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You Do Not Love Me, You Do Not Care What Happens to Me! Give the Heaven’s Above More than Just a Passing Glance!
For some people it is difficult to find peace. They can forgive from their heart of hearts, but find no rest, for then the doubt awakens; they are the one who caused the problem; they are the occasion of the calamity; it was their pride that craved the unusual. Then they repent, but one will find no rest, for then the accusing thoughts acquits one of the charges: the aggressor was the one who with their cunning instilled this plan into their souls. Then the individual hates; one’s heart finds relief in curses, but one still finds no repose. Once again one reproaches oneself—reproaches oneself because one has hated, one who oneself is a sinner, reproaches oneself because regardless of how cunning the aggressor was one’s self always remains guilty. It is oppressive for the individual that someone has decided to deceive them, but still more oppressive, one is almost tempted to say, that one is no longer listens humbly to one’s voice but is able to hear the many voices at the same time. Then recollection awakens in one’s soul, and one forgets blame and guilt; able to recollect the beautiful moments, and is dazed in an unnatural exaltation. With an indescribable but cryptic, blissful, unnamable anxiety, one is able to listen to music the one’s self evoked and yet did not evoke; always there was harmony. Yet, it is terrible that one can scarcely control the anxiety that grips one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
One is carried along into that kingdom of mist, into that dreamland where one is frightened by one’s own shadow at every moment. Often, futilely trying to tear away from it; following along like an ominous shape, like an accuser who cannot speak. How strange! One has allowed someone else to spread the deepest secrecy over everything, and yet there is an even deeper secrecy, that one’s self is in on the secret and that one came to know I in an unlawful way. To forget the whole thing is not possible. Some Black women are comfortable with the many different ingredients of their identity, and they are women committed to freedom from oppression. They find themselves constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of themselves, and present that as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or deny the other parts of themselves. They do not want to isolate themselves from their White, Hispanic, or Asian counterparts, but would like the ability to be included in the discussion. The need for multiple consciousness in feminist movement—a social movement encompassing law, literature, and everything in between—has long been apparent. Since the beginning of the feminist movement in the United States of America, Black women have been discussing the fact that their experience calls into question the notion of a unitary “women’s experience.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
In the first wave of the feminist moment, Black women’s realization that White leaders of the suffrage may have not been aware of what women of colour have to suffer with, especially when they do not adhere to typical gender status. However, through conversations, publications of a diverse voice of authors, and television shows and movies, the second wave of Black women are again speaking loudly and persistently, and at many levels their voices have begun to be heard. Feminist have adopted the notion of multiple consciousness as appropriate to describe a World in which people are not oppressed only or primarily on the basis of gender, but also on the basis of race, class, sexual orientation, and other categories in inextricable webs. Moreover, multiple consciousness is implicit in the precepts of the feminism itself. Feminist method starts with the very radical act of taking women seriously, believing that what they say about themselves and their experience is important and valid, even when (or perhaps especially when) it had little or no relationship to what has been or is being said about them. In feminist legal theory, however, the move away from univocal toward multivocal theories of women’s experience and feminism has been slower than other areas. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
In feminist legal theory, the pull of the second voice, the voice of abstract categorization, is still powerfully strong: “We the People” seems in danger of being replaced by “We the women.” And in feminist legal theory, as in the dominant culture, it is mostly White, heterosexual, and socioeconomically privileged people who speak for all women. Not surprisingly, because of the cries of the unheard are becoming so strong, the story they tell about “women,” despite its claim to universality, seems to actually be becoming more inclusive. Some of the best examples have been in the film in TV industry. Little Fires Everywhere, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington examines the roles of women of different ethnic backgrounds, classes, and socioeconomic backgrounds. How to Get Away With Murder, starring Viola Davis was extremely powerful, especially final episode where she has to defend herself and her lifestyle. The Family That Prey’s Together, Good Deeds, Why Did I Get Married, Temptations: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, by Tyler Perry are also good film the help others to understand the plight of women of colour, as well as Losing Isaiah starring Halle Berry. So even if feminist theories are still catching up to modern times, art is imitating life. And White middle-class women, as well as the rest of the World are becoming more aware of what their sisters have to endure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
The notion that there is a monolithic “women’s experience” that can be described independent of other facets of experience like race, class, and sexual orientation is called gender essentialism. Gender essentialism is no longer reducing the lives of people who experience multiple forms of oppression because racism, sexism, and homophobia are being discussed and are now better understood by different people all over the World. Those who produce the “story of woman” are making sure they appear in it. They are ensuring that they are storytellers and, in a position, to decide which of all the many facts about women’s lives are going into the story, and which ought to be left out. Women want to make sure that none of their voiced are at the bottom of a hierarchy of oppression. Middle-class American women, tradition suggest, feel emotion more than men do. The definitions of “emotional” and “cogitation” in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language reflect a deeply rooted cultural idea. Yet women are also thought to command “feminine wiles,” to have the capacity to premeditate a sigh, an outburst of tears, or a flight of joy. In general, they are thought to manage expression and feeling not only better but more often than men do. How much the conscious feelings of women and men differ is an issue I leave aside here. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
However, women are, in fac, more likely to have access to their emotions. Early in childhood boys but no girls must relinquish their primary identification with the mother. To achieve this difficult task, the boy (but not the girl) must repress feelings associated with the other in the difficult effort to establish himself as “not like mother,” as a boy. The consequence is a repression of feeling generally. The girl, on the other hand, because she enters a social and sexual category the same as that as her mother, does not have to relinquish identification with her or sacrifice her access to feelings through repression. If this interpretation is valid (and I find it plausible), we might expect women to be more in touch with their feelings, which are, as a consequence, more available for conscious management. Men may manage feelings more by subconscious repressing, women more by conscious suppressing. Therefore, the evidence seems clear that most women do more emotion managing than men. And because the well-managed feeling has an outside resemblance to spontaneous feeling, it is possible to confuse the condition of being more “easily affected by emotion” with the action of willfully managing emotion when the occasion calls for it. #Randolphharris 6 of 25
Especially in the American middle class, women tend to manage feeling more because in general they depend on men for a level of support, and one of the various ways of repaying their debt is to do extra emotion work—especially emotion work that affairs, enhances, and celebrates the well-being and status of others. When the emotional skills that children learn and practice at home move into the marketplace, the emotional labour of women becomes more prominent because men in general have not been trained to make their emotions a resource and are therefore less likely to develop their capacity for managing feeling. There is also a difference in the kind of emotion work that men and women tend to do. Many studies have also told us that women adapt more to the needs of others and cooperate more than men do. These studied often imply the existence of gender-specific characteristics simply exist passively in women? Or are they signs of a social work that women do—the work of affirming, enhancing, and celebrating the well-being and status of others? I believe that much of time, the adaptive, cooperative women is actively working showing difference. This deference requires her to make an outward display called the “seriously” good girl in her and to support this effort by evoking feelings that make the “nice” display seem more natural. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Girls are generally trained to be “seriously” good and to be ashamed of being bad whereas boys are asked to be good in formalistic ways but covertly invited to be ashamed of being “too” good. Oversocialization into “sugar-and-spice” demeanor produces feminine skills in delivering deference. Women who want to put their own feelings less at the service of other must still confront the idea that if they do so, they will be considered less “feminine.” What it takes to be more “adaptive” is suggested in a study of college students. Students were asked “If a boy or girl had all the other qualities you desire, would you marry this person if you were not in live with him or her?” In response, 64 percent of men, but only 24 percent of the women said No. Most of the women answered that they “did not know.” As one put it: “I do not know, if he were that good, may I could bring myself around to loving him.” Other research indicates that men have a more romantic orientation to love, women a more realistic orientation. That is, males may find cultural support for a passive construction of love, for seeing themselves as falling head over heels, or walking on air. The female is not pushed hither and yon by her romantic compulsions. On the contrary, she seems to have a greater measure of rational control over her romantic inclinations than the male. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
Women are more often than men describing themselves as “trying to make myself love,” “talking myself into not caring,” or “trying to convince myself.” A content analysis of 260 protocols showed that more women than men (33 percent versus 18 percent) spontaneously used the language of emotion work to describe their emotions. The image of women as “more emotional,” more subject to uncontrolled feelings, has also been challenged by a study of 250 students at UCLA, in which only 20 percent of the men but 45 percent of the women said that they deliberately show emotion to get their way. This pattern is also socially reinforced. When women sent direct messages (persuading by logic, reason, or an onslaught of information), they were later rated as more aggressive than men who did the same thing. As one woman put it: “I pout, frown, and say something to make the other person feel bad, such as ‘You do not love me, you do not care what happens to me.’ I am not the type to come right out with what I want; I will usually hint around. It is all hope and a lot of beating around the bush.” The emotional arts that women have cultivated are analogous to the art of feigning among those whose wishes outdistance their opportunities for class advancement. As for many others who are less affluent, it has been in the woman’s interest to be the better actor. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
The use of feminine wiles (including flattery) is felt to be a psychopolitical style of the subordinate; it is therefore disapproved of by women who have gained a foothold in the man’s World and can afford to disparage what they do no need to use. As the psychologist would say, the techniques of deep acting have usually high “secondary gains.” Yet these skills have long been mislabeled “natural,” a part of woman’s “being” rather than something of her own making. The intensity of devotion rather than the value of offerings must always govern the master’s response. The self-actualized has an official position, which is accompanied by appropriate duties. They include: taking a personal interest in the disciples’ inner welfare and growth; instructing them in the truth, and in the way to its attainment; inspiring them telepathically with glimpses of the higher states; encouraging them to persevere in traveling along the way; warning them against the pitfalls and obstacles. The teacher’s duty is to give direction, provide knowledge, warn against pitfalls, correct errors. It is not one’s duty to save others necessary efforts of will and thinking. The master powerfully removes the sluggishness of the intellect of one’s disciple; clarifies one’s ideas about what is eternal and what is perishable, what is real and what is unreal, what is material and what is mental; and what open to one the realm of truth slowly but unmistakably by constant appeal to one’s reason. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
The first service of the Master is to point out the way, both inwardly and outwardly, to the disciple. This shortens one’s journey by several lifetimes, which would otherwise have to be spent in wanderings, explorings, gropings, and searchings. It is to expound truth and correct errors, to place an example before the others, and to purify them by one’s company that such a teacher appears in the outer World. Another phase of one’s work is to stimulate the yearning for higher attainment where it exists, and to inculcate it where it does not. Nature, also, mourns for a lost good. “Day unto day utter speech, and night unto night show knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the World. In them has one set a tabernacle for the Sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of one’s chamber, and rejoice as a strong human to run a race,” reports Psalm 19.2-5. It is one’s work to show others what they cannot see for themselves—their own higher possibilities. One’s function is to interpret humans—and more especially spiritual humans—to themselves. One’s task is to make known to other humans their God like possibilities within themselves. One’s mission is not to being humans pleasure, but to raise them to appreciate truth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The teacher assists one’s students to attain a degree of concentration beyond that which they are able to achieve by themselves. One detonates the higher potentialities of each disciple, breaks the closed circle of one’s senses, and leads one toward a moral and mystical regeneration. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of one who has subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travels in pain together until now,” reports Romans 9.19-22. The duty of any spiritual teacher is to lead the seeker to God, to find one’s own source of inner light and strength and thus not to lean on outside human beings. A self-actualized individual who is quite competent does help the learner: one shows the way, illuminates problems, untangles knots, dispels confusions, explains meanings, and encourages effort. Tutelage has its place. One who directs anyone’s wakening spiritual faith that person’s teacher. If one guides us to notice hitherto unobserved truths, if one lead our thought and faith away from hitherto strongly held errors, then a teacher fulfills a useful function. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
A teacher’s services include the unveiling and exposing of psychic or mystic experiences which are merely self-suggested or mainly hallucinatory. One cannot do more than help them find and fulfill their own ways to the goal, but it is enough. A teacher has to be firm at some times, gentle at others. “And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth: for the first Heaven and the first Earth were passed away; and there was no more sea…And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations,” reports Revelations 21.1, 22.1-2. Each year when Good Friday and Easter Sunday approach us our thoughts turn toward the great drama of redemption, culminating in the pictures of the Cross and Resurrection. Who is redeemed? Some humans alone; or humankind, including all nations; or the World, everything that is created, including nature, the stars and the clouds, the winds and the oceans, the stones and the plants, the animals and our own bodies? The Bible speaks again and again of the salvation of the World, as it speaks of the creation of the World, and the subjection of the World to anti-Divine forces. And World means nature as well as humans. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
So let us ask today: what does nature mean to us? What does it mean to itself? What does it mean to the great drama of creation and salvation? A threefold answer is contained in the words of the psalmist, the apostle and the prophet: the psalmist sings of the glory of nature; the apostle shows the tragedy of nature: and the prophet pronounces the salvation of nature. The hymn of the psalmist praises the glory of God in the glory of nature; the letter of the apostle links the tragedy of nature to the tragedy of humans; and the vision of the prophet sees the salvation of nature in the salvation of the World. So let us listen once more to the words of the psalmist, about the glory of nature, in their precise meaning. “The Heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament shows the work of his hands. Day unto day pour forth the story, night unto night announces the knowledge. There is no speech, no language! Their voice cannot be heard! However, their music goes out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the World.” The 19th Psalm points to an antique belief held by the ancient World and expressed by poets and philosophers: that the Heavenly bodies, the Sun and the Moon and the Stars, produce by their movement a harmony of tines, sounding day and night from one end of the World to the other. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
These voices of the Universe are not heard by human ears; they do not speak in human language. However, they exist, and we can perceive them through the organs of our spirit. Shakespeare says: “There is not the smallest orb which thou beholds, but in his motion like an angel sings, such harmony is in immortal souls; but whilst this muddy vesture of decay does grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” The psalmist has heard it; he knows that the stars are sounding: the glory of creation and its Divine Ground. Are we able to perceive the hidden voice of nature? Does nature speak to us? Does it speak to you? Or has nature become silent to us, silent to the humans of our period? Some of you may say, “Never before in any period has nature been so open to humans as it is today. The mysteries of the past have become the knowledge of children. Through every scientific book, through every laboratory, through every machine, nature speaks to us. The technical use of nature is the revelation of its mystery.” The voice of nature has been heard by the scientific mind, and the answer is the conquest of nature. However, is this all that nature says to us? If one only arouses the human to recognition of the necessity of taking a new road, a spiritual guide’s duty to an erring human will not be fully carried out. It will not be enough to show one the path. One must also keep them steadfast on the path. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
I was sitting under a tree with a great biologist. Suddenly he exclaimed, “I would like to know something about this tree!” He, of course, knew everything that science had to say about it. I asked him what he meant. And he answered, “I want to know what this tree means for itself. I want to understand the life of this tree. It is so strange, so unapproachable.” He longed for a sympathetic understanding of the life of nature. However, such an understanding is possible only by communion between human and nature. Is such communion possible in our period of history? Is nature not completely subjected to the will and willfulness of humans? This technical civilization, the pride of humankind, has brought about a tremendous devastation of original nature, of the land, of animals, of plants. It has kept genuine nature in small reservations and has occupied everything for domination and ruthless exploitation. And worse: many of us have lost the ability to live with nature. We fill it with the noise of empty talk, instead of listening to its many voices, and, through them, to the voiceless music of the Universe. Separated from the soil by a machine, we speed through nature, catching glimpses of it, but never comprehending its greatness or feelings it power. Who is still able t penetrate, meditating and contemplating, the creative ground of nature? #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
A Chinese emperor asked a famous painter to paint a picture of a rooster for him. The painter assented, but said that it would take a long time. After a year the emperor reminded him of his promise. The painter replied that after a year of studying the rooster he had just begun to perceive the surface of its nature. After another year the artist asserted that he had just begun to penetrate the essence of this kind of life. And so on, year after year. Finally, after ten years of concentration on the nature of the rooster, he painted the picture—a work described as an inexhaustible revelation of the divine group of the Universe in one small part of it, a rooster. Compare the emperor’s wise patience and the painter’s saintly contemplation of an infinitely small expression of the divine life, with the exuberances of our contemporaries, who rush in their cars to some famous view and exclaim, “How lovely!”—referring, no doubt, not to the view, but to their own appreciation of beauty. What blasphemy of the glory of nature! and consequently of the divine ground, the glory of which sounds through the glory of nature. Praising the glory of nature does not mean speaking of the beauty of nature alone and forgetting its overwhelming greatness and terrible power. Nature never manifest shallow beauty or merely obvious harmony. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
We must try to conform to the humanity, intuition, sensitivity, and the intelligence needed to understand the message from the Universe. One who teachers well, learns oneself. Many of the historical statues in American are representations for hopes of a greater time. The welcoming of the second coming of Christ. Some of these monuments are universally admired and accepted by all people of all nations as the symbol of FREEDOM, and many of these relics evokes a profound veneration and strike a responsive chord from all liberty-loving people everywhere. To make these statues of these great characters and to erect in them that part of the country which gave them their early development and growth into public life is an honour. Human spirit finds its expression through a particular individual, likewise a spirit in finding its self-expression in permanent materials of bronze or stone and deserves to be focalized and located so that they may have a place and standing in our World. When life sinks to a low, these monuments constantly fed the human spirit with hope and promise. The closer the arts bring us to our souls’ ideal the more worthy are they to their exalted mission. These statues bring us in contact with the harmonies of nature, awakening responsive echoes in our innermost souls. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
This art, these wizard-like creations, revives he ashes of the past, makes us appreciate how far we have some, so we never forget our roots. If we destroy our history, we will forget our past and are doomed to recreate the same mistakes. We have a new wave of immigrants who know nothing about our culture, and these monuments serve as reminders that we must never repeat slavery, genocide, nor economic oppression. They stand for the freedom of this nation and are part of its founding. Without these markers, Americans will lose their way. For instance, no one can find reference to the Prison’s of the River in Sacramento. The only place I found it recorded was on a fading, plastic plague in Sacramento. It was a reference to the Witch Trials that took place in this city in the mid-1800s. The LaGrange served as Sacramento’s jail until November 1859 when it sank in a week-long storm, killing 449 people. There were more than 950 suspected witches and Jewish refugees on board. In February of 1986, archaeologist located what is believed to be wreckage of LaGrange, which was imprisoned by the rip-rap and must, just south of the “I” Street Bridge. Now, it would be nice to have a monument to remember these people and their sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
Certain teachers develop an unhealthy lust for power, imposing their personal will on hapless disciples. The teacher whose motives get mixed up, whose desire to help and serve others twins around one’s desire to gain money, prestige, influence, or power is one who begins to teach before one is ready to do so. Both one and one’s disciples will have to pay the price for one’s premature activities. It is better to have no teacher at all than to have one who has psychologized oneself into the delusion that one has reached the God-realized state, who mistakes self-deception for self-realization. The Saints become the sons and daughters of Christ through faith—they are then called by the name of Christ—King Benjamin exhorts them to be steadfast and immovable in good works. About 124 Before Christ. “And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin has thus spoken to this people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken unto them. And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou has spoken unto us; and also, we know their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“And we, ourselves, also, though the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things. And it is the faith which we have had on things which our kind has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days, that we may not bring upon ourselves a never-ending torment, as has been spoken by the Angel, that we may not drink out of the cup of the wrath of God. And now, these are the words which king Benjamin desired of them; and therefore he said unto them: Ye have spoken the words that I desired; and the covenant which ye have made is a righteous covenant. And now, because of the covenant which ye shave made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he has spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and daughters. And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives. And it shall come to pass that whosoever does this shall be found at the right hand of God, for one shall know he name by which one is called; for one shall be called by the name of Christ. And now it shall come to past, that whosoever shall not take upon one the name of Christ must be called by some other name; therefore, one finds oneself on the left hand of God. And I would that ye should remember also, that this is the name that I said I should give unto you that never should be blotted out, except it be through transgression; therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress, that the name be not be blotted out of your hearts. I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts, that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which God shall call you. For how knows a human the master who one has not served, and who is a stranger unto one, and is far from the thoughts and intents of one’s heart? And again, does a human take a mule which belongs to one’s neighbour, and keep him or her? #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“I say unto you, Nay; one will not even suffer that one shall feed among one’s flocks, but will drive one away, and cast one out. I say unto you, that even so shall it be among you if ye know not the name by which ye are called. Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, hat you may be brought to Heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of one who created all things, in Heaven and in Earth, who is God above all. Amen,” reports Mosiah 5.1-15. Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the World who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behaviour. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do—it might be poor because you might not have very much within you to give, or to help people with, or to live your life with. However, as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
O my Lord, please forgive me for serving Thee in sinful ways—by glorying in my own strength, by forcing myself to minister through necessity, by accepting the applause of others, by trusting in assumed grace and spiritual affection, by a faith that rests upon my hold on Christ, not on Him along, by having another foundation to stand upon besides Thee; for thus I make flesh my arm. Please help me to see that it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed, that faith brings a human nearer to Thee, raising Him above mere human, that Thou does act upon the soul when thus elevated and lifted out of itself, that faith centres in Thee as God all-sufficient, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, as Go efficient, mediately, as in Thy commands and promises, immediately, in all the hidden power that faith sees and knows to be in Thee, abundantly, with omnipotent effect, in the revelation of Thy will If I have not such faith I am nothing. It is m duty to set Thee above all others in the mind and eye; but it is my sin that I place myself above Thee. Lord, it is the special evil of sin that every breach of Thy laws arises from contempt of Thy Person, from despising Thee and Thy glory, from preferring things before Thee. Please help me to abhor myself in comparison of Thee, and please keep me in a faith that words by love, and serves by grace. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
I give Thee thanks, O Lord, holy Father, Almighty, everlasting God, Who hast refreshed me with the most holy Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and I pray that this Sacrament of our salvation, which I, unworthy sinner have received, may not turn to my judgment nor condemnation, according to my deserts, but to the profit of my body and soul, unto life eternal. Lord Jesus Christ, Almighty and everlasting God, please be merciful to my sins through my reception of Thy Body and Blood. For Thou has said, “He that Eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood dwells in Me, and I in One.” Therefore I humbly beseech Thee to create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me, and strength me with Thy free Spirit, and cleanse me from all vices and the crafts of the devil, that I may attain to the partaking of Heavenly joys; Who lives and reigns in God. The person who constantly tries to make other persons over into a copy of oneself, who tries to change their living habits or thinking-ways into the same as one’s own, who seeks zealously to proselytize their religious beliefs, is too often merely asserting one’s own ego and practising a subtler, more self-deceptive form of egotism. If one really felt love for them, as one often professes, one would leave their freedom to choose what suit them, not thrust oneself and one’s own beliefs aggressively upon them. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.
