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Trust God and Feel Secure in His Loving Care
One feels a threat to the soul in a runaway spirit, but real harm can be done by a fearful hanging on to a soaring spirit and weighing it down too much with a heavy sense of Earthly responsibility. Part of preparing spirit for marriage with soul is to let spirit fly and find its airborne pleasures. As along as we desire to fulfill the will of God and have any hankering after eternity and God, we have to let the spirit find its own level. What does it mean to stand as a witness of God? It means we will not bow down or give in or be persuaded to do anything contrary to God’s will. It means we will speak up when our knees are shaking. It means we will listen and follow their still, small but powerful voice of the Holy Ghost. Everything should flow along with a calm and delightful expectation of wonderful things that are going to happen. When we know him, we can be a witness for God and trust him and feel secure in his loving care. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
There are no new nor easy ways we earn a relationship. It is the antiquated, the tried-and-true-always works ways: scripture study, prayer, and living those things we learn through our study and prayers. As we read the scriptures, we become acquainted with what our Father in Heaven wants for his children and how God continually reaches out to sustain and bless and forgive us. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord, your God is giving you (Exodus 20.12).” Acceptance of our parents tends to culminate when we mature, when our circumstances are most humbling and our view of ourselves encompasses the full import of our past. For many people, as their physical powers decline, many of their adaptions and concessions are not visible to others. One by one, they exchange their standards of dignity for necessary security, but those who assist them may have no idea of their inner sacrifices the compromises they make entail. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
On the surface, their actions may appear to be foolish or obstinate, especially as we they resist sensible offers of help and hold back as long as they can from each successive loss of autonomy. Much of what seemed unreasonable at the time that we took care of our parents may suddenly make sense when they get closer to the end of their lives. The spirit is so charged with the desire to flee the complexity of the labyrinth of material life that our parents pass away twice: first while they are overcome by their ailment and we know they have a limited amount of time on Earth, and again when the moment comes that they actually pass away into Heaven. During and after this process, we lie in bed alone, and the past rises like a white squall, rocking and socking our ship, over and over, drenching us with memories we cannot handle. As we watch our parent pas away, we recount detailed memories of their last days. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Specific scenes and conversations come back to us with extraordinary vividness, triggered by our own experience of helplessness that there was nothing we can do to prolong their lives. We may recall favors we were too tired to perform, favourite foods we may have enjoyed together, and the kind moments we shared with them. Many have no idea what loneliness really is, until they experience this. Once their power slips, we understand how raw life can get. We realize how deeply even our misdirected efforts must have been appreciated, and what a large difference our small acts of kindness must have made. People who are passing away say they feel like their body could self-destruct at any second and there is nothing they can do about it. They feel helpless, cheated, and terrified, even if they have made peace with life. As hard as it is on the dying parent, it can also be hard on the children who had no idea their parent was silently suffering and near passing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
And when we get sick, we relive the period during which our parents were in the same position, but the difference is we know we will recover and this is probably what helps us heal and inspires us to recover. When one attains an acceptance of one’s own and only life cycle and a new differ lobe of one’s parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, full spiritual health arises. We also realize how our parents must have been yearning to participate in our young lives. Anyone can turn to religion or spiritual practices as a way out of the twists and turns of ordinary living. We feel the confinement, the humdrum of the everyday, and we hope for a way to transcend it all. We want some of that open sky for ourselves, some relief from trials and tribulations on Earth. The vertical movement of the spiritual life is not only freeing, it is also inspiring and, of course, inflating. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
The feeling of superiority it gives seems worth most of the Worldly deprivations required. We might get a glimpse of wondrous sights hidden to ordinary vision, but we will also be changed by good fortune. Faith is a gift of spirit that allows the soul to remain attached to its own unfolding. When faith is soulful, it is always planted in the soil of wonder and questioning. It is not a defensive and anxious holding on to certain objects of belief, because doubt, as its shadow, can be brought into a faith that is fully mature. Imagine a trust in yourself, or in another person, or in life itself, that does not need to be proved and demonstrated, that is able to contain uncertainty. People sometimes put their trust in a spiritual leader and are terribly betrayed if that person then fails to live up to ideals. However, a real trust of faith would be to decide whether to trust someone, knowing that betrayal is inevitable because life and personality are never without shadow. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The vulnerability that faith demands could then be marched by an equal trust in oneself, the feeling that one can survive the pain of betrayal. When we pray for personal guidance, our Father in Heaven knows what it in our heart, but he wants us to tell him of our hopes and dreams and needs. Only when we speak with certainty that, indeed, we do want to be a witness will we know what we are going to about it. We have to let God speak to us and let the sacrament take on deeper meaning. Here these familiar words: “And witness unto thee, God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them (D&C 20.77).” We can verbalize our faith for a lifetime, but it is incomplete without a response. (The word response, by the way, is related to a Greek word that means “to pout a liberation to God.”) To respond trustingly to the challenges of life and to the stirring of the soul’s waters is to bring faith to completion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Standing as a witness means that we know with certainty that we want to do what is right and to let the consequence follow. To stand means we remain firm and immovable, even when (or especially when) we are the smallest or the youngest or the last one standing. We may be the means for holding up others. We have to be strong! Witnessing is showing by our behavior what we believe, and that can start in our own families. We can be confident and powerful as a witness of God. Do not compromise. We cannot compromise. Pay attention to those around you who give you courage and strength. Everyone is in partnership with life, with love, with God, with truth, and with beauty. To rear a family without some spiritual concept that is adequate, whatever religious form it may take, is going to contrary to the first Law of our being, which is that we are all rooted in the divine spirit, in perfect life. We are all children of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
God is Looking for People Who Have Faith that is Demonstrated
No one lives without accumulating stories. Many things in life offer useful guidance toward finding spiritual values in the World. The spirituality of a place might be marked with a well or drawing on the ground, or a monument, like a castle or mansion. When we place markers on historical battlefields or on houses where our ancestors were born, or where significant historical figures lives, we are performing a genuine spiritual act. We are honoring the special spirit that is attached to a particular place. Family is also a source and focus of spirituality. In many traditions a home shrine and special photographs honor family members. Rites of family gatherings, visits, storytelling, photographs albums, keepsakes, and even tapes of elderly relatives recording their recollections can be spiritual acts that nourish the soul. “The final state of the soul is to dwell with God or be cast out (1 Nephi 15.35).” The opportunity to voice memories to a person who both cares and understands is the most satisfying kind of completion. Story-telling is therefore far more valuable than it may seem. Realizing that such stories allow us to make an ending and find worth in the past elevates remembering and listening to their actual stature. We widen our solitudes by esteeming our memories and making use of them, instead of guarding them in a secret chess, disregarding them, or keeping them to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Action and speech are indeed the two activities whose end result will always be a story with enough coherence to be told. The most important and challenging way to honor our ancestors is to fulfill our personal and potential life’s purpose here on Earth. It can take a lifetime to know our parents in their full humanness. As we get older, our respect for our parents’ achievements increases, as does our sympathy for their disappointments and letdowns. The more our own lives twist in unexpected and humbling directions, the more we realize that our parents had been similarly buffeted. We become our parents’ retrospective peers, seeing more of them as we attain each decade. To be fully understood, vulnerability has to be lived rather than merely witnessed. It is not easy to imagine that one’s own body, which is so fresh and often so full of pleasant feelings could slow down, become tired, and may not be as agile as it once was. One cannot imagine it and, in the end, one does not want to. Many of the realizations that rush upon us as we mature are simply not attainable earlier in life. When our parents need our help prior to passing into Heaven, the period after they pass away, and the time of life when we ourselves are weak and near passing, changes our perspective on life and what we scrutinize. