on to father enquires. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

When it is asked, What is the nature of our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth,” reports 3 John 2-4. Manifest Destiny is not simply a cloak for American imperialism and justification for America’s territorial ambitions. It is biblical and firmly anchored in a long standing and deep sense of a special and unique American Destiny, the belief that in the words of historian Conrad Cherry, “America is a nation called to a special destiny by God.” The notion that there was some providential purpose to the European discovery and eventual conquest of the land masses “discovered” by Christopher Columbus was present from the beginning. Legend actually explains that spirit called him to America to spread Christianity, and there is evidence of Vikings and Africans in American prior to Columbus. Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into Covenant with God for this work, we have taken out a commission, and America seems to be a land with some special spiritual powers that God wants to harness and magnify. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

If the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, America is supposed to be a spiritual beacon of light and prosperity, and hath God ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission and will expect a strict performance of the Articles contained in it. Follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one being, we must entertain each other in humanly affection, we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others necessities. If we are faithful to our mission, we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when tens of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when God shall makes us a praise and a glory, that humans shall say of succeeding plantations: the Lord make it like New England, for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people upon us. The Great Awakening is now and it is a time that is extraordinary in the out pouring of God’s saving grace. God has chosen America for a special destiny and it is resurrected in a new form. The latter-day glory, in the new Millennium, the end times will bring the second coming of Jesus Christ to Earth and spread the King of God across the World, and this begins in America. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, EXPERIENCE. However, if we still carry on our sifting humour, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? All providential development since, and all the existing signs of the times, lend corroboration to it. However, if it is by the march of revolution and civil liberty, that the way of the Lord is to be prepared, where shall the central energy be found, ad from what nation shall the renovating power go forth? This nation is, in the providence of God destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the World. The relation between God and the United States of America is a fusion between God’s will and the nation’s democratic character gives divine sanction to the United States of America’s bonded arrangements of liberty and democracy. At the same time, it makes the nation, itself, an instrument in the new millennium. In the Holy City of wilderness, this has been declared the gathering place for the Saints from which they will radiate influences that will turn the entire World, through the American continent acting as a conduit, into the World of God’s Kingdom. Understanding and accepting this divine right is the best and most expedient way to prevent confusion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

Manifest Destiny will even help us be modest in our pretensions; and even assist us in discovering the difficulty ourselves before it is objected to us. By this means, we may a kind of merit of our very enlightened state. It must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles, on which the influence of these objects entirely depends. Our senses inform us of the colour, weigh, and consistence of bread; bit neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities, which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body. Sight or feeling conveys an idea of the actual motion of bodies; but as to that wonderful force or power, which would carry on a moving body for ever in a continued change of place, and which bodies never lose but by communicating it to others; of this we cannot form the most distant conception. However, notwithstanding this ignorance of natural powers and principles, we always presume, when we see like sensible qualities, that they have like secret powers, and expect, that effects, similar to those which we have experiences, will follow from them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

If a body of like colour and consistence with that bread, which we have formerly ear, be presented to us, we make no scruple of repeating the experiment, and foresee, with certainty, like nourishment and support. Now this is a process of the mind or thought, of which I would willingly know the foundation. It is allowed on all hands, that there is no known connexion between the sensible qualities and the secret powers; and consequently, that the mind is not led to form such a conclusion concerning their constant and regular conjunction, by anything which it knows of their nature. As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: However, why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist. The bread, which I formerly eat, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities, was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: However, does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

At least, it must be acknowledged, that there is here a consequence drawn by the mind; that there is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants to be explained. These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar will be attended with similar effects. Our analysis of the main symbols of Christianity has prescinded from the question of the historical character of the Christian faith. One could treat Christianity as a set of religious symbols with no historical content. The notion of symbols may have been actually realized in the historical situations of human beings, or again they may not. The Cross could be a suggestive symbol of self-transcendence even if Jesus the Christ had not died on a cross. A historical problem is thus raised by Christology: was the Christ a historical figure whose life is historically documented? The historical elements of Christology may also be seen from another viewpoint. Even if we avoided the questions of the historical existence of Jesus, we cannot bypass the patent fact of the World-historical importance of Christology. To define the true scope of this importance is a second problem and the Christological problem of today. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

The Christological problem of today has for us the same importance as the problem of the two natures of Christ in the fifth century. We are no more able to continue the old discussions concerning the unity of two natures or two wills in Christ, expect in transforming them into the problem of our present situation, that is the problem of interpretation of history. The question of the two natures in Christ must now be posited as concerning the human and the divine in history. Insofar as the picture of the Christ dominates history, this remains a Christological problem. The Church as a living reality must permanently mediate its eternal foundation with the demands of this historical situation. The doctrine of the Christ should not be announced in the abstract, as though formulas expressing it were understandable in all times and all places. The presentation of the message should, on the contrary, be partly moulded on the sort of questions which arises from each historical situation. Christianity is historical in the sense that its timeless good tidings are announced in time; if the content of the message does not change, the form does according to circumstances of time and place. Thus there exists a new historical problem: the influence of history on the forms of the Christian doctrine. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

The historical power of Christology changes the usual perspective of theologians. Few include an interpretation of history in their Christological treaties. They commonly restrict the historical problem of Christ to be a study of the documents of early Christianity and their reliability as historical sources. This—the first problem we have mentioned is not based on an empirical or scientific study of document. Supposing the documents were discarded, the picture of Jesus as the Christ would remain in the Christian conscience and it would still be true that this picture has dominated history for twenty-one centuries. The second is therefore the basic historical problem. To recognize this one thing; to deem it as important for our times as the question of the two natures of Christ in the patristic era is another. The universal quest for the Christ shapes the cultures of the various historical periods in different patterns. Many factors, among which fate and freedom are constantly interplaying, have influences successive cultures. Always linked, these cultures have nevertheless evolved. Like the surface of the ocean, culture is always the same and always changing. Always the same, it formulates the quest for the Christ, the longing for the eternal the search for the New Being. Always changing, it alters the stress, colour or intensity of this continuous seeking. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

Every spiritual phenomenon of a period expresses its eternal content and one of the most important characteristics of a time has been defined when we have discovered which of the various aspects of culture is most expressive of its real meaning. The main aspect of modern-day culture is that it is caught in a flux. At the end of the period of autonomy, it hesitates between a return to heteronomy and a search for theonomy. Secular culture has reached the end of its tether in the professed atheism of many modern movements. Many are not merely using the teacher as a spiritual guide, which is quite correct, but also as a material guide, leaning-post, and father-mother, which is quite wrong. They want to shunt their own responsibilities and shift their personal burdens onto the bac of a master or at least to share them with one. Such a concept of discipleships is a wrong one. Also it is an unfair one. Instead of using the master as a source of principles and inspirations to be applied by themselves in practical life, they try to exploit one, to avoid the responsibility for making their own decisions by saddling it upon one’s shoulders. The master cannot solve all their personal problems or carry all their burdens. This task rests with the disciples themselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

To seek to shift their responsibility for it onto the master’s shoulders is to demand the impossible, the unfair, and the unwise. If successful, it would defeat the very purpose of their incarnation. It would rob hem of the benefit of the experience to which they have been led by their own God. Such excessive reliance on the guide makes one more and more incapable of independent thought and judgment. However, it should be the object of a competent guide to help them develop these very things and grow in spiritual strength, as it should be the ai of a sincere one not dictatorially to rule their conduct but suggestively to elevate it. If they are to advance to higher levels, disciples must learn to rely on their own endeavours. No master can relieve them of this responsibility. It is not the work of a philosophic teacher to save students from having to make decisions for themselves. It is, on the contrary, one’s duty to encourage them to face up to rather than to flee from the responsibility and profit of working out their own solutions. The prudent master will leave them to work out for themselves how to apply philosophy to their personal situations. For one to manage their lives, settle their problems, and negotiate their difficulties might please their egos but would weaken their characters. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