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So We Have Asked the Wrong Question: Satan Said to Eve, “You Will be Like God, Knowing Good and Evil!”
A warmer climate, immigrations, and agricultural improvements have led to explosive population growth. We so many new mouths to feed the new growth in populations spelled disaster. Fertility rates combined with reduced harvest means the land can no longer support its population. While the abundance of labour has kept wages low, most Americans in the twenty first century have experienced a steady decline in living standards, marked by famine, poverty and poor health, leaving them vulnerable to infection. Medical examinations of many Americans find them overweight and suffering from prior illness from eating unhealthy foods because they are affordable. The destruction caused by COVID-19 will change humanity in two important ways. On an economic level, the rapid loss of population will lead to some important changes in America’s economic conditions. There will be more food to go around as well as more land and better pay for the surviving farmers and workers. People will begin to eat better and live longer. Living standards will also bring an increase in social mobility. Weakening the tyrannical oppression of the government, which will bring about political reforms. However, COVID-19 will also have an important biological impact. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Because COVID-19 will wipe out some of the most frail and vulnerable people, it will leave behind a population with significantly different gene pool. Including genes that may help survivors resist the virus. Genetic mutations often confer immunity to different pathogens that work in similar ways. Riches are not from an abundance of Worldly goods, but from a contented mind. Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible. Their lives were not cracked or broken, as others’ were, but were bent into themselves; lost to others, they futilely sought to find themselves. In the same sense as it could be said that one’s journey through life was undetectable, in the same sense no victim fell before one. One lived much too intellectually to be a seducer in the ordinary sense. For some people, individuals are merely for stimulation; they discard them as trees shake off their leaves—one is rejuvenated, the foliage withers. I can think of nothing more tormenting than a scheming mind that loses the thread and then directs all its keenness against itself as the conscience awakens and it becomes a matter of rescuing oneself from this perplexity. The many exists from one’s foxhole are futile; the instant one has troubled soul already thinks it sees daylight filtering in, it turns out to be a new entrance, and thus, like panic-stricken wild game, pursued by despair, one is continually seeking an exit and continually finding an entrance through which one goes back into oneself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Such a person is not always what could be called a criminal; one very often is oneself frustrated by one’s own schemes, and yet one is stricken with a more terrible punishment than is the criminal, for what is even the pain of repentance compared with this conscious madness? One’s punishment has a purely esthetic character, for even the expression “the conscience awakens” is too ethical to use about one; consciousness that manifests itself as a restlessness that does not indict one even in the profounder sense but keeps one awake, allow one no rest in one’s sterile restlessness. Nor is one insane, for one’s multitude of finite thoughts are not fossilized in the eternity of insanity. Who is and who is not a psychologist? And what is psychology? The answer to the first question would appear to be quite simple. Anyone who has not studied psychology and has not earn an academic degree in the field is not a psychologist. That would mean practically everyone is a nonpsychologist. However that is not really the case, and I would go so far as to claim that there is no such thing as a nonpsychologist, because we all practice and have to practice our own brands of psychology as we live our lives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
We have to know what is going on inside other people. We have to try to understand them. We even have to try to predict how others will behave. To do so we do not have to go to a university laboratory. The laboratory of everyday life (to which it is not even necessary to go) gives us ample opportunity to think through and ponder any number of experiments and cases. So we have asked the wrong question. We should ask not whether we are psychologist. Whatever the answer to that question may be, I feel that the study of psychology can help us become better psychologist. That brings us to our second question: What is psychology? This question is much harder to answer than the first one. We will have to take a little time with it. The literal meaning of psychology is “science of the soul.” However, knowing that does not make any clearer to us precisely what this science of the soul is. What does it study? What are its methods? What are its goals? Most people think psychology is a relatively modern science. They have that impression because it is essentially only in the last 100 to 150 years that the word “psychology” ha come into use. However, they forget that there was a premodern psychology that began—let us say—about 500 years Before Christ and continued into the seventeenth century. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Premodern psychology did not call itself “psychology,” however. It was known as “ethics” or often as “philosophy,” but that does not make it any the less psychology. What was the purpose of that premodern psychology? Our answer can be quite brief: Premodern psychology sought to understand the human soul in the interest of making people better. The motivation behind psychology was therefore moral. Indeed, we could even say religious. Aristotle wrote a psychological textbook, but he titled it Ethics. The Stoics produced a very interesting psychology, and some of you may be familiar with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. In Thomas Aquinas you will find a system of psychology from which you can probably learn more than you can from most modern textbooks. His discussion of such concepts as narcissism, pride, humility, modesty, inferiority complex, and many more are as interesting and profound as you will find anywhere. Spinoza, too, wrote a psychology and, like Aristotle, entitled it Ethics. Spinoza was probably the first great psychologist to recognize clearly the power of the unconscious when he said that we are all aware of our desires but we are not aware of the motives behind those desires. The modern period has seen the rise of a totally different psychology, which is no the whole not much more than a hundred years old. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
This modern psychology has a different purpose. Its goals is not to understand the soul so that we can become better human beings; its goal is—to state the case crudely—to understand the soul so that we can become more successful human beings. We want to understand ourselves and others so that we can take the upper hand in life, so that we can manipulate others, so that we can shape ourselves in ways that will favour our own advancement. One if we understand how much culture and the goals of society have changed, can we fully grasp the difference between the tasks of premodern and modern psychology. Now, I am sure that by and large people in classical Greece or in the Middle Ages were not all that much better than we are today. Their everyday behaviour was probably even worse than ours. However, despite that their lives were governed by an idea, and that idea was just the business of earning one’s daily pay check (bread) was not enough to make life worth living. Life had to have a meaning, and much of that meaning lay in human growth, in the development of our human powers. And therein lay the relevance of psychology. Modern humans see things differently. They are not as interested in being and becoming more as they are in having more. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Modern humans want better careers, more money, more power, more respect. However, we know that more and more people are beginning to doubt whether goals like those will really make them happy. Word is getting around, and such doubt is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the United States of America, the richest and most economically advanced country in the World. God never removed Paul’s thorn, despite is anguished pleas. When Paul wrote these words, it had been fourteen years since he had received the surpassingly great revelations. During that time he had suffered many varied adversities. How could he have still needed the thorn to curb any temptation to become conceited? God had an even greater purpose for the thorn. He wanted Paul to experience the sufficiency of His grace. God wanted Paul to learn that the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit was all he needed. God wanted Paul to lean continually on the Spirit for strength. All things are naked to God’s eyes. God necessarily knows things other than Himself. For it is manifest that He perfectly understands Himself; otherwise His existence would not be perfect, since His existence is His act of understanding. Now if anything is perfectly known, it follows of necessity that its power is perfectly known. However, the power of anything can be perfectly known only by knowing to what is power extends. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Since therefore the divine power extends to other things by the very fact that it is the first effective cause of all things, as is clear. God must necessarily know things other than Himself. And if we add that the very existence of the first effective cause is God, this appears still more plainly, God is His own act of understanding. Hence whatever effects pre-exist in God, as in the first cause, must be in His act of understanding, and all things must be in Him according to an intelligible mode: for everything which is in another, is in accord to the mode of that in which it is. God’s grace assumes our sinfulness, guilt, and ill-deservedness. Here we see it also assumes our weakness and inability. Just as grace is opposed to the pride of self-righteousness, so it is also opposed to the pride of self-sufficiency. The sin of self-sufficiency goes all the way back to the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s temptation of Eve was undoubtedly complex and many faceted. That is, it included what we would now consider a number of different temptations. However, one of those facets was the temptation of self-sufficiency. Satan said to Eve, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil,” reports Genesis 3.5. Humankind was created to be dependent upon God: physically, “in him we live and move and have our being,” reports Acts 17.28. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Some people, their religious services are a holy thing to them, unpriced and unpriceable. For it is done at the dictate of one’s higher self. We must recognize a sharp, clear-cut distinction between spiritual teaching as a duty and spiritual teaching as a business. The one expresses one’s true relationship to the disciple, the other seeks financial return from one. Spirituality is no commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. It must be worked for step by step and won by personal effort. This still remains true even though in the end it is conferred by Grace, for without such preparation the conferment is unlikely, nay almost impossible. This is not less true if the efforts may mostly be buried in the history of past lives. If any religious organization or cult-leader even mentions a price, a fee, or even a contribution as a prerequisite to Grace, initiation, or higher consciousness, then the devotee is being deceived by imposture. It is an ancient tradition that such instruction should be given free and that a teacher is degraded by receiving payment. God is costless. It is, as Jesus pointed out, as free as the wind which comes and goes. Whoever has realized it will gladly teach the way to anyone who is ripe and ready for one’s teachings. If any human puts a price on it and offers to sell it to you, be sure one is offering a false or shoddy imitation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Note how Moses recalled the Israelites’ utter extremity and total dependence on God: God humbled them, caused them to hunger, fed them with food they had never seen before, taught them that humans live by the word that comes from God. Maybe this is due to Eve, but although many feminists’ legal theories are powerful and brilliant in many ways, they sometimes rely on gender essentialism—the notion that a unitary, “essential” women’s experience can be isolated and described independently of race, class, sexual orientation, and other realities of experience. The result of this tendency toward gender essentialism, is not only that some voices are silenced in order to privilege others (for this is an inevitable result of categorization, which is necessary both for human communication and political movement), but that the voices that are silenced turn out to be the same voices silenced by the mainstream legal voice of “We the People”—among them, the voices of Black women. This result troubles me for two reasons. First, the obvious one: As a humanitarian, the experience of Black women is too often ignored both in feminist theory and in legal theory, and gender essentialism in feminist legal theory does nothing to address the problem. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
A second and less obvious reason for my criticism of gender essential is that contemporary legal theory needs less abstraction and not simply a different sort of abstraction. To be fully subversive, the methodology of feminist legal theory should challenge not only law’s content but its tendency to privilege the abstract and unitary voice, and this gender essentialism also fails to do. In accordance with my belief that legal theory, including feminist legal theory, is in need of less abstraction, and should introduce the voices of more Black women. However, just because people do not represent everyone equally does not mean that they are racist. Some of the people who are not diverse are antiracist. Yet, just as law itself, in trying to speak for all persons, ends up silencing those without power, feminist legal theory is in danger of silencing those who have traditionally been kept from speaking, or who have been ignored when they spoke, including Black women, poor White women, and sometimes even rich young White men. The first step toward avoiding this danger is to give up the dream of gender essentialism. Second, in using a racial critique to attack gender essentialism in feminist legal theory, my aim is not to establish a new essentialism in its place based on the essential experience of Black women. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Nor should my focus on Black women be take to mean that other women and even men are not silenced either by the mainstream culture or by feminist legal theory. Third, every experience is unique and no categories or generalizations exists at all. Even a jurisprudence based on multiple consciousness must categorize; without categorization each individual is as isolated as most alienated people believe themselves to be, and there can be no moral responsibility of social change. We need to make our categories explicitly tentative, relational, and unstable, and to do so is all the more important in a discipline like law, where abstraction and “frozen” categories are the norm. Avoiding gender essentialism need not mean that the Holocaust and a corncob are the same. Although the tactful acceptance of clumsy efforts by others to help may be a burden to the stigmatized individual, more is asked of one. It is said that if one is really at ease with one’s differentness, this acceptance will have an immediate effect upon normals, making it easier for them to be at ease with one in social situations. The stigmatized individual is advised to accept oneself as a normal person because of what others can gain in this way, and hence likely one oneself, during face-to-face interaction. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The line inspired by normals, then, obliges the stigmatized individual to protect normals in various ways. An important aspect of this protection has only been suggested; it will be reconsidered here. Given the fact that normals in many situations extend a stigmatized person the courtesy of treating one’s defect as if it were of no concern, and that the stigmatized is likely to feel that underneath it all one is a normal human being like anyone else, the stigmatized can be expected to allow oneself sometimes to be taken in and to believe that one is more accepted then one is. One will then attempt to participate socially in areas of contact which others feel are not one’s proper place. Thus Black writer describes the consternation she causes in a hotel beauty shop: “The shop was hushed and solemn as I was ushered in and I was hushed and solemn as I was ushered in and I was virtually lifted by the uniformed attendant into the chair. I tried a joke, the usual thing about getting a haircut once every three months even if I did not need it. It was a mistake. The silence told me that I was not a woman who should make jokes, not even good ones.” People do not only expect you to play your part; they also expect you to know your place. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
“Once at an open air restaurant, a waiter rushed to meet me, on the terrace where the tables were, no to help me, but to tell me that they could not serve a woman like me at that restaurant, as people visited to enjoy themselves and have a good time, not to be depressed by the sight minorities.” That the stigmatized individual can be caught taking the tactful acceptance of oneself too seriously indicates that this acceptance is conditional. It depends upon normals not being pressed past the point at which they can easily extend acceptance is conditional. It depends upon normals not being pressed past the point at which they can easily extend acceptance—or, at worst, uneasily extended it. The stigmatized are tactfully expected to be polite and not to press their luck (or they will be arrested); they should not test the limits of the acceptance shown them (because the police are not on their side and looking for a reason to incarcerate them), nor make it the basis for still further demands. Tolerance, of course, is usually part of the bargain. The nature of a “good adjustment” is not apparent. It requires that the stigmatized individual cheerfully and unselfconsciously accept oneself as essentially the same as normals, while at the same time one voluntarily withholds oneself from those situations in which normals would find it difficult to give lip service to their similar acceptance one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
More emotion management goes on in the families and jobs of the upper classes than in those of the lower classes, generally speaking. That is, in the class system, social conditions conspire to make it more prevalent at the top. In the gender system, on the other hand, the reverse is true: social conditions make it more prevalent, and prevalent in different ways, for those at the bottom—women. In what sense is this so? And why? Both men and women do emotion work, in private life and at work. In all kinds of ways, men as well as women get into the spirit of the party, try to escape the grip of hopeless love, try to pull themselves out of depression, try to allow grief. However in the realm emotional experience, is emotion work as important for men as it is for women? And is it important in the same ways? I believer that the answers to both questions is No. The reason, at the bottom, is the fact that women in general have far less independent access to money, power, authority, or status in society. They are a subordinate social stratum, and this has four consequences. First, lacking other resources, women make a resource out of feeling and offer it to men as a gift in return for the more material resources they lack. (For example, in 2017, overall, 57 percent of men earn $50,000.00 or more annually, while only 42 percent of women earn the same a year.) #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
The pay gap is still 20 percent for woman and Black women with graduate degrees earn 2 percent less than their White female counterparts. Thus, a woman’s capacity to manage feeling and to do “relational” work is for them a more important resource. Second, emotion work is important indifferent ways for men and women. This is because each gender tends to be called on to do different kinds of this work. On the whole, women tend to specialize in the polite and accommodating side of emotional labour and men tend to be more stern and less emotional. This specialization of emotional labour in the marketplace rests on the different childhood training of the heart that is given to girls and to boys. (“What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice. What are little body made of? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails.”) Moreover, each specialization presents men and women with different emotional tasks of mastering anger and aggression in the service of “being nice.” To men, the socially assigned task of aggressing against those that break rules of various sorts creates the private task of mastering fear and vulnerability. Third, and less noticed, the general subordination of women leaves every individual women with a weaker “status shield” against the displaced feelings of others. For example, female real estate agents found themselves easier targets for verbal abuse from buyers so that male sales representatives often found themselves called upon to handle unwarranted aggression against them. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
The fourth consequence of the power difference between the genders is that for each gender a different portion of the managed heart is enlisted for commercial use. Women more often react to subordination by making defensive use of physical beauty, charm, and relational skills. For them, it is these capacities that become most vulnerable to commercial exploitation, and so it is these capacities that they are most likely to become estranged from. For male workers in “male” jobs, it is more often the capacity to wield anger and make threats that is delivered over to the company, and so it is this sort of capacity that they are more likely to feel estranged from. After the great transmutation, then, men and women come to experience emotion work in different ways. Yet, wise teachers try to harmonize the contradictions. They use practical scientific ways along with mystical interior ones. The person who is fluent and articulate makes a better teacher so far as communication is concerned; but the person who has had divine experience, who knows what one is talking about, is still the best teacher of all. If one knows in experience as in theory, and if one possesses the ability to communicate this theory, then the impressions left will not be vague but quite distinct. A teacher who gives a well-argued discourse about Truth helps us, but so does the teacher who announces the Truth in non-discursive terms both are needful in their place. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
The self-actualized is one who not only knows the truth but can teach well what one knows—and not necessarily in words, for silence can also be used as an effective medium. King Benjamin continues his address—the Lord Omnipotent will minister among humans in a tabernacle of clay—blood will come from every pore as He atones for the sins of the World—His is the only name whereby salvation comes—humans can putt off the natural humans and become Saints through the Atonement—the torment of the wicked will be as a lake of fire and brimstone. About 124 Before Christ. “And again my brethren, I would call your attention, for I have somewhat more o speak unto you; for behold, I have things to tell you concerning that which is to come. And he things which I shall tell you are made known unto me by an Angel from God. And he said unto me: Awake; and I awoke, and behold he stood before me. And he said unto me: Awake, and hear the words which I shall tell thee; for behold, I am come to declare unto you the glad tidings of great joy. For the Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judges of thy righteousness, and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice; and that thou mayest declare unto thy people, that hey may also be filled with joy. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from Heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst humans, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases. And he shall cast out devils, or the evil spirits which dwell in the hearts of the children of humans. And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than humans can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people. And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of Heaven and Earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary. And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of humans even through faith one one’s name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and hall scourge hi and shall crucify him. And he shall rise the third day from the dead; and behold, he standeth to judge the World; and behold, all these things are done that a righteous judgment might come upon the children of humans. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“For behold, and also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned. However, wo, wo unto one who knoweth that one rebelleth against God! For salvation cometh to none such except it be through repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord God hath sent his holy prophets among all the children of humans, o declare these things to every kindred, nation, and tongue, that thereby whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceedingly great joy, even as though one had already come among them. Yet the Lord God saw that his people were a stiffnecked people, and he appointed unto them a law even the law of Moses. And many signs, and wonders, and types, and shadows showed he unto them, concerning his coming; and also holy prophets spake unto them concerning his coming; and yet they hardened their hearts, and understood not that the law of Moses availeth nothing except it were through the atonement of his blood. And even if it were possible that little children could sin they could not be saved; but I say unto you they are blessed; for behold, as in Adam, or by nature, they shall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of humans, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just; and the infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy; but humans drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. For the natural human is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless one yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural human and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon one, even as a child doth submit to one’s father. And moreover, I say unto you, that the time shall come when the knowledge of a Saviour shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. And behold, when that time cometh, none shall be found blameless before God, except it be little children, only through repentance and faith on the name of the Lord God Omnipotent. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“And even at this time, when thou shalt have taught thy people the things which the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, even then are they found no more blameless in the sight of God, only according to the words which I have spoken unto thee. And now I have spoken he words which the Lord God hath commanded me. And thus saith the Lord: They shall stand as a bright testimony against this people, at the judgment day; whereof they shall be judged, every human according to one’s work, whether they be good, or whether they be evil. And if they be evil they are consigned to an awful view of their own guilt and abominations, which doth cause them to shrink from the presence of the Lord into a state of misery and endless torment, from whence they can no more return; therefore they have drunk damnation to their own souls. Therefore, they have drunk out of the cup of the wrath of God, which justice could no more deny unto them than it could deny that Adam should fall because of one’s partaking of the forbidden fruit; therefore, mercy could have claim on them no more forever. And their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever. Thus hath the Lord commanded me. Amen,” reports Mosiah 3.1-27. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Mighty God, I humble myself for faculties misused, opportunities neglected, words ill-advised, I repent of my folly and inconsiderate ways, my broken resolutions, untrue service, my backsliding steps, my vain thoughts. O bury my sins in the ocean of Jesus’ blood and please let no evil result from my fretful temper, unseemly behaviour, provoking pettiness. If by unkindness I have wounded or hurt another, do thou pour in the balm of Heavenly consolation; if I have turned coldly from need, misery, grief, please do not in just anger forsake me: If I have withheld relief from penury and pain, do not withhold They gracious bounty from me. If I have shunned those who have offended me, please keep open the door of Thy heart to my need. Please fill me with an over-flowing ocean of compassion, the reign of love my motive, the law of love my rule. O Thou God of all grace, please make me more thankful, more humble; please inspire me with a deep sense of my unworthiness arising from the depravity of my nature, my omitted duties, my unimproved advantages, Thy commands violated by me. With all my calls to gratitude and joy may I remember that I have reason for sorrow and humiliation; O give me repentance unto life; cement my oneness with my blessed Lord, that faith may adhere to one more immovably, that love may entwine itself round one more tightly, that one’s Spirit may pervade every fibre of my being. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
Then please send me out to make one know to my fellow-humans. The spiritual guide must be someone to be trusted more than any human to be looked to for guidance, knowledge, hope, inspiration, and warning. One respects every confidence that is reposed in one and keeps all confession in the hidden archives of memory. Whatever confidence one receives during the interview, the other person may feel sure that it will not be betrayed. The person who professes to guide others spiritually and to inspire them with high ideals cannot escape being watched. If one resents the ordeal, one’s service o them will be impaired; but if one accept it, one shows thereby that one is not looking for self-glory. Contempt and slander will be the unequal reward some will pay one; miscomprehension and minification will be received from others. One will accept them unconcernedly. No true master will take money for one’s services. O God, the Bread of our life, look upon us; be Thou the Guardian of our bodies; be Thou the Saviour of our souls. Believing that we have received from the holy Alter the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord and God, let us pray to the Unity of the Blessed Trinity, that it may be granted to us evermore, in fullness of faith, to hunger and thirst after righteousness; and that we, being strengthened with the grace of the saving Food, may so do His work, that we may possess the Sacrament which we have received, not for judgment, but for healing, through our Lord Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

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The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be continually fearing you will make one. While liberals criticize the model of deliberative democracy for possibly overextending itself and corroding the sphere of individual privacy, feminist theorists criticize this model for not extending itself broadly enough to be truly inclusive. The distinction between public and private as it appears in modern political theory expresses a will for homogeneity that necessitates the exclusion of many persons and groups, particularly women and radicalized groups culturally identified with the body, wildness and rationality. In conformity with the modern idea of normative reason, the idea of the public in modern political theory and practice designates a sphere of human existence in which citizens express their rationality and universality, abstracted from their particular situations and need, and opposed to feeling. Examination of the exclusionary and homogeneous ideal in modern political theory, however, shows that we cannot envision such renewal of public life as a recovery of Enlightenment ideals. Instead, we need to transform the distinction between public and private that does not correlate with an opposition between reason and affectively desire, or universal and particular. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
