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

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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/

Individual success does not serve oneself but enables one to build up the greater good. Our relationship with the people around us has lasting significance. That same sociality which exists among us here in mortality will exist among us there in eternity, only it will be coupled with eternal glory. A community that strengthens itself has much more capacity to help other communities. There is no separation between you and your neighbour. Your well-being is tied to your neighbour’s well-being. Heaven’s essence is made up of relationships. The withdrawal of federal support, while a major blow, did not totally destroy the idea of new towns as an expression of the suburban dream. Several privately financed new towns managed to not only survive, but prosper. Perhaps the best known among these are Reston, Virginia, west of Washington, D.C.; Columbia, Maryland, south of Baltimore on the way to Washington; and Irving Ranch, in southern California. Reston was initiated by Robert E. Simon, who, having just sold Carnegie Hall in New York, had a dream of building an urbane community in the rural Virginia countryside. He wanted a place where people could enjoy both the cosmopolitan advantages of the city and the beauty of rural countryside. Both employment and recreational opportunities were to be found within the community. Mr. Simon purchases some eleven miles of Virginia country side (6,800 acres) west of Washington, D.C., near what was to be the new Dulles Airport. Mr. Simon was more a philanthropist and visionary than a developer, and he refused to sacrifice community planning or his dream of social diversity in order to sell more homes. From the first, Reston had architecturally interesting contemporary homes, something that was alleged to have slowed sales. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

Mr. Simon was forced out by Gulf Corporation, which, in turn, sold out Mobil. Reston is now an economically successful town of over 61,150 with a substantial number of corporate offices and other “clean” industries. Where initially most residents had to carpool or take a long bus ride to Washington, today 40 percent of the residents work in the community. Residentially, Reston has a mix of free-standing homes, town houses, and condominiums facing Reston’s four artificial lakes. Reston has had a distinct upper-middle-class-but-involved character. Housing ranges from $800,000-plus homes to government-subsidized apartments. The average home buyer is between thirty and forty years old, has two children, and has an income considerably higher than the national average. (The median household income is $120,396.) Reston has several hundred units of federally subsidized housing, but attempts to place lower-income and high-income housing side by side were abandoned as not being economically sound. Mixed-income housing was a desirable social goal, but Reston is a profit-making enterprise. Columbia, Maryland, some twenty miles north of Washington, was developed by James Rouse, one of the nation’s most respected developers. Mr. Rouse managed quietly to buy or option some twenty-two square miles of land from 169 separate owners before plans for Columbia were revealed in 1963. Architecturally, Columbia looks more like a suburb than Reston, since builders of Columbia’s various sections were given a free hand to build their most popular home models. The community has some 104,726 persons living in eight villages, and Columbia is close to meeting is goal of housing some 110,000 people on its 15,600 acres. The investment in the community totals over $3 billion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Like most new towns, Columbia is organized into neighbourhoods of some 900 houses having their own elementary school, swimming pool, recreational center, and convenience store. Four neighbourhoods are combined to create a “village” of 3,500, which has an intermediate school and a small plaza including a number of shops and a supermarket. Wooded areas and pathways run throughout the village. Columbia is racially integrated, with over one-quarter of the residents being African America. Economically, although there are subsidized units, the community is middle-to upper-middle class. Irvine, California began in the 1960s with a dedication to create a new town of 100,000 on garden city principles around a new University of California campus. It was designed without a downtown, but rather, it was to have shopping centers and business parks intermixed within what is primarily a residential community of single-family homes. Irvine from the firs was o be a geographically dispersed community. The Irvine family owned some 64,000 acres of ranch land and orange groves, which meant Irvine would cover nine times the land space of Reston, or four times that of Columbia. All the land was owned by the Irvine family and is successor, the Irvine Company. The company had a strong commitment to architectural design, a high level of amenities, and controls over the use of the landscape. Irvine was incorporated as a city in 1971. However, Irvine, unlike its east coast siblings, had little interest in racial or income diversity. Simon and Rouse each had a strong personal and corporate commitment to creating communities with population diversity. Irvine executives and planners had no interest in proving subsidized or lower-income housing. From the first, Irvine was designed to be an expensive and elitist community. Low-income or even middle-income housing and residents have been rigorously excluded. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

In recent years Irvine residents have voted for controlled growth and to protect the coast from development. In this, residents were opposed by the Irvine Company. Rapid suburban growth is not welcomed by the existing homeowners. Irvine offers a high quality of life to is residents, but the benefits are restricted to those with substantially above-average income or wealth. As such, Irvine is not a reasonable new town model for the rest of the country. Some, in fact, argue that Irvine Ranch is not self-contained and self-sustaining new town, but rather simply a well-designed upper-income suburb. Regardless, problems of land acquisition coupled with now more restrictive environmental and planning regulations make it difficult to build new private projects of such size. Today the idea of the planned community is undergoing a bit of a renaissance. This is not occurring as a consequence of government policy or action. Rather, new communities are being developed that are essentially privatized communities. They are new suburban full-service communities. One version of this is the community designed to recreate the urban village. The ideal is to create a reasonable-cost community that is not just another subdivision, but has employment opportunities and a sense of place. One of these new communities is Rancho Santa Marguerita, in south California. Being able to live near one’s employment substantially cuts commuting time, which, in the Los Angeles basin, can take an hour and a half each way. The most discussed new communities are the so-called neotraditional new developments. These are contemporary communities that are being designed for both mixed usage and walking, rather than solely automobile usage. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Neotraditional planners design in both higher densities and mixed land usage in order to both reduce the need for auto travel and increase the sense of community. The developers consciously are trying to design in the advantages and mood of earlier eras. Their model for an ideal livable community is the nineteenth-century small town, with is dense intermixture of small shops and homes. Thus, some of the most commented upon, and debated, new community developments at the start of the twenty-first century are being built to approximate the character and amenities of the small town or village of over a century ago. Master plan codes that call for separate shopping and housing pods are discarded in favour of designing on a more intimate scale a community that is both comfortable and interesting to the local residents. Certainly there is something both inviting and comforting about towns like this. Seaside, Florida, Masshipee, on Cape Cod, and, less successfully, Princeton Forrestal Village, in Plainsboro, New Jersey, are examples of such attempts to repeat the nineteenth-century model of providing an inviting, livable, and walkable public environment, Forrestal Village is currently trying to recast itself as a factory outlet mall. The fastest growing type of new community now being built is the retirement community. This is not surprising since anyone who reads a newspaper or pays Social Security knows that elderly are the fastest growing segment of the population. Every day in the United States of America, some 10,000 people turn 65, and the number of older adults will more than double over the next several decades and represent over 20 percent of the population by 2050. The elderly currently constitutes 15.2 percent of the population. The population age 65 and over numbers more than 50 million in 2021. More than 50 percent of the elderly live in the suburbs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