Hence, one does not wish to interfere in their lives nor assume responsibility from forming decisions on those personal, domestic, family, employment, and business problems which they ought to arrive at for themselves. At best one can point out the general direction for travel, not supply a definite map; one can lay down the general principles of action and it is for them to find out the best way of applying these principles. The agony of coming to a right judgment is part of the educative process in developing right intuitions. Each experience looked at in this way brings out their independent creative faculty, that is, makes the truly self-reliant. The principles of such solutions are partially in their hands; practical horse-sense must be harnessed to shrewd reason and guided by ethical ideals and intuitions. It is not right for the would-be disciple to take the new relationship as an excuse for releasing oneself from all personal responsibilities, all personal decisions. One should not expect the teacher to accept such a position, to play a role consisting of father and mother and God combined into a single person toward an individual who has reached adult life. It will not help a disciple to let one evade one’s responsibilities and shirk one’s decisions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

If the atmosphere between them is surcharged with emotion alone without the restraining balances of reason and common sense, this is the kind of situation which is likely to be brought about. A wise teacher will try to meet disciples upon the proper ground between accepting such helpless dependence and rebuffing it brusquely together. Any other meeting would be unhealthy emotionally and unsound intellectually. Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to one’s house, or know one’s mother and brothers and sisters? Why be visited by one at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let one be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from one I want, but not news nor pottage. I can get politics and shat, neighbourly convenience from less expensive companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and as great as nature itself?—There words are just as applicable to the disciple. Whoever entrusts oneself to a master or one’s mind to a teaching, cannot escape one’s own personal responsibility for what one does. This is not to absolve either the guru or the author of the teaching from their own responsibility, which they also have, but it is to make clear that the followers share it too. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

When people know the appropriate manners for a given situation and use them, everything is great, and we all move on. When they do not, that is when confusion and hurt feelings can arise. There are four simple steps that help to make people think highly of you from the moment you first greet them: Here they are: Stand up. This is always the start of a good greeting, whether you are a man or a woman. By standing up, you engage the person you are greeting on an equal level—eye to eye. Remaining seated, on the other hand, sends the signal that you think you are more important than the other person and do not need to stand—not the message you want to convey at the start of an interaction, to say the least. If you are seated in a place where getting up is awkward, make a clear attempt to rise and apologize briefly as you greet the other person: “It is a pleasure to meet you, Davey Fisher. Please excuse me—it is a little cramped in here.” If you are meeting someone who is in a wheelchair, bend down as you shake hands to get your eyes to a more even level with his or hers. Smile and make eye contact. A smile indicates warmth, openness, and a genuine interest in the person you are greeting. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

Making eye contact is also critical. Looking into a person’s eyes shows that you are focused on and interested in that person. Doing the opposite, on the other hand—looking away as you greet someone—will make you appear aloof, disinterested, or rude. State your name and repeat the other person’s name. If you are the person who is initiating the greeting, your opening should be along these lines: “Hello, my nae is Dylan O’Brien.” If you are on the receiving end of the greeting, your response should be something like: “Hi Dylan, I am Parker Gregory. I am pleased to meet you.” If there are others in your group, you might add, “This is Paris Hilton and John Lowe. Please join us. We were just talking about Manifest Destiny and Destiny’s Child.” The key is to offer or acknowledge the spoken greeting, then invite the person joining the group into the conversation. Shake hands. The handshake is symbolic of an agreement not to harm a person. It is a seminal moment in a greeting. The right handshake makes everything flow smoothly. The wrong handshake turns the focus to the error. There are three types of handshakes—only one of which is acceptable: Wrong is the bone crusher handshake. Handshaking should not be a macho contest or a means of showing superiority, and it should never leave the other person in pain or discomfort. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

Wrong handshake is the limp-wrist handshake for this handshake makes you feel like the person is a sly and devious and untrustworthy. It conveys neither warmth nor interest. The right handshake is the firm handshake. Grip firmly and warmly, without squeezing hard. Two or three pumps are all that is needed—so do not prolong the event by holding on longer than is necessary. When it is obvious that someone has an injured right arm or is missing a right arm or hand, it is perfectly okay to extend your left hand for a shake. Overly friendly handshakes should be reserved for very good friends. Shaking hands is one of them most time-honoured traditions we have. Not shaking clearly puts all the focus on why you chose not to shake rather than on building a relationship. One of the few times not shaking is not only appropriate but really important is when you have a cold or other communicable disease. If you say something like, “Nicky, please excuse me for not shaking, but I have a cold and do not want to give it to you. It is so nice to meet you,” people will appreciate your honesty and sincerity. Or you might have just sneezed into your hand and not had a chance to get to a washroom. Historically, men were not expected to shake hands with women. Today, as part of meeting and greeting, everyone is expected to shake hands with everybody, and remember to take your gloves off to shake a woman’s hand. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

Making introductions—there you are talking with someone cute and interesting you have just met at debutante ball, when suddenly your great-aunt Mrs. Betty approaches. Instant panic: You want to make the introduction correctly, but several problems immediately occur: Who do you introduce to whom, how do you do it, and what exactly was Cute-and-interesting’s name, again? The fist bump is very unamerican. High fives, complicated handshake rituals, and hug/shake combinations—these are alternate means of greeting. When you are with friends and people you know who appreciate these forms of greeting, they are acceptable alternatives to the traditional handshake. However, if you do not know the person well, it is a business situation, or you simply are not sure, default to the traditional handshake. Traditionally, American men do not greet each other with a hug, at least not compared to many of their international counterparts. However, that is changing. I see young men enjoying a friendly handshake-hug combo when they meet. As long as both of you are comfortable with the hug, it is okay. Go for it. However, if you sense any hesitancy, do the other guy a favour and back off. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

Who Do You Introduce to Whom: Okay—let us take a deep breath and start at the beginning: Just talk to the more important person first. CORRECT: “Mr. President, I would like to introduce my boss Laurent.” INCORRECT: “Laurent, I would like to introduce the President to you.” When Aunt Betty approaches, first make the decision that she is the more important person in this encounter and say, “Aunt Betty, how nice to see you!” (Kiss, kiss on the cheeks.) “Please, let me introduce cute-and-interesting FOX News Contributor Tomi Lahren to you.” Next, turn to (Cute-and-interesting) Tomi Lahren and say, “Cute-and-interesting,” this is Mrs. Witherspoon, my great-aunt Betty. I am so pleased to introduce you.” Then turn back to Aunt Betty and continue, “Aunt Betty, we were talking about Manifest Destiny and whether Destiny’s Child was a reminder of the prophecy? You just came from Church. What are your thoughts on the subject?” And that is a great opening to start a conversation. God usually exerts that power in connection wit certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favourable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