In this cogent and penetrating feminist critique of the ideal of the impartial public applies to the model of deliberative democracy suggested in the preceding only in certain respects. Certainly, the model of a general deliberative assembly that governed our conceptions of the public sphere well into the twenty-first century was historically, socially, and culturally a space for male bodies. I mean this not only in a sense that only men were active citizens entitled to hold office and appear in public, but also in the sense that the institutional iconography of early democratic theory privileged the male mode of self-representation. Yet here we must distinguish between the institutional and the conceptual critique. There is a certain ambivalence in the feminist critique of such models of the public sphere and deliberative democracy. On the one hand, the critique appears to take democratic institutions at their principled best and to criticize their biased and restrictive implementations in practice; on the other hand, the feminist critique appears to aim at a rejection of the ideals of free public reason and impartiality altogether. The democratic public sphere appears to be essentially and not just accidentally masculinist. A normative theory of deliberative democracy requires a strong concept of the public sphere as its institutional correlate. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
The public sphere replaces the model of the general deliberative assembly found in early democratic theory. In this context, it is important for feminist theorists to specify the level of their conceptual objection, and to differentiate among institutional and normative presuppositions. We do not reject the ideal of a public sphere, only its Enlightenment variety. Perhaps we should replace the ideal of the “civil public” with that of a heterogeneous public. There are a number of institutional measures that would guarantee and solidify group representation in such a public sphere. Yet wanting to retain the public sphere and according it a place in democratic theory is not compatible with the more radical critique of the ideal of impartial reason. We can distinguish between “deliberative” and “communicative” democracy on the grounds that most theories of deliberative democracy offer too narrow a conception of the democratic process because they continue to privilege an ideal of a common good in which the discussions participants are all supposed to leave behind their particular experience and interests. By contrast, we advocate a theory of communicative democracy according to which individuals would attend to one another’s differences in class, gender, race, religion, and so one. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Each social position has a partial perspective on the public that is does not abandon; but through the communicative process participants transcend and transform their initial situated knowledges. Instead of critical argumentation, such processes of communicative confrontation privilege modalities of communication like greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling. I think this distinction between deliberative and communicative democracy is more apparent than real. To sustain critique of the ideals of impartiality and objectivity, which we associate with the deliberative model, we must also be able to distinguish the kind of transformation and transcendence of partial perspectives that occurs in communicative democracy from the mutual agreement to be reached in process of deliberative democracy. Yet how can we distinguish between the emergence of common opinion among members of one group, if we do not apply to such processes of communications or deliberation some standards of fairness and impartiality in order to judge the manner in which opinions were allowed to be brought forth, groups were given chances to express their points of view, and the like? The model of communicative democracy, far from dispensing with the need for standards of impartiality and fairness, requires them to make sense of its own formulations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Without some such standards, we could not differentiate the genuine transformation partial and situated perspectives from mere agreements of convenience or apparent unanimity reached under conditions of duress. With respects to modes of communication like greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling, I would say that each of these modes may have their place within the informally structed process of everyday communication among individuals who share a cultural and historical life World. However, it is neither necessary for the democratic theorist to try to formulize and institutionalize these aspects of communicative everyday competence, nor is it plausible—and this is the more important objection—to build an opposition between them and critical argumentation. Greeting, storytelling, and rhetoric, although they may be aspects of informal communication in our everyday life, cannot become the public language of institutions and legislatures in a democracy for the following reasons: to attain legitimacy, democratic institutions require the articulation of the bases of their actions and policies in discursive language that appeals to commonly shared and accepted public reasons. In constitutional democracies such public reasons take the form of general statements consonant with the rule of law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The rule of law has a certain rhetoric structure of its own: it is general, applies to all members of a specified reference group on the basis of legitimate reasons. In our attempt to transform the language of the rule of law into a more partial, affective, and situated mode of communication would have the consequences of inducting arbitrariness, for all who can tell how far the power of a greeting can reach? It would further create capriciousness—what about those who simply cannot understand by story? It would limit rather than enhance social justice because rhetoric moves people and achieves results without having to render an account of the bases upon which it induces people to engage in certain courses of action rather than others. In short, some moral ideal of impartiality is a regulative principle that should govern not only our deliberations in public but also the articulation of reasons by public institutions. What is considered impartial has to be in the best interests of all equally. Without such a normative principle, neither the ideal of the rule of law can be sustained nor deliberative reasoning toward a common good occur. Some Enlightenment ideals are part of any conception of democratic legitimacy and the public sphere. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
The point therefore is not rejection of the Enlightenment in toto but a critical renegotiation of its legacy. Expanding on the model of a heterogeneous, dispersed network of many publics, it is suggested how, in fact, once the unitary model of the public sphere is abandoned, women’s concerns, as well as those of other excluded groups, can be accommodated. Such a nonunitary and dispersed network of public can accommodate women’s desires for their own spaces, in their own terms. In such subaltern counter publics, the lines between the public and the private, for example, can be renegotiated, rethought, challenged, and reformulated. It is nonetheless a long step from the cultural and social rethinking and reformulation of such distinctions as between the public and the private to their implementation in legislation and governmental regulation. While sharing the concern of liberal theorists that the precipitous reformulation of such a divide may corrode individual liberties, we rightly point out that there is a distinction between opinion-making and policy-making public bodies, and that the same kinds of contrasts may not apply to each alike. Opinion-making publics, as found in social movements, for example, can lead us to recognizer and rethink very controversial issues about privacy, pleasures of the flesh, and intimacy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
However, this does not imply that the only or even most desirable consequence of such processes of public deliberation should be general legislation. Thus when conceived as an anonymous, plural, and multiple medium of communication and deliberation, the public sphere need not homogenize and repress difference. Heterogeneity, otherness, and difference can find expression in the multiple associations, networks, and citizens’ forums, all of which constitute public life under late capitalism. My goal in this essay has been to outline a deliberative model of democracy that incorporates features of practical rationality. Central to practical rationality is the possibility of free public deliberation about matters of mutual concern to all. The discourse model of ethics and politics suggest a procedure for such free public deliberation among all concerned. Such processes of public deliberation have a claim to rationality because they increase and make available necessary information, because they allow the expression of arguments in the light of which opinions and beliefs need to be revised, and because they lead to the formation of conclusions that can be challenged publicly for good reasons. Furthermore, such procedures allow self-referential critique of their own uses and abuses. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
One who takes up the vocation of spiritual service should do so only if one be sufficiently prepared for it morally—only if one be destitute of ambitions and greeds, detached from people and the thought of people, isolated from personal motivations, liberated from the lower emotions. A master of issues no command and requires no obedience. Others may do so but not one. One will bear no grudge if one’s advice is rejected. The self-actualized who performs the enlightened potentate to one’s court disciples may be unconsciously playing up to their desires or expectations but also playing down to one’s own desire for power. It may help to keep them in juvenile dependence on one but also keep one within the ego and thus reduce one’s capacity to serve them. Even if one were not ethically more sensitive and hence more scrupulous than most people, one’s own spiritual dignity and personal self-respect would alone forbid one’s taking advantage of the credulous, the inexperienced, or the unbalanced. The spiritual guide who is not oneself free from passion is a dangerous guide for those who are still struggling in the grip of passion. The teacher who has not utterly subdued personal egoism is unfit to assist those who seek liberation from it. One should learn to solve the problems of other people. The true teacher identifies oneself with one’s student and does not sit on a Himalayan height of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
The chief institutional correlate of such a model of deliberative democracy is a multiple, anonymous, heterogenous network of many public and public conversations. In other domains of social life as well, the model of deliberative democracy based on the centrality of public deliberation can inspire the proliferation of many institutional designs. Usually the sufferings entailed in these tendencies toward weakness yield no conscious satisfaction but, on the contrary, regardless of the purpose they serve, are definitely part of the neurotic’s general awareness of misery. Nevertheless these tendencies aim at a satisfaction, even when they do not, or at least apparently do not, reach it. Occasionally this aim can be observed and sometimes it even becomes apparent that the goal of satisfaction has been achieved. An individual who went to visit some friends living in the country felt disappointed that no one met her at the station and that some of her friends were not at home when she arrived. Thus far, she said, the experience was wholly painful. However, then she felt herself sliding into a feeling of being utterly desolate and forlorn, a feeling which, son afterwards, she recognized as entirely disproportionate to the provocation. This submergence in misery not only lulled the pain but was felt as positively pleasurable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
The achievement of satisfaction is much more frequent and more obvious in fantasies involving pleasures of the flesh and perversions of a masochistic character, such as fantasies of being assaulted, beaten, humiliated, enslaved, or their actual enactment. In fact they are only another manifestation of this same general inclination toward weakness. The obtaining of satisfaction by submersion in misery is an expression of the general principle of finding satisfaction by losing the self in something greater, by dissolving the individuality, by getting rid of the self with its doubts, conflicts, pains, limitations and isolation. This is called liberation from the principium individuationis. It is what is meant by the Dionysian tendency and is considered one of the basic strivings in human beings, as opposed to what is called the Apollonian tendency, which works toward an active molding and mastering of life. Dionysian trends have attempts to induce ecstatic experience, and these tendencies are widespread among the various cultures, and they manifold their expressions. The term “Dionysian” is taken from the Dionysus cults in Greece. These, as well as the earlier cults of Thracians, had as their aim the extreme stimulations of all feelings up to visionary states. This means of producing ecstatic states were music, uniform rhythm of flutes, raving dances at night, intoxicating drinks and pleasures of the flesh abandon, all working up to a seething excitement and ecstasy. (The term ecstasy means literally being outside or beside oneself.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
All over the World there are customs and cults following the same principle: in groups abandonment in festivals and religious ecstasy, and individuals, oblivion in drugs. Pain also plays a role in producing the Dionysian condition. In some Plains India tribes visions are induced by fasting, cutting off a piece of flesh, being tied in a painful position. In the Sun Dances, one of the most important ceremonies of the Plains Indians, physical torture was a very common means of stimulating ecstatic experiences. The Flagellantes in the Middle Ages used beatings to produce ecstasy. The Penitentes in New Mexico used thorns, beatings, the carrying of heavy loads. Though these cultural expressions of Dionysian tendencies are far from being patterned experience in our culture, they are not entirely alien to us. To some degree all of us know the satisfaction derived from losing ourselves. We feel it in the process of falling asleep after a physical or mental strain or of going into narcosis. The same effect can be induced by alcohol. In the use of alcohol certainly losing inhibitions is one of the factors involved, and lulling grief and anxiety is another, but here too the ultimate satisfaction aimed at is the satisfaction of oblivion and abandon. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
And there are few persons who do not know the satisfaction of losing themselves in some great feeling, whether it be love, nature, music, enthusiasm for a cause or pleasures of the flesh abandon. How can we account for the apparent universality of these strivings? In spite of all the happiness life can afford, it is at the same time full of inescapable tragedy. Even if there is no particular sufferings, there still remain the facts of old age, sickness, and death; in still more general terms, the fact remains inherent in human life that the individual is limited and isolated—limited in what one can understand, achieve, or enjoy, isolated because one is a unique entity, separate from one’s fellow beings and from surrounding nature. In fact, it is this individual limitation and isolation which mist of the cultural trends toward oblivion and abandon tend to overcome. The most poignant and beautiful expression of this striving is found in the Upanishad, in the picture of rivers which flow and, disappearing into the ocean, lose name and shape. By dissolving the self in something greater, by becoming part of a greater entity, the individual overcomes to a certain extent one’s limitations; as it is expressed in the Upanishad, “By vanishing to nothing, we become part of the creative principle of the Universe.” This seems to be the great consolation and gratification which religion has to offer human beings; by losing themselves they can become at one with God or nature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
The same satisfaction can be achieved by devotion to a great cause; by surrendering to the self to a cause we feel at one with a greater whole. In our culture we are more aware of the opposite attitude toward the self, the attitude that emphasizes and highly values the particularities and uniqueness of individuality. Humans in our culture feels strongly that one’s own self is a separate unity, distinguished from or opposite to the World outside. Not only does one insist on this individuality but one derives a great deal of satisfaction from it; one finds happiness in developing one’s special potentialities, mastering oneself and the World in active conquest, being constructive and doing creative work. Of this ideal of personal development Goethe has said, “Hoechstes Glueck der Menschenkinder ist doch die Persoenlichkeit.” However, the opposite tendency that we have discussed—the tendency to break through the shell individuality and be rid of its limitations and isolation—is an equally deep-rooted human attitude, and is also pregnant with potential satisfaction. Neither of these tendencies is itself pathological; both the preservation and development of individuality and the sacrifice of individuality are legitimate goals in the solution of human problems. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Although these proposed philosophies of life, these recipes of being, are presented as though from a stigmatized individual’s personal point of view, on analysis it is apparent that something else informs them. This something else is groups, in the broad sense of like-situated individuals, and this is only to be expected, since what an individual is, or could be, derives from the place of this kind in the social structure. One of these groups is the aggregate formed by the individual’s fellow-sufferers. The spokesperson of this group claim that the individual’s real group, the one to which one naturally belongs, is this group. All the other categories and groups to which the individual necessarily also belongs are implicitly considered to be not one’s real ones; one is no really one of them. The individual’s real group, then, is the aggregate of persons who are likely to have to suffer the same deprivation as one suffers because of having the same stigma; one’s real “group,” in fact, is the category which can serve as one’s discrediting. The character these spokespersons allow the individual is generated by the relation one has to those of one’s own kind. If one turns to one’s group, one is loyal and authentic; if one turns away, one is craven and a fool. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The admonition that the stigmatized individual should be loyal to one’s group is voiced by professional scientists, too. For example, Riesman, in “Marginality, Conformity, and Insight,” Phylon, Third Quarter, 1935, 251-252, in describing how a sociologist, or an American, or a professor may each be seduced into accepting compliments regarding one’s self that are an insult to one’s group, adds this story: “I myself recall that I once told a woman lawyer that she was not as strident and aggressive as other Portias I had known, and I regret that she took this as a compliment and consented to the betrayal of her female colleagues of the bar. Here, surely, is a clear illustration of a basic sociological them: the nature of an individual, as one oneself as we impute it to one, if generated by the nature of one’s group affiliations. Sociologically, it should be clear that in finding oneself in different social situations, the individual will find oneself facing different claims as to which of one’s many groups is one’s real one. Other matter are less clear. Why, for example, should individuals who have already paid a considerable price for their stigma be told not to pass; perhaps according to the rule that the less you have had the less you should try to obtains? #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
And if derogation of those with a particular stigma is bad in the present and bad for the future, why should those who have the stigma, more so than those who do not, be given the responsibility of presenting and enforcing a fair-minded stand and improving the lot of the category as a whole? One answer, of course is that those with the stigma should “know better,” thus assuming an interesting relation between knowledge and morality. A better answer, perhaps, is that those with a particular stigma are often considered by themselves and by normals to be linked together through space and time into a single community that should be supported by its members. As might be expected, professionals who take an in-group standpoint may advocate a militant and chauvinistic line—even to the extent of favouring a secessionist ideology. Taking this tack, the stigmatized individual in mixed contacts will give praise to the assumed special values and contributions of one’s kind. One may also flaunt some stereotypical attributes which one could easily cover; thus, one finds second generations Jews who aggressively interlard their speech with Jewish aggressively interlard their speech with Jewish idiom and accent, and the militant homosexual who are patriotically swish in public places. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
The stigmatized individual may also openly question the half-concealed disapproval with which normals treat one, and wait to “fault” the self-appointed wise, that is, continue to examine the other’s actions and words until some fugitive sign is obtained that their show of accepting one is only a show. The problems associated with militancy are well known. When the ultimate political objective is to remove stigma from the differentness, the individual may find that one’s very efforts can politicize one’s own life, rendering it even more different from the normal life initially denied one—even though the next generation of one’s fellow may greatly profit from one’s efforts by being more accepted. Further, in drawing attention to the situation of one’s own kind one is in some respects consolidating a public image of one’s differentness as a real thing and of one’s fellow-stigmatized as constituting a real group. On the other hand, if one seeks some kind of separateness, not assimilation, one may find that one is necessarily presenting one’s militant efforts in the language and style of one’s enemies. Moreover, the pleas one presents, the plight one reviews, the strategies one advocates, are all part of an idiom of expression and feeling that belongs to the whole society. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
One’s disdain for a society that rejects one can be understood only in terms of that society’s conception of pride, dignity, and independence. In short, unless there is some alien culture on which to fall back, the more one separates oneself structurally from the normals, the more likely one may become culturally. “Behold, it came to pass that I, Omni, being commanded by my father, Jarom, that I should write somewhat upon these plates, to preserve our genealogy—wherefore, in my days, I would that ye should know that I fought much with the sword to preserve my people, the Nephites, from falling into the hands of their enemies, the Lamanites. However, behold, I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statues and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done. And it came to pass that two hundred and seventy and six years had passed away, and we had many seasons of peace; and we had many seasons of serious war and bloodshed. Yea, and in fine, two hundred and eighty and two years had passes away, and I had kept these plates according to the commandments of my fathers; and I conferred them upon my son Amaron. And I make an end. And now I, Amaron, write the things whatsoever I write, which are few, in the book of my father. Behold, it came to pass that three hundred and twenty years had passed away, and the more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“For the Lord would not suffer, after he had led them out of the land of Jerusalem and kept and preserved the from falling into the hands of their enemies, yea, he would not suffer that the words should not be verified, which he spake unto our fathers, saying that: Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall not prosper in the land. Wherefore, the Lord did visit them in great judgment; nevertheless, he did spare the righteous that they should not perish, butt did deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. And it came to pass that I did deliver the plates unto my brother Chemish. Now, I Chemish, write what few things I write, in the same book with my brother; for behold, I saw the last which he wrote, that he wrote it with his own hand; and he wrote it in the day that he delivered them unto me. And after this manner we keep the records, for it is according to the commandments of our fathers. And I make an end. Behold, I, Abinadom, am the son of Chemish. Behold, it came to pass that I saw much war and contention between my people, the Nephites, and the Lamanites; and I, with my own sword, have taken the lives of many of the Lamanites in defense of my brethren. And behold, the record of this people is engraven upon plates which is had by the kinds, according to the generations; and I know of no revelation save that which has been written, neither prophecy; wherefore, that which is sufficient is written. And I make an end. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“Behold, I am Amaleki, the son of Abinadom. Behold, I will speak unto you somewhat concerning Mosiah, who was made king over the land of Zarahemla; for behold, he being warned of the Lord that he should fled out of the land of Nephi, and as many would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness—and it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the and of Zarahemla. And they discovered a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla. Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews. Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth. And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. However, it came to pass that Mosiah caused that they should be taught in his language. And it came to pass that after they were taught in the language of Mosiah, Zarahemla gave a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory; and they are written, but not in these plates. And it came to pass that the people of Zarahemla, and of Mosiah, did unite together; and Mosiah was appointed to be their king. And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah, there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God. And they gave an account of one Coriantumr, and the slain of his people. And Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla; and he dwelt with them for the space of nine moons. It also spake a few words concerning his fathers. And his first parent came out from the tower, at the time of the Lord confounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered in the land northward. Before, I, Amaleki, was born inn the days of Mosiah; and I have lived to see his death; and Benjamin, his son, reigneth in his stead. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And behold, I have seen, in the days of king Benjamin, a serious war and much bloodshed between the Nephites and the Lamanites. However, behold, the Nephites did obtain much advantage over them; yea, insomuch that king Benjamin did drive them out of the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that I began to be old; and, having no seed, and knowing king Benjamin to be a just man before the Lord, wherefore, I shall deliver up these plates unto him, exhorting all humans to come unto God, the Holy One of Israel, and believe in prophesying, and in revelations, and in the ministering of Angels, and in the gift of speaking with tongues, and in the gift of interpreting languages, and in all things which is good save it comes from the Lord: and that which is evil cometh from the devil. And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. And now I would speak somewhat concerning a certain number who were desirous to possess the land of their inheritance. Wherefore, they went up into the wilderness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“And their leader being a strong and mighty man, and a stiffnecked man, wherefore he caused a contention among them; and they were all slain, save fifty, in the wilderness, and they returned again to the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that they also took others to a considerable number, and took their journey again into the wilderness. And I, Amaleki, had a brother, who also went with them; and I have not since known concerning them. And I am about to lie down in my grace; and these plates are full. And I make an end of my speaking,” reports Omni 1.1-30. Heavenly Father, Thou hast led me singing to the cross where I fling down all my burdens and see them vanish, where my mountains of guilt are levelled to a plain, where my sins disappear, though they are the greatest that exist, and are more in number than the grains of fine sand; for there is power in the blood of Calvary to destroy sins more than can be counted even by one from the choir of Heaven. Thou hast given me a hill-side spring that washes clear and white, and I go as a sinner to its waters, bathing without hinderance in its crystal streams. At the cross there is free forgiveness for poor and meek ones, and ample blessings that last forever; the blood of the Lamb is like a great river of infinite grace with never any diminishing of its fullness as thirsty ones without number drink of it. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
O Lord, forever will Thy free forgiveness live that was gained on the mount of blood; in the midst of a World of pain it is a subject for praise in every place a song on Earth, an anthem in Heaven, its love and virtue knowing no end. I have a longing for the World above where multitudes sing the great song, for my soul was never created to love the dust of Earth. Though here my spiritual state is frail and poor, I shall go on singing Calvary’s anthem. May I always know that a clean heart full of goodness is more beautiful than the lily, that only a clean heart can sing by night and by day, that such a heart is mine when I abide at Calvary. Please Visit, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy family, and guard with watchful tenderness the hearts which have been hallowed by scared Mysteries; that as by Thy mercy they receive the healings Gifts of eternal salvation, they may retain them by Thy protecting power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please defend, O Lord, with Thy protection those whom Thou satisfies with Heavenly Gifts; that being set free from all things hurtful, we may press onwards with our whole heart to the salvation which cometh from Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We have received, O Lord, the glorious Mysteries, and pray Thee by means of them to make us partakers of things Heavenly, while we are dwelling on the Earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
This week’s Cresleigh Blog welcomes you to #MillsStation at #CresleighRanch! Located in the heart of Rancho Cordova, this community features modern homes built for making memories. 😍 Check it out at the link in bio! https://www.instagram.com/p/CBWN3lLgHaX/
We beseech Thee, O Lord, that the solemn reception of Thy Sacrament may cleanse us from all our old sins, and change us into new creatures; though Jesus Christ our Lord. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-4/
The People Will Live on—The Learning and Blundering People Will Live on!