More older Americans now live in suburbs than in central cities or rural areas. Some of the retirement communities are explicitly designed and advertised as such, while others are simply developments in recreational areas with lots of golf courses or a good fishing lake. Growth is taking place even in locations that are not true retirement areas. For example, Peachtree City, in fast-growing Fayette, Georgia grew from 2,000 residents to 22,000 in 1990 and now has a population of 114,421. The postwar assumption that suburbs were for young couples and their children is another out-of-date myth. The assumption long has been that as those who moved to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s aged, they would sell their homes and move back into city apartments or condominiums. By and large, this has not occurred. The elderly are choosing to remain in the suburban homes they have occupied for decades. People are remaining in their suburban homes after the children leave, and even after their spouses die. This has resulted in suburbs being better integrated by age than anytime in the past fifty years. It also means that since most of the suburban elderly are not segregated in specific areas, it is more difficult to provide for their needs such as access to social services and public transportation. If an elderly widow or widower has restricted mobility and is no longer able to drive, one can become isolated. Retirement communites have a minimum age limit of fifty-five for buyers. Younger people are excluded. What retirement communities sell is far more than housing; it is a life of golf, bowling, and crafts that is literally walled off from outside problems. Resident status in retirement communities commonly is limited to couple where one spouse is at least fifty-five years of age. Young people are kept at a minimum by community regulations that ban other then short-term stays by adult children or other guests under the mandatory age. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

Young children or grandchild are not welcome on other than a visiting basis. They cannot reside in the community. Such regulations not only maintain the homogeneity of the community, they also keep taxes low, since by banning young people, homeowners ensure they will not have to pay for building or staffing local schools or other expensive public services usually found in similar-size communities. These communities, isolated from urban areas, are insulated both from urban problems and from the responsibility to pay taxes for services to those not within the walled community. Community homogeneity also includes race. Non-European American residents are a rarity in retirement homeowner communities. This secure and nonthreatening environment has a particular appeal to some fixed-income middle- or lower-middle-class retirees. Many of these communities offer their residents a predictable and safe World of golf and crafts free from the problems, confusion, and variety that is a part of life outside the entrance gates. Problems, and the cost of paying for them, are kept outside. While the number of such retirement communities is growing, they have an appeal only to a minority of all elderly. While retirees seek to limit their taxes, it is a mistake to think of areas with heavy retirement-age populations as areas of economic decline. Just the opposite is the case. Economically, places with fast growing elderly populations are often better-off and healthier markets than those with slow-growing elderly populations. Elderly in-movers may not be employed, but the average retirement migrant household’s overall impact on the local economy is $139,610.81. Retirees bring economic resources and create new jobs. Estimates of the new jobs created by each retired in-mover range from one-third to one for each newcomer. Retirement communities, in addition to having community centers, often include internal commercial districts that are designed to offer a range of products and services especially designed to fill the need of older buyers. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

Oftentimes, extensive medical facilities are available, and one or more private hospitals is nearby the retirement community. Increasingly, retirement communities also include living environment for aging residents who can no longer independently manage a home and require assistance ranging from semi-independent to nursing home care. Continuing-care facilities are increasingly being built into new retirement developments. It is virtually certain that boomers will be less able to rely on Social Security than past generations of retirees. On the other hand, they will inherit from their parents more substantially than any generation in history. The ethnic and racial diversity of retirement communities probably will also increase, reflecting the increasing ethnic and racial diversity of the country. Boomer retirement communities might also carry forward their reputed competitiveness and status-seeking behaviour. This would result in retirement communities being far more competitively organized in terms of sports and even craft than is the case with current retirees who reflect more of the “togetherness” approach they practiced in the early postwar suburbs. In any case, it is highly likely that boomers, who in many ways throughout their lives have defined themselves as a separate group, are likely to have their own distinctive “sixty something” retirement communities. The recent decades have seen North American transformed into a suburban continent. Suburbia is not only where most of us live, it is also where most of us shop, go out to eat, and catch a movie. It is also where most of us work. Overall, these changes have been accepted and even celebrated by suburbanites and lamented by architectural and social critics. Regardless, the suburban transformation is now clearly a social fact. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Whatever one thinks about the suburbs is no longer sub. Outer cities may sprawl over the landscape, but they contain all the functions of the older downtowns. Although it twists the language a bit, they have become outlying “central places” in their own right. Whether the outer cities are called edge cities, polynucleated cities, or technoblurbs, these outlying “urbs” now house more shopping malls, manufacturing plans, and business offices than do the traditional central downtowns. The downtown retail outlets essentially suburbanized to the malls during the 1970s, leaving only skeletal remains in the once-dominant cores. The 1980s saw the dramatic proliferation of suburban office and manufacturing complexes—such that today, outer cities surpass most central cities in total business activity. Transportation, and especially communication technologies, no longer favour centralization over dispersion. FAX machines, the Internet, Email, Video calls, and text messages work equally well from suburban and urban locations. The reality is that the major action is in the suburbs. Suburbs will continually for the foreseeable future increase their dominance. In spite of the hopes of some, research has established that nationwide urban gentrification will be of the limited scope and, moreover, the much-discussed back-to-the-city movement is actually not occurring. The myth of a substantial back-to-the-city movement, and that of incipient massive central-city gentrification, were largely creations of the popular media. Census or other data do not support the thesis that either cities or rural areas are making a strong comeback. Both continue to lose both population and economic strength to suburban areas. Central cities and rural places have become the edges which are losing to the suburban middle ground. Suburbia has become the American Way of Life. It is already the life most of us live. And in spite of our laments for the central city, we do not want to give up the personal advantages of suburban living. The twenty-first century is the age of the suburb, and departing the city. North American is increasingly dominated by a pax suburbia. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

