Once in a person’s life, for one mortal moment, one must take a grab for immorality; if not, one has not lived. Just as the good of one person is constructed by comparison and integration of the different goods of each moment as they follow one another in time, so the universal good is constructed by the comparison and integration of the good of many different individuals. The relations of the parts to the whole and to each other are analogous in each case, being founded on the aggregative principle of utility. The principle of utility states that actions or behaviours are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Hence, utility is a teleological principle. Many utilitarians believe that pleasure and pain are objective states and can be, more or less, quantified. The just saving principle for society must not, then, be affected by pure time preference, since as before the different temporal position of persons and generation does not in itself justify treating them different. If an urban individual reacted emotionally to each and every person with whom one came into contact, or cluttered one’s mind with information about them, one would be completely atomized internally and would fall into an unthinkable mental condition. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

Characteristically, urbanites meet one another in highly segmental roles. Their dependence upon others is confined to a highly fractionalized aspect of the other’s round of the total personality of every individual we meet, we necessarily maintain superficial and partial contact with someone. We are interest only in the efficiency of the shoe salesman in meeting our needs: we could not care less that his wife is an alcoholic. What this means is that we form limited involvement relationships with most of the people around us. Consciously or not, we define our relationships with most people in functional terms. So long as we do not become involved with the shoe salesman’s problems at home, or his more general hopes, dreams and frustrations, he is, for us, fully interchangeable with any other salesman with equal competence. In effect, we have applied the modular principle to human relationships. We have created the disposable person: Modular Man. Rather than entangling ourselves with the whole human, we plug into a module of one’s personality. Each personality can be imagined as a unique configuration of thousands of such modules. Thus no whole person is interchangeable with any other. However, certain modules are. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Since we are seeking only to buy a pair of shoes, and not the friendship, love or hate of the salesman, it is not necessary for us to tap into or engage with all the other modules that form one’s personality. Our relationship is safely limited. There is limited liability on both sides. The relationship entails certain accepted forms of behaviour and communication. Both sides understand, consciously or otherwise the limitations and laws. Difficulties arise only when one or another party oversteps the tacitly understood limits, when one attempts to connect up with some module not relevant to the function at hand. Today a vast sociological and psychological literature is devoted to the alienation presumed to flow from this fragmentation of relationships. Much of the rhetoric of existentialism and the student revolt decries this fragmentation. It is said that we are not sufficiently “involved” with our fellow humans. Millions of young people go about seeking “total involvement.” Before leaping to the popular conclusion that modularization is all bad, however, it might be well to look more closely at the matter. Involve oneself fully with everyone can lead only to self-destruction and emotional emptiness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

Urban humans must have more or less impersonal relationships with most of the people with whom one comes in contact with precisely in order to choose certain friendships to nourish and cultivate. One’s life represents a point touched by dozens of systems and hundreds of people. One’s capacity to know some of them better necessitates one’s minimizing the depth of one’s relationships to many others. Listening to the postman gossip becomes for the urban human an act of sheer graciousness, since one probably has no interest in the people the postman wants to talk about. Moreover, before lamenting modularization, it is necessary to ask ourselves whether we really would prefer to return to the traditional condition of humans in which each individual presumably related to the whole personality of a few people rather than to the personality modules of many. Traditional humans have been so sentimentalized, so cloyingly romanticized, that we frequently overlook the consequences of such a return. The very same writers who lament fragmentation also demand freedom—yet overlook the unfreedom of people bound together in totalistic relationships. For any relationship implies mutual demands and expectations. The more intimately involved a relationship, the greater the pressure the parties exert on one another to fulfill these expectations.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

The more intimately involved a relationship, the greater the pressure the parties exert on one another to fulfill these expectations. The tighter and more totalistic the relationships, the more modules, so to speak, are brought into play, and the more numerous are the demands we make. In a modular relationship, the demands are strictly bounded. So long as the shoe salesman performs one’s rather limited service for us, thereby fulfilling our rather limited expectations, we do not insist that one believe in our God, or that one be tidy at home, or share our political values, or enjoy the same kind of food or music that we do. We leave one free in all other matters—as one leaves us free to be who we are. This is not true of the total relationship and cannot be. To a certain point, fragmentation and freedom go together. All of us seem to need some totalistic relationships in our lives. However, to decry the fact that we cannot have only such relationships is nonsense. And to prefer a society in which the individual has holistic relationships with a few, rather than modular relationships with many, is to wish for a return to the imprisonment of the past—a past when individuals may have been more tightly bound to one another, but when they were also more tightly regimented by social conventions, mores of pleasures of the flesh, political and religious restrictions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

This is not to say that modular relationships entail no risks or that this is the best of all possible Worlds. There are, in fact, profound risks in the situation. Until now, however, the entire public and professional discussion of these issues has been badly out of focus. For it has overlooked a critical dimension of all interpersonal relationships: their durations. In the case of society, pure time preference is unjust: it means (in the more common instance when the future is discounted) that the living take advantage of their position in time to favour their own interests. The living, if they allow themselves to be moved by such considerations, wrong their predecessors and descendants. Collective saving for the future has many aspects of a public good, and the isolation and assurance problems arise in this case. Basic units of experience contribute to more generalized structures in the process of depersonalizing. This could happen in different ways: besides people who characteristically experience life mainly in terms of others (as in “They sent me a letter saying that had closed down”), there are people who experience life mainly in terms of themselves (as in “I felt so worried when I did not hear”), and other again who experience life mainly in terms of feelings which come and go. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

The first kind are people for whim whatever happens in life comes to be rather intricately integrated with other people and things: anything that does not involve other people means rather little to them and is therefore only vaguely taken in and remembered, and rather infrequently a spur to action. The second kind are people for whom whatever happens in life comes to be rather intricately integrated with self-regions, and what cannot find much connection with themselves is experienced as rather irrelevant, only half taken in, rather vaguely remembered and rather infrequently a spur to action. Feedbacks involve expectations or, amounting to the same thing, values, wishes, hopes, prejudices, and all kinds of nonrational non-cognitive features. They also involve the accumulation and organization of incoming information, that is they involve ego-functions; at simple level these would be such processes as perceiving, conceptualizing, categorizing, remember, comparing, and planning. The dominant central regions are the ones where the ego-functions are located. Ego-functions develop as the personality develops, guiding people to find their way in situations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

Some higher-order ego-functions clearly performing a steering role: regulating the general level of psycho-motor activity, regulating control over delay, planning activities and giving them an orientation, shifting attention in flexible ways, differentiating between stimuli, integrating experience and actions (skills). There are also functions performed by Principal Control Systems, processes through which incoming information is organized and selected or discarded, at successively higher levels or organization (more centrally). These processes are clearly cognitive functions of a very high order—ego-functions: ordering, categorizing, and encoding information, retrieving information from memory, juxtaposing information so as to make reflective thought possible (comparing, patterning), framing alternative plans for higher-level decisions, inspecting certain overlearned and automated action-systems, together with the representation-models linked to them, that may be proving maladapted. As a result of such inspection, systems and models long out of awareness become available for reappraisal in the light of new information, and if necessary, attempts can be made to reorganize or perhaps replace them. The term “ego-functions” raises a small but confusing problem in terminology. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Most classical writer have tended to use the word “ego” where I would use the word “self.” There is then a danger that “self” and “ego” will be equated, whereas all agree that there is more to the personality than ego-functioning. I would like to restrict the word “ego” to be the collective noun for all cognitive functions. This would enable us to use the word “self” as the collective noun for all self-regions. Human’s capacity for self-awareness, reason, and imagination—new qualities that go beyond the capacity for instrumental thinking of even the cleverest animals—requires a picture of the World of one’s place in it that is structed and has inner cohesion. Humans need a map of their natural and social World, without which one would be confused and unable to act purposefully and consistently. One would have no way of orienting oneself and of finding for oneself a fixed point that permits one to organize all the impressions that impinge upon one. Whether one believed in sorcery and magic as final explanations of all events, or in the spirit of one’s ancestors guiding one’s life and fate, or in an omnipotent God who will reward or punish one, or in the power of science to give answers to all human problems—from the standpoint of one’s need for a frame of orientation, it does not make any difference. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

One’s World makes sense to one, and one feels certain about one’s ideas through the consensus with those around one. Even if the map is wrong, it fulfills its psychological function. However, the map was never entirely wrong—nor has it ever been entirely right, either. It has always been enough of an approximation to the explanation of phenomena to serve the purpose of living. The impressive fact is that we do not find any culture in which there does not exist such a frame of orientation. Or any individual either. Often an individual may disclaim having any such overall picture and believe that one responds to the various phenomena and incidents of life from case to case, as one’s judgments guides one. However, it can be easily demonstrated that one takes one’s own philosophy for granted, because to one it is only common sense, and one is unaware that all one’s concepts rest upon a commonly accepted frame of reference. When such a person is confronted with a fundamentally different total view of life one judges it as “crazy” or “irrational” or “childish,” while one considers oneself as being only logical. The need for the formation of a frame of reference is particularly clear in the case of children. They show, at a certain age, a deep need for a frame of orientation and often make it up themselves in an ingenious way, using the few data available to them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

