A dream which has not been interpreted is like a letter that has not been opened. There is a need for one to recognize that a dream is a message which we send to ourselves and which we have to understand in order to comprehend ourselves. Dr. Freud was the first individual to give the interpretation such a systematic and scientific basis. He gave us the tools for understanding of dreams, which anybody can use provided one learns how to handle them. One can hardly exaggerate the significance of dream interpretation. First of all it makes us aware of feelings and thoughts that exist within ourselves and yet which we are not aware of while we are awake. The dream, as Dr. Freud once put it, is the royal way to the understanding of the unconscious. Secondly the dream is a creative act in which the average person demonstrates creative powers of those whose existence one has no idea when one is awake. Dr. Freud discovered, furthermore, that our dreams are not the simple expressions of unconscious strivings but that they are usually distorted by the influence of a subtle censorship which is even present when we are asleep and forces us to distort the true meaning of our dream thoughts (the “latent dream”). Thus, if they are disguised, the censor is deceived, as it were, and permits the hidden thoughts to pass the frontier to consciousness. This concept led Dr. Freud to the assumption that every dream (with the exception of children’s dreams) is distorted and has to be restored to its original meaning by dream interpretation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

During the night, humans have many impulses and desires, especially in the nature of pleasure and the surreal, which would interrupt one’s sleep were it not that one experiences these wishes as fulfilled in the dream and hence does not have to wake up to seek realistic satisfaction. Dreams are the disguised expression of fulfillment of wishes. However, one obvious objection to this theory is that we have many nightmares which would be difficult to explain as fulfillment of a desire, since they are painful to the point of sometimes interrupting sleep. Yet, this may be because there are sadistic or masochistic wishes which produce great anxiety but are still wishes which the dream satisfies even though another part of us is frightened of them. Other dreams may also represent any feeling, wish, fear, or thought that is sufficiently important to be present during our sleep, and its appearance in dreams is a sign of its importance. Many dreams do not contain a wish but offer an insight into one’s own situation or into the personality of others. In order to appreciate this function, one must consider the particularity of the state of sleep. During sleep we are liberated from the task of sustaining our existence by work or by defending ourselves against possible dangers. (Only signals of an emergency wake us up from our sleep.) We are not under the influence of the social “noise,” by which I mean the opinion of others, common nonsense and common pathology. Perhaps one could say that sleep is the only situation where we are really free. This has consequences: we see the World subjectively and not from the viewpoint that guides us in our waking life objectively—that is to say, as we must see it in order to manipulate it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

For instance, in a dream the element of fire might express love of destructiveness, but that is a different fire from the one which one can bake a cake. The dream is poetic and it speaks the universal language of symbolism which is basically common to all times and all cultures. It is, together with poetry and art, a universal language which humankind has developed. In the dream we do not see the World as we have to see it when we manipulate it; rather, we see the poetic meaning it has for us. You have heard the saying, “Do not cast your pearls before swine,” well that goes for your dreams and even things you may share in therapy. Some people are rationalists with a lack of artistic or poetic inclination, and hence they have almost no feeling for symbolic language whether expressed in dreams or poetry. The lack forces upon them a very narrow concept of symbols. One ether understands them as psychological disturbance or sexual in nature—and the range of possibilities in the respect is great, since a line and a circle are exceedingly widespread forms of symbolism—or one understands them only by finding out through associations with what else they were connected. It is one of the most peculiar contradictions that many professionals are so little capable of understanding symbols. “Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak (terebinth) at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, and his son Gideon was beating wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of [fearless] courage. And Gideon said to him, O sir, if the Lord is with us, why is all this befallen us? And where are all His wondrous works of which our fathers told us, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

“However, now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. The Lord turned to him and said, Go in this your might, and you shall save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? Gideon said to Him, Oh Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house. The Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall smite the Midianites as one man,” reports Judges 6.11-16. This feature, more than any other, brings out the wide gulf which separates the Hebraic from the Greek view of knowledge. In the latter, knowledge itself is purely theoretical…whereas in the Old Testament the person who does not act in accordance with what God has done or plans to do has but a fragmentary knowledge. For example, the Hebrew word for know generally refers to something one does. To know love, we must not only know about love but act lovingly. Likewise, to hear the word of God means not only to listen but also to obey. We read in the New Testament that by loving action a person knows God, for those who do what is true come to the light. Jesus declared that whoever would do the will of God would know God, that God would come and dwell within those who heeded what He said, and that we would find ourselves not by passive contemplation but by losing ourselves as we take up the cross. The wise human, the one who built one’s house on rock, differed from the foolish him in that one acted on God’s Word. Merely saying, “Lord, Lord,” does not qualify us as disciples; discipleship means doing the will of the Father. Over and over again, the Christian Bible teaches that the gospel power can be known only by living it. “The Lord touched their eyes, saying ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith,’” reports Matthew 9.29 #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Our theological understanding of faith is informed by this biblical view of knowledge. Faith grows as we act on what little faith we have. Just as experimental subjects become more deeply committed to something for which they have suffered and witnessed, so also do we grow in faith as we act it out. Faith is born of obedience. The proof of Christianity really consists in following. Only the doer of the Word is its real hearer. Follow the way by which [the committed] began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses, et cetera. Even this will naturally make you believe. Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material World is the only reality: disbelieve in God and you must face hours when this material World seems to shout at your that it is not all. No conviction, religious or irreligious, will, of itself, end once and for all [those doubts] in the soul. Only the practice of Faith resulting in the habit of Faith will gradually do that. People are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is act as if you did. Do not sit around trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, “if I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?” When you have found the answer, go and do it. “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior,” reports Judges 6.12. How you see yourself and how you feel about yourself will have a tremendous impact on how far you go in life and whether or not you fulfill your destiny. The reason your self-concept is so important is that you will probably speak, act, and react as the person you think you are. Psychologist have proved that you will most consistently perform in a manner that is in harmony with the images you have of yourself. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

If you see yourself as unqualified, unattractive, inferior, or inadequate, you will probably act in accordance with your thoughts. How can we apply the faith-follow-action principle to leading a church, to planning worship, and to nurturing personal faith? First, a top priority for churches must be to make their members active participants, not mere spectators. Many dynamic religious movements today—ranging from sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and the Unification Church to charismatics and discipleship-centered communities—share and insistence that all on board be members of the crew. That is easier said than done, but it does provide a criterion by which to evaluate procedures for admitting and maintaining members. As a local church makes decisions and administers its program, it should constantly be asking, Will this activate our people and make priests of our believers? If research on persuasion is any indication, this will best be accomplished by direct, personal calls to committed action, not merely by mass appeals and announcements. In worship, too, people should be engaged as active participants, not as mere spectators of religious theater. Research indicates that passively received spoken words have surprisingly little impact on listeners. Changes in attitude resulting from spoken persuasion are less likely to endure and influence subsequent behaviour than attitude changes emerging from active experience. What is needed is to have listeners rehearse and act on what they hear. When the people sing responses, write their own confessions, contribute prayer, read Scripture responsively, takes notes on the sermon, utter exclamations, bring their offerings forward, pass the peace, make the sign of the cross, or sit, stand, and kneel—acts that viewers of the electronic church do not perform—they are making their worship their own. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

The principle has its limits, of course. We can become so preoccupied with doing things that we no longer have time to quietly receive God’s Word of grace and direction for our lives. Like the Pharisees, we can substitute our deeds for God’s act or to think that any kind of action will do. To say that action nurture growth in faith is not to tell the whole story of faith. However, it does tell part of the story. The action-attitude interplay can also inform Christian education and Christian nurture. Researchers have found that the attitudes most likely to affect our actions are those that we form by experience. We might therefore consider new methods of encouraging faith. Few Christian families appreciate and reap the benefits of family worship. Old Testament family practices helped people remember the might acts of God. When today’s Jewish family celebrates the Passover by eating special foods, reading prayers, and singing psalms, all of which symbolize their historical experience, they are helped to renew the roots of deep convictions and feelings. Among Christians, family celebrations are becoming more common during Advent. With a boost from the church, home-based activity could be extended to celebrate all the great themes of the church year. Although church and family ritual may sometimes degenerate into a superficial religious exercise, few of us appreciate the extent to which the natural ritual of our own personal histories has shaped who we are. Many of the things we did without question in childhood have long since become an enduring part of our self-identities. Indeed, because we have internalized our own rituals, we find it difficult to recognize them as rituals; but it is easy to recognize other people’s rituals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