Many people experience emotional states they cannot understand and identify. They often wonder at the intensity, origin, explanation, and duration of emotions. They also worry about what they might do as a result of these emotions. They may even questions whether the emotions are “normal” or not. Of course, his happens to all of us at times. It is one of the risks of being thinking, sensitive people. We begin questioning, analyzing our own experiences. We also categorize them, because that is what our rationalistic, scientific society expects. And when we cannot find a neat explanation or pigeonhole for a particular experience, we either bend it to fit another category, deny it, repress it, or project it onto somebody else (“I am not angry; you are!!”). If we cannot do any of these things because we are too honest with ourselves, we may conclude that the feeling is a bad one or a “sick” one. However, we do not have to become the privileged, personal disciple of such a self-actualized individual to benefit by them. If we have met one only once, for however short a time, merely to think of one helps us and merely to know of one’s presence in this World cheers us. Those who are sensitive enough to be able to do so, become by faith and sympathy shares in one’s own divine perception of the World. However, whereas theirs is a glimpse, the self-actualized is abiding. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
If one is intuitively directed to do so or is charged with a mission involving others, the person who dwells in this light may transmit it to those who are receptive. However, if others are hostile to it, there will be no felt result or perhaps even an uneasiness in its presence. This is a service of transmission or Grace, although not to be regarded as arbitrarily or capriciously given. When one penetrates to the still center of one’s being, the thoughts of this and that subside, either to a low ebb or into a temporary non-existence. Since thoughts express themselves in language, when they are inactive speech become inactive too. What one feels is quite literally to deep for thoughts. One falls into perfect silence. Yet it is not an empty silence. Something is present in it, some power which one can direct toward another human and which that human can feel and absorb temporarily—to whatever extent one is capable—if or when one is in a relaxed and receptive mood. If both are physically present, in total silence and bodily stillness, the communication will best take place because that is a state of transformative prayer. People react differently to one’s presence but only a few react rightly. Those are the ones with whom one has a spiritual affinity, and a prenatal link. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Association with or proximity to such a being not only brings out what is best in them but also, when it ends, invokes the reaction of what is worst. Deliberative democracy models often seem to subject to the argument that they do not protect individual’s basic rights and liberties sufficiently. This objection is rooted in two assumptions: first, insofar as deliberative models appear to make a high degree of consensus or unanimity of public issues a value, it is fair to suspect that such unanimity could only be attained at the cost of silencing dissent and curtailing minority viewpoints. Second, what protection does a deliberative model allow against the tyranny of democratic majorities from imposing its choices and norms upon the minority? When raised against most versions of radical participatory democratic theories that also prioritize political deliberation, I believe that these objections are fair. I think it is fair to ask whether the radical democratic theories of Hannah Arendt, Benjamin Barber, or Mouffe and Laclau allow for a coherent theory of rights such as would protect both basic rights and liberties for all, and defend minority rights against the tyranny of the majority. However, such objections are not applicable to the model of deliberative democracy developed here. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Precisely because I share with the Kantian liberal tradition the assumption that moral respect for the autonomous personality is a fundamental normal of morality and democracy, the deliberative model of democracy presupposes a discourse theory of ethics to suppl it with the most general moral principles upon which rights claims would be based. Insofar as a discourse theory of ethics considers participants to be equal and free beings, equally entitled to take part in those discourses which determine the norms that are to affect their lives, it proceeds from a view of persons as beings entitled to certain “moral rights.” I have named this moral right the entitlement to universal moral respect, and have attempted in Situating the Self to give a nonfoundationalist but principled justification for the recognition of this norm. I further maintain that within a discourse theory each individual has the same symmetrical rights to various speech acts, to initiate new topics, to ask for reflection about the presupposition of the conversation, and so on. I call this principle of egalitarian reciprocity. In my view the norms of universal moral respect and egalitarian reciprocity are moral rights in that they are entitlements that accrue to individuals insofar as we view them as moral persons. The step that would lead from a recognition of these two moral rights to the formulation of a principle of basic rights and liberties is certainly not very wide. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Basically, it would involve a hypothetical answer to the questions, If it is plausible for individuals to view one another as beings entitled to universal moral respect and egalitarian reciprocity, which most general principles of basic rights and liberties would such individuals also be likely to accept as determining the conditions of their collective existence? Although the discourse theory shares this kind of hypothetical and counter-factual moral reasoning procedure with Kant and Rawls, it would be different from a Kantian deduction of the concept of right and from Rawlsian construction of the “original position,” in that it would privilege a discourse model of practical debate as being the appropriate forum for determining rights claims. However, are we not thereby landing in a vicious circle, that is, discourses, even to get started, presuppose the recognition of one another’s moral rights among discourse participants; on the other hand, such rights are said to be specified as a result of the discursive situation. I have indicated elsewhere that this is not a vicious circle but rather the hermeneutic circle that characterizes all reasoning about morals and politics. We never begin our deliberations concerning these matters at a “moral ground zero.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Rather, in moral theory as in everyday morality, in political theory as in everyday political discourse, we are always situated within a horizon of presuppositions, assumptions, and power relations, the totality of which can never become wholly transparent to us. This much we must have learned from all the criticisms of rationalism in the last three centuries. Discourse ethics in this sense presupposes the reciprocal moral recognition of one another’s claims to be participants in the oral political dialogue. I am still enough of a Hegelian to maintain, however, that such reciprocal recognition of one another’s rights to moral personality is a result of a World-historical process that involves struggle, battle and resistance, as well as defeat, carried out by social classes, genders, groups, and nations. What is distinctive about the discourse model is that although it presupposes that participants must recognize one another’s entitlement to moral respect and reciprocity in some sense, the determination of the precise content and extent of these principles would be a consequence of discourses themselves. Insofar as the precise meaning and entailment of the norms of universal moral respect and egalitarian reciprocity would be the subject to discursive validation, we can speak here of a procedure of “recursive validation.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
The methodological procedure of recursive validation rules out the two consequences most feared by liberals vis-à-vis the model of deliberative democracy—namely, too strong a formulation of the conditions of consent, and the tyranny of the majority. The norms of universal moral respect and egalitarian reciprocity allow marginalized groups and dissenters both the right to withhold their assent and the right to challenge the rules as well as the agenda of public debate. For what distinguishes discoruses from compromises and other agreements reached under conditions of coercion is that only the freely given assent of all concerned can count as a condition of having reached agreement in the discourse situation. A sharp distinction has been drawn between the situation of the discredited with tension to manage and the situation of the discreditable with information to manage. The stigmatized employ an adaptive technique, however, which requires the student to bring together two possibilities. The difference between visibility and obtrusiveness is involved. It is a fact that persons who are ready to admit possession of a stigma (in many cases because it is known about or immediately apparent) may nonetheless make a great effort to keep the stigma from looming large. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
The individual’s object is to reduce tension, that is, to make it easier for oneself and the others to withdraw covert attention from the stigma, and to sustain spontaneous involvement in the official content of the interaction. However, the means employed for this task are quite similar to those employed in passing-and in some cases identical, since what will conceal a stigma from unknowing persons may also ease matters for those in the know. It is thus that a girl who gets around best on her artificial leg employs crutches or an artful but patently artificial limb when in company. This process will be referred to as covering. Many of those who rarely try to pass, routinely try to cover. One type of covering involves the individual in a concern over the standards incidentally associated with one’s stigma. Thus the visually impaired, who sometimes have a facial disfigurement in the region of the eyes, distinguish among themselves according to whether this is the case of not dark glasses sometimes worn to give voluntary evidence of blindness may at the same time be worn to cover evidence of defacement—a case of revealing unsightedness while concealing unsightliness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
The blind, in all conscience, have enough advertisement of their condition without adding a cosmetic factor to it. I can think of nothing that would add so much to the tragedy of a blind person’s position as the feeling that, in the fight to regain one’s vision, one had lost not only the fight but the wholesomeness of one’s appearance as well. Similarly, since blindness ca lead to the appearance of clumsiness, there may occur a special effort to re-learn motor propriety, an “ease and grace of adeptness at all those motions which the sighted World looks upon as ‘normal.’ A related type of covering involves an effort to restrict the display of those failings most centrally identified with the stigma. The most interesting expression of covering, perhaps, is that associated with the organization of social situations. As already suggested, anything which interferes directly with the etiquette and mechanics of communication obtrudes itself constantly into the interaction and is difficult to disattend genuinely. Hence individual with a stigma, especially those with a physical disability, if they are to minimize the obtrusiveness of their stigma, may have to learn about the structure of interaction in order to learn about the lines along which they must reconstitute their conduct. From their efforts, then, one can learn about features of interaction that might otherwise be to much taken for granted to be noted. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
For example, if the properties are to be maintained, the hard of hearing learn to talk with the degree of loudness that listeners feel is appropriate for the situation, and also to be ready to deal with those junctures during interaction that specifically require good hearing. Frances figured out elaborate techniques to cope with “dinner lulls,” intermissions at concerts, football games, dances, and so on, in order to protect her secret. However, they served only to make her more uncertain, and in turn more cautious, and in turn more uncertain. Thus, Frances had it down pat that at a dinner party she should (1) sit next to someone with a strong voice; (2) if someone asked her a direct question, choke, cough, or get hiccups; (3) take hold of the conversation herself, ask someone to tell a story she had already heard, ask questions the answers to which she already knew. Similarly, the blind sometimes learn to look directly at the speaker even though this looking accomplishes no seeing, for it prevents the blind from staring off into space or hanging the head or otherwise unknowingly violating the code regarding attention cues through which spoken interaction is organized. When it comes to examining the subjective value of a particular trend, the individual oneself will often be eager to volunteer information. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
One may point out that one’s rebellion and defiance against authority or against anything resembling coercion were necessary and indeed lifesaving, since otherwise one would have been submerged by a dominating parent; that notions of superiority helped or still help to keep one going in the face of one’s lack of self-respect; that one’s detachment or one’s “do not-care” attitude protects one from being hurt. It is true that associations of this kind come forth in a spirit of defense, but they are also revealing. They tell us something about the reasons why the particular attitude was acquired in the first place, thereby showing us its historical value and giving us a better understanding of the individual’s development. However, over and beyond this, they lead the way to an understanding of the present functions of the trend. From the standpoint of therapy these are the functions of prime interests. No neurotic trend or conflict is merely a relic from the past—a habit, as it were, that once established keeps persisting. We can be sure that it is determined by stringent necessities within the existing character structure. The mere knowledge of why a neurotic peculiarity developed originally can only be of secondary value, since what we must change are the forces that operate at present. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
For the most part, the subjective value of any neurotic position lies in its counterbalancing some other neurotic tendency. A thorough comprehension of these values, therefore, will provide an indication of how to proceed in any particular instance. If, for example, we are aware that an individual cannot relinquish one’s feeling of omnipotence because it permit one to mistake one’s potentialities for realities, one’s glorious projects for actual accomplishments, we shall know that we must examine the extent to which one lives this way in order to ensure oneself against failure, our attention will be directed toward the factors that lead one not only to anticipate failure but to be in constant dread of it. The most important therapeutic step is to bring the individual to see the reverse side of the medal: the incapacitating efforts of one’s neurotic drives and conflicts. Some of this work will have been covered during the preceding steps; but it is essential that the picture be complete in all its detail. Only then will the individual actually feel the need of changing. In view of the fact that every neurotic is driven to maintain he status quo, an incentive powerful enough to outweigh the delaying forces is required. Such an incentive, however, can come only from one’s desire for inner freedom, happiness, and growth, and from the realization that every neurotic difficulty stands in the way of its fulfillment. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Thus is one tends toward derogatory self-criticism one must see how his dissipates one’s self-respect and leaves one without hope; how it makes one feel unwanted, compelling one to suffer abuse, which in turn causes one to be vindictive; how it paralyzes one’s incentive and ability to work; how, in order to keep from falling into the abyss of self-contempt, one is forced into defensive attitudes like self-aggrandizement, remoteness from oneself, and feelings of unreality about oneself, so perpetuating one’s neurosis. Similarly, when a particular conflict has become visible during the analytical process, the individual must be made aware of its influence upon one’s life. In the case of a conflict between self-effacing tendencies and a need for triumph, all the cramping inhibition inherent in inverted sadism must be understood. The individual must see how one responds to ever self-effacing move with self-contempt, and with rage at the person before whom one cringes; and how, on the other hand, one responds to every attempt to triumph over someone with horror of oneself and a fear of retaliation. It sometimes happens that an individual, even when one become aware of the whole range of adverse consequences, shows no interest in overcoming the particular neurotic attitude. Instead, the problem seems to fade out of the picture. Almost imperceptibly one shoes it aside and nothing is gained. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
In view of the fact that one has seen all the harm one inflicts upon oneself, one’s lack of response is remarkable. Nevertheless, unless the analyst is very astute in recognizing this kind of reaction, the individual’s lack of interest may pass unnoticed. The individual takes up another subject, the analyst follows one, until they arrive again at a similar impasse. Only must later will the analyst become away of the fact that the changes that have taken place in the individual are not commensurate with the amount of work done. If the analyst knows that a reaction of this kind can occasionally be expected, one will ask oneself what factor at work within the individual present one from accepting the fact that the particular attitude with its train of harmful consequences must be changed. One’s drive to triumph over the analyst, to frustrate one, to let one make a fool of oneself, may be stronger than one’s self-interest. One’s tendency to externalize may still be so great that in spite of one’s recognition of the consequences one cannot apply the insight to oneself. One’s need to feel omnipotent may still be so strong that even though one sees the consequences as inevitable one marks a mental reservation that one will be able to get around them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
One’s idealized image may still be so rigid that one cannot accept oneself with any neurotic attitudes or conflicts. One will then merely rage against oneself and feel that one ought to be able to master the particular difficulty simply because one is cognizant of it. It is important to be aware of these possibilities, because if the factors that choke the individual’s incentive to change are overlooked, the analysis can easily degenerate into mania psycholgica, a psychology for psychology’s sake. Brining the individual to accept oneself under these circumstances constitutes a distinct gain. Even though nothing in the conflict itself has undergone change, one will have a profound sense of relief and will begin to show signs of wanting to disentangle the web in which one is caught. Once this favourable condition for work has been established, changes will soon begin to occur. However, the Lord is trying to help us—all of us—get His gospel deeper in our hearts. We are no expected to find or walk this covenant path alone. We need love and support from parents, other family members, friends, and leaders who are also walking the path. These kinds of relationships take time. Time to be together. Time to laugh, play, learn, and serve together. Time to appreciate each other’s interests and challenges. Time to be open an honest with each other as we strive to be better together. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
These relationships are one of the primary purposes of father families, quorums, classes, and congregations. They are the foundation for effective ministering. To effectively serve others we must see them through the Heavenly Father’s eyes. Only then can we begin to comprehend the true worth of a soul. Only then can we sense the love that Heavenly Father has for all His children. Seeing others as God does it a gift. I invite all of us to seek for this gift. As our eyes are opened to see, we will also be able to help others see themselves as God does. What will matter most is what others learn from you about who they really are and what they can really become. My guess is that they will not learn it so much from simply lectures. They will get it from feelings of who you are, who you think they might become. Helping others understand their true identity and purpose is one of the greatest gifts we can give. Seeing others and ourselves as God does knits our hearts together in unity and love. With ever-increasing secular forces pulling at us, we need the strength that comes from loving relationships. So as we plan activities, meetings, and other gatherings, let us remember an overarching purpose of these gatherings is to build loving relationships that unite us and help us get the gospel of Jesus Christ deeper in our hearts. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Become suspicious of any attempts to make the concept of symbols all-embracing and therefore meaningless. What then is the unsymbolic statemen that makes symbolic knowledge possible? It is that God is being-itself and as such beyond the subject-object structure of everything that is. It is interesting that symbols are irreducible experiences. A symbol does not only point to something else; it also participates in it. One should say that every statement about God is symbolic; but one should add that, inasmuch as it is symbolic, it precisely orients towards a non-symbolic reality immediately experiences. To say that God is the Infinite, or the Unconditional, or Being-itself is no longer presented as a non-symbolic statement. Rather, these terms precisely designate the boundary-line at which both the symbolic and the non-symbolic coincide. The unity we seek is to be one in Christ, to connect ourselves with Him. To connect our hears with Heaven, we need individual spiritual experiences. Those experiences come as the Holy Ghost carries the word and love of God to our mind and heart. This revelation comes through the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon; through inspired words of living prophets and other faithful disciples; and through the sill, small voice. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
These words are more than ink on a page, sound waves in our ears, thoughts in our minds, of feelings in our hearts. The word of God is spiritual power. It is truth and light. It is how we hear Him! The word initiates and increases our faith in Christ and fuels within us a desire to become more like the Saviour—that is, to repent and walk the covenant path. A symbol is therefore not a mere sign. A sign points to a meaning with which it has no intrinsic connection. It is an agreed, conventional way of saying something. Highway codes are made of signs, not of symbols. A symbol on the contrary has characteristics that distinguish it from a sign. First, a symbol participates in that which it points. This is a consequence of the fact that it became a symbol in the midst of a revelatory situation. Its association with revelation has lingered, and this makes it still participate in the power of that which was revealed. The “beyond itself” to which it points is no other than the revelation that was then perceived. A second characteristic logically follows: it opens up levels of reality which otherwise are closed for us, namely those levels to which we were raised in the original revelatory experience. Thirdly, it not only opens up dimensions and elements of reality which otherwise remain unapproachable but also unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
A revelation would be unperceived, unless we had the capacity to perceive it. And only in the revelatory experience itself do we gauge the depths of our soul. What we call “ecstasy” corresponds to “miracle.” The miracle is the correlation of elements having revelatory power. The ecstasy is the opening of the soul’s depth to the depths of the situation. Fourthly, symbols cannot be produced intentionally. This is a principle of tremendous importance. That a symbol cannot be invented is evident, once it has been defined by its participation in a revelation creates symbols of itself. This is important for defining the function of theology. Theology as such has neither the duty nor the power to confirm or to negate religious symbols. Its task is to interpret them according to theological principles and methods. The theologian cannot discard traditional Christian symbols; that they are symbols and, as such, endowed with divine power, is enough. This cuts to the ground from under much of liberal Protestantism and its rejection of Catholic symbols. Yet the theologian should criticize symbols: one may discover contradictions between symbols. One may also by one’s prophetic insight contribute to the surge of a new revelatory situation out of which new symbols will grow. The condemns the static character which some attribute to Catholic sacramentalism and Catholic theology. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Fifthly, symbols, like living beings, grow and die. They grow when the situation is ripe for them, and they die when the situation changes. This seems a difficult point to accept. It creates no problem with respect to artistic or social symbols. With religious symbols, however, a question arises. If these develop from revelatory situations, the revelation that gave them birth will always be a revelation. One may conceive that after years have passed it may have lost some power, that people will no longer fully perceive in what way this particular situation was revelatory. However, the fact will always remain that through these concrete symbols the Ultimate was once perceived. I admit that symbols have become latent and may be revived n favourable circumstances. Yet I maintain that religious symbols can undergo a disintegration, losing their symbolic power. When we choose the most symbolic action or repentance, we choose to change! We allow the Saviour to transform us into the best versions of ourselves. We choose to become more like Jesus Christ. This process of change, fueled by the word of God, is how we connect with Heaven. We must choose repentance for ourselves. The gospel cannot be forced into our hearts. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose what is right. We do this by receiving the word of God through the Holy Ghost and allowing Christ to change us into the best various of ourselves. “And now, behold, my brethren, as I said unto you that I would prophesy, behold, this is my prophecy—that the things which this prophet Zenos spake, concerning the house of Israel, in the which he likened them unto a tame olive tree, must surely come to pass. And the day that he shall set his hand again the second time to recover his people, is the day, yea, even the last time, that the servants of the Lord shall go forth in his divine power, to nourish and prune his vineyard; and after that the end soon cometh. And how blessed are they who have labored diligently in his vineyard; and how cursed are they who shall be cast out into their own place! And the World shall be burned with fire. And how merciful is our God unto us, for he remembereth the house of Israel, both roots and branches; and he stretches forth his hands unto them all the day long; and they are a stiffnecked and a gainsaying people; but as many as will not harden their hearts shall be saved in the kingdom of God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I beseech of your in words of soberness that ye would repent, and come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you. And while his arm of mercy is extended towards you in the light of the day, harden not your hearts. Yea, today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; for why will ye die? For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, will ye bring forth evil fruit, that ye must be hewn down and cast into the fire? Behold, will ye reject these words? Will ye reject the words of the prophets; and will ye reject all the words which have been spoken concerning Christ, after so many have spoken concerning him; and deny the good word of Christ, and the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and make a mock of the great plan of redemption, which hath been laid for you? Know ye not that if ye will do these things, that the power of redemption and resurrection, which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God? And according to the power of justice, for justice cannot be denied, ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“O then, my beloved brethren, repent ye, and enter in at the strait gate, and continue in the way which is narrow, until ye shall obtain eternal life. O be wise; what can I say more? Finally, I bid you farewell, until I shall meet you before the pleasing bar of God, which bar striketh the wicked with awful dread and fear. Amen,” reports Jacob 6.1-13. What a blessing, or what a praise, or what thanksgiving, can we render to Thee, O God, the Lover of humans, for that when we were cast away by the doom of death, and drowned in the depth of sin, Thou hast granted us freedom, and bestowed on us this immortal and Heavenly food, and manifested to us this Mystery hid from ages and generations? Grant us to understand this Thy supreme act of mercy, and the greatness of Thy benignity and Fatherly care for us. Heavenly Father, Thou has placed me in the church which Thy Son purchased by his own blood. Add grace to grace that I may live worthy of my vocation. I am a voyager across life’s ocean; safe in Heaven’s ark, may I pass through a troubled World into the harbour of eternal rest. I am a tree of the vineyard thou hast planted. Grant me not to be barren, with worthless leaves and wild grapes; prune me of useless branches; water me with dews of blessing. I am part of the Lamb’s bride, the church. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
Please help me to be true, faithful, chaste, loving, pure, devoted; let no strong affection wantonly dally with the World. May I live high above a love of things temporal, sanctified, cleansed, unblemished, hallowed by grace, Thy love my fullness, Thy glory my joy, Thy precepts, my pathway, Thy cross my resting place. My heart is not always a flame of adorning love, but, resting in Thy Son’s redemption, I look forward to the days of Heaven, where no languor shall oppress, no iniquities chill, no miss of unbelief dim the eye, no zeal ever tires. Father, these thoughts are the stay, prop, and comfort of my soul. We want to live a life with Christ deep in our hearts, and engaged in our time and talents. If you choose to, if you want to, you can be a big part of something big, something grand, something majestic! You are among the best the Lord has ever sent to this World. You have the capacity to be smarter and wiser and have more impact on the World than any previous generations! God loves you. We are His people, engaged together in His holy work. We will see the Restoration move forward to its ultimate purpose, the redemption of Israel and the establishment of Zion, where Christ will reign as King of Kings. I testify that God continues to do all things necessary to prepare His people for that day. May we see His glorious work as we al strive to come unto Christ. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Please lead us not into temptation, since we have been partkers of the holy Body and precious Blood. And we thank Thee that Thou hast made us meet communicants of the Mystery of glory and holiness which passeth all understandings.