Children, meanwhile, will also be likely to grow up differently in the electronic cottage, if for no one reason than that they will actually see work taking place. First Wave children, from their first blink of consciousness, saw their parents at work. Second Wave children, by contrast—at least in recent generations—were segregated in schools and divorced from real work life. Most today have only the foggiest notion of what their parents do or how they live while a work. One possibly apocryphal story makes the point: An executive decides to bring his son to his office one day and to take him out to lunch. They boy sees the plushy carpeted office, the indirect lighting, the elegant reception room. He sees the fancy expense-account restaurant with its obsequious waiters and exorbitant prices. Finally, picturing their home and unable to restrain himself, the boy blurts out: “Daddy, how come you are so rich and we are so poor?” The fact is that children today—especially affluent children—are totally divorced from one of the most important dimensions of their parents’ lives. In an electronic cottage kids not only observe work, they may, after a certain age, engage in it themselves. Second Wave restrictions on child labour—originally well-intentioned and necessary, but now largely an anachronistic device to keep young people out of the crowded job market-become more difficult to enforce in the home setting. Certain forms of work, indeed, might be specially designed for youngsters and even integrated with their education. (Anyone who underestimates the capacity of even very young people to understand and cope with sophisticated work has not run into the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boys who serve, probably illegally, as “salesmen” in California computer stores. I have had kids with braces still on their teeth explain the intricacies of home computing to me.) #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

The alienation of youth today flows in large measure from being forced to accept a nonproductive role in society during an endlessly prolonged adolescence. The electronic cottage would counteract this situation. In fact, integrating young people into work in the electronic cottage may offer the only real solution to the problems of high youth unemployment. This problem will grow increasingly explosive in many countries in the years ahead, with all the attendant evils of juvenile crime, violence, and psychological immiseration, and cannot be solved within the framework of a Second Wave economy except by totalitarian means—drafting young people, for example, for war or forced service. The electronic cottage opens an alternative way to bring youth back into socially and economically productive roles, and we may see, before long, political campaigns for, rather than against, child labour, along with struggles over the necessary measures to protect them against gross economic exploitation. To be sure, Dr. Freud was not the first to discover the phenomenon that we habour thoughts and strivings which we are not aware of—that is to say, which are unconscious—and live in a hidden life in our psyche. However, Dr. Freud was the first to have made this discovery the center of his psychological system and he investigated unconscious phenomena in the greatest detail, with astonishing results. Basically Dr. Freud dealt with a discrepancy between thinking and being. We think one thing, for instance that our behaviour is motivated by love, devotion, sense of duty, et cetera, and we are not aware that instead it is motivated by the wish for power, masochism, dependency. Dr. Freud’s discovery was that what we think is not necessarily identical with what we are; that what a person thinks of oneself may be, and usually is, quite different or even completely in contradiction to what one really is, that most of us live in a World of self-deception in which we take our thoughts as representing reality. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

In fact the historical importance of Dr. Freud’s concept of the unconscious is that in a long tradition thinking and being were supposed to be identical and in the stricter form of philosophical idealism only the though (the idea, the word), was real, while the phenomenal World had no reality of its own. There seems to be a good deal of evidence that the belief in the superiority of the idea and the thought over material reality was a result of the victory of the patriarchal over the matriarchal system. Since men cannot create naturally, that is to say give birth in a natural way as women can, they insist that they can also give birth, not by their wombs but by their brains. Dr. Freud, by reducing a great deal of conscious thought to the role of a rationalization of drives, tended to destroy the foundations of the rationalism of which he was himself such an outstanding exponent. With his discovery of the discrepancy between thinking and being, Dr. Freud not only undermined the Western tradition of idealism in its philosophical and popular forms, he also made a far-reaching discovery in the field of ethics. Until Dr. Freud, sincerity could be defined as saying what one believed. Since Dr. Freud, this is no longer the definition. The difference between what I say and what I believe assumes a new dimension, namely that of my unconscious belief or my unconscious striving. If in pre-Freudian time a man was convinced that he punished his child because it helped the child’s development he would have been quite honest, as long as he really believed that. After Dr. Freud the critical question has become whether his belief is not simply a rationalization of his sadistic wishes—that is to say, that he has pleasure in beating the child and only uses as a pretext the idea that such punishment is for the benefit of the child. In fact one might ethically prefer the one who is at least honest enough to admit one’s real motive; one would not only be more honest but less dangerous. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