The overarching objective on which all these points converge is this: we need to create opportunities for people to enact their convictions, thereby confirming and strengthening their Christian identity. Biblical and psychological perspectives link arms in reminding us that faith is like love. If we hoard it, it will shrivel. If we use it, exercise it, and express it, we will have it more abundantly. Every person has an image of oneself. The question is, does your image of who you are line up correctly with who God says you are? Individuals who see themselves as God sees them are usually happy about who they are. Do not look for your reflection in others. Know that you have been created in God’s image and He has crowed you with tremendous honor. “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of [Earthborn] man that You care for him? Yet You have made him but a little lower than God [or Heavenly beings], and You have crowned him with glory and honor,” reports Psalm 8.4-5. Christians who see themselves as God sees them feel good about themselves, because they know that God loves them and He feels good about them! They can honestly say, “Thank You, Father, for creating me the way You did. I know that You have a purpose and a plan for me, and I would rather be me than any other person on Earth. You have promised that You have good things in store for me, and I cannot wait to discover them!” My dear Devouts, just being within earshot of the way of perfection should, not turn you away or make you depressed. Rather, it should provoke you to fly higher, and if that makes your nose bleed, to sigh more for such a life while still on Earth. Would that you have arrived at a point where you no longer love yourself above all else! #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Would that you stood at the ready for Jesus’ command, and the command of the Father has put over us. That would please Jesus much, and our whole life on Earth would pass in joy and peace. God wants us to see ourselves as priceless treasure. He wants us to feel good about ourselves God knows we are not perfect, that we have faults and weaknesses, and sometimes we make mistakes. And yet, God loves us anyway. He created us in His image, and He is continually shaping us, conforming un to His character, helping us to become even more like Him. That is why it is important that we learn to love ourselves, faults and all, not because of pride or egoism, but because that is how our Heavenly Father loves us. We can hold our head up high and walk with confidence knowing that God loves us unconditionally. His love for us is based on what we are, not on what we do. However, up to this point, if I may be permitted a painful observation, My dear Devout, many of us have a lot of excess baggage to leave behind. We could resign it totally to Jesus Christ. Then we would get what we want. Gold refined in the fire by Jesus—that tis to say, as it is in the Last Book of the New Testament (3.18), rich in Celestial Wisdom, poor in all other wisdoms. Jesus has said it before, and He will say it again. While on this Earth, we should be humbler and have more faith and follow the Ten Commandments. There was a community in Virginia, where someone lost their life because they were a victim of a crime. The community responded by going to church more and putting the Ten Commandments back in the school because these rituals and laws remind us to be good people. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

God believes in us even more than we believe in ourselves. So often, we sense God telling us that He has something big for us to do. However, we say, “Oh, God, I cannot do that. I am just a nobody. I do not have the skills or talent.” God sees you as successful. You may not believe that you are at the pinnacle of success, but that does not change God’s image of you. God still sees you exactly as His Word describes you. You may feel unqualified, insecure, or overwhelmed by life; you may feel weak, fearful, and insignificant, but today dare to start seeing yourself as God see you—successful! We are also prepared for reality with a ground floor (Nature) and then above that one floor and one only—an eternal, spaceless, timeless, spiritual Something of which we can have no images and which, if it presents itself to human consciousness at all, does so in a mystical experience which shatters all our categories of thought. What we are not prepared for is anything in between. We feel quite sure that the first step beyond the World of our present experience must lead either nowhere at all or else into the blinding abyss of undifferentiated spirituality, the unconditioned, the absolute. That and an angelic World. That is why many believe in immortality who cannot believe in the resurrection of the body. That is why Pantheism is more popular than Christianity, and why many desire a Christianity stripped of its miracles. I cannot now understand but I well remember, the passionate conviction with which I myself once defended this prejudice. Any rumour of floors or levels intermediate between the Unconditioned and the World revealed by our present sense I rejected without trial as “mythology.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

Yet it is very difficult to see any rational grounds for the dogma that reality must have no more than two levels. There cannot, from the nature of the case, be evidence that God never created and never will create, more than one system. Each of them would be at least extra-natural in relation to all the others: and if any of them is more concrete, more permanent, more excellent, and richer than another it will be to that other super-natural. Nor will a partial contact between any two obliterate their distinctness. In that way there might be Natures piled upon Natures to any height God pleased, each Supernatural to that below it and Subnatural to that which is surpassed it. However, the tenor of Christian teaching is that we are actually living in a situation even more complex than that. A new Nature is being not merely made but made out of an old one. We live amid all the anomalies, inconveniences, hopes, and excitements of a house that is being rebuilt. Something is being pulled down and something going up in its place. To accept the idea of intermediate floors—which the Christian story will, quite simply, force us to do if it is not a falsehood—does not of course involve losing our spiritual apprehension of the top floor of all. Most certainly, beyond all Worlds, unconditioned and unimaginable, transcending discursive thought, there yawns forever he ultimate Fact, the fountain of all other facthood, the burning and undimensioned depth of the Divine Life. Most certainly also, to be united with that Life in the eternal Sonship of Christ is, strictly speaking, the only thing worth a moment’s consideration. And in so far as that is what you mean by Heaven, Christ’s divine Nature never left it, and therefore never returned to it: and His human nature ascended thither not at the moment of the Ascension but at every moment. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

In that sense not one word that the spiritualizers have uttered will, please God, ever be unsaid by me. However, it by no means follows that there are not other truths as well. I allow, indeed I insist, that Christ cannot be at “the right hand of God” except in a metaphorical sense. I allow and insist that the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, can never be, nor have been, confined to any place at all: it is rather in God that all places exist. However, the records say that the glorified, but still in some sense corporeal, Christ withdrew into some different mode of being about six weeks after the Crucifixion: and that He is “preparing a place” for us. “And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint,” reports Galatians 6.9. “There is [now no distinction] neither Jewish or Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” reports Galatians 4.24. “You also must be ready therefore, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect Him,” reports Matthew 24.44. It is not enough to have citizens and to protect them; it is also necessary to give some though to their substance. And seeing to the public needs is an obvious consequence of the general will, and the third essential duty of government. This duty is not, as should be apparent, to fill the granaries of private individuals and to exempt these people from working, but rather to maintain abundance so within their reach that to acquire it, labour is always necessary and never useless. It also extends to al the operations regarding the preservation of the public treasury and the expenditures of the public administration. Thus, after having discussed the general economy in relation to the government of persons, it remains for us to consider it in relation to the administration of goods. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

This part offers no fewer difficulties to resolve or contradictions to overcome than the preceding one. Certainly the right to property is the most sacred of all the citizens’ rights, and more important in certain respects than liberty itself, either because it is more intimately linked with the preservation of life, or because, being easier to usurp and more difficult to defend than one’s person, more respect needs to be given to what can more easily be stolen, or finally because property is the true foundation of civil society and the true guarantee of the citizens’ commitments. For if goods were not answerable for persons, nothing would be so easy as eluding one’s duties and scoffing at the laws. On the other hand, it is no less certain that the maintenance of the state and of the government demand costs and expenditures. And since anyone granting the end cannot refuse the means, it follows that the members of the society should contribute their goods toward its preservation. Moreover, it is difficult on the one hand to maintain the security of the property of private individuals without attacking it on the other. And it is impossible for all the regulations bearing on inheritance, wills, and contracts not to restrict the citizens in certain respects regarding the disposition of their estate, and consequently regarding their right to property. However, besides what I have already said about the unanimity which reigns between the authority of the law and the liberty of the citizen, there is, in relation to the disposition of goods, an important point to be made which eliminates several difficulties. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