Know Your Prices, Keep Smiling, Create an Alarm–There is More than One Way to Arrive at a Redemption from Phoniness!
The doctrine that maintains that what I cannot have I must teach myself not to desire; that a desire eliminated or successfully resisted, is as good as a desire satisfied, seems to me a sublime form of the doctrine of sour grapes: What I cannot be sure of, I cannot truly want. Complex modern democratic societies the Second World War face the task of securing three public goods. These are legitimacy, economic welfare, and a viable sense of collective identity. These are “goods” in the sense that their attainment is considered worthy and desirable by most members of such societies; furthermore, not attaining one or a combination thereof would cause problems in the functioning of these societies such as to throw them into crises. These goods stand in a complex relation to one another: excessive realization of one such good may be in conflict with may jeopardize the realization of others. For example, economic welfare may be attained at the cost of sacrificing legitimacy by curtailing union rights, by limiting a more rigorous examination of business accounting practices, or by encouraging the unfair use of protectionist state measures. Too great an emphasis on collective identity may come at the cost of marginalized workers and dissidents whose civil and political rights may be impinged upon by a revival of a sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Thus legitimacy claims and collective identity demands, particularly if they take a nationalist tone, may come into conflict. There can also be conflicts between the claims of economic welfare and the demands of collective identity, as when excessive forms of protectionism and nationalism isolate countries in the World economic context, possibly leading to declining standards of living. Conversely, too great an emphasis on economic welfare may undermine a sense of collective identity by increasing competition among social groups and by weakening the claims of political sovereignty vis-à-vis other state. In a well-functioning democratic society the demands of legitimacy, economic welfare, and collective identity ideally exist in some form of equilibrium. The present essay is concerned with one good among others which democratic societies must attain: the good of legitimacy. I am concerned to examine the philosophical foundations of the democratic legitimacy. I will argue that legitimacy in complex democratic societies must be thought to result from the free and unconstrained public deliberation of all about matter of common concern. Thus a public sphere of deliberation about matters of mutual concern is essential to the legitimacy of democratic institutions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Democracy, in my view, is best understood as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power in the major institutions of a society on the basis of the principle that decisions affecting the well being of a collectivity can be viewed as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals considered as moral and political equals. Certainly any definition of essentially contested concepts like democracy, freedom, and justice is never a mere definition; the definition itself already articulates the normative theory that justifies the term. Such is the cause with the preceding definition. My understanding of democracy privileges a deliberative model over other kinds of normative considerations. This is not to imply that economic welfare, institutional efficiency, and cultural stability would not be relevant in judging the adequacy of a normative definition of democracy. Economic welfare claims and collective identity needs must also be satisfied for democracies to function over time. However, the normative basis of democracy as a form of organizing our collective life is neither the fulfillment of economic welfare nor the realization of a stable sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
For just as the attainment of certain levels of economic welfare may be compatible with authoritarian political rule, so too antidemocratic regimes may be more successful in assuring a sense of collective identity than democratic ones. The practical rationality embodied in democratic institutions has a culture-transcending validity claim. This form of practical reason has become the collective and anonymous property of cultures, institutions, and traditions as a result of the experiments and experiences, both ancient and modern, with democratic rule over the course of human history. The insights and perhaps illusions resulting from these experiments and experiences are sedimented in diverse constitutions, institutional arrangements, and procedural specifics. When one think through the form of practical rationality at the core of democratic rule, Hegel’s concept of “objective Spirit” (objekiver Geist) appears to me particularly appropriate. The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective—the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of this latter consists—partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing—partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
When these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective freedom exists as the covertly and overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom—where self-conscious liberty has become nature. The consciously free substance, in which the absolute “ought” is no less an “is,” has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The abstract disruption of this spirit singles it out into persons, whose independence it, however, controls and entirely dominates from within. However, the person, as an intelligent being, feels that underlying essence to be one’s own very being—ceases when so minded to be a mere accident of it—looks upon it as one’ absolute final aim. In its actuality one sees not less an achieved present, than somewhat one brings about by one’s action—yet somewhat which without all question is. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs one’s duty as one’s own and as something which is; and in this necessity one has oneself and one’s actual freedom. It is the rationality intrinsic to these anonymous yet intelligible rules, procedures and practices that any attempt aiming at the reconstruction of the logic of democracies must focus upon. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The more we realize what infinite harm neurotic conflicts inflict on the personality, the more stringent appears the need truly to resolve them. However, since, as we now understand, this cannot be done by rational decision nor by evasion nor by the exertion of will power, how can it be done? There is only one way: the conflicts can be resolved only by changing those conditions within the personality that brought them into being. This is a radical way, and a hard one. In view of the difficulties involved in changing anything within ourselves, it is quite understandable that we should scour the ground for short cuts. Perhaps that is why individuals—and others as well—so often ask: If one sees one’s basic conflict, is that enough? The answer is clearly, no. Even when the analyst—discerning quite early in the analysis just how the individual is divided—is able to help one recognize this split, the insight is of no immediate profit. It may bring a certain relief in that the individual begins o see a tangible reason for one’s troubles instead of simply being lost in a mysterious haze; but one cannot apply it to one’s life. A perception of how one’s divergent parts operate and interfere with one another makes one no les divided. One hears these facts as one hears a strange message; it seems plausible, but one cannot realize its implications for oneself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
One is bound to invalidate the facts by manifold unconscious mental reservations. Unconsciously one will insist that the analyst is exaggerating the magnitude of one’s conflicts; that one would be quite all right if it were not for outside circumstances; that love or success would rid one of one’s distress; that one can evade one’s conflicts by keeping away from people; that though it may be true of ordinary folk that they cannot serve two masters, one with one’s unlimited powers of will and intelligence could manage to do so. Or one may feel-again unconsciously—that the analyst is a charlatan or a well-meaning fool, feigning professional cheerfulness; that one ought to know the individual is ruined beyond repair—which means that the individual responds to the analyst’s suggestions with one’s own feelings of hopelessness. Since such mental reservations point to the fact that the individual either clings to one’s particular attempts at solution—these being much more real to one than the conflicts themselves—or that one fundamentally despairs of recovery, all the attempts and all their consequences must be worked through before the basic conflict can profitably be tackled. The search for an easier road has given rise to another questions, lent weight by Dr. Freud’s emphasis on genesis: Is it enough to relate these conflicting drives—once they have been recognized—to their origins and early manifestations in the childhood situation? #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Again the answer is, no—and again, for the most part, the same reasons apply. Even the most detailed recollection of one’s early experiences gives the individual little beyond a more lenient, ore condoning attitude toward oneself. It in no way make one’s present conflicts any less disrupting. A comprehensive knowledge of early environmental influences and the changes they effected in the child’s personality, though it has little direct therapeutic values, does have a bearing on our inquiry into the conditions under which neurotic conflicts develop. As is generally recognized, this knowledge is also of great prophylactic value. If we know what environmental factors are helpful to a child’s development and what factors delay and limit it, a way is opened to the prevention of the rank growth of neuroses in future generations. It was, after all, the changes in one’s relations with oneself and others that originally brought about the conflicts. Briefly, a child may find oneself in a situation that threatens one’s inner freedom, one’s spontaneity, one’s feeling of security, one’s self-confidence—in short the very core of one’s psychic existence. One feels isolated and helpless, and as a result one’s first attempts to relate oneself to others are determined not by one’s real feelings but by strategic necessities. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
One cannot simply like or dislike, trust or distrust, express one’s wishes or protest against those of others, but has automatically to devise ways to cope with people and to manipulate them with minimum damage to oneself. The fundamental characteristics that evolve in this way may be summarized as an alienation from the self and others, a feeling of helplessness, a pervasive apprehensiveness, and a hostile tension in one’s human relations that ranges from general wariness to definite hatred. As long as these conditions persist, the neurotic cannot possibly dispense with any of one’s conflicting drives. On the contrary, the inner necessities from which they stem become even more stringent in the course of the neurotic development. The fact that the pseudo solutions increase the disturbance in one’s relations with others and with oneself means that real solutions become less and less attainable. The goal of therapy, therefore, can only be o change the conditions themselves. The neurotic must be helped to retrieve oneself, to become aware of one’s real feelings and wants, to evolve one’s own set of values, and to relate oneself to others on the basis of one’s feelings and convictions. If we could achieve this by some magic, the conflicts would be dispelled without their having even to be touched upon. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
As there is no magic, we must know what steps have to be taken to being about the desired change. Therapy affords insight and helps the individual grow. It helps makes one more empathic and gives theory more experiential meaning. If affords more faith in one’s understanding life. The real aristocrats among those in therapy are those who have had nervous breakdowns. Everybody else is kind of “square.” Therapy can yield a fuller awareness of the extent to which one has been inauthentic in one’s everyday existence, and some help and encouragement to dare to be genuine in one’s everyday existence. This experience can also be gotten out of a good platonic relationship, probably. There is more than one way to arrive at redemption from phoniness. Such experience can enhance one’s sensitivity to phoniness, to inauthenticity in another person; and it also gives one an opportunity to be a role model of authenticity of others. Now, if you can get this courage to be authentic in some way other than therapy, so much the better; but I suspect it is rather difficult to. There may be some wise seniors who have knocked around a lot, and who have worked in every kind of work—who have cheated, lied, stolen, and sinned. They have paid the consequences of all these things #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
After paying the consequences for their bad behaviour, on their own, they may have realized how they shortchanged themselves. They may have arrived at the authentic way, and can be regarded as natural untrained graduates of a therapeutic program. Since they have been one, they can spot phony. They are experts. They are more expert at phoniness than the others. They can help an individual grope for a way to be more genuine and at the same tie be effective in life. They can help a person realize that one does not have to be destroyed when one is genuine, that one will not inevitably be divorced, fired, or run out of town if one presents oneself as one is In 50 or 60 years, a human may discover authenticity and have some therapeutic capacity. However, a training analysis or bout of therapy may expedite this. The corporate World has a toe and heel, and each performs a different function: one delivers a service, the other collects payment for it. When an organization seeks to create demand for a service and then deliver it, it uses the smile and the soft questioning voice. Behind this delivery display, the organization’s worker is asked to feel sympathy, trust, and good will. On the other hand, when the organization seeks to collect money for what it has sold, its workers may be asked to use a grimace and the raised voice of commands. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Behind this collection display of beneficial and comforting emotions and expressions, the worker is asked to feel distrust and sometime positive bad will. Some companies assign the function of debt collecting to outside agencies in order to preserve pleasant and morally satisfying associations with the company name. The builder’s billing department explained: “We use eight or nine collection agencies around the country. No one initiates actions in this office. We prefer that the agency be the bad guy or gal and we be he nice people.” Just over 1 percent of customers do not pay their bills. After solicitations, some 40 percent pay, and 33 percent of that goes to the collection agency. In each kind of display, the problem for the worker becomes how to create and sustain the appropriate feeling. The reason for describing the polar extremes of emotional labour, as represented by a sale agent and the bill collector, is that it can give us a better sense of the great variety of emotional task required by jobs that fall in between. It can help us see how emotional labour distributes itself up and down the social classes and how parents can train children to do the emotional labour required by different jobs. Now this is tremendously important for us today as it has been in the past. Perhaps we are in a time when it is more important that ever. The prospering of God’s cause on Earth depends upon His people thinking well. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Today we are apt to downplay or disregard the importance of good thinking to strong faith; and some, disastrously, even regard thinking as opposed to faith. They do not realize that in so doing they are not honoring God, but simply yielding to the deeply anti-intellectualist currents in the New World. They do not realize that they are operating on the same satanic principle that produced the “killing fields” of Cambodia, where those with any sign of education—even the wearing of glasses—were killed on the spot or condemned to starvation and murderous labour. We too easily forget that it is great thinkers who have given direction to the people of Christ in their great moments: Paul, John, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, to name a few. At the head of the list is Jesus Christ Himself, who was and is the most powerful thinker the World has ever known. Logical is a great design of a noble science that allows us to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy slavery and darkness; and thus, with all due submission and deference, it offers an humble assistance to divine revelation. Its chief business is to relieve the natural weakness of the mind by some better efforts of nature; it is to diffuse a light over the understanding in our inquiries after truth. And it renders its daily service to wisdom and virtue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Bluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favours evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally “hell to pay.” That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of the World history. To take the “information” of the Scripture into a mind thinking straight under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, by contrast, is to place our feet solidly on the high road of spiritual formation under God. “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes,” reports Psalm 19.7-8. And “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee,” reports Psalm 119.11. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” reports Psalm 119.105. “I love Thy commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything,” reports Psalm 119.127-128. “Those who love Thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble,” reports Psalm 119.165. Worship does not just “happen.” Worship requires careful preparation on the part of minister and congregations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
I have experienced both side of this, and I know Sunday morning can be the worst time of the week. It is probably true that couples, especially those with young children, have more disagreements on Sunday morning than on any other day of the week. Sometimes by the time we get to church, worship is an impossibility—unless, perhaps, the sermon is on repentance! The answer to the problem begins Saturday (on Friday night for those who attend church on Saturday) preparation. (Any men who interpret the following as women’s work are wrong. Both husband and wife should share responsibility for the practical and spiritual preparations for the Lord’s Day.) It is advisable that young families have their clothing clean and laid out of Saturday (or Friday) night, and even breakfast be decided upon. The whereabouts of Bibles and lessons should be known, and even better, ought to be collected and ready. There should be an agreed-upon time to get up which leaves plenty of time to get ready for church. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is also a good idea. Spiritually, prayer about the Lord’s Day is essential—prayer for the service, the music, the pastors, one’s family and one’s self. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
The Puritans understood this well. As one of their great preachers, George Swinnock, quaintly expressed it: Prepare to meet thy God, O Christian! Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday (of Friday) night. The oven of thine heart thus baked, as it were, overnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when thou wentest to bed, would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldst rise. If thou wouldst thus leave thy heart with God on the Saturday (or Friday) night, thou shouldst fine it with him in the Lord’s Day morning. On Sunday (or Saturday) everyone needs to get up on time, eat at a set hour, and leave plenty early, ideally after a short time of family prayer asking that God will be glorified and speak to each family member. If you do this, Sunday (or Saturday) worship will ascend to new heights. Next you ought to come expecting to uniquely meet God in corporate worship. Congregational worship makes possible an intensity of devotion which does no as readily come in individual worship. On the tragic level, a mob tends to descend to a much deeper level of cruelty than individuals by themselves. It is also understood that the appreciation and enjoyment of an informed group of music lovers at a symphony is more intense than that of a single listener at home. This holds true for worship as well, because corporate worship provides a context where passion is joyously elevated and God’s Word comes with unique power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
“At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigour in me, but in church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through,” reports Martin Luther. We must come with great expectation—for we will experience just what we expect. Anything may be found in symbol. However, how do we know that what it points to is not itself a more abstract symbol. In order to speak of symbolic knowledge one must delimit the symbolic realm by an unsymbolic statement. Were there no limit to symbolism, there would be no knowledge either. Faith would imply an indefinite progress from symbol to further symbol, without any ultimate encounter with the Unsymbolic. That is, it would be a regress, an acknowledgement of the ultimacy of despair, of the impossibility of making sense out of the human situation, of the universal fallacy of thinking that revelatory situations truly are revelatory, or revelation without content. Some argue that the human intellect is fallen, depraved, darkened, and blinded, and therefore human reason is irrelevant or suspect when it comes to becoming or growing as a Christian. Now, even if this point is granted in the case of evangelizing unbelievers, it does not follow that Christians should not use or cultivate their intellects once they become disciples. Moreover, from the fact that reasoning alone will not bring someone to Christ, it does not follow that we should not persuade or reason with people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
Preaching alone will not save people without the Spirit’s work, but will still preach and work on our messages. We should do the same thing with our use of reason in evangelism. This will is fallen and depraved too, but God still commands people to make a choice to believe. The doctrine of total depravity does not mean that the image of God is effaced, that sinners are as evil as they could possibly be, or that the intellect, emotions, and will are gone or completely useless. Rather, total depravity means that the entire person, including the intellect, has been adversely affected by the Fall and is separate from God. The sinner alone cannot extricate oneself from this condition and cannot merit God’s favour or commitment oneself to God on the basis of one’s own righteousness. Further, the entire personality is corrupt but no inoperative, and every aspect of our personality has a natural inclination to fun in ways contrary to God’s ways. However, none of this means that reason, considered itself, is bad. “Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which he spake unto this house of Israel, saying: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord. For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a human took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and became to decay. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive three began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not. And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to its word. And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck off those branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire hat they may be burned. And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will; and it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself; wherefore, I will take these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will. Take thou branches of the wild olive tree, and graft them in, in the stead thereof; and these which I have plucked off I will cast into the fire and burn them, that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“And it came to pass that the servant of the Lord of the vineyard did according to the word of the Lord of the vineyard, and grafted in the branches of the wild olive tree. And the Lord of the vineyard caused that is should be digged about, and pruned, and nourished, saying unto his servants: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, that perhaps I might preserve them unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself; for it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way, and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And it came to pass that a long time passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labour in the vineyard. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard, and also the servant, went down into the vineyard to labour. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Behold, look here; behold the tree. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard looked and beheld the tree in the which the wild olive branches had been grafted: and it had sprung forth and begun to bear fruit. And he beheld that it was good; and the fruit thereof was like unto the natural fruit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“And he said unto the servant: Behold, the branches of the wild have taken hold of the moisture of the root thereof, that the root thereof hath brought forth much strength; and because of the much strength of the root thereof the wild branches have brought forth tame fruit. Now, if we had not grafted these branches, the tree therefore would have perished. And now, behold, I shall lay up much fruit, which the tree thereof I shall lay up against the season, unto mine own self. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Come, le us go to the nethermost part of the vineyard and behold if the natural branches of the tree have not brought forth much fruit also, that I make lay up of the fruit thereof against the season, unto mine own. And it came to pass that they went forth whither the master had hid the natural branches of the tree, and he said unto the servant: Behold these; and he beheld the first that it had brought forth much fruit; and he beheld also that it was good. And he said unto the servant: Take of the fruit thereof, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self; for behold, said he, this long time have I nourished it, and it hath brought for much fruit,” reports Jacob 5.1.20. O Taste and see how good the Lord is Alleluia. Bless the Lord in the Heavens, Alleluia. Bless Him in the highest, Alleluia. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
Bless the Lord, all ye Angels of His, Alleluia. Bless Him, all His host, Alleluia. What blessings or thanksgiving can we offer for this Sacrament? Thee only, O Jesus, do we bless, with the Father and the most Holy Spirit, now and forever. Blessed Creator, Thou hast promised Thy beloved sleep: Please give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; if dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let Thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of His holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grace, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to Thy presence. Weaken my attachment to Earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; as pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with Thee. All glory for this precious hope; for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not Thy mercies in the night season; Thy hand never weariness, Thy power needs no repose, Thine eye never sleeps. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by person anxieties. Show Thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; Thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to Thee awake or asleep. “For, as I have often old you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on Earthly things. However, our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to being everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body, reports Philippians 3.18-21. Chris is administering the Bread of the Saints and the Cup of life for remissions of sins. Thou art Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who wast born of the Virgin Mary. While we receive this most holy Cup, please deliver us from all sin. The Spiritual dispeller of darkness, the Spiritual Father is not only holy Himself but is also an experienced teacher of the way to holiness for others. One who takes upon oneself the task of guiding disciples should possess sure-footed experience gained by years of work with the most varied kinds of apprentices. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The Spirit of Liberty is the Spirit Which is Not too Sure that it is Right and Seeks to Understand Minds
The great want which humankind labours under at this present moment is sleep. The World should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. Which is a more effective learning strategy: reward or punishment? This question is still undecided. At present, evidence for each side is about equal. The following guidelines, however, can be applied in teaching situations, especially those involving young children. In general, rewarding desired behaviours is more effective than punishing undesired behaviours—you can still catch more files with honey than with vinegar. If punishment is necessary, it is most effective if used immediately after the undesired response. For instance, if a child must be punished, it is best done right after the child has acted incorrectly. If one parents says to the child, “Just wait until your father (or mother) gets home—then, you will get it,” the child learns to fear the arrival of the punisher and, in the process, often forgets the offense for which he or she is being punished. If punishment must be used, the reason for the punishment should be explained. “I am only doing this for your own good,” or “This hurts me more than it does you,” is less likely to teach a child a specific behaviour than saying, “I am not letting you go to the movies because you socked your little brother. This hurts him and makes him cry, and I do not want you to do it again.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
If it is possible, combine reward and punishment. If necessary, punish the undesired behaviour, but also be sure to reward the desired behaviour. For example, do not just spank a child for playing in the street; also praise and reward the child for playing in the yard instead. Punish the undesired behaviour, not the behaver. For instance, communicate to a child that you feel his or her behaviour is “bad”—not that you think the child is bad. Most punishment do not work on very young children. Under about one year of age, children do not understand that some behaviours are acceptable and some are not and why this is so. They may think they are being punished just for being there, and more often than not they begin to associate the punisher with punishment. When you feel emotionally charged, especially if you are filled with rage, never, never, never punish a child. Adults often forget their own strength. Children are fragile and easily hurt. The only thing a child learns through abuse is hatred and fear. There is a great distinction between negative reinforcement and abusive punishment. In many cases, punishment only suppresses or limits the undesired behaviour; it does not really extinguish it. The self-actualized open to all qualified and eager seekers the mysteries and treasures of one’s own inner experience, that they may profit by one’s past struggles and present success. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The self-actualized brings revelations to meet our gropings, inspirations to meet our doubts. One becomes, for those docile enough to receive them, a bearer of grace and a vessel of truth, a bestower of comfort and a dispenser of confidence. Prophets and the self-actualized, teachers and saints receive the urge to share their knowledge and experience with others. Whence does this urge derive? Both lower and higher, personal and nonpersonal sources are possible. However, if from the highest, then we may say that God sends His messages to humankind through these channels. The self-actualized who starts a movement or puts one’s thoughts out, acts as a lighthouse which guides many a fumblings but aspiring soul. If one does not accept disciples individually it is because one serve humans otherwise. Those who try to get such acceptance and find themselves rebuffed may consider one selfish, cold, remote. However, they will be greatly mistaken. One can serve humankind—not each person separately but in groups or masses—and one may do this by lecturing, by writing or simply by directing one’s prayer in the appropriate way. For a writer’s books spread not only one’s ideas but also something of oneself. One can put thought on a high level but the way in which one does this depends upon one’s circumstances. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