There is no kind of cruelty and viciousness which has not been rationalized individually or in history as being motivated by good intentions. Since Dr. Freud, the sentence I meant well has lost its function as an excuse. Meaning well is one of the best rationalizations for acting badly, and nothing is easier than to persuade oneself of the validity of this rationalization. There is a third result of Dr. Freud’s discovery. In a culture like ours in which words play a tremendous role, the weight given to them often serves to neglect, if not to distort, experience. If somebody says, “I love you” or “I love God” or “I love my country,” one utters words which, in spite of the fact that one fully believe in their truth, may be utterly untrue and nothing but a rationalization of the person’s wish for power, success, fame, money or an expression of one’s own dependence on one’s group. There might not be—and usually there is not—any element of love involved. Dr. Freud’s discovery is not yet so generally accepted that people are instinctively critical of statements of good intentions or stories of exemplary behaviour, nevertheless the fact is that Dr. Freud’s theory is a critical theory, as Marx’s was. Dr. Freud did not accept statements at face value; he looked at them skeptically even when he did not doubt the conscious sincerity of the person speaking. However, conscious sincerity means relatively little within the whole of somebody’s personality structure. Dr. Freud’s great discovery, with its fundamental philosophical and cultural consequences, was that of the conflict between thinking and being. However, he restricted the importance of his discovery by assuming that essential what is repressed is awareness of immature desires and strivings and that the conflict between thinking and being is essentially that between thinking and immature desires of pleasures of the flesh. This restriction is not surprising. However, impulses for pleasures of the flesh very often do not owe their presence or intensity to the physiological substratum of sexuality, on the contrary, they are very often the product of entirely different impulses which in themselves are not sexual. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Thus a source of desires of pleasures of the flesh can be one’s narcissism, one’s sadism, one’s tendency to submit, plain boredom; and it is well know that power and wealth are important elements in arousing desires for pleasures of the flesh. In recent times, it has become obvious hat in the culture of the cities, sexuality is not the main object of repression. Since mass humans are dedicated to becoming a Homo consumnes, pleasures of the flesh have become one of the main articles of consumption (and in fact one of the cheapest) creating the illusion of happiness and satisfaction. The conflict o be observed in humans, between conscious and unconscious strivings, are diverse. “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on Earth,” reports Colossians 3.2. Programming your mind for success involves choosing to expect good things to happen to you. When starting off your day, set your mind in a righteous direction. “Open my heart to Your law, O Lord God,” reports 2 Maccabi 1.4. Start your day with faith and determination to walk in God’s commandments. Appreciate the outrageousness that God wants to show you with blessings, and let your memory prompt you with the reminder to give God thanks. God wants you to get your hopes up. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” reports Hebrews 11.1. One definition of that sort of hope is confident expectancy. We can confidently expect the favour of God. Have the full knowledge and wherewithal to thank God for His gifts. The number of gifts God has blessed us with his overwhelming. Start anticipating doors of opportunity to open for you, and be ready to rise above life’s challenges. Everything we have in our souls and bodies and whatever we possess, exteriorly or interiorly, naturally or supernaturally, these are God’s gifts, and they reveal God as a generous, even an extravagant, giver. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

However, why should one be surprised?  God usually meets our expectancy. Just about everything we have comes from God. One person may receive rather more and another rather less, but all the gifts are God’s. Without God not even the smallest gift can be given or gotten. Your expectations will set the boundaries for your life and that is why so many people try to belittle others. They want them to expect less from life and have less. Bullies exhibit a defensive, self-aggrandizing form of self-esteem. Those with genuine self-esteem—who feel secure self-worth without seeking to be the center of attention or being angered by criticism—are more often found defending the victims of bullying. When feeling securely good about ourselves, we are less defensive. We therefore nurture others’ growing by being genuine (open and honest regarding our own feelings), by being empathic (listening with a reflective understanding of others feelings), and by being accepting—by offering unconditional beneficial regard. What better definition of grace than the unconditional beneificial regard—knowing someone as one truly is and the person nonetheless. As persons are accepted and prized, they tend to develop a more caring attitude towards themselves. Stop looking at everything you have lost and start looking at all that you have. Believe that things are going to change for the better, not because you deserve it, but simply because God loves you that much! Self-acceptant is linked to low prejudice. Affirm people, and they will evaluate other groups more beneficially. Threaten their self-esteem, and they will seek to restore it by putting others down. Optimistic thoughts about one’s potential also pays dividends. Those who believe they can control their own destiny, who have what researchers in more than a thousand studies have called internal locus of control, achieve more, make more money, and are better able to cope with problems. Believe that things are beyond your control and they probably will be. Believe that you can do it, and maybe, just maybe, you will. #RandolphHarrs 15 of 17

Dwell on the goodness of God. Fill your mind with thoughts of hope, faith, and victory. Develop a fresh vision, and expect things to change for the better, and sure enough that will happen. Remember, your actions will follow your expectations. Low expectations will trap you in mediocrity; high expectations will motivate you and propel you to move forward in life. However, raising your expectations takes active work. You must be willing to challenge yourself and think optimistic thoughts. Believe that you will have an abundance of blessings, favour, and happiness. If you can see it, then you can be it. If you can visualize it in your heart and mind, seeing it through the screen of God’s Words with your “spiritual eyes,” it can become a reality in your life. God is extremely interested in what you see through your spiritual eyes. Oppressed people—and even people who passively receive well-intentioned nursing-home care—decline more rapidly than do those who are encouraged to exert personal control over their environment. If your mind can conceive it and your heart can believe it, know that you can achieve it.  Additional studies indicate that when people undertake challenging tasks and succeed, their feelings of self-efficacy are strengthened. For example, people who are helped to conquer an animal phobia may subsequently become less timid and more self-directed and venturesome in other areas of life. The key to self-efficacy is not merely optimistic self-talk, but actual mastery experiences—tackling realistic goals and achieving them. It is a spiritual principle as well as a psychological fact: We move toward what we see in our minds. When you look into your future, what do you see? Do you see yourself getting stronger, healthier, and happier? Is your life filled with God’s blessings, favour, and victory?  If you truly hope for it to come to pass, you must begin to see it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. Advocates of cognitive behaviour therapy are even more optimistic about the power of optimistic thinking. Such therapy aims to reverse the negative, self-defeating thinking that underlies difficulties such as depression. It trains people to see how their negative interpretations make them depressed and to reserve their negative self-talk. Additional studies on intrinsic motivation, or achievement motivation, on the importance of perceived choice in studies of action produced attitude change, and on the phenomenon of reactance (a motive to restore one’s freedom when feeling coerced) further testify to the benefits of believing in our own possibilities. These studies also put the mainstream of recent psychological research squarely behind conceptions of human freedom, dignity, and self-control. The moral of all these research literatures is that people benefit from experiences of freedom and from being able to view themselves as free creatures rather than as pawns of external forces. Lord, please help me to see with my “spiritual” eyes, seeing not merely those things that currently exist, but those things that can become realities in my life. Why climb a mountain? Look! a mountain there. I do not climb mountain. Mountain climb me. Mountain is myself. I climb on myself. There is no mountain nor myself. Something moves up and down in the air. My words are tied in one with the great mountains, with the great rocks, with the great trees, in one with my body and my heart. Do you all help me with supernatural power, and you, Day and you, Night! All of you see me one with this World. Please save us, we beseech Thee. For Thy sake, our God, do Thou save us. For Thy sake, our Creator, O save us. For Thy sake, our Redeemer, O save us. For Thy sake, O Thou who seekest us, save us, we beseech Thee. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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Machines are of little value unless humans can operate them. A pocket calculator that is difficult to handle might just as well be a paperweight. An automobile design that blocks large areas of the driver’s vision could be deadly. To adapt machines for human use, the engineering psychologist (human factors engineer) must make them compatible with our sensory and motor capacities. For example, displays must be easy to perceive, controls must be east to use, and the tendency to make errors must be minimized. (A display is any dial, screen, light, or other device used to provide information about a machine’s activity to a human user. A control is any knob, handle, button, lever, or other device used to alter the activity of a machine.) Many of the machines we rely on each day were designed, in part, by human factors engineers. Some familiar examples include push-button telephones, “user-friendly” computers, home appliances, cameras, PDAs, airplane controls, and traffic signals. Psychologist Donald Norman refers to successful human factor engineering as natural design. Effective design makes use of perceptual signals that people understand naturally, without needing to learn them. An example is the row of vertical buttons in elevators. The buttons mimic the layout of the floors. This is simple, natural, and clear. Effective design also provides feedback (information about the effect of making a response). The audible click designed into many computer keyboards is a good example. As Dr. Norman points out the cause of many accidents is not just “human error.” The real culprit is poor design. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