The nature of the right to property does not extend beyond the life of the property owner, and the moment a human dies, one’s estate generally no longer belongs to that individual. Thus, prescribing to one the conditions under which one can dispose of them is actually less an apparent alteration of one’s right than it is a real extension of it. In general, although the institution of the laws which govern the power of private individuals in the disposition of their own estate belongs only to the sovereign, the spirit of the laws which the government must follow in carrying them out is that, from father to son and from relative to relative, the family’s goods should leave the family and be alienated as little as possible. There is good reason for this in favour of children, to whom the right to property would be quite useless, were the father to leave them nothing, and who, moreover, having often contributed by their labour to the acquisition of the father’s goods, are associated in their own right with his right. However, another reason, more remote and no less important, is that nothing is more baneful to mores and to the republic than continual changes of status and fortune among the citizens, changes that are the proof and the source of a thousand disorders which overturn and confuse everything, and because of which neither those who were raised for one things and find themselves destined for another nor those who rise nor those who fall can adopt the maxims or the lights suitable to their new status, and much less fulfill its duties. The corporate identity crisis is intensified by the speed at which events are moving. For they very speed of change introduces a new element into management, forcing executives, already nervous in an unfamiliar environment, to make more and more decisions at a faster and faster pace. Response times are honed to a minimum. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

At the financial level the speed of transactions is accelerating since banks have computerized. They are even offer lone services twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. For a fee, you can even get a lone at 1am, deposited into your account with in a few hours. Some banks have even relocated geographically to take advantage of time zone differences. Time zones can be used as a competitive edge. In this hotted-up environment, the big corporations are driven almost willy-nilly to invest and borrow in various currencies not on an annual, a ninety-day, or even a seven-day basis, but literally on an overnight minute-to-minute basis. A new corporate officer has appeared in the executive suite—the “international cash manager,” who remains plugged into the Worldwide electronic casino twenty-four hours a day, searching for the lowest interest rates, the best currency bargains, the fastest turnaround. Nor is this function trivial. Like famers who make more from selling land than from growing food, some major corporations are making more profit—or racking up greater losses—from currency and financial manipulation than from actual production. Also, a new storm of online banks are creating a tsunami of new financial institutions for customers to choose form and offering high investment rate, zero interest loans, and direct deposit advances for free because they know consumers do not read the fine print. They can offer such good deals because they are not federally insured, so their customers could lose all of their money and never get it back. However, that is unlikely, unless a disaster happens. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

In marketing, a similar acceleration is evident. Marketers must respond quickly in order to insure the survival for tomorrow. Network TV programmers are accelerating their decisions on killing new TV series that show rating weakness. No more waiting six of seven weeks, or a season. Another example: Johnson & Jonson learns that Bristol-Myers is determined to undersell J&J’s Tylenol. Does J&J adopt a wait-and-see attitude? No. In an amazingly short times, it moves to cut Tylenol’s prices in stores. No more weeks or months of procrastination. The very prose is breathless. In engineering, in manufacture, in research, in sales, in training, in personnel, in every department and branch of the corporation the same quickening of decision-making can be detected. And once more we see a parallel process, though less advanced, in the socialist industrial nations. COMECON, which used to revise prices every five years when it issued its five-year plan, has been forced to revise its prices annually in an attempt to keep up with the faster pace. Before long it will be six months, then even less. The results of this generalized speedup of the corporate metabolism are multiple: shorter product life-cycles, more leasing and renting more frequent buying and selling, more ephemeral consumption patterns, more fads, more training time for workers (who must continually adjust to new procedures), more frequent changes in contracts, more negotiations and legal work, more pricing changes, more job turnover, more dependence on data, more ad hoc organization—all of it exacerbated by inflation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

The result is a high-stakes, high-adrenalin business environment. Under these escalating pressures it is easy to see why so many business people, bankers, and corporate executives wonder what exactly they are doing and why. Brought up with the Age of Information certainties, they see the World they knew tearing apart under the impact of an accelerating wave of change. Water flows from high in the mountains. Water runs deep in the Earth. Miraculously, water comes to us, and sustains all life. Water flows over these hands. May I use them skillfully to preserve our precious planet. O Lord, the God of America, You are rigidly just and righteous, for we are left a remnant that is escaped, as is this day. Behold, we are before You in our guilt, for none can stand before You because of this. for one who was a perfect human ‘mid all. Who once was saved through goodness at Thy call, Redeemed from overflowing floods of water—Save her who standeth steadfast as a wall, save her, our Father. For one unblemished in one’s works and ways though tried tenfold who, lifting up one’s gaze, saw angel forms, and ran to give them water—save her that shineth as the sunlight’s rays, save her, our Father. For that loved son who asked his aged sire, “Where is the lamb for offering made by fire?” For one who heard the tidings, “Here is water”—save her that wandereth in exile dire, save her, our Father. For one’s sake who before one’s brother came to take one’s blessing—hoping in Thy name; for one whose flocks increased by troughs of water—save her that was a palm-tree in her fame, save her, our Father. For one who meet to serve Thee Thou didst deem, apparelled as a bridegroom doth beseem; At Massah tried, at Meribah’s sad water—O save that goodly mountain of our dream, Save her, our Father. Love myself? Those words do not come easy for me, Father. However, with all my heart, I want to learn how to love myself, not so I can be America’s Next Top Model and bask in self-adulation, but so I can more deeply appreciate who You have made me to be, and that I might more effectively express Your #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

Cresleigh Homes

If closet space is high on your list, these floorplans will NOT disappoint! #Havenwood offers a ton of modern efficiencies, including solar energy. 🌞Seriously!

Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood is the newest Cresleigh community coming to Lincoln, CA. With four distinct floor plans to choose from ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet offering up to five bedrooms, we are sure you’ll find your dream home here at Havenwood! https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

#CresleighHomes

If one has only a few clues, it is in genera easy to recognize to which type of character a person belongs to.  The tight-lipped, withdrawn man whose first concern is that everything must be orderly and right, who shows little spontaneity, whose skin colour tends to be sallow, is easily recognizable as an anal character; is one knows that he tends to be stingy, ungiving, distant, one receives confirmation. The same holds true for the exploitative and the receptive character types. It is true of course that a person tries to hide one’s true face, provide one is away of the fact that it betrays trends that one would rather not divulge. Hence facial expressions are not even the most important indications of character structure. More important are those expressions that are much less controllable: the movements, the voice, the gait, the gestures and all that of a person which is in our field of vision when we look at one or see one walking. Character orientations allow one to relate oneself to the World in the “process of assimilation”—that is to say, in the process of getting from nature of from other human beings what is necessary for survival. The problem is not that we all need to get something from the outside; even the saint could not survive without any food. The real problem is what our method of getting it is, whether it is a method of being given, robbing, hoarding or producing. Whether people predominantly love or hate, submit or fight for freedom, are stingy or magnanimous, are cruel or tender, depends on the social structure that is responsible for the formation of all passions except the biological ones. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

There are in cultures in which, in their social character, the passions for cooperation and harmony dominates—and other in which extreme possessiveness and destructiveness dominate. Detailed analysis of the social character typical of any given society is required in order to understand how economic, geographical, historical, and genetic conditions have led to the formation of various types of social character. Human natures are like most houses—many sided; some aspects are pleasant and some not. So it is with human relations. No other species is capable of more brutal aggression against its own member, or of more compassion giving of help. What other terrestrial beings can feel such bitter prejudice toward others, or such so profound love? In much the same way that natural evils, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, can be studied, so, too, can behavioural scientists explore the workings of human evils. Some people attribute human evil to the disposition of “rotten apples”—the freeloaders, thieves, and other deviants who threaten the rest of us nice folds. If evil is a personal aberration, then its remedy must also be personal. The way to alleviate unemployment is to put individuals through job training. The way to remedy emotional suffering is to put the individual in therapy. They way to deal with sin is to convert the individual. However, research clearly reveals that the human problem is also collective and that these individualistic remedies often deliver less than expected. True, evil emanates from the hearts of individuals. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