The self-actualized can put thought on a high level personally as a private teacher, impersonally as a public lecturer or writer, or anonymously as a proficient contemplative. All these people who have attained Reality inevitably leave a record for others or for posterity, but not necessarily with their name attached. Has anyone of the self-actualized ever vanished without leaving behind a trace of Power, knowledge, goodness, and inspiration? Even if not in words or deeds, something is left in the unseen atmosphere. They are not usually members of any sect, but circumstances or necessity may sometimes render it desirable that they be such. The self-actualized may or may not descend into the arena of action but if not one will still find ways and means to inspire, guide, or ennoble the actions of other people. One does this by teaching them and travelling among the, or by sitting still and meditating alone, or by disseminating writings among them. Even when one is unheard publicly one can help by the concentrated mind’s great power. One does what one can to introduce here and there into the consciousness of others, through whatever means one possesses, the seeds of higher ideas. These seeds may not grow and certainly may not fructify for many years, but that is not one’s affair. One knows that the vitality in these seeds and depth of mental ground in which they have been sown will inevitably lead to some result. It is enough. One has sown seed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
One does not have to wait for roots to form, stems to grow, fruits to appear. One’s work is done. In this momentous period the true self-actualized has special work to do in trying to protect the human race from its own folly. One way is intercessory prayer which may help to mitigate the effects of the World crisis. This requires solitude. It is an impersonal contemplation and must not be disturbed by those who break into it, either to unload their personal problems or to offer personal service which in the end has the same result. Yes, some of us are genuinely aware of the soul’s existence and intimately know its freedom and blessedness. Modesty has hitherto imposed silence upon us about the fact, although compassion induced us to break it on occasions. However, we mystics must now stand on our own dignity. It is time that the World, brough to its inevitable and by us expected materialistic dead-end, should realize at last that we are not talking out of our hats but out of a real and impeccable experience. It would be an unpardonable treachery to our duty in the final and terrible World-crisis of this materialistic age if, out of false modesty or fear of intimidation by a cynical society, we who daily feel and commune with the divine presence, who realize its tremendous importance for humanity’s present condition and future life, fail to testify to its existence and reality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
If today we venture to speak more freely and frequently, our ideas may drop into a few hospitable minds and sublimely penetrate their consciousness. It is not the self-actualizer’s function to tackle the Worldly problems which governments usually deal with: the social, political, economic, and technical ones. One’s particular work is concerned with, first, one’s ordinary duty of professional service through whatever skill one possesses to earn one’s livelihood, and second, making truth available. The mere existence of one who succeeds in identifying oneself with God benefits every sensitive person who meets one, even for a minute or two. Further, it inspires spiritual seekers who never get the chance to meet one but who hear favourably about one and respectfully receive what they hear. Finally, posterity benefits from the records left about one. Each teacher—if one is divinely commissioned—leaves a deposit of truth after he or she dies. The Master who leaves a record of one’s own climb, or a testimony to the goal’s existence, or a path pioneered for those who would follow, or an instructed disciple here and there, leaves something of oneself. Even where help may not directly and outwardly be given when difficult circumstances press on a human, it may yet be indirectly and inwardly given to one’s mind, which has to deal with, or endure, them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
One can awaken some persons to this divine presence within themselves, but not all. One may do this mysteriously by some unknown process, or one may do it deliberately and with the display of one’s technique. The abstract does not appeal to the masses, because it gives them nothing. However, an embodied human can be seen, heard, and touched, to that extent can be understood, to that extent one gives them something; one can be followed, admired, feared, reverenced, or worshipped. Secure as one is in one’s own peace of mind, it is inevitable that the more sensitive among those who meet one feel it too. However, those who come with hostility, personal or intellectual, will be avoided if possible or find their time cut to the shortest if not. Such a person has a catalytic action on the minds and even on the lives of those who come into sympathetic contact with one. Just by being oneself one makes the philosophic virtues real to others. One does not need to be conscious of a clearly defined mission before one sets about doing something for the enlightenment of others. There is always some means open to one, some little thing one can do to make this knowledge available or to set an example of right living. It is one’s duty to communicate what one feels there, what one finds there, to those who are excluded from it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
If at times, and with sympathetic auditors, one’s duty becomes one’s joy, at other times and with insensitive auditors it becomes one’s cross. Jesus exemplified this in His own history. The illuminate practices a wiser philanthropy than those who are presented as models of this virtue. One has no wish to take charge of anyone’s life or undertake the management of anyone’s affairs. One is not allowed by the code of ethics corresponding to one’s knowledge to make other people’s decisions for them. Hence one can say neither yes nor no to such highly personal questions. However, one can point out the consequences which are likely to follow in each case. Basically, people are just like children. They need attention. Sometimes people are really nervous when meeting people or dealing with new situations. And some of the troublemakers really just want your attention. The people-as-child analogy can be extended to cover sibling rivalry: You cannot play cards with just one person because the other people will get jealous. Think of unruly people just as you would think of a child and that will widen tolerance of them. If their needs are like those of a child, those needs are supposed to come first. The worker’s right to anger is correspondingly reduced; as an adult one must work to inhibit and suppress anger at children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Should the analogy to children fail to induce the necessary deep acting, surface-acting strategies for handling “irate” can be brought into play. People are urged to “work” the customers name in, as in “Yes, Mr. Camdenski,” it is true construction of your new home is talking a little longer than expected.” This reminds the individual that he is not anonymous, that there is at least some pretension to a personal relation and that some emotion management is owed. Again, workers are told to use terms of empathy. Whatever happens, you are supposed to say, I know just how you feel. Lost your light fixture? I know just how you feel? Late for a walk though? I know just how you feel. Did not get that lot you were counting on? I know just how you feel. Employees reports that such expressions of empathy are useful in convincing people that they have misplaced the blame and misaimed their anger. Remember, to treat people like they are guests in your living room, and guests are to be made comfortable and their emotional outburst are expected to be met by support. Never get super angry with a customer, they are the source of revenue. Supervisors never speak officially of an obnoxious or outrageous customer, only of an uncontrolled customer. The term suggests that a fact has somehow attached itself to this customer—not that the customer has lost control or even had any control to lose. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Again, the common phrase “mishandled customer” suggests a bungle somewhere up the line, by someone destined to remain lost in the web of workers that stretched from curbside to architecture. By linguistically avoiding any attribution of blame, the idea of a right to be angry at the customer is smuggled out of discourse. Linguistically speaking, the customer never does anything wrong, so he or she cannot be blamed or made the object of anger. One time, a man was waiting for a special ordered light fixture, and one of the other home buyers sagged it and had it installed in her house. The builder responded by saying politely, “I notice this man’s light fixture was installed in your house.” The dirty deed was done, but, the implication was, by no one in particular. Such implicit reframing dulls a sense of cause of effect. It separates object from verb and verb from subject. The home buyer does not feel accused, and the builder does not feel as if he or she is accusing. Emotion work has been accomplished, but it has hidden its tracks with words. Company language is aimed not only at diffusing anger, but at minimizing fear. As in the case when a refrigerator was specially ordered and delivered to the wrong address. This was labeled an incident. The term incident calms the nerves. How could we be terrified at an incident? #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Thus, the words that workers use and do not use help them avoid emotions inappropriate to a living room full of guest. Dealing with difficult people is part of the job. It makes us angry sometimes. And anger is part of stress. So that is why I would like to talk to you about being angry. I am not saying you should do this [work on your anger] for your corporation. I am not saying you should do it for the home buyers. I am saying do it for yourselves. The only question to be seriously discussed is “How do you rid yourself of anger?” From my experience in supervisory work I know that the problem of hopelessness is often not clearly envisaged by the analyst and hence not properly dealt with. Some of my colleagues have been so overwhelmed by the individual’s hopelessness—which they recognized but did not see as a problem—that they became hopeless themselves. This attitude is of course fatal to an analysis, for no matter how good the technique or how brave the effort, the individual senses that the analyst has really given him or her up. The same holds true outside the analytical situation. Nobody can be a constructively helpful friends or mate who does not believe in the possibility of the companion’s fulfilling one’s own potentialities. Sometimes colleagues have made the opposite mistake of not taking the individual’s hopelessness seriously enough. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
They felt the individual needed encouragement and gave it—which is commendable, but quite insufficient. When this happens, the individual, even if one appreciates the analyst’s good intentions, is quite justified in being annoyed with one, since deep down one knows that one’s hopelessness is not just a mood that can be dissipated by well-meant encouragement. In order to take the bull by the horns and tackle the problem directly, it is necessary first to recognize from indirect indications like the ones cited above that the individual feels hopeless and the extent to which one feels so. Then it must be understood that one’s hopelessness is fully warranted by one’s entanglements. The analyst must realize and explicitly convey to the individual that one’s situation is hopeless only so long as the status quo persists and is regarded as unchangeable. In simplified form, the whole problem is illustrated by a scene from Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. The family, faced with bankruptcy, are in despair at the thought of leaving their estate with its beloved cherry orchard. A man of affairs offers the sound suggestion that they build modest homes for rent on a part of the estate. With their hidebound views, they cannot countenance such a project, and since there is no other solution they remain without hope. They ask helplessly, as if they had not heard the suggestion, whether nobody can advise or help them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
If their mentor were a good analyst he would say: “Of course the situation is difficult. However, what makes it hopes is your own attitude toward it. If you would consider changing your claims on life there would be no need to feel hopeless.” The belief that the individual can really change, which means essentially that one can really resolve one’s conflicts, is the factor that determines whether or not the therapist dare to tackle the problem and whether one can do it with a reasonable chance of success. It is here that my differences with Dr. Freud come into clear relief. Dr. Freud’s psychology and the philosophy underlying it are essentially pessimistic. This is patent in his outlook on the future of humankind as well as in his attitude toward therapy. And on the basis of his theoretical premises, he cannot be anything but pessimistic. Humans are driven by instincts which at best are only to be modified by “sublimation.” His instinctual drives for satisfaction are inevitably frustrated by society. His “ego” is helplessly tossed about between instinctual drives and the “superego,” which itself can only be modified. The superego is primarily forbidding and destructive. True ideals do not exist. The wish for personal fulfillment is narcissistic. Humans are by nature destructive and a death instinct compels them either to destroy others or to suffer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
All these theories leave little room for an optimistic attitude toward change and limit the value of the potentially splendid therapy Dr. Freud originated. In contrast, I believe that compulsive trends in neuroses are not instinctual but spring from disturbed human relationships; that they can be changed when these improve and that conflicts of such origin can really be resolved. This does not mean that therapy based on the principles I advocate has no limitations. Much work remains to be done before we can clearly determine these limitations. However, it does mean that we have well-founded reasons for believing in the possibility of radical change. Why, then, is it so important to recognize and tackle an individual’s hopelessness? In the first place, this approach is of value in dealing with special problems like depression and suicidal tendencies. We can, it is true, lift an individual depression by merely uncovering the particular conflicts in which the person is caught at the time, without touching upon one’s general hopelessness. However, if we want to prevent recurring depressions it has to be tackled because it is the deeper source from which the depressions emanate. Nor can insidious chronic depression be coped with unless one goes to this original source. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The same hold true for suicidal conditions. We know that such factors as acute despair, defiance, and vindictiveness lead to suicidal impulses; but it is often too late to prevent suicide after the impulse has become manifest. By paying minute attention to the less dramatic signs of hopelessness and by taking up the problem with the patient at the proper time, it is probable that many suicides could be averted. It is not that collective talk determines the mood of the workers. Rather, the reverse is true: the needed mood determines the nature of the worker’s talk. To keep the collective mood stripped of any painful feelings, serious talk of death, divorce, politics, religion, and news is usually avoided. People want to forget about COVID-19 and feel safe in the modest castles, which they imagine to be in a storybook fairytale. On the other hand, when there is time for it, mutual morale raising is common. As one said: “When one sales agent is depressed, thinking, ‘I am ugly, what am I doing as a sales representative?’ other sales representatives, even without quite knowing what they are doing, try to cheer her up. They straighten her collar for her, to get her up and smiling again. I have done it too, and needed it done.” Once established, team solidarity can have two effect. It can improve morale and thus improve service. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
However, team solidarity can also become the basis for sharing grudges against the homebuyers or the corporation. Perhaps it is the second possibility that manager meant to avoid wen in Recurrent Training they offered examples of “bad” social emotion management. One teacher cautioned her students: “When you are angry with a homebuyer, do not head for the galley to blow off steam with another sales representative.” In the galley, the second sales representative, instead of calming the angry worker down, may further rile him or her up; one may become an accomplice to the aggrieved worker. Then, as the instructor put it, “There will be two of you hot to trot.” The message is, when you angry, go to a trusted therapist who will calm you down. Consider calling him or her for a phone appoint so not to drive while angry. Even if you are not suicidal, but cannot afford a therapist, a suicide hotline may be worth trying out. Support for anger or a sense of grievance—regardless of what inspires it—is bad for service and bad for the corporation. Thus, the informal ways in which workers check on the legitimacy of a grievance or look for support in blowing off steam become points of entry for company suggestions. Corporations sometimes have Ghost-Buyers who occasionally Ghost-Buy a house, and there may be senior representative on the crew, the base supervisor, and the plainclothes company supervisors who occasionally monitor employee behaviour. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
One homebuyer was asked to fill out a company-elicited passenger opinion poll and fill out a questionnaire, and the results were presented by letter to the workers. As one male sales representative, seven years with the corporation describes it: We get told how we are doing twice a year when we are sent homebuyer evaluations. They show how the builder is competing. Oh, the homebuyers are asked to rank sales representatives: “genuinely concerned, made me feel welcome. Spoke to me more than required. Wide awake, energetic, eager to help. Seemed sincere when talking to the potential homebuyers and confirmed homebuyers. Helped established a relaxed community atmosphere. Enjoying their jobs. Treated homebuyers as individuals.” We see how this builder is doing in the competition. We are supposed to really get into it. Supervision is thus more indirect than direct. It relies on the sales representative’s sense of what homebuyers will communicate to management, who will, in turn, communicate to workers. Supervisors do more than oversee workers. Even when people are paid to be nice at all times, and when their efforts succeed, it is a remarkable accomplishment. This is possible because of emotion work, feeling rules, and social exchange. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
A profit motive is slipped in under acts of emotion management, under the rules that govern them, under the gift exchange. Who benefits now, and who pays? The lesson in deep acting—acting “as if the office is your home” and “as if this unruly homebuyer has a traumatic past”—are themselves a new development in deskilling. The mind of the emotion worker, the source of the ideas about what mental moves are needed to settle down an irate, has moved upstairs in the hierarchy so that the worker is restricted to implementing standard procedures. Of more general significance is the fact that the individual’s hopelessness constitutes a hindrance to the cure of any severe neurosis. We have to deal with a counterplay of meticulous and forward-moving forces, with resistance and incentive. Resistance is a collective term for all the forces within the individual that operate to maintain the status quo. One’s incentive, on the other hand, is produced by the constructive energy that urges one on toward inner freedom. This is the motive power with which we work and without which we could do nothing. It is the force that helps that individual overcome resistance. It makes one’s associations productive, there by giving the analyst a chance for better understanding. It gives one the inner strength to endure the inevitable pain of maturing. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
It makes one willing to take the risk of abandoning attitudes that have given one a feeling of safety and to make the leap into the unknown of new attitudes toward oneself and others. The analyst cannot drag the individual through this process; the individual oneself must want to go. It is this invaluable force that is paralyzed by a condition of hopelessness. And in failing to recognize and tackle it the analyst deprives oneself of one’s best ally in the battle against the individual’s neurosis. The individual’s hopelessness is not a problem that can be solved by any single interpretation. There is already a substantial gain if, instead of being engulfed by a feeling of doom that one regards as unalterable, the individual begins to recognize it as a problem that may eventually be solved. This step liberates one sufficiently to go ahead. There will, of course, be ups and downs. One may feel optimistic, even overoptimistic, if one acquires some helpful insight, only to succumb to one’s hopelessness again as soon as one approaches a more upsetting one. Each time the matter must be tackled anew. However, the hold it has on the individual will relax as one realizes that one can really change. One’s incentive will grow accordingly. It may be limited, at the beginning of the analysis, to a mere wish to get rid of one’s most disturbing symptoms. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
However, the incentive gains strength as the individual becomes increasingly aware of one’s shackles, and as one gets a taste of how it feels to be free. When we shall apprehend the meaning of life, we may discover that it provides its pre-self-actualized in such prodigies. The highest service one can render is in silent contemplation, which inspires so many aspiring souls to a higher life. This is the truth. If one is sensitive, reflective, and penetrative, the mere fact that these prophets, these light-bringers and way-showers have exited at all is enough to change a human’s life. Even if one does no more than open the human mind to its higher possibilities, one does enough. Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost—humans must pray and gain knowledge for themselves from the Holy Ghost. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, behold, my beloved brethren, I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way. However, behold, why do ye ponder these things in your hearts? Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of Angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of Angels save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the word of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark. For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and there will be no more doctrine given until after he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh. And when he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh, the things which he shall say unto you shall ye observe to do. And now I, Nephi, cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance, and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of humans; for they will not search knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be. And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a human to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a human to pray, but teacheth one that one must not pray. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“However, behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform anything unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul,” reports 2 Nephi 32.1-9. Please send forth, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Holy Spirit, to make these present offerings Thy Sacrament unto us, and purify our hearts for its reception. Privileges—O Lord God, please teach e to know that grace precedes, accompanies, and follows my salvation, that it sustains the redeemed soul, that not one link of its chain can ever break. From Calvary’s cross wave upon wave of grace reaches me, deals with my sin, washes me clean, renews my heart, strengthens my will, draws out my affection, kindles a flame in my soul, rules throughout my inner human, consecrates my every thought, word, work, teaches me Thy immeasurable love. How great are my privileges in Christ Jesus! Without him I stand far off, a stranger, an outcast; in him I draw near and touch his kingly sceptre. Without him I dare not lift up my guilt eyes; in him I gaze upon my Father-God and friend. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Without him I hide my lips in trembling shame; in him I open my mouth in petition and praise. Without him all is wrath and consuming fire; in him is all love, and the repose of my soul. Without him is gaping hell below me, and eternal anguish; in him its gates are barred to me by his precious blood. Without him darkness spreads its horrors in front; in him an eternity of glory is my boundless horizon. Without him all within me is terror and dismay, in him every accusation is charmed into joy and peace. Without him all things external call for my condemnation; in him they minister to my comfort, and are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. Praise be to thee for grace, and for the unspeakable gift of Jesus. Although by the revelation of grace in this life we cannot know of God “what He is,” and thus are united to Him as to one unknown; still we know Him more fully according as many and more excellent of His effects are demonstrated to us, and according as we attribute to Him some things known by divine revelation, to which natural reason cannot reach, as, for instance, that God is Thee and One. For the images either received from sense in the natural order, or divinely formed in the imagination, we have so much more excellent intellectual knowledge, the stronger the intelligible light is in humans; and thus through revelation given by the images a fuller knowledge is received by the infusion of the divine light. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different—to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possess. Philosophers generally stipulate that a conception of justice should be held independently of particular social or historical circumstances, or practices, as a necessary condition for objectivity. In the effort to achieve this universality and objectivity, most modern philosophical accounts seek correct normative principles of social life by adopting a strategy of deriving such principles from a hypothetical starting point. Whether called the state of nature, the original position, the moral point of view, the ideal observer, and so on, this hypothetical starting point purportedly escapes the specificity of actual historical circumstances. The starting point aims to remove all natural and social contingency from human life, leaving only its formal and universal elements. Then political theorists can claim to derive the correct conception of the just social order from this universal and formal starting point. As we have seen, however, each account smuggles into the starting point substantive premises derived more or less directly from the theorist’s social circumstances. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The theory of the just social order which emerges, then, merely reflects in idealized and systematized form the actual structure of the society in which the theorist dwells. Thus, many writers argue that classic liberalism makes substantive assumptions about human nature (for example, that human beings are essentially acquisitive) which reflect the particular needs of an emergent bourgeois and capitalist social order. This presents us with a dilemma. If one cannot derive a substantive conception of justice from a formal starting point alone, then it appears inevitable that substantive theories must have substantive premises derived from particular social circumstances. Theories do not err in introducing substantive premises into the starting point, since this is logically necessary if they are to arrive at substantive conclusions. Rather, the error lies in presenting these substantive premises as ahistorical and thus claiming that the substantive conception applies across different social and historical circumstances. Most contemporary social theorists conclude from this that the philosophical ideal of a rationally grounded conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances is an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme, and a dangerous one at that. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Many Marxists, for example, argue that the search for correct, rationally grounded, universal principles of justice is illusory. Each social formation has its own normative principles which arise from and serve to reproduce the particular social relations of that society. Juridical forms, and the principles of justice that govern them, are specific to modes of production. There is, moreover, no transhistocial conception of justice by which these social practices can be judged unjust. There can be no “justice in itself” independent of the particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular conceptions and principles of justice. It follows that any claim to have a universal and objective theory of justice is necessarily ideological; it makes as disinterested truth what really expresses the interests and values of the dominant class. Similarly, many contemporary non-Marxist social scientists regard with scepticism the possibility of arriving at a normative conception of justice that is not a mere reflection of norms actually operative in a society. For much contemporary social science norms exist only as facts: One can give an account of the norms people actually adhere to and follow in a society. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