The intensity of the need for a frame of orientation explains a fact that has puzzled many students of the human being, namely the ease with which people fall under the spell of irrational doctrines, either political or religious or of any other nature, when to the one who is not under their influence it seems obvious that they are worthless constructs. Part of the answer lies in the suggestive influence of leaders and in the suggestibility of humans. However, this does not seem to be the whole story. Humans would probably not be so suggestive were it not that one’s need for a cohesive frame of orientation is so vital. The more an ideology pretends to give answers to all questions, the more attractive it is; here may lie the reason why irrational or even plainly insane thought systems can so easily attract the minds of humans. However, a map is not enough as a guide for action; humans also need a goal that tells one where to go. The animal has no such problems. Its instincts provide it with a map as well as with goals. However, humans, lacking instinctive determination and having a brain that permits one to think of many directions in which one could go, needs an object of devotion to be the focal point of all one’ strivings and the basis for all one’s effective—and not only proclaimed values. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

One need such an object of devotion for a number of reasons. The object integrates one’s energies in one direction. It elevates one beyond one’s isolated existence, with all its doubts and insecurity, and gives meaning to life. In being devoted to a goal beyond one’s isolated ego, one transcends oneself and lead the prison of absolute egocentricity. The term “transcendence” is traditionally used in a theological frame of reference. Christian thinking takes for granted that human’s transcendence implies transcendence beyond oneself to God; this theology tries to prove the need for belief in God by pointing to humans’ need for transcendence. This logic, however, is faulty unless the concept of God is used in a purely symbolic sense standing for “not-self.” There is a need to transcend one’s self-centered, narcissistic, isolated position to one of being related to others, of openness to the World, escaping the hell of self-centeredness and hence self-imprisonment. Religious systems like Buddhism have postulated this kind of transcendence without any reference to a god or superhuman power; so did Meister Eckhart, in his boldest formulations. The object of human’s devotion vary. One can be devoted to an idol which requires ones to abandon one’s children or to an ideal that makes one protect one’s children; one can be devoted to the growth of life or to its destruction. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

One can be devoted to the goal of amassing a fortune, of acquiring power, of destruction, or to that of living and of being productive and courageous.  One can be devoted to the most diverse goals and idols; yet while the difference in the objects of devotion are of immense importance, the need for devotion itself is a primary, existential need demanding fulfillment regardless of how this need is fulfilled. Jesus stood forth among humanity as the light of the World. What did that mean? “In Him was life,” the apostle said, “and the life was the light of human,” –a light of such power that the darkness in the World cannot extinguish it (John 1.4-5). Light means both energy and knowledge. From the person of Christ there uniquely came into the World the energy and knowledge by which human beings could be delivered from evil and enabled to live as it ought to be lived. This is why Jesus sent out his apprentices to make apprentices of al ethnic groups on Earth, what he had in mind was Worldwide moral revolution What that would be can be realized only if we think of the population of the Earth being transformed into “the children of light” as we have presented them here—or if there were only a substantial minority of such people. Ordinary human beings in their ordinary positions in life were appointed and empowered by one to be, each in their peculiar place, “the light of the World.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

It would no more be possible to the light of the World than it is possible to hide a city on a hill. “You are the light of the World. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before humans, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven,” reports Matthew 5.14-16. Now, modern humanity—say since the late 1800s—has lived in a rage of moral self-righteousness. In its intellectual leaders it has lived in an attitude of superiority and condemnation toward the morality of the culture that is, supposedly, “Christian.” Its “greatest” prophets—a line of those thought to be among our greatest thinkers—have weighed Jesus in the moral balances and found him wanting. In fact, they have found ways of treating him as inaccessible and have then concentrated on finding those who profess to be his followers wanting. Fearsome “Christian” types—the Enforcer, the Proper-Above-All, the Propagandist, the Happy Yappy, the Obsequious Self-Promoter, the Cowardly Faithful, the Heartlessly Successful, and no and on—are relentlessly hammered on as proving the moral bankruptcy of the way of Christ, though in fact these are human types, found in all cultures. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

Nevertheless, modern humanity has officially, in its governing institutions, forsaken the true light of the World, Jesus himself. In times of desperation they may still turn to him in prayer, but they do not think of him as the only one who knows reality and how the World should go. Meanwhile, all of the horrendous political movements of the twenty-first century have pled moral righteousness on their side and unrighteousness in their opponents as the justification for brutalities that no one would have thought possible the fact. And the leaders of Worldwide anti-Americans groups do the same. The highest ethical teaching in the World that has ever been given was rejected by the intellectual leaders of humanity in favour of teachings that open the way to forms of human behaviour more degrading than any the World has ever seen to this point. It is certainly no justification for all that horror in the present and historically to day that it was partly due to the failure of those who have professed Christ to stand throughout the Earth as the manifest children of light. And yet that is a very essential part of the truth about our modern World. Still today those who are concerned about contemporary culture do not seem to fully realize what has happened—that those identified with Christ, and Christ himself, have come to be seen as morally inferior. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

They do not realize that the attacks on what we might call traditional Christian morality—or just “traditional values”—is a morality—or just “traditional values”—is a moral attack: an attack from the point of view of (supposed) moral superiority. The infinite power is without a history but the ideas in its consciousness do have one. Nothing ever happens to That which is out of every kind of time and space, which transcends every kind of shape and change. However, its ideas pass through experience after experience because they appear in timed succession and pictured form. World-Mind is omnipresent. The divine Mind is implicit in every Universe, the divine Power implicated in every cosmic activity This is the reality that is hidden in me and you, in the whole Universe itself. It acts everywhere and exists eternally. It is the unseen divinity that is responsible for the seen productions of Nature and Time, and hence the divine is present in every atm of so-called matter and in every individual human being. The farewell greeting “God be with you!” is really a reminder which means “God will be with you wherever you go for He is everywhere.” Thus make it. Unseen itself, its presence is seen in every Earthly form; unthinkable though it be, its existence is self-manifested in every thought. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

The Universe comes forth from the World-Mind, from its own being and its own substance. Therefore the Universe is divine, therefore God is present in every atom and likewise in every one of us. Whoever denes the existence of God denies the very essence of one’s own self. Whether the divine power is looked upon as being inside or outside oneself—and both views will be true and complementary—in the end it must be thought of without any reference to body and ego at all. In no part of space does the World-Mind exist, and at no point in time is it to be met. Sweet God, please give me the right words to say. Inspiring and eloquent God of smooth speech, please pick out from the many words just the rights ones for this occasion and feed them to me. I will do the rest. For the kingdom is the Lord’s; and He is the ruler over the nations. Redeemers shall ascend to the United States of American and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. And the Lord shall be King over all the Earth; on that day shall the Lord be One, and His name one. Reasoned thinking can only check the guidance or revealing of intuition, whereas the latter can actually guide and illumine the path of the former. Where the shrewdest judgment finds itself bewilder, the mysterious faculty of intuition moves unhesitatingly and surely. When the thought of a problem was welded into one with its solution, when there was no gap of time between question and answer, it was a period of absolute clarity. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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Evolution has her own accounting system and that is the only one that matters. The danger of intellectualizing intuitions is that they flee while we prepare to examine them. This is why our theological seminaries produce so many competent religious orators, but so few inspired religious prophets. This is why the art schools produce so many people who can draw something that is individual and outstanding. The intellect is necessary to the complete person, but it should be kept in its place and made to realize that when it approaches such an intuition, it treads on holy ground. At bottom, all psychic events are so deeply grounded in the archetype and are so much interwoven with it that in every case considerable critical effort is needed to separate the unique from the typical wit any certainty. Ultimately, every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species. The individual is continuously “historical” because strictly time-bound; the relation of the type to time, on the other hand, is irrelevant. Since the life of Christ is archetypal to a high degree, it represents to just that degree the life of the archetype. However, since the archetype is the unconscious precondition of every human life, its life, when revealed, also reveals the hidden, unconscious ground-life of every individual. That is to say, what happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

In the Christian archetype all lives of this kind are prefigured and are expressed over and over again one and for all. And in it, too, the question that concerns us here of God’s death (as some believe has happened) is anticipated in perfect form. Christ himself is the typical dying and self-transforming God. The psychological situation from which we started is tantamount to “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here,” reports Luke 24.5. However, where shall we find the risen Christ? I do not expect any believing Christian to pursue these thoughts of mine any further, for they will probably seem to one absurd. I am not, however, addressing myself to the happy possessors of faith, but to those many people for whom the light has gone out, the mystery has faded, and God is dead. For most of them there is no going back, and one does not know either whether going back is always a better way. To gain an understanding of religious matters, probably all that is left us today is the psychological approach. That is why I take these thought-forms that have become historically fixed, try to melt them down again and pour them into moulds of immediate experience. It is certainly a difficult undertaking to discover connecting links between strict and rigid doctrines and immediate experience of psychological archetypes, but a study of the natural symbols of the unconscious gives us the necessary raw material. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

God’s death, or his disappearance, is by no means only a Christian symbol. The search which follows the death is still repeated today after the death of a Dalai Lama, and in antiquity it was celebrated in the annual search for the Kore. Such a wide distribution argues in favour of the universal occurrence of this typical psychic process: the highest value, which gives life and meaning, has got lost. This is a typical experience that has been repeated many times, and its expression therefore occupies a central place in the Christian mystery. The death or loss must always repeat itself: Christ always dies, and always he is born; for the psychic life of the archetype is timeless in comparison with our individual time-boundness. According to what laws now one and now another aspect of the archetype enters into active manifestation, I do not know. I only know—and here I am expressing what countless other people know—that the present is a time of God’s death and disappearance. The myth says he was not to be found where his body was laid. “Body” means the outward, visible form, the erstwhile but ephemeral setting for the highest value. The myth further says that the value rose again in a miraculous manner, transformed. It appears as a miracle, for, when a value disappears, it always seems to be lost irretrievably. So it is quite unexpected that it should come back. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