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Indeed, it is this period of the relationship that is perhaps the most difficult and, at the same time, the most significant. However, knowing that there is a God who strongly protects against intrusion and violation might help nurture that spirit in our own lives and honor it in others. We may discover that there are ways to be spiritual that do not counter the soul’s needs for body, individuality, imagination, and exploration. Eventually, we might find that all emotions, all human activities, and all spheres of life have deep roots in the mysteries of the soul, and therefore are holy. As children, the chief illusion we project upon our parents are that they know what they are doing and that they have control over what happens. It does not occur to us that what appears to be inflexibility may actually be a cover for confusion, or what comes out of anger may stem from stress, or what seems to be neglect and a lack of concern may be the consequence of depression. If we allow them to account for themselves and to acknowledge the extent to which their actions stemmed from their own weaknesses, all of this can make sense later. The more hurtfully our parents treated us as children, the more crucial it is for us to try to ascertain the wounds of their upbringing. Otherwise, their weaknesses become holes into which we pointlessly pour or resentment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Everyone of their failures has a story behind it, a history which has been carried forward and re-expressed rising out of a collective need for stronger union between the human and the divine. Exploring the implications of the soul allows us to learn our parents’ history and to see them as people, rather than to react blindly against them and risk replicating their hurts in our own lives. Turing the furor of our reactions into a reasonable quest for understanding is made easier when we are granted full access to our parents’ histories. Formal teachings, rites, and stories of religions provide an inexhaustible source of reflection on the mysteries of the soul. While listening to our mother or father, we might find ourselves standing in the powerful, streaming currents of time and fate. This may represent the stream of events and persons in which the individual finds one’s place. No one lives without making mistakes and incurring regrets, yet we all hope to be worthy of regard in the end. We learn from these formal sources how to understand and deal with the soul in special circumstances, and also how to understand similar images when they appear in dreams. We all hope that our parents survive into extended old age. Many cultures maintain that we each have a unique destiny to fulfill. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It is nice to have many generations in families being alive at the same time, leading to new opportunities for reworking and repairing relations between parents and children. This will also further the collective growth and maturation in the spirit realms. We are all children of parents, yet the ability to picture our parents as children can easily elude us. Like nothing else, such glimpses across generations permits us to comprehend those who shaped us and ultimately ourselves. We must find our soul’s purpose as an ethical and loving person. The ancestors are seen as allies in this process of remembering and a reservoir of power and backing to help us embody our potential in this lifetime. Conversely, when we have lost touch with a sense of greater purpose, if we are fortunate, the ancestors may bring about life changes aimed to guide us into greater contact with our soul’s longing and increased awareness of the agreements made before our birth. This may be an inspiring metaphor of the willingness to step courageously into the river of existence, instead of finding ways to remain safe, dry, and unaffected. The notion of reciprocity, of being helped and then helping in return, appeals to our basic requirement for balance and order. When children watch their parents take time out of their bust lives to help their parents, they learn that devotion can persist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Children should realize that if they regret the longevity of their parents, they will actually be regretting their own future longevity. As we get to know our parents better, we have new opportunities for correcting old misconceptions. One young man was shocked by something his father did. His father never let anyone near his checkbook. However, he got a really bad trimmer in his hand, but still insisted on paying all his bills himself. One day, out of the blue, he called his son up and asked him to come over to help him write out checks. The son could not believe it. He was incredibly nervous when he sat down next to him to do it. Although he handles million-dollar budgets for his company, his hand also started to shake because he was so honored to help his father with his precious checkbook, as it was a bonding experience. In a way, the father was allowing his son to participate in the ritual of becoming the man of the house. His father’s trust was sweeter to this son than his achievement in the corporate World. Also, the father had the opportunity to see how important he was in his son’s life, despite his son’s having garnered every external success. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Extending leniency to our parents gives us hope that someone will do the same for us when we reach this position of physical need and spiritual reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant for the hope that they instill and the example they set. People feel blessed to have their parents live so long and that hope is the essence of the commandment to honor our parents, making the prospect of living a long life less frightening. Whatever helps us to become more ethical, on even kilt, and open-hearted is one of the most powerful and sincere offerings we can make to our ancestors. An individual must take time every day to remind oneself that we are also spirits, that we are one with God, and to try to being about a deep realization that there is a power greater than oneself sustaining us; a wise counselor guiding us; a generous provider who is ready and willing to meet the needs of everyday life. We do not deny either the body or the mind, but we do affirm the spirit as the supreme presence and the superior principle of all life. We do come from this thing that we call life, or God, and we are fundamentally spiritual beings even while in the flesh. Therefore, in order to be whole, we must establish a right relationship within this trinity of our being, which is thought, feeling and action. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Have Faith in the Future
Challenges are intended to be opportunities of growth. Developing a philosophy for motivation is a great way to learn to overcome hardships. One has to seek new interest within their remaining abilities. Living requires courage under all circumstances, but especially when old age or disability is something an individual is dealing with. We have to exert a deliberate effort daily to make life as good as the body allows. Our will to live a circumscribed life arises directly from our realizing the value of each ability we have retained and each new capacity we have required. It is like maintaining neatness in a household that is always on the verge of becoming unorganized: there can be no slackening of attention, or discouragement rushes in. People who find themselves in a state of decline feel like they are cut off from what was once a self. They face frustrating disruptions in their routines of writing, gardening, and seeing friends. Gradually, however, people start to look at things from another perspective. Ascension is possible when all that has to be given up can be gladly given up—because other things have become more important. Slowing down and watching the light changing on the porch, rather than hastening to get things done, accords both with the rhythms of exhaustion and the need for repose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Faith and character are intimately related. Being thankful for the things we are still able to do allows individual to awaken and feel overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude; it is like a sixth sense, like waking to the scent of fresh laundry or to the sounds of a baby singing as the sunrises in the sky. It is a humbling feeling. It is impossible to leave God out of anything, for do we not realize that God means the very intelligence by which we understand this law, the very consciousness by which we it? God is not left out. The very inspiration which cases us to inquire into this law is the ever-present spirit of God forever seeking self-expression through us. Unless our use of this law is impulse by love and unity, we shall be automatically shut out from the most effective use of it. Let us once more remind ourselves that the Universe is foolproof and that the Holy of Holies is entered only through the sanctuary of the heart, purified by love, directed by reason. The more feeling we put into our conviction, and the more faith we have in divine givingness, the more perfectly we shall be complying with the law; hence we shall have greater power over it. Historically, legends and ritual are in tandem. A people tells its stories of creation and of its deities, and then it worships these deities and celebrates its creation in rites. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
While legends are a way of telling stories about felt experience of faith and culture, rituals are actions that speak to the mind and the heart. We should return, then, to our central theme with renewed hope and increased vigor, and most certainly with an exuberant enthusiasm; with something of the spirit of an adventurer or explorer who goes out to discover new countries. The untold good which the creative spirit has placed at our disposal awaits the magic touch of our consciousness to spring into expression for us, filling the cup of our desire with its manifold of gifts. Who does not wish to be well, happy, and prosperous? Is there any normal person who desires to be inactive, impoverished, and in pain? Of course not! And there is not a voice within each of us forever proclaiming and insisting upon this divine potentiality? This urge to express is natural. Feeling unexpressed is frustration, but energy converted into action is accomplished, and we can be certain that the eternal is with us and never against us when we are never against anyone else. Moreover, we can be certain that the prayer of faith will lift up the chalice of expectancy for the outpouring of the spirit, that one may receiver from it all that one’s soul can contain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