One can show their social origins and give a functional account of how they contribute to the maintenance of social integration. No basis exists, however, for saying that some norms are right while others are not. Given the logical problem outlined above, the traditional philosophical search for a rationally grounded theory of justice appears to be illusory. Yet this conclusion leads to undesirable consequences. The thesis of the impossibility of a rationally grounded conception of justice that is more than a mere reflection of actual social circumstances implies the impossibility of rational social criticism. To criticize a set of social circumstances, and to judge them unjust, one should be able to take a sufficient distance from them that they no longer appear normal or inevitable. This seems to imply that one needs some means of transhistocial evaluation. Herbert Marcuse, was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. He argued that the traditional appeal to normative universals like truth, beauty, freedom and justice serves just its critical function. The projection of universalistic ideas of what ought to be opens up possibilities for thinking, which otherwise would be conditioned by what actually exists. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The absence of such philosophical ideals creates the one-dimensional thinking characteristic of contemporary culture. Yet the appeal to universals is necessarily abstract. In the classical philosophical tradition while the motive for the development of an ideal conception of justice may have been critical, the outcome more often than not has been ineffectual. Reflection on the philosophic ideal of just society has most often served as a means of turning one’s back on the real social circumstances and retreating into rarified contemplation. A theory of justice is thus presented with a dilemma. It must provide a means of distancing social criticism from the concrete social conditions under evaluation. The tradition of philosophical criticism has found such a means of distancing only in a priori formal ideal. For a conception of justice to have any substance, however, it must be anchored in the particular social circumstances in which it exists and which it purports to evaluate, and hence be limited in application only to them. So the project of a properly critical theory of justice appears to be contradictory. It must develop a conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances, and yet at the same time derive from particular circumstances and be applicable only to them. I suggest that utilization of the ideal speech situation in what Habermas calls the “model of the suppression of generalizable interests” does just this. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning. The common idea that it s primarily used to justify oneself or to bring one’s motives and actions into accord with accepted ideologies is only valid up to a point; the implication there would be that persons living in the same civilization all rationalize along the same lines, whereas actually there is a wide range of individual differences in what is rationalized as well as in the methods employed. That this should be so is only natural if we view rationalization as one way of supporting neurotic attempts to create artificial harmony. In each of the planks of the defensive scaffolding built around the basic conflict, the process can be seen at work. The predominant attitude is strengthened by reasoning—factors that would bring the conflict into sight are either minimized or so remodeled as to fit in with it. How this self-deceptive reasoning assists the streamlining of the personality shows up when one contrasts the complaint type with the aggressive. The former ascribes one’s desire to be helpful to one’s sympathetic feelings, even though strong tendencies to dominate are present; and if these are too conspicuous one rationalizes them as solicitousness. The latter, when one is helpful, firmly denies any feeling of sympathy and lays one’s action entirely to expediency. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The idealized image always requires a good deal of rationalization for support: discrepancies between the actual self and the image must be reasoned out of existence. In externalizing, it is brought to bear to prove the relevance of outside circumstances or to show that the traits unacceptable to the individual oneself are merely a “natural” reaction to the behaviour of others. The tendency towards excessive self–control can be so strong that I at one tie counted it among the original neurotic trends. Its function is to serve as a dam against being flooded by contradictory emotions. Though in the beginning it is often an act of conscious will power, in time it usually becomes more or less automatic. Persons who exert such control will not allow themselves to be carried away, whether by enthusiasm, excitement in pleasures of the flesh, self-pity, or rage. In analysis they have the greatest difficulty in associating freely; they will not permit alcohol to lift their spirits and frequently prefer to endure pain rather than undergo anesthesia. In short, they seek to check all spontaneity. This trait is most strongly developed in individuals whose conflicts are fairly out in the open, those who have not taken either of the steps that ordinarily help to submerge the conflicts; clear predominance has not been given to one of the conflicting sets of attitudes, nor has sufficient detachment been developed to put the conflicts out of operations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Such persons are held together merely by their idealized image; and apparently its binding power is insufficient when unaided by one or the other of the primary attempts at establishing inner unity. The image is particularly inadequate when it takes the form of a composite of contradictory elements. The exertion of will power then, consciously or unconsciously, is needed to keep the conflicting impulses under control. Since the most disruptive impulses are those of violence prompted by rage, the greatest degree of energy is directed toward the control of rage. Here a vicious circle is set in motion; the rage, by reason of being suppressed, attains explosive strength, which in turn requires still more self-control is brought to one’s attention one will defend it by pointing to the virtue and necessity of self-control for any civilized individual. What one overlooks is the compulsive nature of one’s control. One cannot help exerting it in he most rigid way and is seized by panic if for any reason it fails to function. The panic may appear as a fear of insanity, which clearly indicates that the function of the control is to ward off the danger of being split apart. Arbitrary rightness has the twofold function of eliminating doubt from within and influence from without. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Doubt and indecision are invariable concomitants of unresolved conflicts and can reach an intensity powerful enough to paralyze all action. In such a paralyzing state of doubt, a person is naturally susceptible to influence. When we have genuine convictions we will not be readily swayed; but if all out lives we stand at a crossroad, undecided whether to go in this direction or that, outside agencies can easily be the determining factors, if only temporarily. Moreover, indecision applies not only to possible courses of action but also includes doubts about one-self, one’s rights, one’s worth. All these uncertainties detract from our ability to cope with life. Apparently, however, they are not equally intolerable to everyone. The more a person sees life as a merciless battle, the more will one regard doubt as a dangerous weakness. The more isolated one is and insistent upon independence, the more will susceptibility to foreign influence be a source of irritation. All my observation points to the fact that a combination of predominant aggressive trends and detachment is the most fertile soil for the development of rigid rightness; and the nearer to the surface the aggression, the more militant the rightness. It constitutes an attempt to settle conflicts once and for all by declaring arbitrarily and stick and rigidly that one is invariably right. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
In a system so governed by rationality, emotions are traitors from within and must be checked by unswerving control. Peace may be attained but it is the peace of the grave. As would be expected, such persona loathe the idea of analysis because it threatens to disarrange the tidy picture. Almost polar to rigid rightness, but likewise an effective defense against it the recognition of conflicts, is elusiveness. Patients inclined toward this kind of defense often resemble those characters in fairy tales who when pursued turn into fish (The Little Mermaid); if not safe in this guise, they turn into deer (Bambi); if the hunter catches up with them, they fly away as birds (Icarus). You can never pin them down to any statement; like Mitt Romney, they always deny having said it or assure you they did not mean it that way. Much like Bernie Sanders, they have a bewildering capacity to becloud issues. These people are also very similar to Hilary Clinton, in the sense that it is often impossible for them to give a concrete report of any incident; should they try to do so the listener is uncertain in the end just what really did happen. The same confusion reigns in their lives. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar (who is similar to Fallon on Dynasty) they are vicious one moment, sympathetic the next; at times overconsiderate, ruthlessly inconsiderate at others; domineering in some respects, self-effacing in others. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
People who suffer from arbitrary rightness also reach out for a dominating partner, like we have seen Andrew Cuomo do with his relationship with the federal government, only to change to a “doormat,” then back to the former variety. After treating someone badly, they will be overcome by remorse, attempt to make amends, then feel like a “sucker” and turn to being abusive all over again. Nothing is quite real to them. The analyst may well find oneself confused, and, discouraged, feel there is no substance to work with. There one is mistaken. These are simply patients who have not succeeded in adopting the customary unifying procedures: they have not only failed to repress parts of their conflict, but they have established no definite idealized image. In a way they may be said to demonstrate the value of these attempts. For no matter how troublesome the consequences, persons who have so proceeded are better organized and not nearly so lost as the elusive type. On the other hand, the analyst would be equally mistaken were one to count on an easy job by virtue of the fact that the conflicts are visible and need not therefore be dragged out of hiding. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Nevertheless one will find oneself up against the patient’s aversion to any transparency, and this will tend to defeat one unless one oneself understands that this is the patient’s way of warding off any real insight. A final defense against the recognition of conflicts is cynicism, the denying and deriding of moral values. A deep-seated uncertainty in respect to moral values is bound to be present in every neurosis, no matter how strict and rigidly the person adheres to the particular aspects of one’s standards that are acceptable to one. While the genesis of cynicism varies, its function invariably is to deny the existence of moral values, thereby relieving the neurotic of the necessity of making clear to oneself what it is one actually believes in. Cynicism can be conscious, and then become a principle in the Machiavellian tradition and be so defended. All that counts is appearance. You can do as you please as long as you do not get caught. Everyone is a hypocrite who is not fundamentally stupid. This kind of patient may be as sensitive to the analyst’s using the term moral, regardless of the context, as those of Dr. Freud’s time were to the mention of pleasures of the flesh. However, cynicism may also remain unconscious and be concealed by lip service to the prevalent ideologies. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Unaware though one may be of the hold one’s cynicism has upon one, the way one lives and the way one talks about one’s life will reveal that one acts upon its principles. Or one may involve oneself unwittingly in contradictions, like the patient who was sure one believed in honesty and decency yet was envious of anyone who indulged in crooked maneuvers and resented the fact that one oneself never “got away” with that kind of thing. In therapy it is important to being the patient’s cynicism to full awareness at the proper time and help one to understand it. It may also be necessary to explain why it is desirable for one to establish one’s own set of moral values. The foregoing, then, are the defenses built around the nucleus of the basic conflict. For simplicity I shall refer to the whole system of defenses as the protective structure. A combination of defenses is developed in every neurosis; often all of them are present, though in varying degrees of activity. To change governing ideas, whether the individual or the group, is one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. Genuine “conversation” is a wrenching experience. It rarely happens to the individual or group expect in the form of divine intervention, revolution, or something very like a mental breakdown. It can cause deep and permanent damage to the most intimate of relationships, as Jesus forewarned. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
“Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No, I will you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law,” reports Luke 12.51-53. In fact, we are now undergoing an ever more profound change than in the sixties, though it is less noisy, with the emergence of mass “spirituality” at the end of the twentieth century. This change is the equivalent of a “soul Earthquake” that leaves nothing unshaken and many individuals hurt or destroyed. From one essential perspective, of course, Jesus himself confronted and undermined an idea system and its culture, which in turn killed him. He proved himself greater than any idea system or culture, however, and lives on. He is continuing the process of a Worldwide idea shift that is crucial to his perpetual revolution, in which we each are assigned a part. The Lord’s vineyard (Israel) will become desolate, and His people will be scattered-woes will come upon them in their apostate and scattered state—the Lord will lift an ensign and gather Israel—Compare Isaiah 5. About 559-545 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
“And then will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes it brought forth wild grapes. And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard—I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, and behold, oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry. Wo unto them that join house to house, till there can be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the Earth! #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“In mine ears, said the Lord of Hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, and great and fair cities without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephan. Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, and wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, either consider the operation of one’s hands. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable people are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore, hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and one that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. And the mean person shall be brought down, and the mighty person shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. However, the Lord of Hosts shall be exalted in judgement, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manners, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. We unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; that say: Let one make speed, hasten one’s work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“We unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo unto the wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight! Wo unto the mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; who justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from one! Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, their root shall be rottenness, and their blossoms shall go up as dust; because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Thereofre, is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them; and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the Earth; and behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them. None shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows shall be sharp, and all their bows bent, and their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind, their roaring like a lion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“They shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry away safe, and none shall deliver. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea; and if they look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the Heavens thereof,” reports 2 Nephi 15.1-30. I intreat Thee, O Lord, holy Father, everlasting God, command the way of Thy truth and of the knowledge of Thee to be shown to Thy servants who wander in doubt and uncertainty amid the darkness of this World; that the eyes of their souls may be opened, and they may acknowledge Thee, the One God, the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit, and enjoy the fruit of this confession, both here and in the World to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. One seeks no power over others, no claim to rulership over their lives, no disciples of one’s own, no train of followers clinging to one’s coat-tails. Yet one will not refrain from helping where such help is imperative, nor from giving counsel where the young, the inexperienced, the bewildered seekers have desperate need of it. However, the moment after one will appear to have forgotten what one has done, so gracious is one’s delicacy, so strong one’s desires to leave others quite free and unobligated. I pray Heaven to bestow the best blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise people rule under this roof. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
O Lord, whose power is infinite and wisdom infallible, other things that they may neither hinder, nor discourage me, nor prove obstacles to the progress of Thy cause; stand between me and all strife, that no evil befall, no sin corrupt my gifts, zeal, attainments; may I follow duty and not any foolish device of my own; permit me not to labour at work which thou wilt not bless, that I may serve Thee without disgrace or debt; let me dwell in Thy most secret place under Thy shadow, where is safe impenetrable protection from the arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, the strife of tongues, the malice of ill-will, the hurt of unkind talk, the snares of company, the perils of youth, the temptations of middle life, the mournings of old ages, the fear of death. I am entirely dependent upon Thee for support, counsel, consolation. Uphold me by Thy free Spirit, and may I not think it enough to be preserved from falling, but may I always go forward, always abounding in the work Thou givest me to do. Strengthen me by Thy Spirit in my inner self for every purpose of my Christian life. All my jewels I give to the shadow of the safety that is in Thee—my name anew in Christ, my body, soul talents, character, my success, wife, children, friends, work, my present, my future, my end. Take them, they are thine, and I am thine, now and forever. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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So the Heart be Right, it is No Matter which Way the Head Lieth!
Nothing improves a person’s hearing more than praise. An ounce of praise can accomplish more than a ton of faultfinding. And if one looks for it, something worthy of praise can be found in most individuals. If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are. The future of humans, unless history changes courses, people all over the World will lose their most human qualities, will become soulless automatons, and will not even be aware of it. The moral callousness of the First World War was only the beginning. However, many people are still wondering can human nature be changed in such a way that humans will forget their longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can humans forget that they are human? Or does human nature have a dynamism which will react to the violation of these basic needs by attempting to change an inhuman society into a human one? Political parties do not even pretend that their system is intended to make individuals happier, because humans, being frail and cowardly creatures, want to escape from freedom and are unable to face the truth. The leaders are aware of the fact that they themselves have only one aim, and that is to power. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
To our leaders, power is not a means; it is an end. And power means the capacity to inflict unlimited pain and suffering to another human being. Power, then, for them creates reality, it creates truth. In my graduate training in clinical psychology, I was learning two major ways of relating to individuals who come for help. At Teachers College the approach was to understand about the individual through test, measurement, diagnostic interviews, and perspective advice as to treatment. This cold approach was, however, suffused with warmth by the personality of Dr. Leta Hollingworth, who taught us more by her person than by her lectures. Later, when I interned at the then new and affluent Institute for Child Guidance, I was exposed to a very different atmosphere. Dominated as it was by psychoanalysts, I learned more about the individual. I learned that one cannot be understood without an exhaustive case history seventy-five pages or more in length, going into all the personality dynamics of the grandparents, the parents, the aunts and uncles, and finally the “patient” oneself—possible birth trauma, manner of weaning, degree of dependency, sibling relationships, and on and on. Then there was the elaborate testing, including the newly imported Rorschach, and finally many interviews with the children before deciding what sort of treatment one should have. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
It nearly always came out the same: the child was treated psychoanalytically by the psychiatrist, the mother was dealt with in the same fashion by the social worker, and occasionally, the psychologist was asked to tutor the child. Yet I carried on my first therapy case there. It started with tutoring but developed into more and more personal interviews, and I discovered the thrill that comes from observing changes in a person’s behaviour. Whether those were due to my enthusiasm or my methods I cannot say. As I look back, I realize that my interests in interviewing and in therapy certainly grew in part out of my early loneliness. Here was a socially approved way of getting really close to individuals and thus filling some of the hungers I had undoubtedly felt. The therapeutic interview also offered a chance of becoming close without having to go through what was to me a long and painful process of gradual and deepening acquaintance. By the time I have completed my work in New York, I knew—with all the assurance of the newly trained—how to deal with people professionally. In spite of the wide difference between Teachers College and the Institute, they both helped me arrive at somewhat the same formula. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The formula can be stated as follows: “I will gather an enormous amount of data about this individual: one’s history, one’s intelligence, one’s special abilities, one’s personality. Out of all this I can form an elaborate diagnostic formulation as to the cause of one’s present behaviour, one’s personal and social resource for dealing with one’s situation, and the prognosis for one’s future. I will endeavour to interpret all this in simple language to the responsible agencies, to the parents, and to the child if one is capable of understanding it. I will make sound suggestions which, if carried out, will change the behaviour, and I will reinforce those suggestions by repeated contact. In all of this I remain thoroughly objective, professional, and personally aloof from these persons in trouble, except insofar as personal warmth is necessary to build a satisfactory rapport.” This sounds a bit incredible to me now, but I know it is essentially true because I can recall the scorn I felt for one psychiatrist, not an analyst, who simply dealt with problem children as though he liked them. He even took them to his home. Clearly he had never learned the importance of being professional! #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Thus when I went to Rochester, New York, as a member of the Child Study Department—really a child guidance clinic for delinquent children and those who were wards of the social agencies because of their poor home environment—I knew what to do. I was so sure, that I remember (painfully) telling PTA and community groups that our clinic was rather similar to a garage: you brought in a problem, received an expert diagnosis, and were advised how the difficulty could be corrected. However, my views were gradually eroded. Living in a stable community, I found I had to live with the consequences of my advice and recommendations—and they did not always workout. Many of the children I worked with were housed temporarily in the detention home next door, so I could see them day after day. I was astonished that sometimes, after a particularly “good” interview where I had interpreted to a boy all the causes of his misbehaviour, he refused to see me the next day! So I had to win him back to find out what had gone wrong. I began to learn, experientially. Then as director of the new and independent Rochester Guidance Center, which replaced the Child Study Department, we had more self-referrals, where we had no authority whatsoever over child or parent and had to build a relationship if we were to help. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Then came a few incidents which markedly changed my approach; I shall tell you about the one that stands out most vividly in my mind. An intelligent mother brought her very seriously misbehaving boy to the clinic. I took the history from her myself. Another psychologist tested the boy. We decided in conference that the central problem was the mother’s rejection of her son. I would work with her on this problem. The other psychologist would take the boy on for play therapy. In interview after interview I tried—much more softly and gently now, as a result of experience—to help the mother see the pattern of her rejection and its results in the boy. All to no avail. After about a dozen interviews I told her I thought we had both tried but were getting nowhere, and we should probably call it quits. She agreed. Then, as she was leaving the room, she turned and asked, “Do you ever take adults for counseling here?” Puzzled, I replied that sometimes we did. Whereupon she returned to the chair she had just left and began to pour out a story of the deep difficulties between herself and her husband and her great desire for some kind of help. I was bowled over. What he was telling me bore no resemblance to the neat history I had drawn from her. I scarcely knew wat to do, but mostly I listened. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Eventually, after many more interviews, not only did her marital relationship improve, but her son’s problem behaviour dropped away as she became a more real and free person. To jump ahead a bit, she was the first client I ever had who continued to keep in occasional touch with me for years afterward, until her boy was doing well in college. This was a vital learning for me. I had followed her lead rather than mine. I had just listened instead of trying to nudge her toward a diagnostic understanding I had already reached. It was a far more personal relationship, and not nearly so “professional.” Yet the results spoke for themselves. From the words of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, let us concentrate on one verse: “The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” And from this verse, let us make one word—the word “deep”—the subject of our meditation. And from the 130th Psalm let us concentrate on that one verse: “Out of the depth I have cried unto Thee, O Lord;” and let us make one word—the word “depth”—also the subject of our meditation. The words “deep” and “depth” are used in our daily life, in poetry and philosophy, in the Bible, and in many other religious documents, to indicate a spiritual attitude, although the words themselves are taken from a spatial experience. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Depth is a dimension of space; yet at the same time it is a symbol for a spiritual quality. Most of our religious symbols have this character, reminding us of our finitude and our bondage to things that are visible. We are and we remain sensuous beings even when we deal with spiritual things. There is, on the other hand, a great wisdom in our language. It is the embodiment of innumerable experiences of the past. It is not by chance alone that we use certain visible symbols and do not use others. Therefore, it is often useful to find the reasons for the choices of the collective mind of former generations. It may become of ultimate significance to us, when we see what is implied int the terms like “deep,” “depth,” and “profound,” for the expression of our spiritual life. It may give us the impulse to strive for our own depth. “Deep” in its spiritual use has two meanings: it means either the opposite of “shallow,” or the opposite of “high.” Truth is deep and not shallow; suffering is depth and not height. Both the light of truth and the darkness of suffering are deep. There is a depth in God, and there is a depth out of which the psalmist cries to God. Why is truth deep? And why is suffering deep? And why is the same spatial symbol used for both experiences? These questions shall guide our meditation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
All visible things have a surface. Surface is that side of things which first appears to us. If we look at it, we know what things seems to be. Yet if we act according to what things and persons seem to be, we are disappointed. Our expectations are frustrated. And so we try to penetrate below the surfaces in order to learn what things really are. Why have people always asked for truth? Is it because they have known that the truth which does not disappoint dwells below the surfaces in the depth? And therefore, people have dug through one level after another. What seemed true one day was experiences as a superficial the next. When we encounter a person, we receive an impression. However, often if we act accordingly we are disappointed by one’s actual behaviour. We pierce a deeper level of one’s character, and for some time experience less disappointment. However, soon one may do something which is contrary to all our expectations; and we realize that what we know about one is still superficial. Again we dig more deeply into one’s true being. Since has been carried on this way. Science questions the common assumptions which seem to be true to everyone, to the lay-person as well as to the average scholar. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Then the genius comes and asks for the basis of these accepted assumptions; when they are proved not to be true, an Earthquake in science occurs out of the depth. Such Earthquakes occur when Copernicus asked if our sense-impressions could be the ground of astronomy, and when Einstein question whether there is an absolute point from which the observer could look at the motions of things. An Earthquake occurred when Marx questioned the existence of an intellectual and moral history independent of its economic and social basis. It occurred in the most eruptive way when the first philosopher questioned what everybody had taken for granted from times immemorial—being itself. When they became conscious of the astonishing fact, underlying all facts, that there is something and not nothing, an unsurpassable depth of thought was reached. In the light of these great and daring steps toward the deep things of our World, we should look at ourselves and at the opinions we take for granted. And we should see what there is in these things of prejudice, derived from our individual preferences and social surroundings. We should be shocked to notice how little of spiritual World is deeper than the surface, how little would be able to withstand a serious blow. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Something terribly tragic happens in all periods of human’s spiritual life: truths, once deep and powerful, discovered by the greatest geniuses through profound suffering and incredible labour, become shallow and superficial when used in daily discussion. How can and how does this tragedy occur? It can and does unavoidably occur, because there can be no depth without the way to the depth. Truth without the way to truth is dead; if it still be used, it contributes only to the surface of things. Look at the student who knows the content of the hundred most important books of World history, and yet whose spiritual life remains as shallow as it ever was, or perhaps becomes even more superficial. And then look at the uneducated worker who performs a mechanical task day by day, but who suddenly askes oneself: “What does it mean, that I do this work? What does it mean for my life? What is the meaning of my life?” Because one asks these questions, that person is on the way into depth, whereas the other person, the student of history, dwells on the surface among petrified bodies of thought, brought out of the depth by some spiritual Earthquake of the past. The simple worker may grasp truth, even though one cannot answer one’s questions: the learned scholar may possess no truth, even though one knows all the truths of the past. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
So much for the implications of this process. Let us see now how it specifically helps allay tension between the self and the idealized image. For no matter how a person may regard oneself consciously, the disparity between the two will take an unconscious toll; and the more one has succeeded in identifying oneself with the image, the more deeply unconscious will be the reaction. Most commonly it is expressed in self-contempt, rage against the self, and a feeling of coercion, all of which are not only extremely painful but in various ways incapacitate a person of living. Externalization of self-contempt may take on the form either of despising others or of feeling that it is others who look down upon oneself. Both forms are usually present; which is the more prominent, or at least the neurotic character structure. The more aggressive a person is, the more right and superior one feels, the more readily will one despise others, and the less likely would it be to enter one’s mind that others could look down on one. Conversely, the more complaint one is, the more will one’s self-recriminations for one’s failure to measure up to one’s idealized image tend to make one feel that others have no use for one. The effect of the latter is particularly damaging. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