The historically conditioned passions are of such intensity that they can be greater than even the biologically conditioned passions of survival, hunger, thirst and pleasures of the flesh. This may not be so for the average person whose passions have been largely reduced to the satisfaction of one’s physiological needs, but it is so for a considerable number of people in any historical period who risk their lives for their honour, their love, their dignity—or their hate. The Christian Bible expressed that in simple words: “Man shall not live by bread alone,” Matthew 4.4. The dramatic element in human life is rooted in nonbiological passions and not hunger and pleasures of the flesh. Hardly anybody commits suicide because of the frustration of one’s sexual desires, but many are ready to give up living because their ambition or their hate has been frustrated. In is an interesting fact that the suicide rate by and large has risen in the same proportion as the rate of industrialization. Laboratory experiments enable us to isolate some of the important features of social situations. By compressing social forces into a brief time period, we can see how these forces affect people. A number of such experiments have put well-intentioned people in an evil situation to see whether good or evil prevails. To a dismaying extent, evil pressures overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to conform to falsehoods or capitulate to cruelty. Nice guys often do not finish nice. The clearest example is Stanley Milgram’s classic obedience experiments. Faced with an imposing, close-at-hand commander, 65 percent of his adult male subjects fully obeyed instructions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

On command, they would deliver what appeared to be (but were not) traumatizing electric shocks to a screaming innocent victim in an adjacent room. These were regular people—a mix of blue-collar, white-collar, and professional men. They despised their task. Yet obedience took precedence over their own moral sense and the pleas of their victims. As often happens in everyday live, the entrapment of these men was a subtle step-by-step process. At first, they had to perform only little cruel acts. Then the demands for evil were gradually escalated. Before long, the barely perceptible 15 volts had become a seemingly excruciating 450 volts. Proving that bad behaviour is contagious and the safest road to hell is the gradual one. Succumbing to just a little temptation begins to erode the conscience, making the next evil act possible. In complex societies, a sequence of small evils can lead to vile evil. Individual psychology, to be sure, is concerned with the individual human being, and it examines the ways in which one tries to satisfy one’s instinctual drives. However, only rarely and under specific exceptional circumstances is it in a position to abstract from this person’s relationships with other individuals. In the individual’s psychic life, other people must be considered as either models, objects, helpers, or opponents. Thus, from beginning, individual psychology is simultaneously social psychology—in this extended but legitimate sense. The human being, from early childhood on, lives in seven circles; the narrowest one is the family, the next one is one’s class, the third one is the society in which one lives, the fourth one the biological conditions of being human in which one participate, and finally, one is part of a larger circle of which we know almost nothing, but which comprises at least our solar system. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

 Therefore, the drift towards evil usually comes in small steps, without any conscious decision to do evil. Primarily because the family itself is determined by the class and social structure and constitutes an “agency of society” whose function it is to transmit the character of society to the infant even before it has any direct contact with society. This is done through early upbrining and education, as well as through the character of the parents which is in itself a social product. The structure of society creates the kind of character it needs for its proper functioning and survival. The subtlety corrupting process can be illustrated: Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naif or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules of fair play: something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but somethings, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for merely pleasure—something “we always do.” And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

It would be so terrible to see the other person’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are draw in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in crashes, a scandal, and penal servitude: it may end in millions, a peerage, and giving prizes at your old school. However, you will be a scoundrel. The social character structure which is common to most members of society; it contents depend on the necessities of a given society which mold the character of the individual in such a way that people want to do what they have to do in order to secure the proper functioning of society. What they do depends on the dominating passions in their character, which have been formed by the necessities and requirements of a specific social system. The differences brought about by diverse family constellations is minor in comparison with the differentiation brought about by different structures of society and present in the respective classes. A member of the feudal class had to develop a character which enabled one to rule others, to harden one’s heart toward their misery. The bourgeois class of the nineteenth century had to develop an anal character which was determined by the wish to save and hoard and not to spend. In the twentieth century the same class developed a character which made saving, if not a vice, only a minor virtue when compared with the trait of the modern character to spend and to consume. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

This development is conditioned by fundamental economic necessities: in the period of primary accumulation of capital, saving was necessary; in a period of mass production, instead of saving, spending is of the greatest economic importance. If the character of twenty-first century humans suddenly reverted to that of nineteenth-century humans, our economy would be confronted with crisis, if not collapse. However, in considering the relationship between humans and social psychology, there are needs or passions rooted in the existence of human beings and those that are not primarily conditioned by society but by the very nature of humans, the absence of which must be considered as the result of repression or of severe social pathology. Such strivings are those of freedom, for solidarity, for love. Procrastination and evil have similar seductions. For instance, a student knows of the deadline for a term paper weeks ahead. Each diversion from work on the paper—a video game here, Web surfing there—seems harmless enough. Yet the student gradually veers toward not doing the paper (or at least not doing it well) without consciously deciding not to do it. That nice people can be corrupted by evil situations is evident even in experiments that involve only minimal coercive social pressure. Numerous studies indicate the powerful effects of occupying a social role. Although a new role may at first feel artificial—we can feel that we are “playing” it—the sense of phoniness soon tapers off. We absorb the role into our personalities and attitudes. Participating in destructive roles can therefore corrupt a person. Soldiers, for example, almost unavoidably develop degrading images of their enemy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

The same is true for prison guards. There is a dehumanizing effect in role relations between guard-prisoner when one is locked behind steel bars. This dichotomy also symbolizes the way in which destructive role relations can affect rich and poor, the disabled and those with full physical ability, African American and European Americans, husband and wife, employer and employee, teacher and student. Evil behaviour is sometimes structure into the very roles we are forced to play. Another potentially corrupting social force is competition for scarce goods and resources. When people have to compete with other groups, typically name calling begins, they make derogatory posters, hurl food, and attack each other’s property. It is warfare. A living version of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies—despite there being no cultural, physical, or economic differences between the groups. As in the other experiments, the evil outcomes reflect the power of an evil situation. Dozens of other experiments reveal that groups often display in more striking form the individual tendencies of their members. It is true of our better tendences—fellowship may fan the flames of our compassion, faith, and hope. And it is true of our baser tendencies—group interaction may also exacerbate meanness and self-righteousness. Terrorism springs from groups in isolation. Self-serving perceptions may therefore mushroom into collective pride; racist, sexists, and nationalists all come to perceive that their group—their race, gender, or country—is superior to other groups. For total greed, rapacity, heartlessness, and irresponsibility there is nothing to match a nation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

Nations, by law, are solitary, self-centered, withdrawn into themselves. There is no such thing as affection between nations, and certainly no nation ever loved another. They bawl insults from their doorsteps, defecate into whole oceans, snatch all the food, survive by detestation, take joy in the bad luck of others, celebrate the death of others, live for the death of others. However, America is different. It is a loving nation. American is one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all, and is setting a great example and making friends with other nations. These social-psychological examples of collective evil parallel biblical teachings about evil. Evil’s external sources are represented in the story of the Fall as Even is seduced by an external demonic force. The social character of sin is further evident in the corporate personality of Israel, in which whole families and whole cities are sometimes condemned for their wickedness. New Testament images of “principalities and powers” reinforce this notion that evil transcends individuals. Precisely because of sin has a collective aspect, we must also make a collective response to it. Judaism and Christianity are distinguished not by the mystical visions of spiritual isolates but by a community life. Since we are not self-sufficient, we stand in need of the church’s corporate fellowship. Only in that context can we adequately struggle with the evil within and about us. It is the whole believing people, not isolated believers, that is the body of Christ. To say the church is Christ’s body reminds us that together we can admonish one another. Together we can enable each other to minister. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