In many respects, however, adult dignity makes us lonely. Children express their hurts and readily seek comfort from others, while we guard ourselves against our sorrows and pass the years with our most vulnerable feelings shielded from view. People know us by our defenses, by the social masks we wear when we expect to be scrutinized. As we mature, we cry less. We learn better and better how to inhibit our feelings, show self-control, how not to weep. However, many of us cry inside. That makes it harder. Our tears are dry. Tears that are not shed go away slowly and return frequently. Such suffering, many of us cannot adequately describe. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that many people in this World cry dry tears much of the time. Pain, psychological or physical, can pull us out of adult solitude, to our embarrassment and our relief. We each retain the sensitivity of a seasoned adult, but it takes a catastrophe—pain or sheer helplessness—for us to express ourselves directly as a youngster might. Many adults do not want the full extent of their suffering to be exposed. We eventually progress to a further kind of dignity, but not without first relinquishing several layers of privacy. Faith in the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to us in times of urgent need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Vulnerability evokes powerful feelings in both the susceptible and the strong. We do not have to understand these feelings as much as we need to respond to them. Through our responses, we learn about the aspects of ourselves and our relationships that may have been concealed for years. We return to the yearnings of our youth. Ritual maintains the World’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection, and care. In a life that is animated with ritual, there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and figures on their structures, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. Tradition is an important part of ritual because the soul is so much greater in scope than an individual’s consciousness. The body must be properly care for, and we should come to understand that body-mind relationships. We must also never forget that people are primarily spiritual beings with a mind and body. It is only wen these three are brought together that we can hope to have health, happiness, and success. Exercise in faith in true principles builds character; fortified character expands our capacity to exercise more faith. As a result, our capacity and confidence to conquer the trials of life is enhanced. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Intellectual acknowledgment of one’s ultimate fragility is no match for the yield of lived experience. We are always aware that we are vulnerable to illness, but we do not quite believe in its likelihood until it actually happens to us. If many of our physical troubles come from an inward sense of uncertainty and insecurity, it follows that we must find a security greater than that insecurity which comes from a sense of being isolated from the Universe, separated from the cause of our being, or apart from God. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. When faith is properly understood and used, it has dramatically far-reaching effects. Such faith can transform an individual’s life from maudlin, common everyday activities to a symphony of joy and happiness. The exercise of faith is vital to Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. We must have faith in the capacity to discover hidden characteristics and traits that can transform life. Truly, faith in the Savior is a principle of action and power. Faith is a foundation building block of creation. God created the most remote galaxies as well as composed quarks, and the smallest elements of matter we know today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Obligations Curtail Our Freedom to Waste Ourselves
People who are kind, generous, and compassionate give others a striking affirmation of the intrinsic worth and importance of human beings. After being reduced to bodily terms, we are never the same. For the rest of our lives, we are unable to forget how much it is possible t be in need of others. We approach our relationships differently from then on, emphasizing those bonds which seem likely to withstand the tests of time and strain, and putting less effort into bonds of convenience. The nature of our aspirations changes along with the style of our relationships. We start asking different things of life. Considering how common impairments are, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, it becomes clear that each has our own special demons and divine figures, our own other-World landscapes and struggles. As a result of these changes, people suffering from detriment or restriction can often tell in a glance whether someone they meet has every had the experience of being helpless. They notice that a gap separates them from those who continue to be beguiled by good health. They watch as friends and relatives go on living from day to day as if they are invincible, dwelling inside a privileged deception. People suffering from ailments are not star athlete’s, who can take a hit and keep on ticking, and sometimes unnecessary psychological stress can make their condition worse, as it can amplify the pain they are experiencing or cause other conditions to flare up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Healthy people often find themselves distracted by the crude exterior of affliction, bypassing much of the complexity going on beneath the surface. Knowing what to say and do in the presence of a person who is incapacitated requires an awareness of what it is like to have time on one’s hands and to be at the mercy of others, but also knowledge of the range of emotions that arise in reaction to helplessness itself. A man spent several weeks confined to his bed. He was seriously ill and was unable to get out of bed, or move at all, even if it was only to go from laying on one side to laying on the other side. It was in that state of extreme helplessness that he saw how much a person can be in need of others. He was in need not only of his doctors, nurses, and medical staff, but also of God and spiritual help. Not only for medical care, but for comforting words or gestures. The problem of impairment raises two fundamental questions…Why me? (the questions of bafflement), and What can be done? (The question of order and control). We oppose the lessons of helplessness, hardening ourselves against the indignities and rejecting the forced revisions of our priorities. We hope only for recovery and for a return to self-sufficiency. Anything less invokes bitterness. We want to see more clearly and hear more sharply the themes that are special to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The important thing is to realize that, although life seems to be a matter of literal causes and effects, in fact we are living our deep stories, often unconsciously. We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine. People suffering from an aliment or disability first blame the condition. One says, “If only I was not elderly or disabled or pregnant, life for be better for me.” Then they blame other people, saying, “Life would be better if people did not treat me like I football player.” Then, we finally realize it is what we put out there is what determines how our life is and how people treat us. We make our life good—it does not just happen. There are countless pitfalls on the way our of misery. Focusing relentlessly on what has been lost, comparing oneself to others, aspiring for things that are out of reach, and placing blame on others are only some of the most common snares. Each personal variation is uniquely painful. Soul work involves an effort toward increasing awareness of these situations that form the foundations of our lives, for if we become familiar with the characters and themes that are central to our conditions, we can be free from their compulsions and the blindness that comes upon us when we are caught up in them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When culture and language fail to acknowledge the difficulty of receiving, the dependent person is left doubly burdened, in disliking the help that cannot be repaid and in feeling guilty about the dislike. People know that when someone visits them, that they are simply being visited. They know that one is in receipt of a charitable act and that there is no true relationship. One knows they have nothing in common with the individuals coming to see them, they know all too well. We have often heard people who are elderly or disabled say, “Look at my life—all I do is eat and sleep. What kind of life is this?” They equate their lack of productivity activity with worthlessness. Some people take their mind off of their pain by thinking about what does work right. The most important thing to do is to keep the spirit supple. When we return to our central thought that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and God shall rise the individual up, we must remember that the prayer of faith is definite—it is faith in something and about something. This type of prayer is not generalized, but specific. It is conscious and definite. The prayer of faith is a prayer which expresses faith about some particular thing. What is included is a specific want, or definite need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