When others feel that no one has a use for them, it makes a person shy, stilted, withdraw. It makes one overgrateful—indeed abjectly grateful—for any affection or appreciation shown one. At the same time one cannot accept even sincere friendliness at its face value, but vaguely takes it for a kind of undeserved charity. One is rendered defenseless against arrogant persons because part of one agrees with them, and one feels that one’s being treated contemptuously is quite in order. Naturally such reactions breed resentment, which if repressed and piled up may gather explosive strength. In spite of this, experiencing self-contempt in an externalized form has a distinct subjective value. To feel all one’s own scorn would smash whatever spurious self-assurance the neurotic may have and bring one to the verge of collapse. It is painful enough to be despised by others, but there is always hope of being able to change their attitude, or a prospect of paying them back in kind, or a mental reservation that they are unfair. When it is oneself one despises, all this is of no avail. There is no court of appeal. All the hopelessness of the neurotic unconsciously feels in regard to oneself would come into clear relief. One would start not only to despise one’s actual frailties but feel that one is altogether contemptible. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
This even one’s good qualities would be drawn into the abyss of one’s sense of unworthiness. In other words, one would feel oneself to be despised image; one would see it as an unalterable fact for which there was no help. This points to the advisability in therapeutic procedure of not touching upon self-contempt until the patient’s hopelessness is diminished and the grip of the idealized image considerably loosened. Only then will the patient be able to face it and come to realize that one’s unworthiness is no an objective fact but a subjective feeling stemming from one’s merciless standards. It taking a more lenient attitude toward oneself one will see that the condition is not unalterable, that the attributes one so objects to are not really despicable but are difficulties one can eventually overcome. We shall not understand the neurotic’s rage at oneself or the dimensions it assumes unless we keep in mind how immeasurably important it is for one to maintain the illusion that one is one’s idealized image. The fact that one not only feels despair at one’s inability to measure up to it but is absolutely infuriated at oneself is due to the sense of omnipotence that is an invariable attribute of the image. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
No matter how insurmountable the odds were against one in childhood, one, the omnipotent, should have been able to overcome them. Even if one realized intellectually how great one’s neurotic entanglements are, one nonetheless feels an impotent rage at having been unable to dispel them. This rage reaches a climax when one is confronted with conflicting drives and realizes that even one is powerless to attain contradictory goals. This is one of the reason why the sudden recognition of a conflict may throw one into a state of acute pain. “Behold, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cry much unto the Lord my God, because of the anger of my brethren. However behold, their anger did increase against me, in so much that they did seek to take away my life. Yea, they did murmur against me, saying: Our younger brother thinks to rule over us; and we have had much trial because of him; wherefore, now let us slay him, that we may not be afflicted more because of his words. For behold, we will not have him to be our ruler; for it belongs unto us, who are the elder brethren, to rule over this people. Now I do not write upon these plates all the words which they murmured against me. However, it sufficeth me to say, that they did seek to take away my life. And it came to pass that the Lord did warn me, that I, Nephi, should depart from them and fess into the wilderness, and all those who would go with me. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
“Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words. And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after we had journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents. And my people would that should call the name of the place Nephi’ wherefore, we did call it Nephi. And all those who were with me did take upon them to call themselves the people of Nephi. And we did observe to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses. And the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow seed, and we did reap again in abundance. And we began to rise flocks, and herds, and animals of every kind. And I, Nephi, had also brought the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass; and also the ball, or compass, which was prepared for my father by the hand of the Lord, according to that which is written. And it came to pass that we began to prosper exceedingly, and to multiply in the land. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
“And, I Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I know their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people. And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. However, the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and work-personship thereof was exceedingly fine. And it came to pass that they would that I should be their kind. However I, Nephi, was desirous that they should have no king; nevertheless, I did for them according to that which was in my power. And behold, the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto my brethren, which he spake concerning the, that I should be their ruler and their teacher according to the commandments of the Lord, until the time they sought to take away my life. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me, saying that: Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from his presence. And he has caused the cursing to come upon them, yes, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin f blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done. And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey. And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did consecrate Jacob and Joseph, that they should be priests and teachers over the land of my people. And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“And thirty years has passed away from the time we left Jerusalem. And I, Nephi, had kept the records upon my plates, which I had made, of my people thus far. And it came to pass that the Lord God said unto me: Make other plates; and thou shalt engraven many things upon them which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people. Wherefore, I, Nephi, to be obedient to the commandments of the Lord, went and made these plated upon which I have engraven these things. And I engraven that which is pleasing unto God. And if my people are pleased with the things of God they will be pleased with mine engravings which are upon these plates. And if my people desire to know the more particular part of the history of my people they must search mine other plates. And it sufficeth me to say that forty years had passed away, and we had already had wars and contentions with our brethren,” reports 2 Nephi 5.1-34. Unto Thee, O Lord, we commend the soul of Thy servants, that dying to the World, they may live to Thee; and whatever sins they have committed through the frailty of Earthly life, do Thou clear away by Thy most loving and merciful forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Almighty God, as I cross the threshold of this day I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, friends, to Thy care; watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless me. Incline my heart to Thy ways; mould me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay; let those around me see me living by Thy Spirit, trampling the World underfoot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind clad in the entire amour of God, shining as a never-dimmed light, showing holiness in all my doings. Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands. May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot or stain. In needful transactions let my affection be in Heaven, and my love soar upwards in flames of fire, my gaze fixed on unseen things, my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility, mockery of Earth and its vanities. May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of my Lord, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto the new Heaven and Earth. Order this day all my communications according to Thy wisdom, and to the gain of mutual good. Forbid that I should not be profited or made profitable. May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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Enjoy your own company. Learn to welcome solitude and work on your own inner being—your character. Solitude allows you opportunity to think deep thoughts. To think about where you have been. To think about where you are going. To think about why you feel so strongly about certain issues. To think about how different your values are from those other people you know. To think about wat all people have in common. To question yourself about why you cling to bad habits. To praise yourself for your strengths. To challenge yourself to follow your dreams. Reflection and solitude feed the soul. Again, all you have to do is pause to rest. Nature herself, when we let her, will take care of everything else. It is our impatience that spoils things. Perhaps we can come a little closer to the nature of memory by looking at it in the company of its traditional associates, common sense and imagination. The internal senses, as the are called, are distinguished from the external senses. They are three in number: common sense, memory, and imagination. The common sense was the faculty that unified the data of the external or special senses. Each sense did what is “proper” to it, the eye seeing, the ear hearing, and the like. What was “common” to disparate sensations was organized into a whole by the common sense. The result was a shape or figure of an object. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Common sense also gave meaning to successive affective aspects of experiences, such as pleasure and pain, and oragnised experience into things to be pursued and things to be avoided. To some philosophers, notably Avicenna, the evaluation of sensory experience was distinctive enough to furnish evidence of a separate power, the estimative faculty. The common sense moreover, supplied the dimensions of consciousness or awareness of experience. No sense was aware of its own activity, but the common sense identified the work of each sense. Hence, one “knew” that one as subject was undergoing or “receiving” the experience. In brief, common sense was the receiver, organizer, and evaluator of stimuli from the special senses. In the vocabulary of Schoolmen, its products were the “common sensibles,” as St. Thomas Aquinas said, or in modern parlance, perceptions. Its work dealt with the realities of concrete, everyday experience. In the system of communication among things mental and sensory, the common sense passed along its products to the memory for storage. The basic material of memory, then, was held to be a first-level classification of experience—possibly one could say, first-level abstraction—that in character was much closer to the World of the senses than to the life of the intellect. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
The imagination as an internal sense was the sole faculty having the power to handle images in the absence of the stimulation that originally gave rise to them. A person might look at London Bridge and go on about one’s business. Later one’s visions of it were the work of the imaginative faculty, imagination. It also made images of its own and in this, its creative role, it was often called fancy. In its reproductive capacity, say imagining London Bridge in the absence of the object, was the imagination responsible for recall or was the memory? Some theorizers, Descartes for example, held that common sense acted like a seal and impressed shapes on the imagination, which retained them, at least for a time. If imagination remembered the shapes of things and recalled them, did memory in its proper role have nothing to do with images? Believers in Galen would quote him: “that part of the soul which imagineth, whatsoever the same may be, seemeth to be the selfe that also remembereth.” Followers of Aristotle maintained that sense images go directly to the imagination which transmits them to the memory. There they are kept until wanted, whereupon the imagination returns and scans the record, behaving much like a person who writes something, lays it aside, and returns to read. In this account, some of the stuff of memory included images. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
As the retentive faculty, memory also stored the products of the understanding and reason. These products were much more abstract than those of common sense and imagination, ranging from the less abstract forms only slightly removed from the sensory levels of experience to the highest abstractions humans were aware of when they thought in terms mathematical, philosophical, and theological. It seems clear, then that, memory is the recorder, the storehouse, the treasury, of a human’s entire experience. However, it is not clear whether memory is held to be solely, or even primarily, responsible for recall and recollection. Especially in recovering and reinstituting a particular image from the past, one’s imagination seemed to be chiefly involved in the effort and to be doing much of the remembering. In the seventeenth century keen analysts of human nature were less ready then Schoolmen to draw neat borderlines among the psychological functions. When we assert that the senses respond to individuals only, that individuals pass entire into the memory, that individuals are impressions and images, we are implying that the end product of sensory activity is an image of a particular object—the sensory counterpart of a particular tree, a musical note, a spoken word. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Sense experience involves selection and rejection among stimuli emanating from objects—and that is all. The forms and shapes of things are part of the data presented to the senses. The sense do not interpret their own movements. Whatever the object of sensation, the object produces, in so far as it can, a likeness and image of itself, in imitation of incorporeal and spiritual nature. However, the immaterial copy of a material object was not merely that of a particular shape; upon it was impressed the species of the object as well. So what went into the memory whole was the shapes and species of things. The memory records the species of things, as a good register, ready when called for by the imagination and reason. Among human’s faculties we find no place for a common sense. We never use the term, nor do we allude to it. We never speak of common sensibles. Do we attribute any of the functions to this faculty to memory? As we have remarked, we give to memory the task of evaluating sense experience, because secondary objects—sense images—please or displease but in memory. Possibly this is another way of saying that the affective and emotional aspects of experience are stored in memory and that in the storehouse through some process of association they become guides to decision and conduct. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
We seem to have found no spot for an estimative faculty. This power, responsible for evaluating sense-bound or practical experience as distinct from intellectual or contemplative activity, sometimes has another name, the cogitative faculty. The French Academie, for example, takes note of those who recognize a knowing soule. All beings who possess this power are not sensitive creatures merely, but show a certain virtue and vigour, as of cogitation, of knowledge and memorie, that they may have skill to preserve their life, and know how to guide and govern themselves according to their natural inclination. A cogitative power so understood must not be confused with Bacon’s vis cogitiva, a power of thought fundamental to the functioning of all of human’s faculties. The passage in which Bacon announces that thinking goes on whenever humans exercise any of their faculties is important to us here in two ways. First, the distinction drawn among the mental faculties are broad ones in which Bacon is thinking in terms of genus and species. The genus of mental life is vis cogitiva; the species can be considered as memory, imagination, reason and the will and affections. On this basis, the faculties share in an activity that is substantial, not merely formal. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The faculties can be designated in part by noting their most general manifestations. Indeed, in the passage under scrutiny, reason is taken broadly enough to include understanding, as it does when Bacon, classifying all knowledge in sweeping terms, relates philosophy to reason. Second, in employing broad language Bacon assigns to memory the functions of remembering and recollecting. It is evident that to him memory was something more than a repository of experience. In the human being, memory referred to a kind of thinking, possible only because experience of all sorts and from all sources of stimulation could be both retained and recalled. The material of memory came from other kinds of thinking. At the higher levels of organized behaviour, the materials were products of understanding, reason, and will; at the lower levels of behaviour they were the experiences of the special sense, the affections, and the appetite. Among the qualities of affective states as they relate to memory were the pleasant and unpleasant. These became the guides to future action; they gave meaning to expectation. In the middle of things, as it were, was imagination. This faculty not only created images of its own and revived sense images but translated abstract thought into objects of sense. These, too, were engraved in memory, and on demand of the other faculties they were summoned up again. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
In recognizing an art of memory and placing it among the intellectual arts, Bacon was doubtless well aware that reasoning must presuppose memory. Reason typically isolates items of experience, analyzes them, and combines them into statements and patterns of which the classic examples are deduction, induction, and analogy. Such intellectual activity is reducible to separate, sequential operations. Each must be held in mind until the full pattern is completed. So memory is involved in reasoning. It is no merely evident in each insane of reasoning, but it also provides a storehouse of materials upon which the intellect can draw whenever it wishes. On these matters Edward Reynolds, a near contemporary of Bacon’s, is more explicit. Memory “preserveth” each separate act of the understanding “until a through [sic] concoction be wrought; so proportionably is the Faculty of Memory given to Reason, as a meanes to consolidate and enrich it.” In retaining experience, memory remembers not only the species of things brought to it by the senses, but it functions as “Consors & co-operatrix Rationis…a joynt-worker in the operations of Reason; which the Latins call Reminiscentia, or Recordatio; including some acts of the Understanding: Which is a reviewing, or (as we speake) a calling to minde of former objects, by discourse, or rationall searching for them.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The dependence of intellectual life upon memory led Aristotle, so Reynoldes reminded his readers, to regard remembrance as the remote ground of all the arts. Hobbes also linked memory to the retention of sense experience and to the “cause” and “coherence” of thoughts or conceptions. Sense always had “some memory adhering to it.” Certain sequences or coherences of thought, called reminiscence, experience, and expectation, were the chief manifestation of memory. It is somewhat surprising to find that Bacon has nothing to say about the physiological basis of memory. Another near contemporary of Bacon’s Sir Kenelm Digby, tried to explain remembrance by postulating vibratory, undulatory behaviour of atom-like particles in a “liquid vaporous” substance. The movements were analogous to those of musical sounds. Similar and simultaneous movements reinforced each other. A particular movement long at rest was revived by a similar undulatory motion. However, Bacon’s interest in the phenomena of recall, the art of memory, and the general nature of the faculty did not lead him int physiological speculations. In sum, Bacon regarded memory as a human’s power of recording and recalling their experience. It received and stored images from the external senses and it organized the affective accompaniments of sensory life in ways that made them meaningful guides to action. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
In common with human’s other faculties memory at work appeared to be thinking; hence, remembering was memory at work appeared to be thinking; hence, remembering was memory thinking. Memory kept the records of human’s analytical, critical, and imaginative thinking which in its symbolic and imageful garb was peculiarly the work of understanding, reason, and imagination. It not only kept the intellectual record; it was essential to its making. If they were to reason at all, humans had to remember. In reflecting on memory and its relationship to other faculties, one becomes aware of two striking, possibly unique, features. The explanation of human’s behaviour is being managed without recourse to as many “entities” and divisions of the soul as was the usual practice. The soul customarily had at least three parts or levels of being: vegetative, sensible, and rational. This vocabulary was abandoned by Bacon. The sensible soul was usually divided into two parts: the external or special senses, and the internal senses. Human’s internal sensory powers had numbered as many as seven, although common practice in the seventeenth century reduced the number to three: common sense, memory, and imagination. Bacon eliminated the common sense. As a result—or perhaps the cause—of the reduction in the number of human’s parts, a second important feature becomes evident. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Human’s sensory functions are closely associated with their intellectual functions, and vice versa. Bacon found that the faculties overlapped in their operations and that it was impossible to fix precise boundaries. The operations were often mutually dependent and the communication direct. Yet a rational act or a memorative act could be recognized as such, and hence was subject to study and improvement, without knowing exactly where reason began and memory left off. The operations of the faculties were very different, yet they closely linked and so near neighboured that they could be discerned separately: the understanding cannot work without the memory being present, representing unto the same the figures and fantasies agreeable thereunto, it behooved that the understanding part busy itself in beholding the phantasms, and that the understanding part busy itself in beholding the phantasms, and that the memory cannot do it, if the imagination do not accompany the same we shall easily understand, that all the powers are united in every several ventricle [of the brain], and that the understanding is not solely in the one, nor the memory solely in the other, nor the imagination in the third..but that this union of powers is accustomably made in human’s body [as is the union of the four natural abilities: digestive, retentive, attractive, and expulsive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
As we first turned away from God in our thoughts, so it is in our thoughts that the first movements toward the renovation of the heart occurs. Thoughts are the place where we can and must begin to change. There the light of God first begins to move upon us through the word of Christ, and there the divine Spirit begins to direct our will to more and more thoughts that can provide the basis for choosing to realign ourselves with God and his way. The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon. We are not totally free in this respect. However, we do have great freedom here, and even though “dead in trespasses and sins,” we still have the ability and responsibility to try to retain God in our knowledge—if only in an inadequate and halting manner. And those who do so will surely makes progress toward him; for if we truly do seek God as best we can, he, who always knows what is really in our hearts, will certainly make himself known to us. It is because of this fact that we always remain responsible before God, even though we are spiritually dead. By “thoughts” we mean all of the ways in which we are conscious of things. That includes our memories, perceptions, and beliefs, as well as what we would ordinarily refer to when we say “I thought of you yesterday,” or “I was just thinking of our meeting tomorrow.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Now clearly, our thoughts are one of the most basic sources of our life. They determine the orientation of everything we do and evoke the feelings that frame our World and motivate our actions. Interestingly, you cannot evoke thoughts by feeling a certain way, but you can evoke and to some degree control feelings a certain way, but you can evoke and to some degree control feelings by directing your thoughts. Our power over thoughts is of great and indispensable assistance in directing and controlling our feelings, which themselves are not directly under the guidance of our will. We cannot just choose our feelings. Our ability to think and represent things to ourselves also enables us to bring vast ranges of reality—and non-reality—before us. This is not always done in a way that is adequate to what we think about or in a way that is even correct. It is actually a part of the greatness of thought that it is not limited to accuracy or even reality. It can consider—bring before our mind—what is not the case but could be, or what ought to be though it is not, as well as what never should be. Our essential nature as active and creative beings depends upon our ability to envision what is not the case as well as what is. Our ability to plan for the future must constantly run ahead of reality. And this we do in thought. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
A will that runs ahead depends, of course, upon our abilities to think; and what we think, imagine, believe, or guess sets boundaries to what we can will or choose, and therefore to what we can create. As our senses present a landscape for our body and its actions, so our thoughts present the “lifescape” for our will and our life as a whole. Within that “thought lifescape” (including our perceptions) we make the decisions that determine what we will do and who we will become. The realm of thought involves four main factors. These are ideas, images, information, and our ability to think, but the two most powerful ones are ideas and images. “And now, my sons, I speak unto you thee things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that are in them are, both things to act and thing to be acted upon. And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of human, after he created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto humans that they should act for oneself. Wherefore, humans could not act for oneself save it should be that one was enticed by the one or the other. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
“And I, Lehi, according to the thing which I have read, must needs suppose that an Angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from Heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God. And because he had fallen from Heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all humankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the garden of Eden, to till the Earth. And they have brought forth children; yea, even the family of all the Earth. And the days of the children of human were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of humans. For he gave commandment that all humans must repent; for he showed unto all humans that there were lost, because of the transgression of their parents. And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remined in the garden of Eden. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. However behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that humans might be; and people could raise their beautiful children true to their heritage; and humans are, that they might have joy. And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that one may redeem the children of humans from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. Wherefore, humans are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto people. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all people, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for one seeketh that all humans might be miserable like unto oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit; and not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hades, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom. I have spoken these few words unto you all, my sons, in the last days of my mortal probation on Earth; and I have chosen the good part, according to the words of the prophet. And I have none other object save it be the everlasting welfare of your souls. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 3.14-30. If the machine were used deliberately to vanquish human inequality, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process—by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute—the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over the past one hundred and fifty years. However, by lack of understanding some people remain sane. They simply swallow everything, and what they swallow does them no harm, because it leaves no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Lord Jesus, Great High Priest, Thou hast opened a new living way by which a fallen creature can approach Thee with acceptance. Help me to contemplate the dignity of Thy Person, the perfectness of Thy sacrifice, the effectiveness of Thy intercession. O What blessedness accompanies devotion, when under all the trials that weary me, the care the corrode me, the fears that disturb me, the infirmities that oppress me, I can come to Thee in my need and feel peace beyond understanding! The grace that restores is necessary to preserve, lead, guard, supply, help. And here Thy saints encourage my hope; they were once poor and are now rich, bound and are now free, tried and now are victorious. Every new duty calls for more face than I now possess, but not more than is found in Thee, the divine Treasury in whom all fullness dwells. To Thee I repair for grace upon grace, until every void made by sin be replenished and I am filled with all Thy fullness. May my desires be enlarged and my hopes emboldened, that I may honour Thee by my entire dependency and the greatness of my expectation. Do Thou by with me, and prepare me for all the smiles of prosperity, the frowns of adversity, the losses of substance, the death of friends, the days of darkness, the changes of life, and the last great change of all. May I find Thy grace sufficient for all my needs. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
I divine all teachers into two classes: titular gurus and real gurus. The former are quite common, the gap between their doctrines and their behaviour being noticeable, whereas the latter are rare indeed for they have achieved a conquest over the ego which reveals itself in their conduct and reflects itself in their lives. The demand for inspired teachers is always insistent but the supply is wholly insufficient. Unless the teacher is an inspired one one will be of little help to the would-be mystic. By inspired, we mean either in communion with one’s higher self or fully united with it. Almighty and everlasting God, Wo succourest those that labour under perils and afflictions, we humbly beseech Thy Majesty, that may please Thee to send Thy holy Angel to uphold with Thy comfort Thy servants, who in this house are suffering distress and affliction; that they may both receive Thy present assistance, and attain eternal healing; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please visit Thy servants, O Lord, as Thou wast pleased to visit Peter’s mother-in-law and the centurion’s servants. Restore them, O Lord, to their former health; that they may be enabled to say in the courts of Thine house, “The Lord hath chastened and corrected me, but He hath not given me over unto death, He Who is the Saviour of the World.” Grant this, O Lord, Who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, God, throughout all ages. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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I am humbled by my realization of the sacredness of the time we are given and stunned by our irreverence for the time we have. Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savour you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the Earth, or burry my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky, and want, more than all the World, your return. #CresleighHomes