One should also distinguish carefully between the public economy, and government, and the supreme authority called sovereignty. This distinction consists in the one having the right of legislation and, in certain cases, in placing an obligation on the very body of the nation, while the other has only executive power and can place an obligation only upon private individuals. The body politic, taken individually, can be considered to be like a body that is organized, living and similar to that of a human. The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain, source of the nerves and seat of the understanding, the will and the senses, of which the judges and magistrates are the organs; the commerce, industry and agriculture as the mouth and stomach which prepare the common subsistence; the public finances are the blood that is discharged by a wise economy, performing the functions of the heart, in order to distribute nourishment and life throughout he body; the citizens are the body and members that makes the machine move, live and work, and that cannot be harmed in any part without a painful impression immediately being transmitted to the brain, if the being is in a state of good health. The life of both is the self common to the whole, the reciprocal sensibility and the internal coordination of all the pars. What if this communication were to cease, if the formal unity were to disappear, and if contiguous parts were to be related to one another solely by their juxtaposition? The man is dead and the state is dissolved. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

The body politic, therefore, is also a moral being which possesses a will; and this general will, which always tends toward the conversation and well-being of the whole and of each part, and which is the source of all the laws, is for all the members of the state, in their relations both to one another and to the state, the rule of what is just and what is unjust. This, by the way, is a truth which shows how absurd many writers have been for regarding as theft the subtlety prescribed to the children of Sparta for obtaining their frugal meal, as if everything prescribed by law could fail to be lawful. See the word RIGHT for the source of this great and luminous principle, of which this article is an elucidation. It is important to observe that this rule of justice, on a firm footing with all citizens, can be defective with regard to foreigners; and the reason for this is obvious. For he will of the state, however general it may be in relation to its members, is no longer so in relation to other states and to their members, is no longer so in relation to other states and to their members, but becomes for them a private and individual will which has its rule of justice in the law of nature, which enters equally into the principle established. For then the great city of the World becomes the political body whose law of nature is always the general will, and whose states and diverse peoples are merely private individuals. From these same distinctions, applied to each political society and to its members, are derived the most universal and most secure rules on whose basis one could judge a government to be good or bad, and in general of the morality of all human actions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Every political society is composed of other smaller and different societies, each of which has its interests and maxims. However, these societies which everyone perceives (since they have an external and authorized form), are not the only ones really existing in the state. All the private individuals who are united by a common interest make up as many others, permanent or transitory, whose force is no less real for being less apparent, and the proper observation of whose various relationships is the true knowledge of mores. It is all these tacit or formal associations which modify in so many ways the appearances of the public will by the influence of their will. The will of these particular societies always has two relations: for the members of the association it is the general will; for the large society it is a particular will, which is quite often found to be upright in the first respect and vice-ridden in the second. Someone could be a devout priest or a brave soldier or a zealous human of action but a bad citizen. A deliberation can be advantageous to the small community and quite pernicious to the large community. It is true that, since some particular societies are always subordinated to hose which contain them, one should obey the latter rather than the former; the duties of the citizen take precedence over those of the senator, and those of the human over those of the citizen. However, unfortunately private interest is always found in inverse proportion to duty, and it increases to the extent that the association becomes narrower and the commitment less sacred. This is irrefutable proof that the most general will is also always the most just, and that the voice of the populace is, in effect, the voice of God. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Thus the most corrupt of humans always pay some sort of homage to the public faith. Thus even bandits, who are the enemies of virtue in the large society, worship something like virtue in their lairs. Whatever I want and think with regard to solace, to comfort, I do not expect to find it here in this life, but in the next. Even if I could have every Earthly solace and enjoy all Earthly delight, one thing is certain: they would not last for long. Whence, O Soul, do not expect to find full solace, perfect refreshment, until and unless it is in God, whom we have come to know as Consoler of the Poor and Protector of the Low. Wait a while, my Soul. Expect the Divine Promise, yes, and then you will have more than you can handle in Heaven. Drool over these things on Earth, and you will let loose—that is to say, you will lose—the Eternals and Celestials. Use Temporals that are around you, yes, but desire Eternals that are yet to come. Temporals offer no True Satisfaction. That is because your creation is not totally suited to enjoyment of that kind. Even if you had the whole World in your pocket, you would not feel particularly happy or especially blessed. However, in God, who created everything, your True Beatitude and Felicity will surely be found. That is not how the Stupids, sotted and sodden with the things of this World, approach and appraise it. However, that is exactly how the Spiritually-minded and Clean-hearted, whose chatsworth is already in the clouds, as Paul and Timothy described it to the Philippians (3.20), interpret it in the interval between now and then; that is to say, between this life and the next. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