We may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the World to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Learning to value, develop, deepen, and use your intellect in the overall process of spiritual transformation is a lot like being an auto science engineer. We have examined the serious problems in society due to an emergence of anti-intellectualism in the body of Christ. We also learned that there are solid biblical grounds for nurturing and developing our intellectual lives. However, if this were all we had, we would be like a person tied to a step-by-step set of instructions. What we need is an understanding of what the mind is and how it fits into the process of human transformation and spiritual growth. The mind is the crucial component in the spiritual journey cannot be accurately denied. One of the first duties of a spiritual guide is to correct the beginner, show where one has mistaken one’s way, and expose all one’s fallacies of thought, feeling, and conduct. A competent guide will be quick to perceive and fearless to point out these matters however unpleasant a duty it be and however unpalatable to the pupil. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

It is part of the task of a spiritual director to point out tactfully but firmly the faults and deficiencies of one’s disciples, to make them more away of what is needed in their moral self-correction. “And it came to pass that the army of the king returned, having searched in vain for the people of the Lord. And now behold, the forces of the kind were small, having been reduced, and there began to be a division among the remainder of the people. And the lesser part began to breathe out threatenings against the king, and there began to be a great contention among them. And now there was a man among them whose name was Gideon, and he being a strong man and an enemy to the king, therefore he drew his sword, and swore in his wrath that he would slay the king. And it came to pass that he fought with the king; and when the king saw that he was about to overpower him, he fled and ran and got upon the tower which was near the temple. And Gideon pursued after him and was about to get upon the tower to slay the king, and the king cast his eyes round about towards the land of Shemlon, and behold, the army of the Lamanites were within the borders of the land. And now the king cried out in the anguish of his soul, saying: Gideon, spare me, from the Lamanites are upon us, and they will destroy us: yea, they will destroy my people. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

“And now the king was not so much concerned about his people as he was about his own life; nevertheless Gideon did spare his life. And the king commanded the people that they should flee before the Lamanites, and he himself did go before them, and they did flee into the wilderness, with their women and their children. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did pursue them, and did overtake them, and began to slay them. Now it came to pass that the king commanded them that all the men should leave their wives and their children, and flee before the Lamanites. Now there were many that would not leave them, but had rather stay and perish with them. And the rest left their wives and their children and fled. And it came to pass that those who tarried with their wives and their children caused that their fair daughters should stand forth and plead with the Lamanites that they would not slay them. And it came to pass that the Lamanites had compassion on them, for they were charmed with the beauty of their women. Therefore the Lamanites did spare their lives, and took them captive and carried them back to the land of Nephi, and granted unto them that they might possess the land, under the conditions that they would deliver up king Noah into the hands of the Lamanites, and deliver up their property, even one half of all they possessed, one half of their gold, and their sliver, and all their precious things, and thus they should pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites from year to years. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

“And now there was one of the sons of the king among those that were taken captive, whose name was Limhi. And now Limhi was desirous that his father should not be destroyed; nevertheless, Limhi was not ignorant of the iniquities of his father, he himself being a just man. And it came to pass that Gideon sent humans into the wilderness secretly, to search for the king and those that were with him. And it came to pass that they met the people in the wilderness, all save the king and his priests. Now they had sworn in their hearts that they would return to the land of Nephi, and if heir wives and their children were slain, and also those that had tarried with them, that they would seek revenge, and also perish with them. And the king commanded them that they should not return; and they were angry with the king, and caused that he should suffer, even unto death by fire. And there were about to take the priests also and put them to death, and they fled before them. And it came to pass that they were about to return to the land of Nephi, and they met the men of Gideon. And the men of Gideon told them of all that had happened to their wives and their children; and that the Lamanites had granted unto them that they might possess the land by paying a tribute to the Lamanites of one half of all they possessed. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

“And the people told the men of Gideon that they had slain the king, and his priests had fled from them farther into the wilderness. And it came to pass that after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi, rejoicing, because their wives and their children were not slain; and they told Gideon what they had done to the king. And it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites made an oath unto them, that his people should not slay them. And also Limhi, being the son of the king, having the kingdom conferred upon him by the people, made oath unto the king of the Lamanites that his people should pay tribute unto him, even one half of all they possessed. And it came to pass that Limhi began to establish the kingdom and to establish peace among his people. And the king of the Lamanites set guards round about the land, that he might keep the people of Limhi in the land, that they might not depart into the wilderness; and he did support his guards out of the tribute which he did receive from the Nephites. And now king Limhi did have continual peace in his kingdom for the space of two years, that the Lamanites did not molest them nor seek to destroy them,” reports Mosiah 19.1-29. The illusions that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

Glorious God, it is the flame of my life to worship Thee, the crown and glory of my soul to adore Thee, Heavenly pleasure to approach Thee. Give me power by Thy Spirit to help me worship now, that I a forget the World, be brought into fullness of life, be refreshed, comforted, blessed. Please give me knowledge of Thy goodness that I might not be over-awed by Thy greatness; please give me Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, that I might not be terrified, but be drawn near with filial love, with holy boldness; He is my mediator, brother, interpreter, branch, daysman, lamb; Him I glorify, in him I am set on high. Crowns to give I have none, but what Thou hast given I return, content to feel that everything is mine when it is thine, and the more full mine when I have yielded it to Thee. Please let me live wholly to my Saviour, free from distractions, from carking care, from hindrances to the pursuit of the narrow way. I am pardoned through the blood of Jesus—give me a new sense of it, continue to pardon me by it, may I come every day to the fountain, and every day be washed anew, that I may worship Thee always in spirit and truth. O God, Who desirest not the death, but the repentance of sinners, we beseech Thee, in Thy loving-kindness, to turn Thy people to Thyself; that when they devote themselves to Thee, Thou mayest remove the scourges of Thine anger; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

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We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to drive away from Thy faithful, together with their own errors, the destructive fury of disease; that as Thou deservedly scourgest them when they go astray, Thou mayest cherish them with Thy pity when they are brought back; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes

She Bowed Like a Madonna, but She is Not Lost in Contemplation of the One!

July 3, 2020 1:40 am

I live on good soup, not on fine words. An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war. The ideas that humans have about themselves both limit the and set them free. An individual can call oneself disabled and that is just what one will limits oneself to being. Or, a human can say one is a free thinker and adventurer and one can get to Neptune and beyond. Adepts not only seek the few who seek them but they also seek the fewer still who are qualified for them. The teacher does not lift the veil of Aaliayh for everyone one meets in the street but one will always lift it for those who ask aright. One cannot help all the millions of humankind. One can help only those who come into sympathetic and receptive contact with one or with one’s work. All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Trigonometry, Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the Universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by EUCLID, would forever retain their certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the Sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were in demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

This part of philosophy, it is observable, has been little cultivated, either by the ancients or moderns; and therefore our doubts and errors, in the prosecution of so important an enquiry, may be the more excusable; while we march through such difficult paths, without any guide or direction. They may even prove useful, by exciting curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith and security, which is the bane of all reasoning and free enquiry. The discovery of defects in the common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a discouragement, but rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt something more full and satisfactory, than has yet been proposed to the public. The ultimate materials of imagination must consist of the primary parts of individuals, that is, of sense images, and at least some of their components and qualities. Imaginative activity is anchored in experience and restrained by experience. Further insight into the activity of imagination maybe obtained by examining our treatment of poetry. In its style—the rhythms, cadences, and tones of its language—poetry is restrained, but in all other ways is extremely free and licensed. In all things pertaining to its subject matter, it is dependent upon the imagination, which may at pleasure make unlawful matches and divorces of things. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