And together we can contest evil in ways that we as individuals never could, by challenging and reforming not only the individual rotten apples, but also the social systems and situations that can make the barrel go bad. To repeat, evil is collective as well as personal and so requires a collective as well as a personal response. “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” reports 1 Corinthians 15.33.  At this point in my life, O Lord, I should be able to make good use of the graces You have given me. However, if I am ever to outdistance the rest of creation, I still need more of these very same graces. As long as a creature can lay a hand on me, I am grounded; that is to say, I cannot freely fly to the Creator. However, fly I must! Certainly the Psalmist wanted to do just that when he said, “Give me the wings of a dove, and I will fly until I find Your rest,” (55.6)? Who has achieved more peace of mind than the person who sees clearly? Who has achieved more peace of mind than the person who has abandoned all Earthly things? “It is You who blesses the righteous human, O LORD; You surround one with favour as a shield,” reports Psalm 5.12. Start expecting God’s blessings to chase after you. Expect the greatness of God to overtake you. The favour of God can bring you out of your difficulties and turn your adversities around for good. No matter what people do to you, you will continue to prosper. God will intervene in the midst of your trial, in the middle of life’s challenges, and you will stand with an uncluttered mind and see that the Lord and Tailor of the Universe is guiding you to success. If you have not freed yourself of all creatures, then you are still tethered to the ground; that is to say, you are off the ground a bit, but you cannot rise any higher to the divine. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

Perhaps that is why there are so few contemplatives; that is to say, that is why so few know how to sequester themselves from the creation daily perishing around them. To do this great grace requires, a grace that rises the soul off the ground and keeps it airborne. And unless you are airborne in spirit and freed from all creaturely ties and rising to God, whatever you know, whatever you have, is only a drag. Whoever thinks one has found something important outside of the One Sole Immense, the One Eternal Good, is destined to fly small, fly low. The moral? God is all, and what is left is nothing and ought to be counted as such; at least that is what the Great Augustine wrote in his Confessions (3.8). When your whole World is falling apart—instead of becoming discouraged and developing a sour attitude, more than ever, your must choose to acknowledge you are a child of God and are blessed. Now is the time to allow God’s grace, blessings, love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion to overtake you. Help me, Father in Heaven, to learn how to live favour-minded, to expect the best, to anticipate success rather than failure, to see good rather than evil. Even in the midst of difficulties, I will declare to believe that I have Your blessing and favour, and You will bring me out stronger, better, and more triumphant. “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. However, just as one who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’ Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

“For you know that I was not perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without a blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the World, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All humans are like the grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever,” reports 1 Peter 1.13-25. There is a World of difference between Devouts illumined by Divine Wisdom and Clerics well versed in humane knowledge. Much more noble is the doctrine dripping from the Divine Tap than the science drawn from a well. Many people think contemplation a pleasant, fashionable way to pass the time; they long for it, even lust for it. However, when they learn it is hard work, they quickly lose interest. There is mammoth misunderstanding here. They want to enjoy its consolations, yes, but they do no want to endure its mortifications. Go figure! If we Devouts are caught sharing this opinion, then we have clouded our own minds into thinking, as the public has every right to think that we are spiritual humans. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

We labour so hard and so long, and what do we get for it but more anxiety about the transitory, everyday things? As for our interior interests, we rarely gather our wits and our sense to try to figure out where we really stand. Some real pains! Has somebody been mistreating you recently? “Look forward to the special blessings that will come to you at the return of Jesus Christ,” reports 1 Peter 1.13. And thank God that His favour is going to cause these people to start treating you well. Similarly, if you are struggling financially, say something such as, “Father, thank You that You are causing me to be at the right place at the right time. You are bringing wonderful financial opportunities my way.” When one lives with that attitude of gratitude, before long God’s blessings, grace, favour, mercy, compassion, love and forgiveness will turn up, and that difficult situation will turn around to your benefit. After a modest period of recollection, we have to rush outside for a breather! When it comes to evaluating our works, we cannot hold our focus for more than a minute! Where our affections are at any particular moment in time, we have no idea. Impurities invade our souls, and we would like to deplore them one by one, but there is not enough time in the Universe for that! “Every creature has lost its way or fouled its nest”—that has been obvious since that notorious Garden Party in Genesis (6.12). It is any wonder, then, that the Great Deluge is never far off? Our interior affections have sustained so much damage that we can no longer rely on them for True Direction. Only a pure hear, which comes from a god life, as Paul wrote in First Letter to Timothy (1.5), can discern the shortest distance between two spiritual points. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

The populace is interested in everything celebrities do, but they do not pay much attention to their motives, that is to say, whether their actions are virtuous or not. Let God know you do not care what the situation looks like. That no matter how badly you feel, you know God is great, and His favour is going to turn the situation around in manifest a blessing for you. Do not give up. Keep on believing, expecting, declaring. Keep living favour-minded, and God promises that good things will come to you. If you will keep your hope in the Lord, God says divine favour is coming. One may not see it right now, but when God’s favour shows up, things are going to change. Regardless of your current circumstances, keep boldly declaring, “God I know Your favour is coming my way.” Courage, wealth, good looks, nice personality—that is what the populace looks for first. Can the celebrities carry a tune, write a decent paragraph, do something adventurous—that is what seems to be newsworthy. Mum is the word, though, about whether these glittering creatures have about them any whiff of poverty of spirit, patience, mildness, or any other desirable internal qualities. Nature looks at what Humankind does; Grace looks into how Humankind does it. Nature hopes in the Enemy, but its hopes are often hoodwinked; Grace hopes in God, and its hopes are often fulfilled. Remember that You have God’s favour. Live with confidence; dare to be bold. You can ask for things you normally do not ask for and expect the extraordinary, and even view your adversities in a new way. Why? Because deep down inside, you know you have an advantage in life. You have an advantage. You have the favour of God! #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

O save, we beseech Thee. I beseech Thee, give ear to their cry that implore Thee to save, that seek to give joy unto Thee with the willows that wave—O save! White floating clouds, clouds like the plains, please come and water the Earth. Sun, please embrace the Earth that she may be fruitful. Moon, lion of the north, bear of the west, badger of the south, wolf of the east, eagle of the Heavens, shrew of the Earth, elder war hero, intercede with the cloud people for us that they may water the Earth. Father in Heaven, please help me to hope and have faith to the end, no matter what circumstances I face today, know that I can respond boldly and with confidence because I have Your favour. Thank You for opening doors of opportunity for me. I beseech Thee, please deliver the stock Thou hast planted, and say on the day when Thou sweepest the remnant of nations away: “I will save.” I beseech Thee to look to the covenant sealed at our birth, when Thou castest men down to the darkness under the Earth, and save. I beseech Thee, remember the father who knew Thee alone, when we say, “To his children to-day make Thy kindnesses known”; then save. I beseech Thee, O worker of wonders for hearts without stain, be it known that herein is the wonder of Thee—that again Thou wilt save. I beseech Thee, O honoured in strength, give salvation to us, for in ages of yore Thou didst swear to our forefathers thus: “I will save.” I beseech Thee, fulfill their desires that do call Thee in woe, that are bound as Thy suppliant was on the mountain, when lo! Thou didst save. I beseech Thee, the trees of Thy planting!—give shelter to these; when uprooting the mighty—Almighty, remember Thy trees, and save. I beseech Thee, throw open Thy treasures of rain; please let us see the good of the land that is thirsting for showers from Thee, and save. I beseech Thee, give friendship to those who have called Thee; and feed with the goodness and fat of Thy pasture their hunger and need, and save. I beseech Thee, O lift up Thy gates from their desolate fall, O lift up that ruinous heap for Thy people that call, O save!” #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood is the newest Cresleigh community coming to Lincoln, CA. With four distinct floor plans to choose from ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet offering up to five bedrooms, we are sure you’ll find your dream home here at Havenwood!