The One True Solace—that is what Truth has detected within. The Devout brings one’s friends Jesus with one wherever one goes, chatting one up along the way. “Keep up with me, Lord Jesus! I mean to keep a mean pace.” Let this by my consolation, to freely wish to do without every human solace. And if, as a result of my wish, consolation is nowhere to be found, I will gladly settle for Your good favour and approval. In this regard I could quote the Psalmist (103.9). “You will not be hounding and harassing me for long, O Lord! You will not be shouting and scaring me out of my wits for ever!” If we really want to restore the nuclear family to its former dominance, there are things we could do. Here are a few: Freeze all technology in its present stage to maintain a factory-based, mass-produced society. Begin by using the computer only when necessary. The computer is a greater threat to family than the abortion laws and homosexual rights movements and pornography in the World, for the nuclear family needs the mass-production system to retain its dominance, and the computer is moving us beyond mass production. Subsidize manufacture and block the rise of the service sector in the economy. White-collar, professional, and technical workers are less traditional, less family-oriented, more intellectually and psychologically mobile than blue-collar workers. Divorce rates have risen along with the rise in service occupations. “Solve” the energy crisis by applying nuclear and other highly centralized energy processes. The nuclear family fits better in a centralized than a decentralized society, and energy systems heavily affect the degree of social and political centralization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Ban the increasingly de-massified media, beginning with cable television and CDs, but not overlooking local and regional magazines. Nuclear families work best where there is a national consensus on information and values, not in a society based on high diversity. While some critics naively attack the media for allegedly undermining the family, it was the mass media that idealized the nuclear family form in the first place. Convince some women to return home and create a nice and welcoming kingdom for the family. Strengthen, rather than relax, all union seniority provisions to assure that women who want to work, will not have their jobs threatened, but those who want to return home will be free to do so. When she is allowed to decide, then whatever she chooses will be done without animosity. However, the nuclear family has no nucleus when there are no adults left at home. (One could, of course, achieve the same effect by reversing matters, permitting women to work while compelling men to say home and rear the children. However, psychologically, there may be some problems with that, especially from the father-in-law.) Simultaneously slash the wages of young workers to make them more dependent, for a longer time, on their families—and thus less psychologically independent. (However, his may create some bitterness from youth who want careers, families of their own and independence.) The nuclear family is further denuclearized when the young leave parental control to go to work. Ban contraception and research into reproductive biology. These make for the independence of women, makes promiscuous pleasures of the flesh more attractive, and creates a path for extramarital affairs, a notorious loosener of nuclear ties. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Cut the standard of living of the entire society to pre-1990 levels, since affluence makes it possible for single people, divorced people, working women, and other unattached individuals to “make it” economically on their own. The nuclear family needs a touch of poverty (not too much, not too little) to sustain it. Finally, re-massify our rapidly de-massifying society, by resisting all changes—in politics, the arts, education, business, or other fields—that lead toward diversity, freedom of movement and ideas, or individuality. The nuclear family remains dominant only in a mass society. In short, if we insist on defining family as nuclear, this is what a pro-family policy would have to be. If we truly wish to restore the Second Wave family, we had beer be prepared to restore Second Wave civilization as a whole—to freeze not only technology but history itself. For what we are witnessing is not the death of the family as such, but the final fracture of the Second Wave family system in which all families were supposed to emulate the idealized nuclear model, and the emergence in its place of a diversity of family forms. Just as we are de-massifying our media and our production, we are de-massifying the family system in the transition to a Third Wave civilization. However, the problem with the past is that many of us do not see the truth. Many people were unhappy in nuclear families. Women wanted to work, children wanted to grow up and work and gain independence, and everyone wanted to become affluent so they would not have to live with lack and limitations. So, although the nuclear family seemed happy, perhaps it was not. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

The earliest planned suburbs, which have come to be known as romantic, or garden suburbs, emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century. Thee suburbs provided not just housing but planned communities in which homes were placed in a created landscape that was designed to embellish nature by the picturesque placement of greenery, trees, ponds, and parks. An informal, naturalistic environment was created, which was to improve upon nature. The romantic suburb came out of the same impulses that led to Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for the naturalistic Central Park in New York and to naturalistic cemeteries designed with hills, trees, and curving roadways, such as Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia USA. Implicit in the emphasis on nature was an American version of the neo-Platonic concept of nature being a source of contact with the divine and the World being a garden that needs to be improved. Olmstead’s Central Park thus can be seen as a practical application of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief in the necessity to “unite rural and urban in order to promote spiritual and social advancement. Foremost among the planned romantic suburbs was Llewellyn Park, started in 1853. Constructed in New Jersey a mile from the North Orange railroad station, its location permitted property owners to commute 15 miles to Manhattan, New York USA. The goal of the developer, Llewellyn Haskell, and his architect, Alexander Jackson Davis, was to build a private community of villas in a park-like setting. All this was to be situated in a scenic location in the foothills of the Orange Mountains. Llewellyn Park, planned to provide “country homes for city people,” clearly was influenced by the image of the manor house situated in an English rural park. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

According to an 1857 advertisement, the community was located on, “a tract of land, containing about 300 Acres, [that] has been divided in Villa Sites, of, from 5 to 10 Acres Each. It was selected with special reference to the wants of citizens doing business in the city, and yet wanting accessible, retired, and healthful homes in the country, by the proprietor, who adopted this method to secure a select and good neighbourhood. Within the community, as if it were the Garden of Eden, nature was to be conveniently domesticated. Thus, all commercial enterprises were banned, even food stores. The site was designed with 7 miles of curvilinear roads that followed the terrain. This was a major break with the straight-right-angle streets that then were nearly universally used. Curvilinear roads today are almost de rigueur for upper-middle-class subdivisions, but their usage traces back to Llewellyn Park. The community was also completely architecturally landscaped. In the center of Llewellyn Park, a naturalistic 50-acre “ramble” was placed. In the community, the natural effect was in no respects left to the chance work of nature. Llewellyn spent the then-huge sum of $100,000 (inflation adjusted for 2021 $3,137,965.52 USD) to have pond dug and azaleas, dogwood, holly, rhododendrons, and other natural looking plants placed to highlight and augment the natural look. However, these advantages of Llewellyn Park were not to be available to uninvited visitors. A stone gatehouse notified outsiders that this was a strictly private Garden of Eden. While Llewellyn Park was remarkable, it was well beyond the reach of any but the wealthy. As a refuge for the well-to-doo, it could never have widespread application. Its very strength was its uniqueness. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