In its poetical garb, imagination brings forth feigned history, which is but an imitation of history at pleasure, nevertheless, imagination work within those rational boundaries within which humans believe nature may be enlarged and corrected. Humans want a more perfect nature than pure reason, operating alone, can discover. In perfecting nature, poetry may even take the mind close to something divine: as the sensible World is inferior in dignity to the rational soul, we bestow upon human nature those things which history denies to it; and to satisfy the mind with the shadows of things when the substance cannot be obtained. For if the matter be attentively considered, a sound argument may be drawn to show that there is agreeable to the human soul [animae humanae as “the spirit of human.”] a more ample greatness, a more perfect order, and a more beautiful variety than it can anywhere (since the Fall) find in nature. And therefore, since the acts and events which are the subjects of real history are not of sufficient grandeur to satisfy the human mind, we are at hand to feign acts more heroical; since the successes and issues of actions as related in true history are far from being agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, we correct it, exhibiting events and fortunes as according to merit and the law of providence; since true history wearies the mind with satiety of ordinary events, like another, we refresh it, by reciting tings unexpected and various and full of vicissitudes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

So that this we conduce not only to delight but also to magnanimity and morality. Whence it may be fairly thought to partake somewhat of a divine nature; because it raises the mind and carries it aloft, accommodating the shows of things to the desires of the mind, not (like reason and history) buckling and bowing down the mind to the nature of things. When the imagination thus acts, it creates narrative or heroical poetry. This species of verse makes its images such as might pass for real, yet it commonly exaggerates things beyond probability. The imagination sometimes goes quite beyond reason in dreams and visions. Perhaps it is acting irrationally also when it creates images like those of centaur, unicorn, mermaid, satyr, and Pan. These species of literature represents actions as if they were present. There may also be the implied observation that the imagination of a human in an audience is more easily stimulated or responds more intensely than is the case when one is alone. And certainly it is most true, and one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of humans are more open to impressions and affections when many are gathered together than when they are alone. Hence the stage play can be a powerful instrument in moving humans to virtue. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Whenever you send a written communication, whether by regular mail or email, your writing style will be on full view. If you make any mistakes, they will reflect on you, so make a point of carefully reviewing everything you write, even informal notes. Want to impress someone? Send them a note, in the mail, handwritten, on nice stationary. They will be impressed. They will remember you. And they will think, “What a nice human being.” People often ask me, “Why should I write a note? Why not send an e-mail?” The answer is easy. If it is a choice between writing an e-mail or doing nothing, write the e-mail. However, if the choice is whether to send a handwritten note or an e-mail, then the handwritten note may just be the best idea. Think of it this way: With an e-mail, you type it, press Send, hope the e-mail makes it through any spam blockers, and then hope the recipient is interested enough by the subject line to actually read it. Once read, one closes it and hits the Delete button. With the handwritten note, after it is written, you place it in an envelope, address, place the correct and official postage stamp on it, and mail it. When the note arrives, the recipient invariably opens it. (Have you ever received a personal letter and not opened it?) Once read, it is placed on a tabletop, desk, or counter, or posted on a bulletin board or on your refrigerator with a magnet. It is seen again and again and each time it is seen, the recipient thinks of you. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

When you receive and open a gift without the giver being present, please send a hand written thank-you note. In fact, even if the giver is present and you thank the individual, send a note anyway. The human will be really impressed. When you stay at someone’s house overnight, send a thank-you note. When you go to someone’s house for dinner, send a thank-you note. Other things to consider. Send a note saying congratulations for graduating or on a promotion or new job, or when a new addition to the family had arrived or a special anniversary or birthday is being celebrated. Nonetheless, one of the hardest notes to send and one of the most appreciated notes to receive is the bereavement note. We all experience the loss of a loved one or close friend and when we do it is devastating. The notes of sympathy and remembrance are a catalyst to helping get through the pain of the loss. It seems like such a small thing from the perspective of the sender. However, for the recipient those notes are a powerful comfort to help deal with the loss. Take some time to think about something short and heartfelt to say and maybe get a friend to review it to make sure it is received well. Now, what to say in a thank-you note. It is easy. When writing a thank-you note, keep it short and sweet. Just three to five sentences is all you need. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

To highlight how to write a nice thank-you note:

Dear Tori, and Jill,

What a great weekend! The dinner party Saturday night could not have been better, and I enjoyed meeting all your new friends in Tofino, British Columbia. Hope we can get together soon, and I really enjoyed the shepherd’s pie. Hope we can get together again soon.

Thanks for making my visit such a pleasure.

Randolph

(Maximum time to write: ten minutes. Maximum benefit to you: incalculable.)

#RandolphHarris 8 of 20

To be someone’s disciple is to go farther in relationship than to be one’s student. What is the number of the house? What do I see? A public display of fancy articles. My beautiful stranger, it may be shocking on my part, but I am following the bright path. She has forgotten what happened—ah, yes, when one is seventeen years old, when one goes shopping in this happy age, when every single large or little object picked up gives unspeakable delight, then one really forgets. As yet she has not seen me: I am standing at the other end of the counter, far off by myself. There is a mirror on the opposite wall; she is not contemplating it, but the mirror is contemplating her. How faithfully it has caught her image, like a humble slave who shows his devotion by his faithfulness, a slave for whom she certainly has significance but who has no significance for her, who indeed dares to capture her but not to hold her. Unhappy mirror, which assuredly can grasp her image but not her; unhappy mirror, which cannot secretly hide her image in itself, hide it from the whole World, but can only disclose it to others as it now does to me. What torture if a human being were fashioned that way. And yet are there not many people who are like that, who possess nothing except at the moment when they are showing it to others, who merely grasp the surface, not the essence, lose everything when this is going to show itself, just as the mirror would lose her image if she were to disclose her heart to it by a single breathe. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

And if a person were unable to possess an image in recollection at the very moment of presence, one must ever wish to be at a distance from beauty, not so close that the mortal eyes cannot see the beauty of that which one holds in one’s embrace and which the external eyes have lost, which he, to be sure, can regain for the external vision by distancing himself from it, but which one can, in fact, have before the eye of his soul when he cannot see the object because it is to close to him, when lips are clinging to lips. How beautiful she is! Poor mirror, it must be tormenting—it is good that you do not know jealousy. The master will teach with love what the student must learn with reverence. The zeal of the Master will by slow degrees permeate the heart of the disciple. Under the Sunshine of this encouragement, inspiration, and stimulation, the inner life expands. Only those who have themselves felt it can understand how one is able to exert such drawing power and arouse such fervid devotion in disciples. There is intimacy in the fellowship between teacher and disciple which is unique. There is an impersonality in this most personal human relationship which equally unique. No other relationship, whether familial or friendly, can compare with this relationship in depth or beauty or value. There is no bound so strong, no attraction so deep as that between Master and pupil. Consequently it persists through incarnation after incarnation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

It is a special kind of relationship, one which is less dependent on physical conditions than any other human relationship. If they never meet again, never see each other again, it remains unchangeably the same to the end. One must be eloquent when one unveils the symbolism of the Cross. One can only admire one’s reverence for the mystery which is revealed and the depth which one sees in it. And one can hardly resist quoting one at length again and again. Yet one feels a certain embarrassment. One can sense the impression of having discovered the fullness of the symbol of the Cross. One praises the Fathers who composed the Apostles’ creed for the fact that one of its great features is that in all-embracing second article it has enumerated symbols of subjection along with symbols of victory. Credit should therefore be given to them for reading the symbolism of the Cross and confessing its relevance to Christian faith. However, I see their confession only an anticipation: they anticipated the basic structure in which the universal significance of Jesus the Christ as the bearer of the New Being must be seen. Who fulfilled the anticipation, one is left to imagine. One thing is certain. The anticipation is not fulfilled by Christianity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