The three days’ descent into hell during death describes the sinking of the vanished value into the unconscious, where, by conquering the power of darkness, it established a new order, and then rises up to Heaven again, that is, attains supreme clarity of consciousness. That fact that only a few people see the Risen One means that no small difficulties stand in the way of finding and recognizing the transformed value. At times the church seems schizophrenic: pious and righteously aroused in the safety of pews and prayer groups, but indifferent in the World outside. From the beginning God made plain the standard He demands of His people. Following His commission to Moses that Israel was to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” God carefully prescribed the just way the affairs of this nation were to be managed. Exodus 21 through 23 set forth standards for justice for individuals, personal injury claims, rights of private property, restitution, and care for the poor, orphaned, widowed, and foreign. For God holds humans responsible not only for one’s individual sins but for the corporate sins of society. Wrongs such as aggression, inflation, injustice, racism, and economic oppression are manifestations of human’s sin just as much as our individual transgressions. The great impersonal entity called “society” is not responsible for these sins—we are. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

These sins are conditions that grieve the heart of God, and He clearly calls us to account for them and to repent. Examples of responsibility and repentance for corporate sins are found throughout Scripture. Moses often went before God in earnest repentance for the sins of his people. Moses might have counted himself blameless; after all, he had told the people the right thing to do. They were the rebels. Yet Moses repented for the corporate sins of his people. “O LORD, God of Heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses,” Reports Nehemiah 1.5-7. Throughout the prophetic literature, there is consistent call by God for His people to repent for the sins of their nation. In Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy the pattern for God’s people is established: repentance and restitution prescribed for offenses against God and society; cities of refuge ordered to protect those who had committed manslaughter; strict safeguards for imposition of capital punishment. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Many Christians cite Genesis 9.6 as the biblical justification for capital punishment but fail to cite the protection for the accused that God also demanded—such as two eyewitnesses, and the requirement that an accuser participate in the execution. “On the testimony of two or three witnesses a human shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be first in putting one to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you,” reports Deuteronomy 17.6-7. Nothing comparable to those biblical safeguards can be found today in any of the state statues that call for the death penalty. God’s command is clear: “Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land. Centuries later when Saul was removed from the throne of Israel, God chose a human “after one’s own heart” the young David, to be the king who “administered justice and righteousness for all his people.” Following David came his son Solomon whose wisdom has become a political cliché. At every swearing in, from county dog-catcher to president, someone ritualistically prays that the newly elected one be endowed with “the wisdom of Solomon.” Unfortunately, few bother to look up the source of their quote. If they did, they would probably be startled to find that wen God asked Solomon what one thing he wanted, the young man replied, “Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

God was so pleased with Solomon’s request—not for himself, but in order to dispense justice to others—that He rewarded him with wisdom never given before or since. However, following this bright spot the record descends into one of shameful apostasy. King after king committed idolatry and did evil in the sight of God Judah was divided from Israel, and both became weaker as justice disappeared. Since the kings could not be trusted to do justice, God raised up a new breed of servant: the prophets. The line began with Elijah and Elisha, through the great evangelical prophet Isiah, to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Each repeated the same three-pronged message: condemnation of unrighteous kings and people; a call to justice and holy living; and the promise of miraculous intervention of God in history to bring judgment to the wicked and blessing to the obedient. Significantly, justice is seen not through the eyes of the powerful but through the eyes of the powerless. (In fact, many of the prophets were men God raised up from among the peasant class.) The moral worth of a society, the prophets declared, is measured not by life in the palace but by life in the streets. For the former to prosper at the expense of the latter violates God’s standard for the humanity He created in His image. To know the all-powerful God, one must know the powerless. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The angriest judgments come from the lips of the humans we call the Minor Prophets. One of these, the prophet Amos, brought a message that was particularly devastating to the powerful elite of Israel. Every time I read and study Amos, I am chilled by some parallels with today’s culture; it is a book with special and powerful insights for twenty-first century Christians, for it reveals a view of God’s justice that today’s society often ignores to is peril. Amos was a shepherd living in the rugged terrain south of Jerusalem. One day while about the regular duties of sheep-tending, he was dramatically confronted by a vision of God’s fearsome judgment. Knowing this vision was from God, Amos left his flock to deliver the stinging rebuke to Israel. He was received as a pariah—an occupational hazard for prophets. For like a doctor ripping gauze bandages off a putrid sore, Amos laid bare Israel’s ugliest sins, including pagan rituals and immoral practices of pleasures of the flesh such as temple harlotry. Blatant as these sins were, Amos exposed something even more offensive. Under Jewish law, a man’s coat might be held as collateral for his debts during the day when the temperature was usually warm, but had to be returned in the evening for protection against the cold night air. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

However, the wealthy were ignoring the established customs ad were keeping the pledged coats. And heaping sin upon sin, they were then using the coats as bedding for acts involving pleasures of the flesh in the temple, thus desecrating the temple twice: by immorality involving pleasures of the flesh and by flounting God’s law intended to protect the poor. Amos also exposed the practice of selling wheat on the Sabbath, cheating with dishonest scales, and selling the refuse of wheat remaining after harvest which under Jewish law was to be left at the edges of the field for the poor. This was God’s welfare plan, but the Jews had become so greedy profiting at the expense of the poor and powerless that they were depriving them of the crumbs needed to stay alive. It should be noted that God does not attack the rich for being rich but rather for being unjust in the use of their riches. For example, all these offenses cited had to do with profit, but there is nothing wrong with making a profit—elsewhere it can be argued the Bible legitimizes it. However, profit must be made honestly and in accordance with God’s standards. The problem here was the method and the motive. Materialism had become Israel’s god. Amos pronounced God’s judgment upon Israel because “they sell the righteous for money and the needy for a pair of sandals,” a reference to the common practice of the wealth who could bride judges with as little as the price of a poor man’s sandals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Greed had replaced justice, money had triumphed over mercy, and the judicial system was merely a pawn of power and privilege used to oppress the very people it was intended to protect. The righteousness of God was no longer the standard in the land. And so, speaking through Amos, God demanded that the nation repent. “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts.” And then, in one of the grandest declarations of Scripture, he thundered, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Let those who believe that “God helps those who help themselves” read Amos. The Bible teaches exactly the opposite of that hallowed American maxim: God cares especially for those who cannot help themselves—the poor and needy, the forgotten and helpless. Amos warned that the nation whose vested interests manipulated power structures for their own gain, at the expense of the poor, must face the judgment of an angry God. When we speak of justice in the biblical sense we…are talking about meeting need wherever it exists and particularly where it exists most helplessly. Some will say, however, that these standards for corporate holiness are no longer in force. Applicable to Old Testament times, yes. In force today, no. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

That is tempting to believe—tempting, but not biblical. For while it is true we now live under grace since Jesus came to fulfill the law, Jesus did not repeal the law. A perfect, just God cannot change His perfect standards of justice. Jesus’s first sermon reflects this: Walking into the synagogue, He picked up the parchment with the words of the prophet Isaiah and read: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Jesus put down the scroll and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus went on to demonstrate in His ministry a deep compassion for the suffering and forgotten. He fed the hungry, healed the lame, gave sight to the blind. He was concerned not only with saving humans from hell in the next World, but delivering one from the hellishness of this one. Thus, the Son reflected the Father’s passion for mercy and justice. And His message of social justice was just as unsettling and convicting as it was in the time of Amos—and as it is today. Consider just one of Jesus’ last admonitions to His disciples and to us. The setting is the Mount of Olives and Jesus is giving His followers a glimpse of the future—His eventual return and the faithfulness expected of them in the meantime. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Then He describes the final judgment before the throne of the Lord, where with a wave of His hand the righteous and unrighteous will be separated. With terrifying finality, Jesus says, the unrighteous will hear God’s final judgment: “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. This is not hellfire and brimstone evangelism. This is justice. And, yes, this love as well. God loves us so much that He holds us accountable; for by judging us according to how well we live out His holy standards of justice and righteousness, He ascribes meaning to our daily actions. He ensures that what we do matters. So Christianity is not just a high-sounding ritual we perform on Sunday mornings. Christianity is abiding by biblical standards of personal holiness and in turn seeking to being holiness into the society in which we live. And that is why Jesus called us “salt and light.” It is what He meant in the magnificent words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” (Too many Christians glibly quote the first part of this verse, “seek ye first the kingdom of God,” forgetting the demanding command to which Jesus gives equal emphasis, “and his righteousness.”) #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