If one was praying for a home, one would not be asking for an automobile. If one were praying that his or her neighbor be healed, one would not be asking for money with which to take a trip. In order to enjoy the soulfulness of mythic life, we need a deep inner faith that allows us to know and visit our own deep strata where meaning and values truly are formed. Ritual is an action that speaks to the mind and heart, but it may not make sense in a literal context. In church, people do not eat bread in order to feed their bodies, but to nourish their souls. It is a higher symbolic act. If we could grasp this simple idea, that some actions may not have an effect on actual life, but speak instead to the soul, and if we could let go of the dominant role of function in so many things we do, then we might give more to the soul every day. Frail people try to conceal their needs as much as they can and they like to keep their conditions private. Social workers have been admitted to many apartments where it is more like people are living in private cells, concealing the evidence of their incapacities and averting their eyes from each others’ problems. Usually their presence is only accepted because something had necessitated their help. It was discovered in one such instance that a client had been sitting in the dark for weeks. The light bulbs had burned out in the ceiling fixtures, and he had no floor or table lamps. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Rather than ask one of his neighbors to help, he had been reading by daylight and going to bed when it became too dark to see. His back was hurting and he could barely move without experiencing a great deal of pain, as if his spine was going to snap. Therefore, keep in mind, the one who gives help is more powerful than the one who receives it. Knowing what to do for a person suffering from an impairment and what to cease doing begins with understanding what life is like from that person’s perspective. Without this comprehension, there is a tendency to worry about the wrong things and to give assistance in the wrong ways. Learning all that we can about being dependent allows us to fall short of the ideal to the right extent. Sometimes fear can strike a disabled or elderly person like a malignancy, sapping every and power and attention from their daily lives. They are afraid of the process of their ailment, they are afraid of increasing loss of control, they are afraid of the outcome, and they are afraid of dying. They fear how their families and friends see them, how they feel about them and how their condition affects their lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
However, what can be even more difficult is when people do not know or cannot see that you are disabled or have a diminished capacity and they force you to work, harass you, physically attack you, use you for money, and threaten you because they know they can get away with it. For young people who are physically disabled, it is like experiencing one’s old age prematurely. They are locked into a parallel isolation, shamed by feelings they do not dare confess. These individuals are frightened because they are young and still have a lot of life to live and are deteriorating much sooner than they are supposed to. They do not have a professor of whatever to understand them and how they feel, and their economy of friends tends to shrink. People do not know how to behave toward them, and it is easy to lose heart for coping. Sometimes they have no spirit for anything, like their heart finally dropped out of them. Theses youngster even get bullied and attacked by people who are much older than them, but have not yet experienced what it is like to have fractured vertebrae in their spine, or whatever. However, they have courage. Courage that comes for their belief in God. The Word courage comes from the Latin cor for heart. We give ourselves fresh heart by pulling our attention away from what has been lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
It is not that fear and disheartenment can be willed away, but we have to turn our focus in a direction most favorable to their alleviation. The consciousness that heals is definite and deliberate; it is a specializing of the Universal Law. In this law we may have absolute and implicit confidence, but we must also remember that the law can do for us only what it does through us. Its energy and creativeness must be interpreted through our belief and imagination. This is but another way of saying that if we want the principle of electricity to light our living room we must provide a fixture which makes it possible for the electricity to become a light. When we pray in faith we receive what things we pray for. If we believe that we shall receive them, we shall receive them. There is a specific, definite thing we are to receive, but we are to receive it as we believe. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not adequately understood or followed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8 
Our Memories of the Family are a Significant Part of the Mythology
We have lost a certain depth in the way we understand our experiences, using language that is often doubletalk and shallow in order to describe complex and profound aspects of life. Resentment is a reliable gauge of when assistants are doing more than they should. The problem with heeding this measure is that there are ongoing pressures to deny its validity. Dedicated assistants insist that they are doing fine. At all costs, they want to avoid evoking in the person that they are assisting fear of abandonment and to keep from revealing that the care has become taxing. They conceal their feelings and strive to maintain a contented exterior. Eventually, their pretense isolates them from the person who needs their assistance, and any previous intimacy become veiled by this effort to hide the truth. A myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history, describing in fictional form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. Mythology gives to the invisible and eternal factors that are always part of life but do not appear in a literal, factual story. Most of the time, when we tell a story about our lives, we couch it in purely human terms. When was the last time you talked about monsters, angels, or demons when you were describing some strongly felt experience? Myth reaches beyond the personal to express an imagery reflective of archetypal issues that shape every human life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
When we are trying to understand our problems and our suffering, we look for a story that will be revealing. Our surface explanations usually show their shortcomings; they do not satisfy. And so we turn to family themes. Unacknowledged weariness puts a barrier between the ill people and those who assist them. However, the feelings leak through in subtle ways. My son says he likes fixing me dinner every night, but he looks so tense when he is here. He comes right over from work, and his wife holds dinner at their house until he gets home. He smiles, makes chitchat, but I know he is racing against times. Sometimes he looks like he is going to explode, his face is so tight, but he keeps on smiling. I wish he could just say it is too much for him. I would be disappointed, do not get me wrong, but TV dinners would not kill me. People can see beneath cheerful demeanor that their child is suffering, but do not want to initiate their release from the obligation. Many are afraid, not of TV dinners, but of the loneliness that would await them on a nightly basis if they spoke up and urged their child to only visit them on weekends. The worst consequence of silence, however, is the gap it leaves between them. When you notice your child can no longer speak to you beyond chitchat, it is clear that one has become an unmentionable problem in their life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Our memories of the family are a significant part of the mythology by which we live. We can learn things like the notion of exchange. For example, trading frequency for quality, guilty silence for relieving honesty. Dependent people and their helpers can release each other from guilt, but gestures must be mutual if they are to be effective. The reward for recognizing resentment as a limit is enjoying the elderly or disabled person’s company again. To feel that one can give pleasure and to receive small acts of sweetness is a fair exchange for new hours’ wait. A spiral of good feeling is set in motion between parent and child, which will replace the negative snowball that has been evolving between family members as the child becomes more and more weary of the care. If given the chance, few people would choose being waited on over being enjoyed. When we analyze what the prayer of faith means we discover that it is a statement of belief in some power which is able, ready, and willing to do the healing. At first, this may seem like a rather cold-blooded analysis, for to pick a prayer of faith apart seems to rob it of its sentimentality. Nevertheless, if we would arrive at a state of consciousness that heals we must be willing to analyze some of those things which seem so intimate and so holy that we that we dislike even to mention them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Some of those who are calling out for help are the honest in heart who are earnestly seeking the truth, but they do not know where to find it. The prayer of faith may be thought of as a petition, as a beseeching, or as an agonizing cry of the soul for deliverance, but whatever we term it and from whatever viewpoint we look at it, we discover that it still is an attitude of thought, a way of thinking, a movement in consciousness. If the prayer is one of faith, then this mental movement is one of acceptance, for faith is an acceptance unqualified by denial. Complete faith is absolute and beneficial. Faith is the attitude of one who makes a complete mental surrender. It can arise only through a consciousness of complete abandonment. To the consciousness of faith there are no longer any arguments against its conviction. Faith has no opposites; it is an uncompromising mental attitude, and this is exactly what the prayer of faith is. It is a prayer, a petition, or a beseeching stated in come form of mental acceptance, unqualified belief, unquestioned trust. While the burden of petition and the necessity of faith rests on the one making the petition or having the faith, the response to this petition and this faith is made by some creative agency which has the power and the willingness to perform the act. It is God who raises us up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
We make some strong claims in faith. We do not apologize for that. We have that responsibility. We have the truth. We are proclaiming the truth. When we consider how we help others, give it careful, prayerful thought. Some of those who are calling out for help are confused and disturbed by this complex, somewhat contradictory World in which we live, a World that has many crosswinds and crosscurrents, and even some whirlpools that can entrap and destroy. Let us remember that. Many of these people are yearning for the inner peace and joy that really can come only through love of God and love of family and from keeping God’s commandments. If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek hum with all they heart and with all thy soul, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. That implies that there is a truth which, known, automatically becomes demonstrated. Civilizations may come and go, empires may flourish and decay, time may pass, and change may deface all previous experience, but law is eternal. Thus, the scientist learns to depend on law. As we are able to perfect our lives, the blessings we have become more meaningful, and we experience that inner joy and peace for which there is no substitute. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
If a Photograph or a Diamond Ring is All You Have, it Means the World to You!