Christianity may be great. Whenever the hardness and the crust are broken through and the substance becomes visible, it exercises a peculiar fascination; then we see what we have now lost, and a deep yearning awakens in us for the departed youth of our culture. However, Christianity is consistently heteronomous. Refusing to place itself under the judgment, it implicitly rejects the Cross. It has abandoned the prophetic spirit which says “no” together with “yes” and “yes” together with “no.” Ecclesiastically limited Christianity, petrified and mechanized in its forms, is unable to place itself on the Cross and, through repentance and self-condemnation, to give itself a new life. Just as Jesus could not have been the Christ without sacrificing himself as Jesus to himself as the Christ, so must a Church sacrifice itself. The criterion of the truth of faith is that it implies an element of self-negation. Christianity professes no such element. Driven by this criterion, Protestantism has criticized the Roman Church. This Church has been led into forms of idolatry because she did not take seriously enough the Cross of the Christ. Only in Protestantism has the Cross been given its due place. Protestantism is not only a protest, it is also—and above all—Christianity. It is also and above all the bearer and mediator of the New Being manifest in Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Protestantism is thus found wherever—even outside of Protestant denominations, even outside of professedly Christian groups—the boundary-situation is proclaimed to be the very situation of salvation; wherever the meaning of the Cross is announced; wherever the Christian substance is preached under the shadow of the Cross. The fact that this criterion is identical with the Protestant principle and has become reality in the Cross of the Christ constitutes the superiority of Protestant Christianity. Yet not all Protestantism is thus saved. The end of the Protestant era means precisely that institutional Protestantism is no longer the standard-bearer of the Protestant principle. It is merely on the defensive. If the protest against itself on the basis of an experience of God’s majesty constitutes the Protestant principle, it is evident that the Churches are not engaged in protesting against themselves. The basic problem of Protestant institutions is to elaborate beneficial forms of life while constantly denying their sufficiency. This is so difficult that my objection to institutionalism may be turned against me. If to institutionalize salvation often entails a withdrawal of the element of self-negation, an undermining of the meaning of the Cross, is not me myself transcending self-negation when I proclaim the superiority of Protestant Christianity? #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

This pride in superiority is as arrogant as the sacramental authority of bishops and priests has ever been. If a claim to superiority is clearly justified, a moderate pride in it may be forgiven. Yet how Protestant is Protestantism? The institutional Churches being partly discarded, what remains? There remain those who are, Protestant unawares. Where are the Protestants? They are wherever Protestantism appears as the prophetic spirit which lists where it will, without ecclesiastical conditions, organizations and tradition. Thus it will operate through Christianity as well as through orthodoxy, through freedom as well as through capitalism. The question is, Are the Reformers themselves among these disciples of the ground of being? It is by fidelity to the Cross that the God of Protestantism has no sacraments which can be divorced from the prophetic message and therefore no priesthood and no genuine cult. Two comments are pertinent. In the first place, how can Christian faith involve a true relation to God if it does not inspire adoration? And adoration means cults. In the second place, it has always been the Christian understanding of the Cross that the Cross was an expression, a symbol, of worship. This is why the Church Fathers saw in it the unique sacrifice of the Son of God. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Christianity has embodied this in its theology of the Eucharist, which is a re-presentation of the unique sacrifice of the Cross, of the cult offered by Jesus the Christ of the Father. The Reformers strenuously maintained that, in the words of the Confession of Augsburg, “The Passion of Christ was an oblation and a satisfaction.” That is, it was an act of divine cult. How Christ is both the Father and the Son—He will make intercessions and bear the transgressions of His people—they and all the holy prophets are His seed—He brings to pass the Resurrection—little children have eternal life. About 148 Before Christ. “And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God Himself shall come down among the children of humans, and shall redeem His people. And because He dwelleth in flesh He shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—the Father, because He was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; this becoming the Father and Son—and they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of Heaven and of Earth. And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldth not to the temptation, but suffereth oneself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by His people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

“And after all this, after working many mighty miracles among the children of humans, He shall be led, yea, even as Isaiah said, as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so one opened not one’s mouth. Yea, even so one shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father. And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of humans—having ascended into Heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of humans; standing betwixt them and justice; having broke the bands of death, taken upon Himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice. And now I say unto you, who shall declare one’s generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when one’s soul has been made an offering for sin one shall see one’s seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed? Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem His people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are His seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

“For these are they whose sins He has borne; these are they for whom He has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now are they not his seed? Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened one’s mouth to prophesy, that has no fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the World began? I say unto you that they are his seed. And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! And O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet! And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace! And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who shall hereafter publish peace, yea, from this time henceforth and forever! And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of one that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, His people; yea, Him who has granted salvation unto His people. For were it not for the redemption which He hath made for His people, which was prepared from the foundation of the World, I say unto you, were it not for this, all humankind must have perished. However, behold, the bands of death shall be broken, and the Son reigneth, and hath power over the dead; therefore, He bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“And there cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection; yea, even a resurrection of those that have been, and who are, and who shall be, even until the resurrection of Christ—for so shall he be called. And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection. They are raised to dwell with God who has redeemed them; thus they have eternal life through Christ, who has broken the bands of death. And these are those who have part in the first resurrection; and these are they that have died before Christ came, in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them. And thus the Lord bringeth about the restoration of these; and they have a part in the first resurrection, or have eternal life, being redeemed by the Lord. And little children also have eternal life. However, behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the World began, that have willfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“Therefore ought ye not to tremble? For salvation cometh to none such; for the Lord hath redeemed none such; yea, neither can the Lord redeem such; for He cannot deny Himself; for He cannot deny justice when it has its claim. And now I say unto you that the time shall come that the salvation of the Lord shall be declared to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. Yea, Lord, Thy watch-people shall lift up their voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the Earth shall see the salvation of our God,” reports Mosiah 15.1-31. O God of Love, I approach Thee with encouragement derived from Thy character, for I am not left to feel after Thee in the darkness of my nature, nor to worship Thee as the unknown God. I cannot find out Thy perfections, but I know Thou art good, ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy. Thou hast displayed Thy wisdom, power, and goodness in all Thy works, and hast revealed thy will in the Scripture of truth. Thou hast caused it to be preserved, translated, published, multiplied, so that all humans may possess it and find thee in it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Here I see Thy greatness and Thy grace, Thy pity and Thy rectitude, Thy mercy and Thy truth, Thy being and human’s hearts; through it Thou hast magnified Thy name, and favoured humankind with the gospel. Please have mercy on me, for I have ungratefully received Thy benefits, little improved my privileges, made light of spiritual things, disregarded Thy messages, contended with examples of the god, rebukes of conscience, admonitions of friends, leadings of providence. I deserve that Thy kingdom be taken away from me. Lord, I confess my sin with feeling, lamentation, a broken heart, a contrite spirit, self-abhorrence, self-condemnation, self-despair. Please give me relief by Jesus my hope, faith in His name of Saviour, forgiveness by His blood, strength by His presence, holiness by His Spirit: And please let me love Thee with all my heart. O God, Who although Thou art wholly present everywhere, and containest all thing with Thine own Majesty, yet hast willed that places suitable for Thy Mysteries should be consecrated unto Thee, that the house of Prayer should themselves stir up the minds of Thy suppliants to call upon this place, and show to all who hope in Thee the gift of Thine assistance; that here they may obtain both the virtue of Thy Sacraments, and the effect of their own prayers; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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Take Care, My Beautiful Stranger–Beauty in Distress is Much the Most Affecting Beauty!