The path to personal holiness can be a tough one, but hacking out a holy pathway in society brings us face to face with the cost of discipleship. It means making moral judgements by God’s standard’s not human’s, sometimes pitting the believer against the state. That can rise sticky questions in a democracy where, as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, “Truth is the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others.” As a politician I not only believed that, but fervently worked for it; and in the Korean War I would have laid down my life in its defense. However, that is not the way of the kingdom of God. Because something is legal does not make it right. Nor can the will of the majority be confused with the will of God. They may be very different; in fact, they often are. As experience piles up, self-structures gradually establish themselves and, in doing do, separate out more and more from other structures which have less to do with one’s identity. In the course of this process, as the self becomes more distinct, other people and things also gain coherence and individuality. There is a growing sense of “Ah yes, this is me, and that is that, and you are you, and this is what goes on between us.” We may have to achieve a very high level of sophistication to get a sense of self which is not intertwined in and dependent on the situations in which we find ourselves, and to get a view of people and things which is unaffected by our memories, hopes, or fears. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Even then, this achievement will mark only the more conscious tip of an iceberg: below, there will be all kids of connections going back to the earliest and most basic units of experience. We do not usually experience our selves “in essence,” as the philosophers would say, but in relationships with other people and things.  In the affluent nations, most people have enough to eat and are reasonably well houses. Having achieved this thousand-year-old dream of humanity, they now reach out for further satisfactions. They want to travel, discover, be at least physically independent. The automobile is the mobile symbol of mobility. In fact, the last thing that any family wishes to surrender, when hard-pressed by financial hardship, is the automobile, and the worst punishment an American parent can mete out to a teenager is to “ground” one—id est, deprive one of the use of an automobile. Young girls in the United States, when asked what they regard as important about a boy, immediately list a car. Sixty-seven perfect of those interviewed in a recent survey said a car is “essential,” and a nine-teen-year-old boy, Leo Pete of San Francisco, California, confirmed gloomily that “If a guy does not have a car, he does not have a girl.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Just how deep this passion for automobility runs among the youth is tragically illustrated by the suicide of a seventeen-year-old Wisconsin boy, William Nebel, who was “gounded” by his father after his driver’s license was suspended for speeding. Before putting a .22 caliber rifle bullet in his brain, the boy penned a note that ended, “Without a license, I don’t have my car, job, or social lice. So I think that it is better to end it all right now.” It is clear that millions of young people all over the technological World agree with the poet Marinetti who, nearly a century ago shouted: “A roaring racing car…is more beautiful than the Winged Victory.” Freedom from fixed social position is linked so closely with freedom from fixed geographical position, that when super-industrial humans feel socially constricted one’s first impulse is to relocate. This idea seldom occurs to the peasant raised in one’s village or the coalminer toiling away in the black deeps. “A lot of problems are solved by migration. Go. Travel!” said a student of mine before rushing off to join the Peace Corps. However, movement becomes an optimistic and beneficial value in its own right, an assertion of freedom, not merely a response to or escape from outside pressures. A survey of 539 subscribers to Redbook magazine sought to determine why their addresses had changed in the previous year. Along with such reasons as “family grew too big for old home” or “pleasanter surroundings” fully ten percent checked off “just wanted a change.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Rationality implies an impartial concern for all parts of our life. Commitment takes many forms. One of these is attachment to place. If we first recognize the centrality of fixed place in the psychological architecture of traditional humans, then we can understand the significance of mobility. This centrality is reflected in our culture in innumerable ways. Indeed, civilization, itself, began with agriculture—which meant settlement, an end, at last, to the dreary treks and migrations of the Paleolithic nomad. The very word “rootedness” to which we pay so much attention today is agricultural in origin. The precivilized nomad listening to a discussion of “roots” would scarcely have understood the concept. The notion of roots is taken to mean a fixed place, a permanently anchored “home.” In a harsh, hungry, and dangerous World, home, even when no more than a humble cottage, came to be regarded as the ultimate retreat, rooted in the Earth, handed down from generation to generation, one’s link with both nature and the past. In a World churned by the industrial revolution, and in which all things were decidedly not “in order stored,” home was the anchorage, the fixed point in the storm. If noting else, at least it could be counted upon to stay in one place. Commitment, however, appears to correlate with duration of relationship. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Armed with a culturally conditioned set of durational expectancies, we have all learned to invest with emotional content those relationships that appear to us to be “permanent” or relatively long-lasting, while withholding emotion, as much as possible, from short-term relationships. There are, of course, exceptions; the swift summer romance is one. However, in general, across a broad variety of relationships, the correlation holds. The declining commitment to place is thus related not to mobility per se, but to concomitant of mobility—the shorter duration of place relationships. In seventy major United States of America cities, for example, including New York, average residence in one place is less than four years. Contrast this with the lifelong residence in one place characteristic of people in suburban communities and the rural villager. Moreover, residential relocation is critical in determining the duration of many other place relationships, so that when an individual terminates one’s relationship with a home, one usually also terminates one’s relationship with all kinds of “satellite” places in the neighbourhood. One changes one’s supermarket, gas station, bus stop and barbershop or beauty shop, cutting short a series of other place relationships along with the home relationship. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Across the board, therefore, we not only experience more places in the course of a lifetime, but, on average, maintain out link with each place for a shorter and shorter interval. Thus we begin to see more clearly how the accelerative thrust in society affects the individual. For this telescoping of human’s relationships with place precisely parallels the truncation of one’s relationship with things. Many people no longer stay in one place long enough to acquire distinctive reginal or local characteristics. It is not the place they are from, really, but rather some sense of a different background that we are looking for. Mobility has stirred the pot so thoroughly that important differences between people are no longer strongly place-related. Individuals are forced to make and break their ties more rapidly, and the level of transience rises. One experiences a quickening of the pace of life. Of course, a present or near future advantage may be counted more heavily on account of its greater certainty or probability, and we should take into consideration how our situation and capacity for particular enjoyments will change. However, none of these things justifies our preferring a lesser present to a greater future good simply because of its nearer temporal position. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Spirits of the elements, I stand in your center, a being that shares in all your ways; please hear me, please help me. Spirits of the land, I praise the land’s beauty, and I do not separate myself from it; please hear me, please help me. Spirit of the Ancestors, I continue to walk that path you laid down; please hear me, please help me. Deities of my people, I worship you with words and actions, as from ancient times; please hear me, please help me. All of the numinous beings that crowd about me, I am a fellow traveler on the ancient path; please hear me, please help me. Please hear me and please help me, shinning ones, you who do not cease from watching: please send me assistance when it is most needed. The right hard of the Lord is glorious in power, the right hand of the Lord did shatter the enemy. And in the greatness of God’s majesty, God did overthrow them that rose up against Him; God did send forth His wrath; it consumes them as stubble. God in His love has led people and redeemed people. He has guided them by His strength to His holy habitation. The World-Mind alone has come into the limitation of physical existence without being held down by them, without being other than Himself. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Television is the test of the modern World and in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by the television—of that I am quite sure. The new forms of equilibrium by no means constitute a straight line of human improvement. Frequently in history new achievements have led to regressive developments. Many times, when forced to find a new solution, humans run into a blind alley from which one has to extricate oneself; and it is indeed remarkable that thus far in history one has been able to do so. Human’s nature cannot be defined in terms of a specific quality, such as love, hate, reason, good or evil, but only in terms of fundamental contradictions that characterize human existence and have their root in the biological dichotomy between missing instincts and self-awareness. Human’s existential conflict produces certain psychic needs common to all humans. One is forced to overcome the horror of separateness, of powerlessness, and of lostness, and find new forms of relating oneself to the World to enable one to feel at home. These psychic needs are called existential because they are rooted in the very conditions of human existence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Existential needs are shared by all humans, and their fulfillment is as necessary for human’s remaining sane as the fulfillment of organic drives is necessary for their remaining alive. However, each of these needs can be satisfied in different ways, which vary according to the differences of one’s social condition. These different ways of satisfying the existential needs manifest themselves in passions, such as love, tenderness, striving for justice, independence, truth, hate, sadism, masochism, destructiveness, narcissism. These are character-rooted passions—or simply human passions—because they are integrated in human’s character. Character is the relatively permanent system of all noninstinctual strivings through which humans relate themselves to the human and natural World. One may understand character as the human substitute for the missing terrestrial instincts; it is human’s second nature. What all humans have in common are their organic drives (even though highly modifiable by experience) and their existential needs. What they do not have in common are the kinds of passions that are dominant in their respective characters—character-rooted passions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

The difference in character is largely due to the difference in social conditions (although genetically given dispositions also influence the formation of the character); for this reason one can call character-rooted passions a historical category and instincts a natural category. Yet the former are not a purely historical category either, because they are the result of the impact the various historical constellations have on the biologically given conditions of human existence. Reconstruction of the human’s mind may have happened at the beginning of prehistory. The evidence lies essentially in those findings which indicate that humans, perhaps as early as half a million years ago (Peking Man) had cults and rituals, manifesting that one’s concerns went beyond satisfying one’s material needs. The history of prehistoric religion and art (not separable in those times) is the main source for the study of primitive human’s mind. Obviously, I cannot set forth into this vast and as yet controversial territory within the context of the study. We cannot reveal the nature of prehistoric human’s mind unless we have a key with which we can decipher it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

This key, I believe, is our own mind Not our conscious thoughts, but those categories of thought and feeling that are buried in our unconscious and yet are an experiential core present in all humans of all cultures; briefly, it is what I would like to call human’s primary human experience. This primary human experience is in itself rooted in human’s existential situation. For this reason it is common to all human and does not need to be explained as being racially inherited. The first question, of course, is whether we can find his key; whether we can transcend our normal frame of mind and transpose ourselves into the mind of the “original man.” Drama, poetry, art, myth have done this, but not psychology, with the exception of psychoanalysis. The various psychoanalytic schools have done it in different ways; Dr. Freud’s original man was a historical construct of the member of a patriarchally organized human band, ruled and exploited by a father-tyrant against whom the sons rebel, and whose internalization is the basis for the formation of the superego and a new social organization. Dr. Freud’s aim was to help the contemporary patient to discover one’s own unconscious by letting one share the experience of what Dr. Freud believed to be his earliest ancestors. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Even though this model of original man was fictitious and the corresponding “Oedipus complex” was not the deepest level of human experience, Dr. Freud’s hypothesis opened up an entirely new possibility: that all humans of every period and culture had shared a basic experience with their common ancestors. Thus Dr. Freud added another historical argument to the humanist belief that all humans share the common core of humanity. We are particularly interested in the variety of myths, rituals, and religions. Myths can be ingeniously and brilliantly used as a kay for understanding of the unconscious, and thus builds a bridge between mythology and psychology more systematically and extensively than ever before. The use of our unconscious is a key to the understanding of prehistory. This requires the practice of self-knowledge in the psychoanalytic sense: the removal of a major part of our resistance against the awareness of our unconscious, thus reducing the difficulty of penetrating from our conscious mind to the depth of our core. Provided we are able to do this, we can understand our fellow humans who live in the same culture as we do, also have humans of an entirely different culture, and even a mad human. We can also sense what original humans must have experienced, what existential need one had, and in what ways human (including ourselves) can respond to these needs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