Each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini! https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

Whoever has received lots of gifts from God can boast that one deserved them all, but no one would believe that individual; Paul wrote much the same in the First Corinthians (4.7). One can extol the wonderfulness of oneself, at the expense of the ordinariness of others, but that would sound tinny. One can snip and snipe at the less gifted upon one, but one would know one is just a fool. Less is always more—that is the spiritual principle here. For example, the modest person who humbly gives great thanks for one’s gifts is generally thought by God to be greater and better than the bombastic persons. Another example: the one who closes one’s eyes in shame because what one has done to God and to others will come to look upon the simple gifts He has given one with greater appreciation. Yes, less is always more. Put another way, more is always less. Of course, the stuffy person who received rather fewer gifts then one thought one deserved should not go all teary, or get a bad case of the pouts, or turn a sickly shade of green, envious at what one thinks are the excessive gifts of others. What one should do is turn one’s attention away from oneself to God. One should praise God’s goodness. After all, God is the One who so affluently, so graciously, so recklessly laid on His gifts without respect of persons. That is as Paul wrote to the Romans about who gets what, Jewish person of Greek person (2.10-11). However, that is no entirely true. Everything comes from God, and everything bears God’s indelible stamp. However, God knows what is best for each and every person and why this one should get a little and that one a lot. “Blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear,” reports Matthew 13.16. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

As for each and every person haranguing about God not having received one’s just deserts in this regard, a little time at prayer and one should quickly come to see that they are just desserts; that is to say, not wages for jobs done, but gifts meant to please and perhaps even to be used. And what is all this fuss about who gets what? A little contemplation on your part will revel three things. First, each and every person receives just the right number of gifts. Second, each and every gift has been carefully measured, but, and sewn by God, the Lord and Tailor of the Universe. Third, each and every gift of God’s fits perfectly and always arrives on time! Odd, but true. And remember, a little contemplation reveals all. Start believing that things are going to change for the better, not because you deserve it, but simply because God loves you. Let go of old and negative habits, and cultivate an attitude of faith. Keep in mind also that hopeless despair breeds as much apathy as does naïve optimism. What we therefore need is neither negative nor positive thinking, but realistic thinking—thinking characterized by enough pessimism to trigger concern, enough optimism to provide hope. How then can we realize self-denial without self-rejection? Self-affirmation without vain self-love? And, what is a genuine Christian humility? First, we must remember that humility is not self-contempt. Humility does not exist in handsome people to believe they are ugly and clever people trying to believe they are fools. Tiger Woods can acknowledge his greatness at gold without violating this spirit of humility. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

False modesty regarding one’s gifts can actually lead to pride—pride in one’s better-than-average humility. Screwtape recognized this possibility advising Wormwood to catch his prey “at the moment when one is really poor in spirit and smuggle into one’s mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By Jove! I am being humble,” and almost immediately pride—pride at one’s own humility will appear. True humility also is not found by struggling to straddle the fence between egotistical vanity and self-hatred. Humility is more like self-forgetfulness. It is flowing with life with minimal self-consciousness, as when we become totally absorbed in a challenging task, an exciting game, or even a life mission. Dancers, athletes, chess players, surgeons, and writers often experience this kind of absorption. With it comes satisfaction that accompanies the relinquishment of the self-conscious pursuit of happiness. The refreshing Christian promise is not that we have been freed by Christ to love ourselves, but that we are free from self-obsession. Not that the cross frees us for the ego trip but that the cross frees from the ego trip. This leaves us free to esteem our special talents and, with equal honesty, to esteem our neighbours’. Both their talents and our own are recognized as gifts that, like our height, demand neither vanity nor self-deprecation. Obviously, true humility is a state not easily attained. If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell one the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. The way to take this first step, is to glimpse the greatness of God and see oneself in light of it. The experience explains a human to oneself for the first time, lights up the fact that one live in two planes at one and the same time. It reveals one’s ego as the illusion which envelops one’s consciousness and one’s Overself as the reality behind one’s consciousness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

The Real was not only always present but always known, but unconsciously. It was he “I-myself,” the little ego, the separate person that one thought oneself to be and ignorantly superimposed on the Real. All this one comprehends quite plainly now. This World is the unreal dream, that is the real and substantial one. So the glimpse teaches one. One views this World temporarily as if one stand behind a theatrical stage and watches actors perform set roles in a play and sees properties which are merely pained representations. One is conscious how utterly illusory it all is and, in dramatic contrast, how the awareness by which one knew this was alone real. The experience will either confirm what one has already vaguely felt or else it will contradict what one has wrongly believed. Whatever religious belief it is made use of to confirm, it can only validate those beliefs which are universally held by everyone who is at all religious, not those which are found only in sectarian theology. The attempt to put into it previously held dogmas should be regarded as suspect. It can confirm the existence of a Higher Power, the fact of the soul, and the possibility of communion with it. These glimpses are moments of truth in a life founded on a conception which is so narrow as to be actually misleading, or even false. God and ourselves are two things of such a kind that if we really get into any kind of touch with Him we will, in fact, be humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of [the pretensions which have] made one restless and unhappy all one’s life. To be self-affirming yet self-forgetful, optimistic yet realistic, grace-filled and unpretentious—that is the Christian vision of abundant life. These are the only moments of life when we catch hold almost at once of truth as it is, unspoiled by implantations from the ego. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

It is in those uplifted moments that one has the possibility of coming near to confirm the Pythagorean belief that the human soul is an emanation of the Universal Divine Mind. One will understand the meaning of this beatific experience without need of formulating it into thoughts. There is no necessity for one to tell it to oneself in words. Stop focusing on lack and limitations opposed by oppression or otherwise. Instead, dwell on the goodness of God and fill your mind with thoughts of hope, faith, and success. Develop a fresh vision and expect things to change for the better and that will sure enough be what happens. And it matters not to one whether in the eyes of the World one is high or low, first or last, happy or sad, nonymous or anonymous, for one is happy as a lark whenever God’s will is being done. And as for all His jolly gifts, the one’s God has given and those God has yet to give, what larks! We must desire that God will become part and parcel of our very fiber. “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” report Matthew 6.10. If we can make this our will, to serve and obey God, such a Devout will enter that far-off territory known only on the maps of Peace and Quiet. However, sometimes it takes an age before a poor soul can gather the spiritual and intellectual fruit contained therein. Yet, we must be faithful to these precepts. Sometimes we may feel like we are losing our sense of peace. However, just as often, by means of simple instructs like God’s, we recover our land legs quickly enough. However, we know always that the Lord and Potentate of the Universe, as Holy Job might call God, has always had our spiritual progress at heart, and for that we remain grateful. However, one cannot, and will not, fulfill God’s teaching or work on our salvation, as He urges, unless and Until He grants us more grace. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

It always has to come back to this, but there it is. These short glimpses do not belong to ordinary life; indeed, they glaringly show up its pitiful meanness and confusion, its miserable aimlessness and unsatisfaction. One needs no religious authority to interfere with, or interrupt this glorious glimpse, no theologian to bring it down to the intellectual level and probably lose if for one. If one will compare those rapturous and illumined moments with one’s prosaic ordinary days, one will have an excellent clue to what one’s life’s goal should be, what one’s true self really is, as well as how and where one should look for both. There are some who, while reading inspired pages, may suddenly find that for a few brief instants the veil will fall from the eyes and the ideas which had formerly seemed so remote or so impossible will come alive with actuality. As the light shines, showing the glory of the Overself, I also shows the inadequacies of the ego. It tells one quite directly, quite intuitively, without the interference of logical thinking, what life is for and what humans are here for. One feels that one is absorbing the entire meaning of all human lives, all the World’s operations, in one crystal-clear insight. One feels that this is the fore-ordained moment of revelation, which is implied by the mystery of the quest. Remember, your actions will always follow your expectations. Low expectations will trap one in mediocrity; high expectations will motivate one and propel one to move forward in life. This is an active process and one must actively think beneficial thoughts of success. “I can do all things through Hum who strengthens me,” reports Philippians 4.13. God’s dream for our lives is much bigger and greater than one can imagine. If God showed us the blueprint He made for our lives, it would be astonishing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

God is your greatest resource, and His creativity and resources are unlimited and eternal. “But whatever my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from he dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. However, one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus,” reports Philippians 3.7-14. God is not limited by what we do not currently have. As long as we believe, God can do anything. God wants us to become more successful than our parents ever were. Even if one is in a negative environment where everyone is depressed, upset, lazy and dysfunctional, do not allow that to be an excuse to live the same way. You can be the one who breaks the curse. Make decisions in the present that will allow your beneficial and successful actions affect future generations. Step out in faith and break that curse of poverty. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