June 30, 2020 1:13 am

With courage, vision and reliance on our own human resources, we can solve the problems we have created and which are imposed on us by natural circumstances or happenstance. Although most of us are conditioned by the past and even the present, we have genuine freedom of creative choice and action and within certain objective limits, are masters of our own destiny. We can, therefore, speak of an inner personality with as much justification as, on the grounds of daily experience, we speak of an outer personality. The inner personality is the way one behaves in relation to one’s inner psychic process; it is the inner attitude, the characteristic face, that is turned towards the unconscious. I call the outer attitude, the outward face, the persona; the inner attitude, the inward face, I call the anima. To the degree that an attitude is habitual, it is well-knit functional complex with which the ego can identify more or less. Common speech expresses this very graphically: when an individual has an habitual attitude to certain situations, an habitual way of doing things, we say one is quite another person when doing this or that. This is a practical demonstration of the habitual attitude: it is as though another personality had taken possession of the individual, as though “another spirit had gotten into him.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

The same autonomy that very often characterizes the outer attitude is also claimed by the inner attitude, the anima. It is one of the most difficult educational feats to change the persona, the outer attitude, and it is just as difficult to change the anima, since its structure is usually quite as well-knit as the persona’s. Just as the persona is an entity that often seems to constitute the whole character of humans, and may even accompany one unaltered throughout one’s entire life, the anima is a clearly defined entity with a character that, very often, is autonomous and immutable. It therefore lends itself very readily to characterization and description. As to the character of the anima, my experience confirms the rule that it is, by and large, complementary to the character of the persona. The anima usually contains all those common human qualities which the conscious attitude lacks. The tyrant tormented by bad dreams, gloomy forebodings, and inner fears is a typical figure. Outwardly ruthless, harsh, and unapproachable, one jumps inwardly at every shadow, is at the mercy of every mood, as though one were the feeblest and most impressionable of people. This one’s anima contains all those fallible human qualities one’s persona lacks. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

If the persona is intellectual, the anima will quite certainly be sentimental. The complementary character of the anima also affects the sexual character. A very feminine woman has a masculine soul, and a very masculine man has a feminine soul. This contrast is due to the fact that a man is not in al tings wholly masculine, but also has certain feminine traits. The more masculine one’s outer attitude is, the more his feminine traits are obliterated: instead, they appear in his unconscious. This explains why it is just those very virile men who are most subject to characteristic weaknesses; their attitude to the unconscious has a womanish weakness and impressionability. Conversely, it is often just the most feminine women who, in their inner lives, display an intractability, and obstinacy, and a willfulness that are to be found with comparable intensity only in a man’s outer attitude. These are masculine traits which, excluded from the womanly outer attitude, have become qualities of her soul. If, therefore, we speak of the anima of a man, we must logically speak of the animus of a woman, if we are to give the soul of a woman its right name. Whereas logic and objectivity are usually the predominant features of a man’s out attitude, or are at least regarded as ideals, in the case of a women it is feeling. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

However, in the soul it is the other way round: inwardly it is the man who feels, and the woman who reflects. Hence a man’s greater liability to total despair, while a woman can always find comfort and hope; accordingly a man is more likely to put an end to himself than a woman. However much a victim of social circumstances a woman may be, as a lady of the evening for instance, a man is no less a victim of impulses from the unconscious, taking the form of alcoholism and other vices. As to is common human qualities, the character of the anima can be deduced from that of the persona. Everything that should normally be in the outer attitude, but is conspicuously absent, will invariably be found in the inner attitude. This is a fundamental rule which my experience had borne out over and over again. However, as regards it individual qualities, nothing can be deduced about them in this way. We can only be certain that when a human is identical with one’s persona, one’s individual qualities will be associated with the anima. This association frequently gives rise in dreams to the symbol or psychic pregnancy, a symbol that goes back to the primordial image of the hero’s birth. The child that is to be born signifies the individuality, which, though present, is not yet conscious. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

For in the same way as the persona, the instrument of adaptation to the environment, is strongly influenced by environmental conditions, the anima is shaped by the unconscious and its qualities. In a primitive milieu the persona necessarily takes on primitive features, and the anima similarly takes over the archaic features of the unconscious as well as its symbolic, prescient character. Hence the “pregnant,” “creative” qualities of the inner attitude. Identity with the persona automatically leads to an unconscious identity with the anima because, when the ego is not differentiated from the persona, it can have no conscious relation to the unconscious processes. Consequently, it is these processes, it is identical with them. Anyone who is oneself one’s outward role will infallibly succumb to the inner processes; one will either frustrate one’s outward role by absolute inner necessity or else reduce it to absurdity, by a process of enantiodromia. One can no loner keep to one’s individual way, and one’s life runs into one deadlock after another. Moreover, the anima is inevitably projected upon a real object, with which one gets into a relation of almost total dependence. Every reaction displayed by this object has an immediate, inwardly enervating effect on the subject. Tragic ties are often formed in this way. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

The soul-image is a specific image among those produced by the unconscious. Just as the persona (Soul), or outer attitude, is represented in dreams by images of definite persons who possess the outstanding qualities of the persona in especially marked form, so in a human the soul, id est, anima, or inner attitude, is represented in the unconscious by definite persons with the corresponding qualities. Such an image is called a “soul-image.” Sometimes these images are of quite unknown or mythological figures. With men the anima is usually personified by the unconscious as a woman; with women the animus is personified as a man. In every case where the individuality is unconscious, and therefore associated with the soul, the soul-image has the character of the same sex. In all cases where there is an identity with the persona, and the soul accordingly is unconscious, the soul-image is transferred to a real person. This person is the object of intense love or equally intense hate (or fear). The influence of such a person is immediate and absolutely compelling, because it always provokes an affective response. The affect is due to the fact that a real, conscious adaptation to the person representing the soul-image is impossible. Because an objective relationship is non-existent and out of the question, the libido gets dammed up an explodes in an outburst of affect. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

Affects always occur where there is a failure of adaptation. Conscious adaptation to the person representing the soul-image is impossible precisely because the subject is unconscious of the soul. Were one conscious of it, it could be distinguished from the object, whose immediate effects might then be mitigated, since the potency of the object depends on the projection of the soul image. For a man, a woman is best fitted to be the real bearer of his soul-image, because of the feminine quality of his soul; for a women it will be a man. Wherever an impassioned, almost magical, relationship exists between the sexes, it is invariably a question of a projected soul-image. Since these relationships are very common, the soul must be unconscious just as frequently—that is, vast numbers of people must be quite unaware of the way they are related to their inner psychic processes. Because this unconsciousness is always coupled with complete identification with the persona, it follows that this identification must be very frequent too. And in actual fact very many people who are wholly identified with their outer attitude and therefore have no conscious relation to their inner processes. Conversely, it may also happen that the soul-image is not projected but remains with the subject, and this results in an identification with the soul because the subject is then convinced that the way one relates to one’s inner process is one’s real character. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