Not everyone can find the middle of a circle, but only a person who has the proper knowledge. Similarly, anyone can get angry—that is easy—or can give away money or spend it; but to do all this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way is no longer something easy that anyone can do. It is for this reason that good conduct is rare, praiseworthy, and noble. This kind of spirituality, so ordinary and close to home, is especially nourishing to the soul. Without this caring incorporated of the sacred into life, the World can become so far removed from the human situation as to be irrelevant. An appreciation for vernacular spirituality is important because without it our idealization of the holy, making it precious and too far removed from life, can actually obstruct a genuine sensitivity to what is sacred. The word mercy has fallen out of common usage in our language. It derives from the antiquated French merci, which means compassion and forbearance toward someone in one’s power. In Latin, merces signifies pay or reward, and the root merc refers to aspects of commerce. The words merchant and mercenary at first seem antithetical to mercy, and one wonders at their common root, but when we have to give help or depend on others for help, we understand why the concept of exchange underlies both usages. Mercy is based entirely on exchange. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Giving help eventually embitters us, unless we are compensated at least by appreciation; accepting help degrades us, unless we are convinced that our helpers are getting something in return. As much as we might prefer to reject this stark accounting, we discover in living through situations of dependence that good will is not enough. There is a delicate balance at the heart of mercy, showing how reciprocation replenishes both the spirit if the helper and the person who is helped. Maturing in age is one of the ways the soul nudges itself into attention to the spiritual aspect of life. The body’s changes teach us about fate, time, nature, mortality, and character. Aging forces us to decide what is important in life. However, those who depend on others for daily survival often feel their very existence is an imposition. Some people engage in a relentless pressure to please—to prove themselves worth of the burdens they impose. Many people who suffer from ailments suppress complaints and avoid asserting themselves, believing that they owe every possible accommodation to those who help them survive. Taking care of a person does not have to entail having power over major aspects of his or her life, but frailty seems to invite invasion. My father used to tell me stories about how care givers would steal my great grandmother’s jewelry, money, wedding and engagement rings, pictures of her family and even her wedding pictures. “You cannot imagine how helpless I feel,” she would tell him.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
So long as we still possess it, the power to carry out simple intentions is one of the many unnoticed pleasures of life. When we lose it, we see what it means to do the most ordinary things our own way. People cut off from inner thoughts and feelings, caught up in pain and suffering and loss cannot get very far when they try to understand themselves consciously. Some people make rebellious bids for control that they then keep secret from their helpers. One woman had a fall down the basement stairs and her daughter was so upset. She hired a woman to come in and do her laundry once a week, so she would never have to go down there. However, the senior citizen still when down there. He daughter did not know, and she is very careful about it. She feels like it is her house, her basement, her washing machine and her life. Submission does not come easily to people who have spent decades running their own lives. Going down those steps made that woman’s basement her own again, just as choosing to violate her daughter’s restrictions made her life her own again. Seizing freedom can be as unreasonable as it is gratifying. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
People who have had restriction places on their lives by ailments, injuries, or from aging often feel the need to do something to regain their independence as a means of reminding themselves that they are still able to exert influence over their own domain or their own body. Many people with physical limitations feel their social environment is gradually diminished until all that remains of their power resources is the humble capacity to comply. They feel that they may be required to give up their legal rights and are required to comply or approve in exchange for the room and board they can afford or for the retirement and medical benefits. The managers of their buildings often disrespect them and the analysis often harass them and no one seems to care. The seniors and disabled feel if they complain about the abusive treatment, they will lose their housing, be physically attacked, or their medical and financial benefits will be discontinued, which would mean they would not be able to afford their medication or living expenses and be left on the streets to die. Psychological symptoms, too, often manifest themselves in weight gain or loss, in allergies to various foods, or in idiosyncratic eating habits. And they become more and more isolated emotionally. When people who have disempowered relatives and they become depressed, they mistake this despondency for an accusation that they are not doing a good job. Hoping for appreciation, they instead get quietly hostile acquiescence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once families acknowledge the presence and important of power in situations of power in situations of dependency, they tend to have little difficulty taking stock of its distribution and beginning to remedy imbalances on either side. The belief that we do not have the ability to heal arises out of the mistaken idea that our power does the healing, or that the intellect does the healing. All that the will and the intellect could do is to behold or watch the process. The mind fixes its gaze steadfastly upon the principle and then declares that this principle is operative in human affairs, and particularly in the affairs of the one being treated. There is but one healer. This is the spirit of truth. There is but one life principle. This is God in us. There is but one final law. This is the law of good. There is but one ultimate impulsion. This impulsion is love. That which really does the healing can never fluctuate, can never change in its nature. It is not more one day and less the next. It is at this moment absolutely all thee is and it is ever available. We must forever rid ourselves of the idea that it is the personal person who does the healing. We must know that it is not us, but the Father that dwells in us, he does the works. Principle operated irrespective of personal opinion, and when through acquiescence we agree that it is operating, then it must operate. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Sure, an elderly person might not like how you just put water in the sink, swish it around with some suds and call it clean; he or she used to scrub it first with cleanser and then rinse it with disinfectant. Someone might not like how you haphazardly ruin their checkbook by just dashing off the bills, not bothering to mark down the dates, check numbers, who it was to, all that stuff. Especially sometimes when someone does not even mark down the amount of the check. Therefore, it is important to find small, but specific concessions to help meet the preferences of the elderly and disabled, which will yield large satisfactions. There is no formula for this process, but it helps to build an edifice of faith that the Lord will help make crooked paths straight. One must not only know that God is all there is, but one must know that God exists right where the need is—not in the form of the need but in the form of an answer to the need. And I can tell when, when all you have is pictures of your family, who you have never met, they mean the World to you, as well as gold and diamond trinkets. People like connections to their heritage. Grandparents get great joy of seeing pictures of their grandbabies. And child love to have pictures of their ancestors. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Take Steps of Faith and God Will Create New Opportunities
We are a healthy people and have a faith that God can see. Put actions behind what you believe. The care of the soul concentrates on the everyday conditions of life. The home is a sacred space, a place for our soul work where we can paint the walls, write our dreams, think our thoughts, enjoy our members, record our visions and look forward to the bright future. If an emotional problem presents itself, the real issues may not be some single trauma or troubled relationship. Maybe the issue is a life set up in such a way that soul is habitually neglected. Problems are part of every human life, and they do not necessarily wither the soul. The soul suffers more from the everyday conditions of life when they do not nourish it with the solid experiences it craves. Care of the soul asks us to observe its needs continually, give them our wholehearted attention. Spirituality demands attention, mindfulness, regularity, and devotion. Dwelling on the thought that God is love, we permit this love to envelop everything and everyone, bringing with it a sense of peace and joy and certainty. When we realize that God is life, we open our whole thoughts to such a complete inflowing of this divine life. The divine substance exceeds by its immensity every form which our intellect attains. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
God’s presence in the human mind enables it to recognize eternal truth. God is in all things, not, indeed, as part of their essence, or as a quality, but in the manner that an efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Hence, God is in all things, and intimately. God is present (even when unrecognized) at the ground or apex of the soul. Knowing that all things are possible to faith, be not afraid. Faith makes the way certain and goes before us and prepares the way. When we know that God is peace, we open our minds to the quiet influence and the calm certainty of this peace. And knowing that God is joy, allows us to meet every situation in happiness. It is important that we commit our lives unto that power which can do all things with complete assurance. The Lord has demonstrated throughout the generations that when the inhabitants of the Earth remember him and are obedient to his direction, he will bless then not only with spiritual blessings, but with material abundance. It has always been so. When the lives of the people are in harmony with the Lord’s will, all of the essential factors that produce the blessings God deigns to give his children seem to come into line. Love and harmony prevail. Even the weather, the climate, and the elements seem to respond. Peace and tranquility endure. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