When we see primitive art, down to the cave paintings of thirty thousand years ago, or the art of radically different cultures like the African or Greek of that of the Middles Ages, we take it for granted that we understand them, in spite of the fact that these cultures were radically different from ours. We dream symbols and myths that are like those men thousands of years ago conceived when they were awake. Are they not a common language of all humanity, regardless of vast differences in conscious perception? Humans felt themselves brutally torn for their environment and isolated in the middle of a World whose measure and laws they did not know; they therefore felt obliged to learn, by constant bitter effort and their own mistakes, everything one had to know to survive. The animals surrounding one came and went, indefatigably repeating the same actions: hunting, gathering, searching for water, doubling or fleeing to defend themselves against innumerable enemies; for them, periods of rest and activity succeed each other in an unchanging rhythm fixed by the needs for food or sleep, reproduction or protection. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Humans detach themselves from their surroundings; they feel alone, abandoned, ignorant of everything except that one knows nothing. One’s first feeling thus was existential anxiety, which may even have taken them to the limits of despair. Self-awareness and foresight brought, however, the awesome gifts of freedom and responsibility. Humans feel free to execute some of their plans and to leave others in abeyance. They feel the joy of being the master, rather than a slave, of the World and of oneself. However, the joy is tempered by a feeling of responsibility. Humans know that they are accountable for their acts: they have acquired the knowledge of good and evil. This is a dreadfully heavy load to carry. No other animal has to withstand anything like it. There is a tragic discord in the soul of humans. Among the flaws in human nature, this one is far more serious than the pain of child birth. A part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our Earthly lives. It is also a work in which God and humans cooperate, each playing distinct roles. This part of the application of redemption is called sanctification: Sanctification is a progressive work of God and humans that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

It may be that only one clarification would be useful here, so far as my own understanding of sanctification is concerned. Although it is certainly true that the work or process of sanctifying the apprentice begins immediately in the newly regenerate heart, the “safe” but still “unsound” person, to use language above, is not a condition of settled, pervasive righteousness that is appropriately named “sanctification.” Sanctification in this life will always be a matter of degree, to be sure, but there is a point in genuine spiritual growth before which the term “sanctification” simply does not apply—just as “hot” when applied to a cup of coffee is a matter of degree, but there is a point before which is not hot, even if in the process of being heated. So what shall we say about sanctification in summary? It is a consciously chosen and sustained relationship of interaction between the Lord and one’s apprentice, in which the apprentice is able to do, and routinely does, what one knows to be right before God because all aspects of one’s person have been substantially transformed. Sanctification applies primarily to the moral and religious life, but extends in some measure to the prudential and practical life (acting wisely) as well. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Sanctification is not an experience, though experience of various kinds may be involved in it. It is not a status, though a status is maintained by means of it. It is not an outward form and has no essential connection with outward forms. It does, on the other hand, become a “track record” and system of habits. It comes about through the process of spiritual formation, through which the heart (spirit, will) of the individual and the whole inner life take on the character of Jesus’s inner life. Several characteristics can serve as marks of those who have become established in their whole being as children of light. One is that whenever they are found to be in the wrong, they will never defend it—neither to themselves nor to others, much less to God. They are thankful to be found out, and they fulfill the proverb, “Reprove a wise human, and one will love you,” reports Provers 9.8. Indeed, when accused of being in the wrong when they are not, they will not defend themselves, but will say only as much as is required to present misunderstanding of the good and to assist those who truly desire to know the facts of the cause. Thus meaning of being justified by grace alone has penetrated to every pore of their being, and they rest there in human relations as well as before God. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Another of their characteristics is that they do not feel they are missing out on something good by not sinning. They are not disappointed and do not feel deprived. They do not fret because evildoers prosper, and they are not envious toward them (Psalm 37.1). They know that “better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked,” reports Psalm 37.16. This of course is related to the point made earlier that they do not regard sin as something good, but as a slop—which is exactly what everyone knows after engaging in it. Why stick your head, your soul, or your body into that? Another characteristic, following upon these mentioned, is that the children of light are mainly governed by the pull of the good. Their energy is not invested in not doing what is wrong, but in doing what is good. For example, they are not struggling with “Thou shalt not covet,” but rejoicing that others have good things they do. Whatever desires one might have for what is forbidden by God are regarded as ridiculous, not as something to be seriously thought about. The good is the only thing worth considering. Here, life in the path of rightness becomes easy and joyous. That is a characteristic of children of light who are well on their way. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

 I acknowledge that the work of God is easy and pleasant to those who God rightly furnishes with endowments for it. True, those who asset it to be easy to humans, in their common condition, show their imprudence in contradicting the general experience of Heathens and Christians. However, the wisdom of God has ever furnished people with a good persuasion of a sufficient strength, that they might be enabled both to will and do their duty. Do something for someone else, for the sick, unwanted, crippled, heartbroken, aged, or alone. Love God and be dedicated to living His life, not your own. This is holiness. It is the complete surrender of self in obedience to the will and service of God. The acceptance of the will of God. It is the scope of true biblical holiness, which must affect every aspect of our lives. Second, even though the rules may be biblically based, we often end up obeying the rules rather than obeying God; concern with the letter of the law can cause us to lose its spirit. Third, emphasis on rule-keeping deludes us into thinking we can be holy through our efforts. However, there can be no holiness apart from the work of the Holy Spirit—in quickening us through the conviction of in and brining us by grace to Christ, and in sanctifying us—for it is grace that cases us to even want to be holy. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

And, our pious efforts can become ego-gratifying, as if holy living were some kind of spiritual beauty contest. Such self-centered spirituality in turn leads to self-righteousness—the very opposite of the selflessness of true holiness. No, holiness is much more than a set of rules against sin. Holiness must be seen as the opposite of sin. Sin, as the Westminster Confession defines it, is “any want of conformity to, or transgression of, the law of God.” Holiness, then, is the opposite: “conformity to the character of God and obedience to the will of God.” Conforming to the character of God—separating ourselves from sin and cleaving to Him—is the essence of biblical holiness, and it is the foundational covenant, a central theme running throughout Scripture. The earliest call to holiness came soon after Moses had led Israel out of Egypt and through the parted waters of the Red Sea. Safe at last from the Egyptian army, this unruly horde of humanity—600,000 men accompanied by women and children—camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. There, God called Moses to the mountaintop and instructed him in the laws by which His chosen people were now to live. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

These laws ranged from the all-encompassing Ten Commandments (the first four of which demand unconditional, reverent worship of a holy God) to such detailed ordinances as the means of restitution for stolen animals. When the Israelites accepted God’s covenant with the words, “Everything the Lord has said we will do…we will obey,” God again called Moses to the mountaintop where He made one of the most remarkable promises in the Bible: “I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and…I will dwell among the Israelites.” What a staggering thought! The sovereign God of the Universe promised to pitch His tent, actually to dwell in the midst of His chosen people. Many are tempted to skip over these chapters of Exodus and Leviticus that describe in such detail the construction of the tabernacle, the forms of worship and the like. Altars and acacia word and cubits sound irrelevant today, superseded by the atonement of Christ. However, this is a perfect example of the necessity of taking the Word of God in its entirety. For the prescriptions for the place wherein God was to dwell and be worshipped reveal the very character of God Himself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

The tabernacle reflects a holy God, a God set apart, unique, utterly unstained by the sin of the World. No wonder God specified rules of cleanliness for those who worshiped there. It was not because He had some obsession with personal hygiene, but because in every way possible His people were to be clean, set apart—holy—as they entered to worship in the place where He, a holy God, actually dwelt. This is indeed the very heart of the relationship God demanded with His people, expressed in the covenant: “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy.” Understanding this basic covenant, the character of God, and what He expects is essential to understanding the New Covenant. For the character of God has not changed, nor has His expectation of holiness from His people. In fact, the same remarkable promise that God made to Moses—that He would pitch His tent and dwell in the midst of His people—is a central theme throughout Scripture. In the familiar passage of John’s gospel, “The Word became flesh, and swelt among us,” the Greek word for dwelt literally means to “pitch a tent.” So now, through Christ, God comes to “pitch His tent” among His people. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