In that event the persona, being unconscious, will be projected on a person of the same gender, thus providing a foundation for many cases of open or latent homosexuality, and of father-transferences in men or mother-transferences in women. In such cases there is always a defective adaptation to external reality and a lack of relatedness, because identification with the soul produces an attitude predominately oriented to the perception of inner processes, and the object is deprived of its determining power. If the soul image-is projected, the result is an absolute affective bond to the object. If it is not projected, a relatively unadapted state develops, which Dr. Freud has described as narcissism. The projection of the soul-image offers a release from preoccupation with one’s inner processes so long as the behaviour of the object is in harmony with the soul-image. The subject is then in a position to live out one’s persona and develop it further. The object, however, will scarcely be able to meet the demands of the soul-image indefinitely, although there are many women who, by completely disregarding their own lives, succeed in representing their husband’s soul-image for a very long time. The biological feminine instinct assists them in this. A man many unconsciously do the same for his wife, though this will prompt him to deeds which finally exceed his capacities whether for good or evil. Here again the biological masculine instinct is a help. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

If the soul-image is not projected, a thoroughly morbid relation to the unconscious gradually develops. The subject is increasingly overwhelmed by unconscious contents, which one’s inadequate relation to the object makes one powerless to assimilate or put to any kind of use, so that the whole subject-object relation only deteriorates further. Naturally these wo attitudes represent the two extremes between which the more normal attitudes lie. In a normal person the soul-image is not distinguished by any particular clarity, purity, or depth, but is apt to be rather blurred. In men with a good-natured and unaggressive persona, the soul-image has a rather malevolent character. A good literary example of this is the daemonic woman who is the companion of Zeus in Spitteler’s Olympian Spring. For an idealistic woman, a depraved man is often the bearer of the soul-image; hence the “saviour fantasy” so frequent in such cases. The same thing happens with men, when a woman of the evening is surrounded with the halo of a soul crying for succor. One should examine the implications of the symbols of Christ and of New Being as far as the formulation of faith is concerned. Certainly traditional Christology has not expressed the meaning of Christ as well as some may expect. Christ is the historical manifestation of Eternal Godmanhood, and is filled with implications. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

All strict and rigid Christian doctrines, both in their Catholic form and in the form that was classical in Orthodox Protestantism, must be radically reinterpreted. Before we can learn the sufficiency of God’s grace, we must learn the insufficiency of ourselves. As I have said, the more we see our sinfulness, the more we appreciate the grace in its basic meaning of God’s undeserved favour. In a similar manner, the more we see our frailty, weakness, and dependence, the more we appreciate God’s grace in its dimension of His divine assistance. Just as grace shines more brilliantly against the dark background of our sin, so it also shines more brilliantly against the background of our human weakness. We have looked at Paul’s words in Romans 5.20: “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” He could have just as aptly said in 2 Corinthians 12, “But where human weakness increased, grace increased all the more.” That is essentially what he said in different words in verse 9: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. My power is made perfect in weakness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

Indeed, the abject weakness of the human instrument serves to magnify and throw into relief the perfection of the divine power in a way that any suggestion of human adequacy could never do. The greater the servant’s weakness, the more conscious is the power of one’s Master’s all-sufficient grace. In this passage, God equates His grace with His power as specifically displayed in our weakness. This power infusing our weakness is a concrete expression of His grace: His power comes to our assistance through the ministry of His Spirit in our lives. This is the mysterious operation of the Holy Spirit on our human spirit through which He strengthens us and enables us to meet in a Godly fashion whatever circumstances we encounter. Notice I said Holy Spirit strengthens us and enables us o meet in a Godly fashion whatever circumstances cross our paths. God’s grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him. Modern society’s subtle, underlying agenda is good feelings. We want the pain to go away. We want to feel better in difficult situations, but God wants us to glorify Him in those circumstances. Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. This issue is whether or not we honour God by the way we respond to our circumstances. God’s grace—that is, the enabling power of the Holy Spirit—is given to help us respond in such a way. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

God’s grace is sufficient. The Greek verb translated “is sufficient” is the same one translated “will be content” in Timothy 6.8: “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” This helps us understand what sufficient means. Food and clothing refer to the necessities of life, not the luxuries. If we have the necessities we are to be content; that is, we are to realize they are sufficient. God may give us more from time to time, but we are to be content with the necessities. So it is with God’s grace in the spiritual realm. God always gives us what we need, perhaps sometimes more, but never less. The spiritual equivalent of food and clothing is simply the strength to endure in a way that honours God. Receiving that strength, we are to be content. We would like the “luxury” of having our particular thorn removed, but God says, “Be content wit the strength to endure that thorn.” We can be confident He always gives that. So God supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the Godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

There is a lesson about grace in the way God distributed the manna to the Israelites in the desert. Exodus 16.16-21 says, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as one needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, one who gathered much did not have too much, and one who gathered little did not have too little. Each other gathered as much as one needed. Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. Each morning everyone gathered as much as one needed, and when the Sun grew hot, it melted away. Three times the text mentions that each person could gather “as much as one needed.” There was ample supply of manna for everyone. No one need go hungry because everyone could gather as much as one needed. Not only was there an ample supply, God in some mysterious way saw that no one had an overabundance, regardless of how much manna he gathered: “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have to little.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

Furthermore, the gathering was to be a day-to-day activity. They were to gather only what was needed each day–expect on the day before the Sabbath. They were not allowed to store up for the future. God’s distribution of the manna illustrates the way He distributes grace. There is always an ample supply; no one ever need go without. However, there is only as much as we need—and even that is on a day-to-day basis. God does not permit us to “store up” grace. We must look to Him anew each day for a new supply. Sometimes we must look for a new supply each hour! Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here; trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I have no cause for worry or for fear. He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what He deems best—lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure, mingling toil with peace and rest. Such a day-by-day parceling out of grace—and only as much as we need—may seem inconsistent with the abundant generosity of God. This is not the case at all. Rather, as we saw previously, God continually works to keep us aware of our dependence on Him. We are created for a simple, childlike dependence on Him, but since the Fall we have tended to resist that dependence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

God well knew this tendency when He gave this waning through Moses to the Israelites: You may say to yourself, “My power and strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today as noted in Deuteronomy 8.17-18. It is noteworthy that this waning occurs shortly after the reminder in verses 2.3, “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and posses the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you al the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” There the Israelites were reminded of their days of extremity and very obvious dependence on God for their daily good. However, God warned them that, even after forty years of such conscious dependence, the day would come when they would look around at their bountiful supply of food and say, “My power and the strength of my hands gave produced this wealth for me.” Such a self-sufficient attitude is obviously detrimental to our relationship with God, so He works to keep that from happening. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

God allows our respective thorns in the flesh to remain, giving us grace sufficient to cope with them only day by day. From time to time God brings extraordinary crises into you lives, as He did when Paul was forces to say, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to ensure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. However, this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead,” reports 2 Corinthians 1.8-9. Despite his ever-present thorn, Paul was brought to a crisis extremity to learn anew way to rely not on himself but on God. Whether it is the continuing thorn in the flesh or the extraordinary crisis that sometimes occurs, both are intended by God to keep us conscious of our human weakness and our dependence on Him, so that we might experience the sufficiency of His grace and the adequacy of His power. For humans have no taste for it [God’s power] till they are convinced of their need of it and they immediately forget its values unless they are continually reminded by awareness of their own weakness. The humanist ethic or morality bases all human values in the experiences and relationship of this Earth and has as its highest goal the happiness, freedom, and progress (economic, cultural, persona and ethical) of all humankind in the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