No one lives entirely by oneself. We are all individual part of humanity, and whether or not we realize it, each is influencing those around them, and each in one’s turn is being influenced by others. No doubt the thoughts and opinions and actions of the whole World finally are based on what everyone things and believes. According Sir Isaac Newton’s III law, every action creates a separate, but equal reaction. Science tells us that this same power, if properly used, can become an instrument for the most rapid advance in civilization the World has every known. The limitless energy that scientists now know how to use can clean up and irrigate most wastelands in the World. Nature has placed before us the possibility of the greatest blessings in the World. If the majority of people came to believe in spiritual power and the benefits that can be obtained from it, they would all have a great desire to try a new kind of experiment, one that would bless instead of curse humanity. Have you ever notices the contagion of a happy person; one who has an enthusiastic joy in living? That person’s spirit permeates those around them, and the radiance from their personality influences the environment to such an extent that it finally changes it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Most people notice the effect a calm and poised person has on others and how they feel safe in that individual’s presence. However, we have all also had the experience of finding ourselves more or less frustrated and confused and beginning to wonder what it is all about. Perhaps the greatest tragedies of all time have occurred when people have received the promised blessings of the Lord and then have forgotten the sources of their good life. We have to make sure to acknowledge the Lord and thank him for his blessings. As we succeed, we have the sure promise of the Lord that he will prosper us in every way necessary for our well-being. When we have the privilege of sitting down quietly with someone whose atmosphere is permeated with peace and confidence, and gradually we have felt the rough edges of our agitation disappear until finally our own atmosphere changes, and we are filled with hope and confidence. God is present everywhere and in all people. For just as there is an energy caught from the Universe and locked in the physical atom that can be released, so there is a spiritual energy caught in every person’s mind and locked up in the individual life waiting to be released. Faith and conviction are the instruments through which this energy is used. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Spiritual power is within us to heal, bless and prosper those whom we think of. It has brought us the abundant life. It has made us happy, healthy, and serene. We who enjoy the abundant life want to share this happiness. It is wonderful to realize that we can sit in the quiet of our own being and consciously direct a power greater than we are for the definite purpose of helping ourselves and someone else. This power should be used for both purposes. For we have to get back to this simple proposition—we must use the power to help ourselves first, in order that we may establish a realization of our ability to use it for others. If we would bring happiness to those around us, we must first become happy ourselves. However, before we can become happy something has to happen to us that causes us to know that God is right where we are, that God is the final power in the Universe, and that love is an all-conquering force. We are better physically because we keep the Word of Wisdom and avoid those things harmful to our bodies. We are better spiritually because our goals are clarified. We learn more about our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We are more motivated to be a more understanding person, a more faithful individual. We must have confidence and self-assurance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
And this kind of confidence and self-assurance comes only through having proved to ourselves completely that there is a power greater than we are, that it is a power for good, and that it is available, and that we actually know how to use it. And the only proof we will every have is what it does to us and to others. Anyone who uses the creative energy of faith will receive a direct answer or will see a sign following the use of this power. We must make our religion and spiritual conviction come alive and move through us into action. If we decide to, we can pray effectively. If we have the will, we can learn to live with a sense of confidence and security by getting over our fears. Love is the greatest healing power in the World. Everyone needs to be loved. Everyone needs to be needed. Everyone has some kind of talent and wants to use it. Somehow in the magic of this marvelous World, we can find our place and make our contribution. When we think about peace we become peaceful. It is from this peace that we affirm the presence of love and truth and goodness. Because our prayer of affirmation works exactly like any other law in nature, signs will follow our belief. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
There are Seven Billion People on this Planet and God Cares What I Had for Lunch
God is life, God is power, and this life and this power are available right now. Perspective is the way we see things when we look at them from a certain distance, and it allows us to appreciate their true valuable. Professional psychology has created a catalogue of disorders, known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-5), which is used by doctors and insurance companies to help diagnose and standardize problems of emotional life and behavior with precision. For example, there is a category called adjustment disorders. The problem is adjusting to life, while perhaps sane to all outward appearances, may sometimes be detrimental to the soul. It is extremely important that we do not make decisions of eternal value from the perspective of mortality. For decisions that affect eternity, we need to consider the perspective of our Father in Heaven, as his perspective is essential. God’s eternity signifies an everlasting, endless time. God is a Father, King, and Friend mediated with a knowledge that cannot be surpassed by abstract speculation. God’s plan gives us endurance even amid the wreckage of proximate hopes. Hope keeps us anxiously engaged in good causes even when these appear to be losing causes. Not having an eternal perspective, or losing it, can lead us to have an Earthly perspective as our personal standard and to make decision that are not in harmony with the will of God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
God is eternal and through the contingency of finite things and as through the holy through the demands of the moral law, are an immediate, purely spiritual experience called mystical. The union of love and will between the Creator and his creations is permanently retained. Perversion, however, may be regarded either as a condition or as a capability. Society is more eager to accept it as a condition than to respect it as a capability. On its path to progress, society gets just so far—and then again prefers birth to merit, social status to personal achievement. The DSM-5 should also include the diagnosis psychological modernism, an uncritical acceptance of the values of the modern World. It includes blind faith in technology, inordinate attachment to material gadgets and conveniences, uncritical acceptance of the march of scientific progress, devotion to electronic media, and a life-style dictated by advertising. This orientation toward life also tends toward a mechanistic and rationalistic understanding of matters of the heart. In this modernist syndrome, technology becomes the root metaphor for dealing with psychological problems. A modern person comes to therapy and days, “Look, I do not want any long-term analysis. If something is broken, let us fix it. Tell me what I have to do, and I will do it.” The boogey man has long been an indispensable figure in the family for frightening children. Grownups are now terrorized with the threat that the psychiatrist will come get them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Doctors have no imagination in describing diseases. Perhaps that is why their accounts of real illnesses fit imaginary illnesses so well. Such a person is rejecting out of hand the possibility that the source of a problem in a relationship, for example, may be a weak sense of values or failure to come to grips with mortality. The modernist syndrome urges people to buy the latest electronic gear and to be plugged in to news, entertainment, and up-to-the-minute weather reports. It is vitally important not to miss out on anything. There are some people who spend most of their day in front of several television monitors keeping track of events from around the World. These people do not need all of this information professionally, but they feel their lives would be empty if they let any gaps appear in their grasp of the news. A woman who manages a computer firm knows the very latest chemical and mechanical medical treatments, and she can tell you the side effects of whatever pill you are taking; yet in private she feels overwhelmed by her failure to get her life on track and settled. Her sickness is not amenable to the literal medications she knows so well, because her World-weariness is a soul of malady. The difference between mad-doctors and other man-people is roughly the same as that between convex and concave folly. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The revenge of mollusk on man, of Shaw on Shakespeare, of the ghetto on God is rapid technological progress, opposition to which qualities one as a reactionary. There seems to be an inverse relationship between information and wisdom. We are overloaded with information about living healthfully, but we have largely lost our sense of the body’s wisdom. We can tune in to news reports and know what is happening in every corner of the World, but we do not seem to have much wisdom in dealing with these World problems. The World demands that we be responsible to it, not to ourselves. We have many demanding academic programs in professional psychology, and states often have rigid requirements for the practice of psychotherapy, and yet there is undoubtedly a severe dearth of wisdom about the mysteries of the soul. Only one is an artist who can see the mysterious in what is ordinary, and can thus transform a solution into a problem. The modernist syndrome also tends to literalize everything it touches. We have a spiritual longing for community and relatedness and for a cosmic vision, but we go after them with literal hardware instead of with sensitivity of the heart. We want to know about peoples from far away places, but we do not want to feel emotionally connected to them. The Lord has given us his standards of worthiness. He has not done it to keep us away from him, but to draw us to him. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Philosophy is at the center of every life problem, but it takes soul to reflect on one’s own life with genuine philosophical seriousness. If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. Our many studies of World cultures are soulless, replacing the common bonding of humanity and it shared wisdom with bites of information that have no way of getting into us deeply, nourishing and transforming our sense of ourselves. Soul, of course, has been extracted from the beginning because we conceive education to be about skills and information, not about depth of feeling and imagination We are not concerned with the weeping and wailing of the family. That is why we must look at life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective. The Lord knows what he wants to accomplish with each one of us. He knows the kind of reform he wants to achieve in our lives, and we do not have the right to counsel him. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We have a loving, just, and merciful Heavenly Father, who has prepared a plan for our eternal happiness. How seldom do we realize that there are no obstructions to divine power. The Heavens, even the highest Heavens, cannot contain you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