However, if you are not experiencing God’s abundant life, please believe more. Do not sit back and let someone put you in a caste. Begin looking beyond where you are today and see where you want to be. I praise You, Father, for opening my eyes to see and understand that You have so much more in store for me. Please give me the courage to believe for a blessed today and a brighter tomorrow. “One who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm,” reports Proverbs 13.20. When one reaches this high level of the wise, one feels that one is an integral par of the cosmos, rooted in and supported by the illimitable Reality. However, the glimpse is only momentary for one is forced by some powerful attraction to return to one’s body and with it to one’s ordinary self. One has come-to-life, an experience which reconciles all the contradictions of thoughts and faith and which explains some of the most puzzling enigmas of human destiny. Now as for the evil thoughts that continue to plague me, let me try out this prayer on You. “My Lord God, do not distance Yourself from me! thrummed the Psalmist (71.12). “My God, look down on me with help!” Why? Again the Psalmists. “There have rise up within me a band of insurrectionists,” reports Psalms 27.12, that is to say, piratical that is to say, piratical thoughts and fears afflicting my soul. How can I pass through the fire unsigned? How can I break through the battle line unbloodied? What was that You said when You anointed Cyrus in Isaiah (45.2-3)? “I will go before you, and I will lay low the boastful of the Earth. I will open the doors of prisons, and I will empty all the treasuries of their secrets, just for you to know.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Do do that, O Lord, and You will make all these iniquitous thoughts flee from Your angry face. That is why, in every tribulation, I flee to You, confide in You, invoke You from my inmost heart, and wait patiently for Your response. To keep my head clear, O Lord, may I address You with this prayer? Please illumine my intellect, Good Jesus, with the clarity of Your good light, and lead out of the habitat of my heart the creatures of the dark, the Harpies. Leash my wanderlust. Dash water on my supposed ability to survive the storms sweeping in from the Zee of Temptation. Fight bravely for me. Tame the riotous evil within; that is to say, my concupiscences, Sirens all, bandying and beckoning without cease. Then I will find peace in Your virtue and praise in that holy hall, that is to say, in my conscience. Please command the winds and the storms to stop. Is not that what You did in the middle of the Sea of Galilee? The Gospel of Mark says so (4.39). Shush the Zee, shish the North Wind, and the weather will clear. “Beam Your light and Your truth,” cried out he Psalmist (43.3) over all the land. Why? “I am a land without features, as the Author of Genesis described everything at the beginning (1.2), that is to say, until You illumine me with Your globes. Drench my soul with Heavenly Grace. Dampen my heart with Heavenly Dew. Husband the waters of devotion so that they irrigate the face of the Earth and produce bountiful harvests. Please raise up my poor mind flattened by the weight of sins, and what should You do with my desire for flashy things? You might as well hang it as an ornament in the Heavens. That way, having experienced the smoothness of the Supernals, You will find it harder to deal with the roughness of the Terannuals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Please snatch me, pluck me, from the clutches of every creaturely consolation. Why? That is because they will not let me go, even though they cannot fully satisfy me; that is to say, bring quiet back to my life. Please join me to You with a chain of inseparable love. Is friendship still possible? Possible, yes. With You it is fruitful, but with someone else it is frivolous. “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’ Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God,” reports 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1. Some people experience horrible stress when they have to move to a new city, and are barely able to earn enough money to pay rent, buy food, and pay for vehicle maintenance. However, instead of being depressed, it is important o expand your vision, and put oneself in environments were one can see oneself successful. Do not hang around with people who are content with being stuck in the mud. Look beyond where you are and allow your faith to flourish in your heart. Find a place where your faith will be elevated. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Choose to be around people who will build you up and not tear your down. It is important to stay optimistic and being around encouraging people so they can inspire you and challenge you to reach for new heights. Bad behaviour is contagious. And so is success. If you associate with successful people, before long their enthusiasm will be contagious and you will catch that vision. Even when circumstances do not go your way, keep your mind set in the right direction. If you will do your part by continually contemplating the greatness of God, living with faith and expectancy, God will take you places you have never even dreamed of, and you will live at a level you have never before thought was possible. Dear Lord in Heaven, I want to liver in an environment where I can dream big dreams. Lord, a place where I can dare to trust You for more. Please surround me, Father, with people from whom I can learn, people who will encourage me to believe Your Word. Please give me the courage to take steps that will put me in contact with wise and generous people, men and women who are considered successes in Heaven. If politicians were less blinded by their ambitions, they would see how impossible it is for any establishment whatever to act in accordance with the law of duty. They would be aware of the fact that the greatest support for public authority lies in the hearts of the citizens, and that nothing can take the place of mores in the maintenance of the government. Not only is it just men of good character who know how to administer laws, but it is essentially only upright men and women who know how to obey them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Anyone who gets the upper hand on remorse will not put off defying punishments which are less severe, less continuous forms of chastisement and from which there is at leas some hope of escape. And whatever precautions one takes, those who are on the lookout for impunity in order to do wrong hardly lack the means of eluding the law or escaping a penalty. Then, since all private interests are joined together against the general interests which is no longer that of anyone, public vices have greater power to enervate the laws than the laws have to repress vices. And the corruption of the populace and the leaders at length extends to the government, however wise it may be. The worst of all abuses is to obey the laws in appearance only to transgress them with security. Eventually the best laws become the most baneful. It would have been a hundred times better had they never existed. It would be one resource that would be available when nothing else remains. In such a situation it is pointless to add edicts upon edicts, regulations upon regulations. All that seems merely to introduce additional abuses without correcting the abuses with which one began. The more you multiply laws, the more contemptible you make them. All the overseers you put in place are merely the latest crop of lawbreakers or to do their pillaging on their own. In time the price of virtue becomes that of brigandage. Men and women of the vilest character are the ones held in the highest regard. The greater they are the more contemptible they are. Their infamy is manifest in their dignities, and they are dishonoured by their honours. If they buy off the votes of leaders or the protection of marginalized people, it is so that they in their turn can sell justice, duty, and the state. And the populace, which fails to see that its own vices are the primary cause of its troubles, mutters and cries, groaning: “All my troubles come from no one but those I pay to protect me.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