More influence on the future of American landscape and domestic architecture would be upper-middle-class planned suburbs. The Civil War created new fortunes and the Victorian era that followed many have been constrained in areas of behaviour, but it was flamboyant and ostentatious in housing design. Urban housing for those who could afford it often was built without restraint on the premise that more was always better. Surprisingly, this idolization of excess did not invariably affect suburban design. Some now-classic suburbs were built with restraint and tastes during the latter half of the nineteenth century. One of these was Riverside, southwest of the Chicago city line. Riverside’s principle architect was Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. The project was begin in 1868 and was to combine the best of city and country and exhibit “the best application of the arts of civilization to which humankind has yet obtained. What this meant in practice was that the suburb was to be a bridge between the city and the country—an unban community in a rural setting. One of the early residents of Riverside was the architect William Le Baron Jenney, the reputed inventor of the iron-girdered building frame, which made the building of skyscrapers possible. Mr. Jenney designed several homes in Riverside in addition to his own. The site of Riverside, unlike that of Llewellyn Park, was without strong scenic attraction; it comprised 1,600 acres of Illinois prairie. However, the location did have two advantages. The first was that it was along the Des Plaines River, which could be worked into a landscape design. The second, and more crucial, was that Riverside was the first stop west from Chicago’s center on the Burlington Route railroad. Thus, the site was a good location for an affluent commuter suburb. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Since the community lacked its own business activity, its residents would, by necessity, be those who could afford the expenditure of money and time for commuting. This meant a homogeneous community of at least an upper-middle-class level (excluding servants). Diversity was not one of the developer’s goals. (Contemporary planned communities, such as Irving, California; Pocket/Greenhaven Sacramento, California; Laguna, California and others, continue this tradition of socioeconomic exclusivity.) Mr. Olmstead was given a free hand in designing Riverside, and today the community still reflects the genius of his decisions. Of the 1,600 acres comprising the site, some 700 were reserved for parks and open spaces. The most picturesque of the parks wound along the banks of the river, but there were also parks and commons areas situated throughout the project. As in Llewellyn Park, the street pattern was curvilinear rather than right-angle grids, but unlike Llewellyn, property lines between homes were clearly drawn. All houses had to be at least 30 feet from the street, and trees were to be planted along the road to shield the homes from traffic and observation. However, Riverside was clearly designed to be a suburb, not a rustic retreat. It was to marry the best of the city and the countryside. Riverside was not designed to be a utopian experiment, but a profit-making land development project. However, before it could be finished, it encountered severe financial difficulties. Turning a profit ran into three obstacles. The first was that the development was located 9 miles from the center of Chicago, and in the early 1870s, that was well beyond the city. It necessitated railroad commuting anytime anyone needed or wanted to go to Chicago. The second and third problems were factors beyond the control of the Riverside Improvement Company. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The Great Chicago Fire occurred in 1871, which resulted in neither attention nor investment funds being available for a number of years for peripherally located projects. Then, the financial Panic of 1873 and the depression that followed completed the bankruptcy of the developer. Riverside only slowly recovered, but a century and a half later it remains a well-designed and pleasant suburb—a tribute to Mr. Olmsted’s farsighted vision in combining city and country. Riverside still puts to shame the surrounding more modern, but far less imaginatively designed suburbs. The arrival of the Third Wave, of course, does not mean the end of the nuclear family any more than the coming of the Second Wave mean the end of the extended family. It means, rather, that the nuclear family can no longer serve as the ideal model for society. The little-appreciated fact is that, at least in the United States of American where the Third Wave is most advanced, most people already live outside the classical nuclear family form. If we define the nuclear family as a working husband, a housewife, and two children, and ask how many Americans actually still live in this type of family, the answer is astonishing: while 42 percent of all American household were nuclear families in 1970, today they represent just 22 percent, a decline of nearly half. Seventy-eight percent of the population do not fit this ideal Second Wave model any long. Even if we broaden our definition to include families in which both spouses work or in which there are fewer or more than two children, we find the vast majority—as many as two third to three quarters of the population—living outside the nuclear situation. Moreover, all the evidence suggests that nuclear households (however we choose to define them) are still shrinking in numbers as other family forms rapidly multiply. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

To begin with, we are witnessing a population explosion of “solos”—people who live alone, outside a family altogether. Since 1950, the proportion of adults living alone in the United States of America has tripled to about 15 percent. Approximately 36 million men and women now live alone, representing a record high of 28 percent of all United States households. Nor are all these people losers or loners, forced into the solo life. Many deliberately choose it, at least for a time. Says a legislative aide to a Seattle councilwoman, “I would consider marriage if the right person came along, but I would not give up my career for it.” In the meantime she lives along. She is part of a large class of young adults who are leaving home earlier but marrying later, thus creating what census specialist Arthur Norton says is a “transitional living phase” that is “becoming an acceptable part of one’s life cycle.” Looking at an older slice of the population, we find a large number of formerly married people, often “between marriages,” living on their own and, in many cases decidedly liking it. The growth of such groups has created a flourishing “singles” culture and a much publicized proliferation of bars, ski lodges, travel tours, and other services or products designed for the independent individual. Simultaneously, the real estate industry has come up with “singles only” condominia, and has begun to respond to a need for smaller apartments and suburban homes with fewer bedrooms, but more flexible space. However, face it, it this new age, everything is about luxury, so everything is expensive and so many people are college educated with jobs that pay well. Almost a fifth of all home buyers in the United States today are single, and nothing is more attractive to some than an individual with a home large enough for a family. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