As an individual gradually accumulates a storehouse of faith, when the emergency arises, one is able to stand calm and certain, uncaught by the fears of others. God always comes first and that is why our faith is sufficient. Our trust is complete. Our assurance is absolute. Our words are honored by a power great than us—that power which we all have access to, life itself. In life, joy and happiness are important also. For life intended us to be glad. Peace is also important because it rises above the storm of confusion and doubt and uncertainty that so often confronts us. If we listen to peace we will hear it, and it will infiltrate our whole being. We will discover that our words of peace, acting the law of good, will draw upon a power greater than we are and liquidate the confusion. This is the presence of God. Coming to know that divine power and understanding the complexity and the order and the harmony of the human body reinforces our faith in God. Here alone are peace and joy and certainty. Here alone is freedom from fear and doubt. We must learn to turn daily to the one and only supreme source, which is God. To be worthy of the celestial kingdom and the joy that is there, we must keep the commandments! For one who is not able to abide by the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Born of God–Gratitude is the Memory of the Heart
The World is God (the only substance) under his attributes of thought and extension. Spirituality does not arrive fully formed without effort. Occasionally, there is a time gap between the sacrifice and the blessing. The sacrifice may come according to our time schedule, but the blessing may not come by our calendar, but by the Lord’s date book. Religions around the World demonstrate that spiritual life requires constant attention and a subtle, often beautiful technology by which spiritual principles and understanding are kept alive. The Lord comforts us by acknowledging us. He tells us to be not weary in well-doing, for we are laying the foundation of a great-work. For good reason we prayer, go to church, temple, or the cathedral regularly and at appointed times, as it is easy for consciousness to become lodged in the material World and to forget the spiritual. Sacred technology is largely aimed at helping us remain conscious of spiritual ideas and values. This great gift of life is to be accepted. All that God has is our, there is nothing in us that can deny his presence, his power, his wisdom, his guidance, and his protecting love. Today and every day we shall live life to the full and we shall be glad. Always within us there is the power and the presence and the life of God, and unto this presence be glory and honor, dominion and power, both now and forever. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
When we get in agreement with God and believe what he says about us, then what we believe can supersede any natural law! There is something called a spiritual bank account. There are great spiritual forces that we can draw on and deposit in our souls and minds, and which can be used in any emergency, in any stress or strain of life. Life has enough of everything to meet our needs. It contains love and faith and peace and joy. The blessings surely come to us. Please remember when we make sacrifices, it might be a blessing itself because we are show we have faith and making deposits into our spiritual bank accounts. Things could not have been produced by God in any other manner or order than that in which they were produced. All things must have followed of necessity from a given nature of God, and they were determined for existence or action. God or the Absolute, as in its essence a self-diversifying unity, gave us the ability to meet emergences—the times when we need more love and tolerance, more kindness and understanding, a deeper faith and a higher hope by allowing these blessings to be poured out on us. There are the real crises in our lives. And at such time, unless we have a vast amount of good stored up, we not only become impoverished, but we sometimes become destitute of hope. And then despair takes the place of hope, and fear takes the place of faith. This is what we want to avoid because it means our inner work is not being allowed to reach deep enough. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
If we put God in remembrance of his promises and do not put him in remembrance of our problems, then we will be faithful to his word. How would it be if we all opened a spiritual account with the Bank of Life and, realizing that we were drawing on the infinite, each day deposited enough hope and happiness and faith to more than meet any emergency that might possibly arise? It is just like our surprise and joy when we receive an unexpected gift. As we give, we find that sacrifice being forth the blessings of Heaven. Love is the base of everything. We feel the need of a more genuine means of bringing outer experience deep inside us. Just as the mind digests it, creating wisdom and character out of the fodder of experience. The outer World serves as a means of deep spirituality and the transformation of ordinary experience into the stuff of soul is all important. If the link between life experience and deep imagination is inadequate, then we are left with a division between life and soul, and such a division will always manifest itself in symptoms. This can make us become skeptical and cynical and sometimes wonder if love, after all, is the greatest reality in life. And yet, we know that we could not live without love, for life is absolutely meaningless unless its whole motivation is built on love and giving. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
What God promised, he will do. Often prayers are given for specific blessings which we, in our incomplete understanding, believe we need. While the Lord does answer prayers according to his will, he certainly must be pleased when we offer humble prayers of gratitude. God has already answered a huge prayer for everyone born into this World, because God has given himself to us. He has imparted his own life and, in a mysterious way which is beyond our comprehension, has endowed us with the capacity to love. If God is love—and no sane person can doubt this—and if each one of us has, as we must have, immediate access to the love of God, then we earn the ability to draw on the bank of life in such degree as we become loving. The spirit of gratitude is always pleasant and satisfying because it carries with it a sense of helpfulness to other; it begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. Gratitude is the memory of the heart. God is love and all the love there is is ours now. We shall endeavor to see something lovable in everyone we meet, in every situation in which we find ourselves, and as we do this we shall accumulate a great degree of love to be deposited in our bank. And then when some experience comes along which seems unkind or unlovable, we shall be able to write a check on our bank of life which will cover every liability of hate or unkindness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Let us adopt an attitude of gratitude in all we do, we must keep our hearts full of thanks and appreciation for what we have and not dwell on what is not ours. The greatest secrets of nature—the person who has taken the time to harmonize oneself with love will find that, when some incident that seems hateful or discordant arises in one’s experience, one can draw on a reserve force which one now has. One can actually apply this to the situation when it arises. The most satisfying experience we have is to see what God does for people. He gives them a new outlook on life. He gives them a perspective that they have never felt before. God raises their sights to things noble and divine. Something happens to them that is miraculous to behold. They look to God and come alive. He brings love to bear on our situations—a love which comprehends and includes everything, a love which has no hurt in it, a love which is not afraid, a love which is clam and confident and sure of itself. Our lives and the lives of our posterity are changed forever. Right here is where the law of mind in action comes into play. When we apply our thought of love directly to discordant situations, and there is nothing in us which is afraid, our thought of love it applied to that situation will heal it, and any situation that confronts us will be healed. We must have a firm faith that God is love, and an equally firm faith when we apply this principle of love to any human problem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The commandments of God give emphasis to improvement of the individual as the only real way to bring about the real improvement of society. The very words we speak in out meditation or treatment or prayer will operate as law in the condition that confronts us, and will neutralize or overcome everything that opposes it. The Lord works from the inside out. The World works from the outside in. This is not an act of will. It has nothing whatsoever to do with concentrating our mind or influencing people. It has to do with this one thought: God is love. God has deposited love at the center of every human’s soul, whether we know it or not, and this love which we now use is not only the greatest sentiment in the Word; it is the supreme power, it is the perfect law, it is reality. And because we have deposited a love which can see around everything that contradicts it, and because we have ample love left in our own thought, we will find that the love we use, acting as law, will definitely overcome the fear and the hate and the sense of insecurity that comes where there is a sense of lack of love. God changes us, and then we change our environment. The World would shape human behavior, but God can change human nature. Above all odds, believe that you can do what God put in your heart. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We will gain a new measure of vitality and strength as we learn that perfect love can cast out all fear. Love is always greater than fear. Fear is not really an enemy of love. All that fear can do is cast a shadow across our pathway. However, this shadow is dissipated when we look at it with love. This vitality and strength is a mighty force, an instrument in God’s hands to cause the only one force, which is absolute and conclusive. However, we must spend much time with ourselves straightening out all the little animosities and resolving them into one great love which is God. God never fails and love never fails and we will never fail if we use the love that is God. The most important thing next to love is faith—faith in God, faith in ourselves, faith in what we are doing, and faith in those around us. A person without faith is so insecure, so shaken by circumstances, that one becomes unstable in everything. Faith is natural; fear is unnatural. Faith is beneficial; fear is negative. Faith is affirmative; fear is a denial of life. If we are going to meet all the fears and uncertainties that we are sure to encounter, we need a great deal of faith. It is the nature of faith to believe God upon his bare word. It will not be, says sense; it cannot be, says reason; it both can and will be, says faith, for I have a promise for it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Great Gift of Life is to be Accepted—You Are Just Fine, Honey Bunch!