And to carry the theme to its conclusion, John, in describing his apocalyptic vision of the new Heaven and New Earth, writes, “The tabernacle of God is among humans, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people.” Again the word dwell is literally translated to “pitch a tent.” Thus, from Exodus to Revelation we find the identical imagery, a holy God “pitching His tent” among His people: first in the tabernacle, then in Christ and Christ in us, and ultimately in His kingdom. Salvation, therefore, is not simply a matter of being separated from out past and freed from our bondage to sin: salvation means also that we are joined to a holy God. By pitching His tent in our midst, God identifies with His people through His very presence. The reality of a “God who is here”—personal and in our midst—is an extraordinary assurance, one which distinguishes the Judeo-Christian faith from all other religions. However, God demand something in return for His presence. He demands that we identify with Him—that we be holy because He is holy. Holiness is not an option. God will not tolerate our indifference to His central command. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Moses and Aaron were not permitted to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land because they failed to treat God as holy (Numbers 20.12). Then a long succession of kings failed to respect God’s holiness and the Israelites ended up in captivity again. Therefore, as you see, holiness is the central covenant and command of Scripture, the cardinal point on which the whole of Christianity turns. It is not just for well-known saints like Mother Teresa, but for every believer. What does this mean for us, then, in the real World in which we live every day? God loves more the contemplative life, since He preserves it longer. For it does not end, as the active life does, with the life of the body. The penitent and the innocent are related as exceeding and exceeded. For whether innocent or penitent, those are the better and better loved who have the most grace. Other things being equal, innocence is the nobler thing and more beloved. God is said to rejoice more over the penitent than over the innocent, because often penitents rise from sin more cautious, humble, and fervent. Hence Gregory commenting on these words (Hom. 34 in Ev.) says that, “In battle the general loves the soldier who after flight returns and bravely pursues the enemy, more than one who has never fled, but has never done a brave deed.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Or it may be answered that gifts of grace, equal in themselves, are more as conferred on the penitent, who deserved punishment, than as conferred on the innocent, to whom no punishment was due; just as a hundred pounds [marcoe] are a greater gift to a poor person than to a kind.” Since God’s will is the cause of goodness in things, the goodness of one who is loved by God is to be reckoned according to the time when some good is to be given one by divine goodness. According therefore to the time, when there is to be given by the divine will to the predestined sinner a greater good, the sinner is better; although according to some other time one is the worse; because even according to some time one is neither god nor bad. To find your way to the major truths it is not enough to use the intellect alone, however, sharpened it ay be. Join intuition to it: then you will have intelligence. However, how does one unfold intuition? By penetrating deeper and hushing the noise of thoughts. Intuition tells us what to do. Reason tells us how to do it. Intuition points direction and give destination. Reason shows a map of the way there. To the inexperienced or ignorant the conclusions of reason and the discoveries of intuition may clash, but to the matured they accommodate an adjust themselves harmoniously. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

If both are on the same plane, we may oppose one thing to another, but not if they are on unequal planes. Intuition is not anti-intellectual but super-intellectual. When intuition guides and illuminates intellect, balances and restrains the ego, that which the wise people called “true intelligence” rises. The intuition never needs to hunger for truth. While the intellect is seeking and starving for it, the intuition already knows and feels it. Intuition is truth drawn from one’s own self, that is, from within, be it a practical or a spiritual truth, whereas intellect squeezes its conclusion out of presented evidence, that is, from without. Calculation may be pushed by the ego to the point of cunning. The first is quite proper to the business World and the mathematical sphere, but in the area of spiritual seeking it as only a limited applicability. The second is quite useless here. What is here of greater worth than both is intuition. However, because this latter faculty is little developed in most people, they have to be content for the time with simple trust. However, this is not a faculty; it is a trait of character. If one put it into the wrong channel, it may mislead a person. Or, if one places it properly, it may serve one well. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Behind it all is the Great Silence, broken only by the projection of new Worlds and the re-absorption of old ones, the unutterable and unknowable Mystery, unreachable and untouchable by humans. Tiny creature the humans are, with the tiny mind one has, THAT is utterly beyond one. However, from the Grand Mystery, the active God of which this planet Earth is a projection has in turn projected one. Here, communication in the most attenuated intuitive form is possible, even holy communion may be attained. This is the God, the higher power, to whom humans instinctively turn in despair or in aspiration, in faith or in doubt. Sometimes a mere fragment of one’s work is revealed to a chosen prophet in the Cosmic Vision, an awe-filled experience. Sometimes a person is granted a glimpse of the World-Mind. This, if it happens, does so during mediation usually, but not always. It is then both a physical and a mental grace, for the sight is, similar to the brightness of a million suns. We are surrounded by a World which seems both real and outside us. Nothing that we can find in this World corresponds to this idea of God. Are we to assert that it is illusory or that God exists but is remote from this World? The mystic can reply: “I know from experience that the idea is true and the existence is everywhere.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Modern humans look in all sorts of impossible places for an invisible God and will not worship the visible God which confronts one. Yet little thinking is needed to show that we are all suckled at the everlasting heart of Nature. It is easy to see that the source of all life is then the Sun and that its creative, protective, and destructive powers are responsible for the entire physical process of the Universe. However, it is not merely to the entire physical Sun alone that the aspirant addresses oneself but to the World-Mind behind it. One must look upon the Sun as a veritable self-expression and self-expression and self-showing of the World-Mind to all its creatures. The Sun is God’s face appearing in the physical World. Those who love to see the Sun in its mystery-laden risings or witness its equally mystery-laden settings bear outward testimony to an inward relationship. The Sun seen by humans is both their symbol of God’s power, glory, beauty, life, and light, and also the actual indictor of God’s central heart, the Presence Invisible. We must honour the Universal Ruler of things and beings as the daisy flower honours the Sun, for it is also the Source of Life. It is right to venerate the Sun, for without it we could not keep the body alive, could not grow the food we need. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

God who made the World still upholds it. He rules the entire Universe, this great Being, and regulates the Universal laws and destinies of humans. I place myself today in the hands of God, knowing that His protection comes with a price. For those who wish the help of the Holy Trinity must walk in the path of Jesus Christ with all their hearts. This I promise I will do. Even the stones make it clear to me that everything partakes of the nature of God. The buildings that surround me speak of the skills that have been given to us by God in ancient times, that are being given to us in these days, that will always be given to us by the mighty one. Please remind me of this daily, you who give so much! O Lord, the God of America our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in Heaven and on the Earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted supreme above all. Riches and honour come of Thee, and Thou rule over all. In Thy hand is power and might; and it is in Thy power to make great, and to give strength unto all. Therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Winchester Mystery House

As enshrined in the legend of the “Famous Blue Séance Room,” The Grand Ball Room is without one marring nail in its entire hand-craved elegance. It was never known to its intended gayety because of The Great Earthquake of 1906 halted completion, and caused major damage to the mansion. The bare-brick fireplace forever awaits its Italian marble facing. The mansion contains 160 rooms, of which 110 were once available for viewing. There are 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, and 47 fireplaced built of rosewood, cherry, mahogany, Italian marble, oak, teak, and pipestone; all hand-craved and no two alike. For 38 years, 1884-1922, construction never ceased on the over 24,000 square foot mansion, once standing 9 stories high, but still an impressive five levels. Commonly, 16 carpenters were employed at one time, some having worked for 20 years without change. They produced the largest, most compilated and exclusively private residence in the Untied States of America.

winchestermysteryhouse.com

Television is a superficial medium made so by the short attention span of a peripatetic audience. One reaction to painful early experiences leads to an easily depressed personality. An individual may find it more tolerable to organize its misery in terms of one’s own badness rather than in terms of the badness of the World around. The individual then experiences the frustration of one’s need as one’s own fault for having those needs. One organizes one’s experiences in terms of one’s own demandingness, unreasonableness, lack of merit, unlovability, and so on. This is a sad cast of mind for, besides the disappointment, the individual now also feels guilt and constant self-belitting. The Anti-Libidinal Ego—the Internal Savotuer—is constantly attacking the Libidinal Ego. It may be that inner conflict and trouble will eventually arise when the individual can no longer resist very strong evidence that not oneself but the actual guardian or the actual environment is at fault, uncaring, or hostile—a very depressing discovery full of further guilt. However, when the evidence can no longer be ignored (that is selectively perceived and disowned), a person may be forced to make a more realistic assessment of what is happening. Such a depressed reaction leads to a more integrated personality-structure than does the schizoid. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

The schizoid reaction to painful early experiences is simply not to integrate. People who have left much experience unintegrated will experience both bad moments and good moments, but the connection between moments or experiences or events is only tenuous, and is not integrated with their total experience of themselves and of life. Their wanting something is not strongly connected either to getting it or to not getting it. No experience of wants, needs, or wishes is strongly associated with other experiences of the self; neither is the experience of being frustrated or angry or hurt strongly associated with any other self-structures. Nor is the experience of wants, needs, wishes strongly associated with experiences of attachment figures or other people of tings. There are dynamic organizations, but they are fragments: Libidinal, Anti-Libidinal, central. Having the separate and not much in communication with each other enables a person not to be constantly in touch with misery and frustration and rage. There is a sense of futility and emptiness which goes with the schizoid structure, and this is associated with the environment’s lack of appropriate response to the individual’s expression of oneself: lack of appropriate response does give a sense of futility to one’s doing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Much of what used to be diagnosed as hysteric behaviour in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the empty-feeling person, looking for a relationship to fil that emptiness, may in fact have been schizoid, the personality-structure being tragically such that no ordinary responsive and loving relationship could heal the split which maintained the empty feeling. The schizophrenic reaction would take these splits a stage further. There has been drastic depersonalizing. Fear of, love for, hate toward, bliss from, are experienced with no coherent connection to either self or other. “My” enjoyment is not mine, I do not feel it is “I” who is enjoying. “My” relationships—of fear, love, hate, and so on—are not “mine”; I do not feel that it is “I” who is fearing, loving, or hating. Objects float around without any constant handles of “enjoyable,” “hateful,” terrifying.” Yet there is enjoyment, fear, hate. Is it yours? Or yours? Or theirs? Or mine? It is hard to know for sure. In aggression, we are emotionally hardened, and aggression is a choice. A biologically adaptive type of aggression is instrumental aggression, which has the aim of obtaining that which is necessary or desirable. The aim of instrumental aggression is not destruction as such; this serves only as an instrument for attaining the real aim. #RandolphHarri 3 of 21