We are also experiencing a headlong growth in the number of people living together without bothering about legal formalities (some call this “living in sin”). However, with things being so fast paced and expensive and changing so often, people of the Third Wave like to sample what married life is like before committing. This group of cohabitators has doubled in the past decade, according to United States authorities. The practice has become so common that the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has overthrown tradition and changes its rules to permit such couples to occupy public housing. The courts, meanwhile, from Connecticut to California, are wrestling with the legal and property complications that spring up when such couples “divorce.” Etiquette columnists write about which names to use in addressing partners, and “couple counseling” had sprouted as a new professional service alongside marriage counseling. At the University of Waterloo, Michael Ross has repeatedly found that people will distort their past in ego-supportive ways. In one experiment he exposed some people to a message about the desirability of frequent toothbrushing. Shortly afterward, in a supposedly different experiment, these students recalled brushing their teeth mor often during the preceding two weeks than did an equivalent sample of people who had not heard the message. Noting the similarity of such findings to happenings in George Orwell’s 1984—where it was “necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner”—Anthony Greenwald surmised that human nature is governed by a totalitarian ego that continually revises the past in order to preserve a positive self-evaluation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Because of our mind’s powers of reconstruction, we can be sure, argues Mike Yaconelli, that “Every moving illustration, every gripping story, every testimony, did not happen (at least, it did not happen like the storyteller said it happened).” Every anecdotal recollection told by a Christian superstar is a reconstruction. It is a point worth remembering in times when we are feeling disenchanted by the comparative ordinances of our everyday lives. If an undesirable action cannot be forgotten, misremembered, or undone, then often it is justified. Among psychology’s best-established principles is that our past actions influence our current attitudes. Every time we act, we amplify the idea lying behind what we have done, especially when we feel some responsibility for having committed the act. In experiments, people who oppress someone—by delivering electric shocks, for example—tend later to disparage their victim. Researchers who study human thinking have often observed that people overestimate the accuracy of their beliefs and judgments. As Baruch Fischhoff and others have demonstrated, we often do not expect something to happen until it does, at which point we overestimate our ability to have predicted it—the “I knew it all along” phenomenon. People also fail to recognize their vulnerability to error. Many people employ the Pollyanna Principle, which means that people more readily perceive, remember, and communicate pleasant than unpleasant information. Positive thinking predominates over negative thinking. There is also a consistent tendency toward unrealistic optimism about future events. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Most students perceive themselves as far more likely than their classmates to experience positive events such as getting a good job, drawing a good salary, and owning a home, and as far less likely to experience negative events such as getting a divorce, having cancer, and being fired. However, that may be a good thing because they will try harder to work through problems and persevere until their dreams become a reality. It is better than those who do not have dreams and just take what they can get and expect things from others. In various experiments, most people have been observed to act in rather inconsiderate, complaint, or even cruel ways. When other people are told about these conditions and asked to predict how they would act, nearly all will insist that their own behaviour would be virtuous. Similarly, when the researcher Steven Sherman called Bloomington, Indiana, residents and asked them to volunteer three hours to an American Cancer Society drive, only 4 percent agreed to do so. Meanwhile, a comparable group of other residents were being called and asked to predict how they would react were they ever to receive such a request. Almost half claimed they would help. There are additional streams of evidence, but the point is made: the most common error in people’s self-images is not unrealistically low self-esteem, but rather self-serving pride; not an inferiority complex, but a superiority complex. However, those who approach God with their wish to be healed and their faith in His power to bring it to realization, have still not approached Him aright. They must also be willing to have their own contribution to the disease’s existence pointed out. They must also agree to rectify wrong habits of living and thinking. If they come only for pleasant words and a successful cure, if they are not prepared to deny themselves or to discipline themselves, God may not be able to heal them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

The first and least danger which besets the possessor of occult healing power is he praise or fame it brings one from other people, who are led by it to think one greater than one really is. One feels flattered by the praise and elated by the fame, with the result that one’s ship runs aground on the reef of vanity. One further progress gets stopped. Few can withstand the temptation as Jesus once withstood it. One day an ancient Bengali man prostrated before Jesus Christ and expressed gratitude for His having cured him of chronic paralysis. The man had tried other remedies without success and finally restored to the repeated utterance of Jesus Christ’s name, and was completely cured. When replying, the great liberator of America showed the selfless humility of His character by replying: “It was not I but my Father who cured you.” Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the Universal Laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rocklike. However, because it is so deep, we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it. To pray for a bodily cure and nothing more is a limited and limiting procedure. Pray also to be enlightened as to why this sickness fell upon you. Ask also what you can do to remove its cause. And above all, ask for the Water of Life, as Jesus bade the woman at the well to ask. If one can apply this teaching now, if one can put one’s faith in and make one’s contact with the higher power from this very moment, if one can forget oneself for an instant, one can receive healing instantaneously. When Jesus told the sick person, “Thy faith has brought thee recovery,” He did not mean, as many now think, faith that the cure will be effected. No—He meant faith in the healing power—God. The first kind keeps the mind still centered in ego, whereas the second kind of faith lifts the mind away from ego. Another translation: “Your faith has made you well.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Because the Overself is not outside a human but is one’s own innermost nature, full faith in its presence and power is essential to experience its healing and help. When the pursuit or practice of healing powers diverts one from the higher work of knowing who it is that is seeking or using them, when they no longer serve but make one their servant, one must pause and beware. When one realizes how much is given by the higher power through one, and how little is really done by oneself, the healer or teacher may well become careless of one’s fame, efface one’s own personality, and keep it humbly in the background. Whoever else achieves the same good results will arouse one’s generous joy, not one’s egoistic jealousy. Cattle browse peacefully, trees and plants are verdant, birds fly from their nests, and lift up their wings in your praise. All animals frisk upon their feet, all winged things fly and alight once more—they come to life with your rising. Yachats sail upstream and jet skis downstream, at your coming every highway is open. Before your face the fish leap up from the river, your rays reach the green ocean. You it is who place the male pearl in woman, who create the pearl in man; You quicken the sun in his mother’s belly, soothing him so that he shall not cry. Even in the womb, you are his nurse. You give breath to all your creation, opening the mouth of the newborn and giving him nourishment. For Thy sake, our God, do Thou save us. For Thy sake, our Creator, please O save us. For Thy sake, our Redeemer, please O save us. For Thy sake, O Thou who seekest us, please save us, we beseech Thee. God contemplates and knows Himself in the moment that ego is withdrawn into Him. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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/