Pleasure, knowledge, aesthetic experience, beauty, truth, virtue, harmony, love, friendship, justice, freedom, self-expression are all valuable pictures drawn by our imagination and considered a valuable part of superior wisdom. Life must be lived constructively, in unity and love and sympathy. Everyone is born to be creative and to live to the fullest and to enjoy life, be happy and glad and whole. We do not believe that God is a failure. God never makes any mistakes. It is said that the average person draws on only about 10 percent of one’s real capacity; the other 90 percent is supposedly submerged and unused. If that is true, we can multiply our talents many times. Keep in mind that when one sees a true in full bloom, one has to remember that the roots through which the tree draws its life are entirely invisible from the unassisted eye, but the tree is, in fact, connected to a system that supplies it with nourishment that allows it to grow. And, unless the tree drew on this invisible source it would never flourish. Our roots are in the mind of God. Our individuality, everything that we are and do, is an effect of our invisible forces—forces which continually draw on the infinite. Indeed, people’s charms should not go to waste, may this never be a dire consequence for the mortal World. You are just fine, honey bunch. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
However, in our lack of understanding, we limit the flow of the divine power into our lives. It is important to take the limits off God and have faith that God has the power to do anything in our lives. He is the God of miracles and blessings. Do not let someone make you think that your mind is limited. They have no idea what other processes that are going on in your brain because your mind is connected to God. If we are certain that our lives are constructive, and if our whole desire is to live in such a way as to harm no one but to bless all, then we should place no limit on the possibility of our future. Our ambition for success and perfection in work drives us on, while worries about failure keep us tied to the soul in the work. When ideas of perfection dive downward into the lower region of the soul, out of that gesture of incarnation comes human achievement. We may feel crushed by failure, but our lofty aims may need some adjustments if they are to play a creative role in human life. Life is embedded in the soul. Right here is where our faith in the power greater than we are must be brought into play. For we as individuals are rooted in this power. We must come to believe that God dwells within us, and that same creative spirit that is back of all things flows through us. In ordinary life, creativity means making something for the soul out of every experience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Sometimes we can shape an experience into something of value, thought to be good or desired. At other times, simply holding experience in memory and in reflection allows it to incubate and reveal some of its imagination. Creativity may assume many different forms, it can generate its own style of awareness and its own brand of insight, which allow more important elements of culture and personality to emerge with some fundamental psychological insights and desires. Creativity finds it soul when we embrace that if we fail, this does not define is. We just have to use it as a moment of reflect and see how we can improve. God has a need of us or he would not have put us here. God has divine wishes to express through us or we would have no existence. An ethically sensitive person is more subject than others to doubt, crisis, and remorse: satisfied conscience is more readily found in those who have a narrow awareness and ready formulas. However, an ethically sensitivity person may exemplify the perfection of individual morality, in which are combined a feeling for each individual act and a care for all possible results. God will give us ideas, that the spirit within us will suddenly give to us in a competed form. Creative work can be exciting, inspiring, and Godlike. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
As we do our daily work, make our homes and marries, raise our children, and fabricate a culture, we are all being creative. Entering our fate with generous attentiveness and care, we enjoy a soulful kind of creativity that may have the brilliance of the work of great artists. The ultimate work, then, is an engagement with the soul, responding to the demands of fate and tending the details of life as it presents itself. The satisfactions of our work can be deep and long lasting, undone neither by failures nor by flashes of success. The soul has need for vernacular life—its relationship to local places and cultures. It has a preference for details and particulars, intimacy and involvement, attachment and connections. The soul feeds on whatever life grows n its immediate environment. To the soul, the ordinary is sacred and the everyday is the primary source of religion. We are people and we can short-circuit the divine energy that ought to be flowing through us. We short-circuit it when we deny that it is there. And the reason we deny it is because we do not see this energy, and therefore we do not believe in it. The soul needs spirituality. Let us, every one, resolve within ourselves to arise to a new sense of responsibility, a new shouldering of obligation to assist our Father in Heaven in his glorious work of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of his sons and daughters throughout the Earth. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
In the modern World, we tend to separate psychology from religion. We like to think that emotional problems have to do with the family, childhood, and trauma—with personal life not with spirituality. We do not diagnose a mental issue as a loss of religious sensibility or a lack of spiritual awareness. Yet it is obvious that the soul, seat of the deepest emotions, can benefit greatly from the gifts of a vivid spiritual life and can suffer when it is deprived of them. If we believe that the Heavenly Father is within us, and if we believe that all things are possible to God, then we should no longer deny that God knows what to do with his own creation, and we should include ourselves in that creation. The family is the ideal place for teaching. It is also a laboratory for learning. Family home evening can bring spiritual growth to each member. The soul needs an articulated Worldview, a carefully worked out scheme of values, and a sense of relatedness to the whole. The soul needs to believe in immortality and the spirit of the family, arising from traditions and values that have been part of the family for generations. We should learn to have a better opinion of ourselves because we live due to the fact that we are drawing on the invisible source of all life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
We wish to draw on these invisible forces of God, to let our roots run deep into that life which already is perfect and complete, and we want to live happily and without fear. For fear short-circuits this divine energy, while confusion and uncertainty cause it to produce bondage instead of freedom. If we want to change this, let us start by accepting ourselves for better. God always does and can and will provide for us. And having clearing all doubt from our consciousness we must learn to affirm that all the power and all the presence and all the life that there is, is for us and with us and in us. “May the Lord answers you when you are in distress. God answers one from his holy Heaven with the saving power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and in horses, but we must trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20.1 and 6-7).” The higher forces of life always work constructively. When we use them constructively, there seems to be no limit to their possibility. However, the moment we begin to use them destructively, they appear to block themselves. We cannot expect to use the power of good for evil purposes, nor could we expect through hate to generate love. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Randolph Harris II International Institute 