In this respect it is similar to defensive aggression, but in other important aspects it is different. It does not seem to have a phylogenetically programed neuronal basis such as that which programs defensive aggression; among mammals, only animals of prey, whose aggression is instrumental to obtaining food, are endowed with an innate neuronal pattern that impels them to attack their prey. The hunting behaviour of hominids and Homo is based on learning and experience, and does not seem to be phylogenetically programed. The most important case of instrumental aggression is war. It has become fashionable to consider war as caused by the power of human’s destructive instinct. Instinctivists and psychoanalysts have given this explanation of war. To reason with great skill and peaceful cooperation is as natural and fundamental a tendency in human relations as fight. Yet war is essentially a psychological problem. The riddle of war lies…deep in the unconscious, and we consider war an inexpedient form of instinct adaptation. War is not caused by human destructiveness, but its cause is realistic conflicts between groups which always have been solved by violence, since there was no international enforceable law according to which—as in civil law—the conflicts could have been solved peacefully. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

There is only an auxiliary role attributed to the factor of human destructiveness, which facilitates the readiness of people to go to war once the government had decided to wage war. The thesis that war is caused by innate human destructiveness is plainly absurd for anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of history. The Babylonians, the Greeks (for a very telling example see Thucydides’ description of the Peloponnesian War), up to the statesmen of our time, have planned war for they thought were very realistic reasons and weighed the pros and cons very thoroughly, even though, naturally their calculations were often erroneous. Their motives were manifold: land for cultivation, riches, slaves, raw materials, markets, expansion—and defense. Under special circumstances, a wish for revenge or in a small tribe the passion for destruction has been among the factors that motivated wars, but such cases are atypical. This view that war is caused by human’s aggression is not only unrealistic but harmful. It detracts attention from the real causes and thus weakens the opposition to them. The thesis about the innate tendency for war is not only repudiated by the historical record but also, and very importantly, by the history of primitive warfare. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

We have shown previously that in the contact of aggression among primitive peoples that they—particularly the hunters and food gatherers—are the least warlike, and that their fighting is characterized by its relative lack of destructiveness and bloodthirstiness. We have furthermore seen that with the growth of civilization the frequency and bloodiness of wars have increased. If war were caused by innate destructive impulses, the reverse would have to be true. The humanitarian tendencies in the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries brought about reductions of destructiveness and cruelty in war which were codified—and respected, up to and including the first World War—in carious international treaties. From this progressive perspective it seemed that civilized humans are less aggressive than primitive humans, and the still-existing occurrence of war was explained as caused by stubbornness of the aggressive instincts, which refuse to give in to the beneficial influence of civilization. However, in fact, the destructiveness of civilized humans was projected into human’s nature, and thus history was confused with biology. The first World War was motivated by the economic interests and ambitions of the political, military, and industrial leaders on both sides, and not by a need of the various nations involved to give vent to their dammed-up aggression. These motivations are well known, and need not be described here in detail. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

By and large, it can be said that the Germans ais in the 1914-1918 war were also its main motivations: economic hegemony in Western and Central Europe and territory in the East. (There were, in fact, also the aims of Adolf Hitler, whose foreign policy was essentially the continuation of the Imperial government.) The aims and motivations of the Western Allies were similar. France wanted Alsace-Lorraine; Russia, the Dardanelles; England, parts of the Germany colonies, and Italy, at least a small part of the booty. Had it not been for these aims, some of which were stipulated in secret treaties, peace would have been concluded years earlier and the lives of many millions of people on both sides would have been spared. Both sides in the First World War had to appeal to the sense of self0defense and freedom. The Germans claimed they were encircled and threatened, and furthermore, that they were fighting for freedom by fighting the czar; their enemies claimed that they were threatened by the aggressive militarism of the German Junkers, and they were fighting for freedom by fighting the Kaiser. To think that war owe it origin to the wish of the French, the German, the British, and the Russian populations to discharge their aggressiveness is untrue and serves only one function, that of detracting attention from those persons and social conditions responsible for one of the greatest slaughters in history. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

However, a small number of people do like to engage in wars as a mixture of group narcissism, instrumental aggression, and the wish to make a career and to gain power within and through this nationalistic movement. In fact, the Germany population definitely did not want war (the generals were also reluctant), the went into the war without resistance and fought bravely until the end. The psychological problem lies here, not in the causation of the war but in the question: What psychological factors make war possible even thought they do not cause it? There are a number of relevant factors to consider in answering this question. In the first World War (also, with some modifications, in the second World Warr) once it had started, the German (or French, Russian, British) soldiers went on fighting because they felt that losing the war would mean disaster for the nation. The individual soldiers were motivated by the feeling that they were fighting for their lives, and that it was a matter of killing or being killed. However, even these feelings would not have been sufficient to sustain the willingness to go on. They also knew  that if they ran away, they would  be shot, although even these motivations did not prevent large-scale munities from occurring in all armies; in Russian and Germany they le eventually to revolutions in in 1917 and 1918. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Another important factor for the possibility of war is the deeply engrained feeling of respect for and awe of authority. The soldier had traditional been made to feel that to obey one’s leaders was a mortal and religious obligation for the fulfillment of which one should be ready to pay with one’s life. It took about three to four years of the horror of life in the trenches and growing insight into the fact that they were being used by their leaders for aims of war that had nothing to so with defense, to break down this attitude of obedience, at least in a considerable part of the army and the population at home. Even if it entails risks for one’s life and much physical suffering, here are other, there are other more subtle motivations that make war possible and have nothing to do with aggression. Even if it entails risks for one’s life and much physical suffering, war is exciting. Considering that the life of the average persons is boring, routinized, and lacking in adventure, the readiness to go to war must be understood as a desire to put an end to the boring routine of daily life—and to throw oneself into an adventure, the only adventure, in fact, the average person may expect in one’s life. War also removes the free-rider problem. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

 Where the public is large and includes many individuals, there is a temptation for each person to try to avoid doing one’s shared. This is because whatever one person does one’s action will not significantly affect the amount produced. One regard the collective action of others as already given one way or the other. If the public good is produced, one’s enjoyment of it is not decreased by one’s not making a contribution. If it is not produced, one’s action would not have changed the situation any way.  A citizen receives the same protection from foreign invasion regardless of whether one paid one’s taxes. Therefore in the polar case trade and voluntary agreements cannot be expected to develop. It follows that arranging for and financing public goods must be taken over by the state and some binging rule requiring payment must be enforced. Even if all citizens were willing to pay their share, they would presumably do so only when they are assured that others will pay theirs as well. Thus once citizens have agreed to act collectively and not as isolated individuals taking the actions of others as given, there is still the task of tying down the agreement. The sense of justice leads us to promote just schemes and to do our share in them when we believe that others, or sufficiently many of them, will do theirs. However, in normal circumstances a reasonable assurance in this regard can only be given if there is a binding rule effectively enforces. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Assuming that the public good is to everyone’s advantage, and one that all would agree to arrange for, the use of coercion is perfectly rational from each person’s point of view. Many of the traditional activities of government, insofar as they can be justified, can be accounted for in this way. The need for the enforcement of rules by the state will still exist even when everyone is moved by the same sense of justice. The characteristic features of essential public good necessitates collective agreements, and firm assurance must be given to all that they will be honoured. War, to some extent, reverses all values. War encourages deep-seated human impulses, such as altruism and solidarity, to be expressed—impulses that are stunted by the principles of egotism and competition that peacetime life engenders in modern humans. Class differences, if not absent, disappear to a considerable extent. In war, humans are humans again, and have a chance to distinguish oneself, regardless of privileges that one’s social status confers upon one as a citizen. To put it in a very accentuated form: war is an indirect rebellion against the injustice, inequality and boredom governing social life in peacetime, and the fact must not be underestimated that while a soldier fights the enemy for one’s life, one does not have to fight the member of one’s own group for food, medical care, shelter, clothing; these are all provided in a kind of perversely social system. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

The fact that was has these beneficial features reduces the free rider problem. If civilian life provided the elements of adventurousness, solidarity, equality, and idealism that can be found in war, it may be very difficult, we may conclude, to get people to fight way. However, many people are very proud of America, and even if they are wealthy or well taken care of, they love their country so much, and as said before, see it as a religious and moral duty to defend its honour. However, when the country is doing relatively well, the stock market is breaking record high, unemployment is at all time lows, and Americans are involved in far less wars in the recent past, that is what causes division. People start fighting their own people, become divided politically, religiously, and you even see a break down in the family and community because there is no bonding national moment. After September 11, 2001, many American sat back in horror and watched the events unfold, but they, for the most part, did bond as a nation and becoming more humanitarian and prouder. Now, that they have had it so good, people are fighting each other because they do not have an enemy to stand up against. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