A fully appreciation of cultural values and contributions is also part of this morality. We must submit to this fatigue, in order to live at ease every after: And must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate. Indolence, which, to some persons, affords a safeguard against deceitful philosophy, is, with others, overbalanced by curiosity; and despair, which, at some moments, prevails, may give place afterwards to sanguine hopes and expectations. Accurate and just reasoning is the only Christian remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom. Besides this advantage of rejecting, after deliberate enquiry, the most uncertain and disagreeable part of learning, there are many beneficial advantages, which result from an accurate scrutiny into the powers and faculties of human nature. “And it came to past that after the space of two years that Abinadi came among them in disguise, that they knew him not, and began to prophesy among them saying: Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi, go and prophesy unto this people, for they have hardened their hearts against my words. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

“They have repented not of their evil doings; therefore, I will visit them in my anger, yea, in my fierce anger will I visit them in their iniquities and abominations. Yea, wo be unto this generation! And the Lord said unto me: Stretch forth thy hand and prophesy, saying: Thus saith the Lord, it shall come to pass that this generation, because of their iniquities, shall be brought into bondage, and shall be smitten on the cheek; yea, and shall be drive by humans, and shall be slain; and the vultures of the air, and the dogs, yes, and the wild bests, shall devour their flesh. And it shall come to pass that the life of king Noah shall be valued even as a garment in a hot furnace; for he shall know that I am the Lord. And it shall come to pass that I will smite this people with sore affliction, yea, with famine and with pestilence; and I will case that they shall howl all the day long. Yea, and I will cause that they have burdens lashed upon their backs; and they shall be driven before like a dumb mule. And it shall come to pass that I will send forth hail among them, and it shall smite them; and they shall also be smitten with the east wind; and insects shall pester their land also, and devour their grain. And they shall be smitten with a great pestilence—and all this will I do because of their iniquities and abomination. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

“And it shall come to pass that except they repent I will utterly destroy them from off the face of the Earth; yet they shall leave a record behind them, and I will preserve them for other nations which shall possess the land; yea, even this will I do that I may discover the abominations of this people to other nations. And many things did Abinadi prophesy against this people. And it came to pass that they were angry with him; and they took him and carried him bound before the king , and said unto the king: Behold, we have brought a man before thee who has prophesized evil concerning the people, and saith that God will destroy them. And he also prophesieth evil concerning thy life, and saith that thy life shall be as a garment in furnace of fire. And again, he saith that thou shalt be as a stalk, eve as a dry stalk of the field, which is run over by beasts and trodden under foot. And again, he saith thou shalt be as the blossoms of a thistle, which, when it is fully ripe, if the wind bloweth, it is driven forth upon the face of the land. And he pretendeth the Lord hath spoken it. And he saith all this shall come upon thee except thou repent, and this because of thine iniquities. And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man? #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

“And now, O king, behold, we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned; and therefore, this man has lied concerning you, and he has prophesied in vain. And behold, we are strong, we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper. Behold, there is the man, we deliver him into thy hands; thou mayest do with him as seemeth thee good. And it came to pass that kind Noah causes that Abinadi should be cast into prison; and he commanded that the priests should gather themselves together that he might hold a council with them what he should do with him. And it came to pass that they said unto the king: Bring him hither that we may question him; and the king commanded that he should be brought before him. And it came to pass that they said unto the king: Bring him hither that we may question him; and the king commanded the he should be brought before them. And they began to question him, that they might cross him, that thereby they might have wherewith to accuse him; but he answered them boldly, and withstood all their questions, yea, to their astonishment; for he did withstand them in all their questions, and did confound them in all their words. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

“And it came to pass that one of them said unto him: What meaneth the words which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers, saying: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth food tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth; thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion; Break forth into joy; sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the Earth shall see salvation of our God? And now Abinadi said unto them: Are you priests, and pretend to teach this people, and to understand the spirit of prophesying, and yet desire o know of me what these things mean? I say unto you, wo be unto you for perverting the ways of the Lord! For if ye understand these things ye have no taught them; therefore, ye have perverted the ways of the Lord. Ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise. Therefore, what teach ye people? And they said: We teach them the law of Moses. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

“And again he said unto them: if you teach the law of Moses why do ye not keep it? Why do ye set your hearts upon riches? Why do ye commit whoredoms and spend your strength with harlots, yea, and cause this people to commit sin, that the Lord has cause to send me to prophesy against this people, yea, even a great evil against this people? Know ye not that I speak the truth? Yea, ye know that I speak the truth; and you ought to tremble before Go. And it shall come to pass that ye shall be smitten for your iniquities, for ye have said that ye teach the law of Moses. And what ye concerning the law of Moses? Doth salvation come by the law of Moses? What say ye? And they answered and said that salvation did come by the law of Moses. But now Abinadi said unto them: I know if ye keep the commandments of God ye shall be saved; yea, if ye keep the commandments which the Lord delivered unto Moses in the mount of Sinai saying: I am the Lord thy God, who hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other God before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of anything in Heaven above, or things which are in the Earth beneath. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

“Now Abinadi said unto them, Have ye done all this? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not. And have ye taught this people that they should do all these things? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not,” reports Mosiah 12.1-37. O God, my exceeding joy, singing Thy praises uplifts my heart, for thou art a fountain of delight, and dost bless the soul that joys in Thee. However, because of my heart’s rebellion I cannot always praise thee as I ought; yet I will at times rest myself in Thy excellences, goodness, and loving-kindness. Thou art in Jesus the object of inexpressible joy, and I take exceeding pleasure in the thought of thee. Though Thou hast renewed me, yet evil corruptions urge me still to oppose Thee. Please help me to extol Thee with entire heart-submission, to be diligent in self-examination to ask myself whether I am truly born again, whether my spirit is the spirit of Thy children, whether my griefs are those that tear repenting hearts, whether my joys are the joys of faith, whether my confidence in Christ works by love and purifies the soul. Please give me the sweet results of faith, in my secret character, and in my public life. Cast cords of love around my heart, then hold me and never let me go. May the Saviour’s wounds sway me more than the sceptre of princes. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

Please let me love Thee in a love that overs and swallows up all, that I may not violate my caste union with the beloved; there is so much unconquered territory in my nature, scourge out the buyers and sellers of my soul’s temple, and give me in return pure desires, and longings after perfect holiness. O Lord God Almighty, Who hast commanded Thy servants to be born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, preserve in them the holy Baptism which they have received, and be pleased to perfect it unto the hallowing of Thy Name; that Thy grace may ever increase upon them, and that what they have already received by Thy gift, they may guard by integrity of life. O God, Who hast bestowed on Thy servant by holy Baptism redemption from one’s sins, and the life of regeneration; do Thou, O Lord God, grant the brightness of Thy face to shine for ever on one’s heart. Preserve the shield of his faith safe from the lying-in-wait of the adversaries; the robe of incorruption, which he has put on, clean the unpolluted; and the spiritual seal of grace untouched and inviolate; Thou being reconciled to one as us, according to the multitude of Thy mercies;–for blessed and glorified is Thy venerable and majestic Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

Cresleigh Homes

What is your go-to decor item? We are suckers for succulents. 🌱 They are cute, colorful, and forgive us if we forget to water them for a week (or three). Plus, with plenty of windows in this #BrightonStation Residence 3 home they get plenty of indirect light to keep them happy! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-3/

O Lord our God, our Master, Who by the font of Baptism dost illuminate the baptized with Heavenly radiance, Who hast vouchsafed to Thy servant, (recently illuminated,) by Water and the Spirit, remission of one’s sins, voluntary and incolunatry; lay Thy mighty hand upon one, and protect one with the power of Thy goodness; please preserve one from losing the earnest of glory, and be pleased to bring one to eternal life and to Thy good pleasure;–for Thou art our sanctification, and to Thee we render glory, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

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Randolph Harris II International

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