At times like this, in place of the voice of duty which no longer speaks in humans’ hearts, the leaders are forced to substitute the cry of terror or the lure of an apparent interest with which they deceive their dependents. At times like this, one must have recourse to all the disgusting little tricks they call “state maxims” and “cabinet mysteries.” Whatever vigour there remains to the government is used by its members to bring down and to replace one another, while day-to-day business continues to be neglected or is dealt with only to the extent that personal interests demands it and in accordance with its dictates. Finally, the entire kills of these great politicians consists in so mesmerizing the eyes of those whose help they need, that each individual believes one is working for one’s own interest while one is working for theirs. I say “theirs,” if indeed it actually is the real interest of the leaders to annihilate the populace in order to pace it in subjection and to destroy their own estate in order to secure it possession. However, when the citizens love their duty, and when those entrusted with public authority sincerely apply themselves to nurturing this love through their example and efforts, all difficulties vanish and administration takes on an easiness which enables it to dispense with that shady art whose baseness constitutes its entire mystery. Those ambitious minds, so dangerous and so admired, all the great ministers whose glory is mingled with the people’s troubles, are not missed any more. Public mores supplant the genius of the leaders; and the more virtue reigns the less talents are needed. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Ambition itself is better served by duty rather than by usurpation. Convinced that its leaders work exclusively for its happiness, the populace exempts them by its deference from working to strengthen their power. And history shows us in a thousand ways that the authority the populace accords to are those it loves and by whom it is loved is a hundred times more absolute than all the tyranny of usurpers. This does not mean that the government should fear using its power, but that it should use it only in a legitimate manner. There are a thousand examples in history of ambitious or pusillanimous leaders who were ruined either by softness or pride, but there are no examples of someone for whom things went badly simply because one was more equitable. However, the negligence should not be confused with moderation, nor mildness with weakness. To be just one must be severe. Putting up with the wickedness when one has the right and the power to repress it is being wicked oneself. It is not enough to say to the citizens: be good. They must be taught to be so; and example itself, which is in this respect the first lesson, is not the only means to be used. Love of country is the most effective, for every human is virtuous when one’s private will is in conformity with the general will in all things, and we willingly want what is wanted by the people we love. Joseph Smith had great faith in the Lord. When he prayed, he expected God to answer, and he tried in all things o be obedient to the Lord. He prayed for guidance in choosing men who should do the work of preaching, and God helped him to know what each man should do. The second conference of the church was held in September, 1830. Each member expressed desires to labour with all one’s powers to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ which had been revealed by the Heavenly Father. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Revelations were given telling some of the men of the priesthood what they should do. David Whitmer was told: “Behold, I say unto you, David, that you have feared man and have not relied on me for strength, as you ought. Your home shall be at your father’s house, until I give unto you further commandments. And you shall attend to the ministry in the church, and before the World, and in the regions round about.” Peter Whitmer was to go with Oliver Cowdery on a mission to the Lamanites in the West, and the Lord said to him: “Fear not but give heed unto the words and advice of your brother, which he shall give you. Be diligent in keeping my commandments, and you shall be blessed unto eternal life.” John Whitmer was to labour with Philip Burroughs, and the Lord said to him: “Your whole labour shall be in Zion, with all your soul, from henceforth, yea, you shall ever open your month in my cause, not fearing what man can do, for I am with you.” The task of Thomas Marsh was to be quite different from that of his brothers. The Lord’s instructions to him were: “You shall be a physician unto the church, but not unto the World, for they will not receive you. Go your way and it shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do, and whither you shall go. Pray always, lest you enter into temptation, and lose your reward. Be faithful unto the end, and lo, I am with you.” Soon after the September conference Parley P. Pratt, a young minister, came to the Smith house in Palmyra. He explained that he had been loaned a copy of the Book of Mormon, had read it, and now he wanted to know more about it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Since Joseph was not home, Hyrum took him to the Whitmers. As they walked the twenty-five miles o Fayette, Hyrum told Parley Pratt the wonderful angel message. They found Oliver Cowdery at the Whitmer home. He taught the young minister many things about the marvelous work of the Lord, and explained that Christ’s church had been restored again to Earth with all the gifts and blessings of the New Testament church. Parley Pratt was happy to learn these wonderful things. He believed them with all his hear and wanted to help in the work. He was baptized the next day by Oliver Cowdery, confirmed a member of the Church of Christ, and ordained to the office of elder. Then he went to join his young wife and to preach the gospel message. Latter when Parley Prat met Joseph Smith, Josepha received a revelation directed to him and Ziba Peterson, in which the Lord said: “And now concerning my servant Parley P. Pratt, behold, I say unto him, that as I live I will that he shall declare my gospel and learn of me, and be meek and lowly of heart. He shall go with my servants Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jr. into the wilderness, among the Lamanites. And Ziba Peterson, also, shall go with them, and I myself will go with them and be in their midst.” As these men made preparations for their trip westward, another revelation was given through Joseph Smith, directed to Ezra Thayre and Northrop Sweet. Christ said: “Verily, verily I say unto you, that this church have I established and called forth out of the wilderness. And even so will I gather mine elect from the four quarters of the Earth, even as many as will believe in me, and hearken unto my voice. Open your mouths and they shall be filled, saying, Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make one’s paths straight for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Yea, repent and be baptized every one of you, for the remission of your sins, yea, be baptized even by water, and then cometh the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. This is my gospel, and remember that they shall have faith in me, or they can in nowise be saved; and upon this Rock I will build my church. Yea, upon this Rock ye are built, and ye shall remember the church articles and covenant to keep them. And the Book of Mormon, and the Holy Scriptures, are given of me for your instruction and the power of my Spirit quickeneth all things.” Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Ziba Peterson, and Parley Pratt left as soon as possible on their trip westward to preach to the Indigenous people. Near Buffalo, New York, they preached to the Cattaraugus tribe of Indians. They had difficulty making themselves understood, but they were well treated. They left two copies of the Book of Mormon with those Indians who could read English, and explained to them that it was a history of their forefathers. An important stop on their journey was made near Kirtland, Ohio, which was considered the West at that time. Here Parley Pratt was anxious to tell a friend of his about the Book of Mormon and the Angel message. His friend was Sidney Rigdon, a well-known minister in a wealthy community. When they gave him the Book of Mormon, Sidney Rigdon told them he had one Bible which he believed was a revelation from God, and that he doubted very much that the Book of Mormon could also be God’s revelation. The missionaries wanted to argue about it, but Sidney Rigdon replied, “No gentlemen, you must not argue with me, but I will read your book and see whether or not I can have faith in it as a revelation from God.” The men asked if they might preach in Mr. Rigdon’s church, and permission was readily given. After Oliver Cowdery and Parley Prat preached, Mr. Rigdon arose and spoke to his congregation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

He told them the information these men had given was of an extraordinary nature and they should think about it seriously and do as the Bible says, “Prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good.” He advised his people to investigate carefully the messages and not turn against it until they were fully convinced it was not true for fear they might refuse to accept that which was truth. Sidney Rigdon read the Book of Mormon, earnestly praying for God’s guidance. Two weeks later he received light from the Lord who made it known to him in a remarkable manner that the Angel message was true. Because of this experience he could say, “Flesh and blood have not revealed it to me, but my Father which is in Heaven.” Now he was fully satisfied that the work was true. His wife also believed, so they felt they should join the church. However, Sidney Rigdon hesitated because he knew that joining with these people meant he would have to give up his wealth, his influence among the wealthy people, and his reputation. He and his wife talked the matter over seriously. They decided that they wanted most of all to do the will of God. They were baptized. Parley Prat, Ziba Peterson, Oliver Cowdery, and Peter Whitmer spent seven weeks in Kirtland, and one hundred and twenty-seven people were baptized. There was then more member of the Church of Jesus Christ in Kirtland, Ohio; than there were in New York. Listen to the air, you can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. God’s holy air, which renews all by its breath. God’s spirit, life, breath, renewal, it means all that. We sit together, do not touch, but something is there, we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talking about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds, as to our relatives. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

For the sake of Thy truth, Thy covenant, Thy greatness and glory; for the sake of Thy Torah, Thy majesty, Thy troth and Thy fame; for the sake of Thy mercy, Thy goodness, Thy unity, Thine honour, and Thy wisdom; for the sake of Thy sovereignty, Thine eternity, Thy mystic bond with us, Thy strength and Thy splendour; for the sake of Thy righteousness, Thy holiness, Thine abundant mercies, and Thy divine presence, do Thou save us; for the sake of Thy praise, do Thou save us, we beseech Thee. O Eternal, do Thou save us. Save Thou the World’s foundation-stone, the Temple, the house of Thy choice, the threshing-floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, from whom David bought the site of the Temple, the sacred shrine, even Mount Moriah, the hill of revelation and abode of Thy majesty, where once David dwelt, goodliest of Lebanon, lovely height, the joy of the whole Earth, perfection of beauty, lodging-place of righteousness. Help Thine established dwelling, the tranquil habitation, the tabernacle of Jerusalem, the goal of the tribe’s pilgrimage, the precious corner-stone, even Zion, the excellent, the Holy of Holies, the object of our affection, the home of Thy glory. O save America, yea save the hill to which the World turns. Please save now this nation, once firm as a rampart and clear as the sun; she is exiled, a wandering one. Likened of yore to a palm-tree, today she is borne to the stake, scattered amid her oppressors, she flyeth to Thee from their stroke, she bends to the love of Thy yoke. One proclaim Thou art One, crushed by the far and the near, she waits, she is learning Thy fear. Giving the cheek to the smiters, Thy burden of sorrow she bears, tossed in the storm of the years. Moses delivered her once;–the sanctified sheep of his fold were Jacob’s assembly of old, marked by Thy name:–O Save! They are falling, they grasp Thee, they crave, they are calling, beseeching Thee, “Save!” #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood is the newest Cresleigh community coming to Lincoln, CA. With four distinct floor plans to choose from ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet offering up to five bedrooms, we are sure you’ll find your dream home here at Havenwood! https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/