The problem for governments in war is to make use of this rebellion by harnessing it for the purpose of war; simultaneously it must be prevented from becoming a threat to the government by enforcing strict discipline and the spirit of obedience to the leaders who are depicted as the unselfish, wise, courageous humans protecting their country from destruction. Major wars in modern times and most wars between that states of antiquity were not caused by dammed-up aggression, but by instrumental aggression of the military and political elites. This has been shown in the data about the difference in the incidence of war from the most primitive to the higher developed cultures. The more primitive a civilization, the less was do we find. The same trend can be seen in the fact that the number and intensity of wars has risen with the development of technical civilization; it is highest among the powerful states with a strong government and lowest among primitive humans without permanent chieftainship. For instance, the number of battles engaged in by the principal European powers in modern times shows the same trend. From the year 1480 to 1499 there were 9 battles, from 1500 to 1599 there were 87 battles, from 1600 to 1699 there were 239 battles, from 1700 to 1799 there were 781 battles, from 1800 to 1899 there were 651 battles, from 1900 to 1940 there were 892 battles. #RandolphhHarris 13 of 21

What the authors who explain that war is caused by human’s innate aggression have done is to consider modern war as normal, assuming that I must be caused by human’s “destructive” nature. They have tried to find the confirmation for this assumption in the data on animals and on our prehistoric ancestors, which have had to be distorted in order to serve this purpose. This position resulted for the unshakable conviction of the superiority of present-day civilization over pretechnical cultures. The logic was: if civilized humans are plagued by so many wars and so much destructiveness, how much worse primitive humans have been, who is far behind in the development toward “progress.” Since destructiveness must not be blamed on our civilization, it must be explained as the result of our instincts. However, the facts speak otherwise. Depictions of violence often glamorize vicious behaviour. They offend the Spirit and make you less able to respond to others in a sensitive, caring way. They contradict the Saviour’s message of love for one another. When we pollute our minds with harmful, violent materials, whether or not such material causes us to commit violent acts, the Spirit is offended. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

I believe the entertainment industry, who the TV news media is now trying to compete with for ratings, cannot portray on film people gunned down or ran over in cold blood, in living colour, and not have it affect the attitudes and thoughts of some of the people who see it. I believe that the desensitizing effect of such media abuses on the hearts and souls of those who are exposed to them results in a partial fulfillment of the Saviour’s statement that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” So, it is not only that the American people are doing relatively well and living in peace, but the media has also become far, far more violent and it has an impact on people. Now, the children of light, a Biblical term to say that they have the basic nature of light: that light is their parent and has passed on to them its nature, as any parent does, are not perfect people and do not live in a perfect World—yet. However, they are remarkably different. The difference is not one of a pose they strike, either from time to time or constantly, or of things they do or do not do—though their behaviour too is very different and distinctive. Where the children of light differ is primarily and most importantly on the “inside” of their life. It lies in what they are in their depths. Thought life: When we get to know their inner life is wat they think about, and what is on their mind that is perhaps the first thing that comes to our attention. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Simply stated, children of the light think about God. He is never out of their mind. They love to dwell upon God and upon his greatness and loveliness, as brought to light in Jesus Christ. They adore him in nature, in history, in his Son and in his saints. One could even day they are “God-intoxicated” (Acts 2.13; Ephesians 5.18, though no one has a stronger sense of reality and practicality than they do. Their mind if filled with biblical expressions of God’s nature, his actions, and his plans for them in his World. They do not dwell upon evil. It is not a big thing in their thoughts. They are sure of its defeat, but they still deal with it appropriately in specific situations. Because their mind is centered upon God and oriented with reference to him, all other good things are also welcome there: Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise,” their minds pinder those things (Philippians 4.8). Thy are absolutely, realistically so, based upon the nature of God as they understand it. Feelings: And then perhaps we notice—and small wonder given what has already been observed—that the emotional life of these children of light is deeply characterized by love. That is how they invest the emotional life of their being. They love lots of good things and they love people. They love their life and who they are. They are thankful for their life—even though it may contain many difficulties, even persecution and martyrdom (Matthew 5.10-12). #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

The children of light receive all of it as God’s gift, or at least as his allowance, where they will know his goodness and greatness and go on to live with him forever. And so joy and peace are with the even in the hardest of times—even when suffering unjustly. Because of what they have learned about God, they are confident and hopeful and do not indulge thoughts of rejection, failure, and hopelessness, because they know better. Will (spirit, heart): Looking a little deeper we find that these children of the light really are devoted to doing what is good and right. Their will is habitually attuned to it, just as their mind and emotions are habitually homing in on God. They are attentive to rightness, to kindness, to helpfulness, and they are purposefully knowledgeable about life, about what people need, and about how to do what is right and good in appropriate ways. These are people who do not think of themselves and what they want, and they really care very little, if at all, about getting their own way. “Let each of you regard one another as more important than oneself; do not look for your own personal interests, but for the interest of others,” reports Philippians 2.3-4. These are easy and good words to them. They are abandoned to God’s will and do not struggle and deliberate as to whether they will do what they know to be wrong. They do not hesitate to do what they know to be right. It is the obvious thing to do. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Body: That, of course, involves their body. They body has come over to the side of their will to do good. It is constantly poised to do what is right and good without thinking. And that also means that it does not automatically move into what is wrong, even contrary to their resolves and intentions, before they can think to not do it. It is no longer true of them that their “spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” reports Matthew 26.41. They know by experience that these words of Jesus are not a declaration about the inevitable condition of humans, but a diagnosis of a condition to be corrected. The Spirit has substantially taken over their “members.” Consequently, we do not see them always being trapped by what their tongue, facial expressions, eyes, hands, and so on have already done before they can think. For their body and its parts are consecrated to serve God and are habituated to be his holy instruments. They instinctively avoid the paths of temptation. The bodies of these people look different. There is a freshness about them, a kind of quiet strength, and a transparency. They are rested and playful in a bodily strength that is from God. He who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead has given life to the bodies through his Spirit that dwells in them. Social relations: In their social relations to others, they are completely transparent. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Because they walk in goodness the children of the light do not have use for darkness, and they achieve real contact of fellowship with others—especially other apprentices of Jesus. “If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin,” reports 1 John 1.7. And “The one who loves one’s brothers and sisters abides in the light and there is no cause of offence in him,” reports 1 John 2.10. They do not conceal their thoughts and feelings (nor do they impose them upon everyone). Because of their confidence in God, they do not try to manipulate and manage others. Needless to say, in their social contexts they do not go on the attack or on the hunt, intending to use or other others. Moreover, the children of the light are completely noncondemning, while at the same time they will not participate in evil. They pay it only attention absolutely required in social setting, and beyond that, patient and joyful nonparticipation is the rule. They know how to really “be there” (wherever “there” is) without sharing in evil, as was true of Jesus himself. (Of course, as with him, others may disapprove of the “being there, and there are always some occasions where one should just step away). However, the children of light do not reject or distance themselves from the people who may be involved in such situations. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

The children of the light know how to “love the sinner and hate the sin” gracefully and effectively. Soul: Furthermore, as you come to know these people—though those who know only the human powers of the flesh will never be able to understand them (1 Corinthians 2.14)—you see that all of the above is not just at the surface. It is deep, and in a certain obvious sense, it is effortless. It flows. That is, the things we have been describing are not things the children of light are constantly trying hard to do, gritting their teeth an carrying on. Instead, these are features of life that well up out of a soul that is at home in God. This is the outcome of spiritual formation in Christlikeness. Again, it does not mean perfect, but it does mean we have here a person whose soul is whole: a person who, though the internalized integrity of the law of God and the administrations of the gospel and the Spirit, has a restored soul. Such a soul effectively interfaces God and the full person and enables every aspect of the self to function as God intended. God, you have given all peoples on common origin. It is your will that they be gathered together as one family in yourself. Fill the hearts of humankind with fire of your love and with the desire to ensure justice for all. By sharing the good things you give us, may we secure an equality for all our brothers and sisters throughout the World. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

May there be an end to division, strife and war. May there be a dawning of a truly human society built on love and peace. We ask this in your name. Lord, please bring us safely and without detour to your Kingdom, to the landing place before the great city where the Lord of Love rules. Bring us before one who sits on his throne. Make our names known to You and your angels. Please make smooth the way, please open the doors, please clear the path, unlock the gates. We are on a great journey. Stand by us until we are safely home! Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praises upon the hard unto our God. God covers the Heavens with clouds, He prepares rain for the Earth, He makes grass to grow on the hills. God gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens when they cry. God delights not in the strength of the horse; nor takes pleasure in the vigour of humans. The Lord takes pleasure in them that revere Him, in them that hope for His mercy. Glorify the Lord, O America; praise thy God, O America. For He has made strong the bars of thy gates; He has blessed thy children within thee. God makes peace within they borders; God gives thee abundantly of the fat of wheat. God sends out His commandment to the Earth; His word goes speedily forth. For redemption of our souls, Lord hear our prayers. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

Cresleigh Homes

This Owner’s Suite looks more like an Owner’s Sweet to us. 😉 A #BrightonStation Residence 2 home is designed with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, spacious Owner’s retreat, and a three car garage. It’s no wonder everyone in this community loves living here! 😍

Take a virtual tour on our website to see more: https://youtu.be/AY7u1-i5M8I

More than just a residential development, Brighton Station is a modern community reminiscent of a great American small town. Boasting one-of-a-kind amenities, home sites featuring desirable open floor plans, well-designed kitchens, and more. There is also ample opportunity for outdoor recreation.
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