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Where Forces Rules, there is No Love, and where Love Reigns Force Does Not Count!
When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of loves exists…Under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word. But what has the individual personality to do with the plight of the many? In the first place one is part of the people as a whole, and is as much at the mercy of the power that moves the wholes as anybody else. The only thing that distinguishes one from all the others is one’s vocation. One has been called by that all-powerful, all-tyrannizing psychic necessity that is one’s own and one’s people’s affliction. If one hearkens to the voice, one is not once set apart and isolated as one has resolved to obey the law that commands one from within. “One’s own law!” everybody will cry. However, one knows better: it is the law, the vocation for which one is destined, no more “one’s own” than the lion that fells one, although it is undoubtedly this particular lion that kills one and not any other lion. Only in this sense is one entitled to speak of “one’s” vocation, “one’s” law. With the decision to put one’s way above all other possible ways one has already fulfilled the greater part of one’s vocation as a redeemer. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
One has invalidated all other ways for oneself, exalting one’s law above convention and thus making a clean sweep of all those things that not only failed to prevent the great danger but actually accelerated it. For conventions in themselves are soulless mechanisms that can never understand more than the mere routine of life. Creative life always stands outside convention. That is why, when the mere routine of life predominated in the form of convention and tradition, there is bound to be a destructive outbreak of creative energy. Only when it is a mass phenomenon, is this outbreak is a catastrophe, but never in the individual who consciously submits to these higher powers and serves them with all one’s strength. The mechanism of convention keeps people unconscious, for in that state they can follow their accustomed tracks like blind brutes, without the need for conscious decision. This unintended result of even the best conventions is unavoidable but is no less a terrible danger for that. For when new conditions arise that are not provided for under the old conventions, then, just as with animals, panic is liable to break out among human beings kept unconscious by routine, and with equally unpredictable results. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Personality, however, does not allow itself to be seized by the panic terror of those who are just waking to consciousness, for it has put all its terrors behind it. It is able to cope with the changing times, and has unknowingly and involuntarily become a leader. All human beings are much alike, otherwise they could not succumb to the same delusion, and the psychic substratum upon which the individual consciousness is based is universally the same, otherwise people could never reach a common understanding. So, in this sense, personality and its peculiar psychic make-up are not something absolutely unique. The uniqueness holds only for the individual nature of the personality, as it does for every individual. To become a personality is not the absolute prerogative of the genius, for a human may be a genius without being a personality. In so far as every individual has the law of one’s life inborn in one, it is theoretically possible for any human to follow this law and so become a personality, that is, to achieve wholeness. However, since life only exists in the form of living unite, id est, individuals, the law of life always tends towards a life individual lived. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
So although the objective psyche can only be conceived as a universal and uniform datum, which means that all humans share the same primary, psychic condition, this objective psyche must nevertheless individuate itself if it is to become actualized, for there is other way in which it could express itself except through the individual human being. When the psyche seizes hold of a group, in which case it must, of its own nature, precipitate a catastrophe, because it can only operate unconsciously and is not assimilated by any consciousness or assigned its place among the existing conditions of life, this is the only exception. Only the human who can consciously assent to the power of the inner voice becomes a personality; but if one succumbs to it one will be swept away by the blind flux of psychic events and destroyed. That is the great and liberating thing about any genuine personality: If it were lived unconsciously by the group, one voluntarily sacrifices oneself to one’s vocation, and consciously translates into one’s own individual reality what would only lead to ruin. One of the most shining examples of the meaning of personality that history has preserved for us is the life of Christ. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
In Christianity, which, be it mentioned in passing, was the only religion really persecuted by the Romans, there rose up a direct opponent of the Caesarean madness that afflicted not only the emperor, but every Roman as well: civis Rmanus sum. The opposition showed itself wherever the worship of Caesar clashed with Christianity. However, as we know from what the evangelists tell us about the psychic development of Christ’s personality, this opposition was fought out just as decisively in the soul of its funder. The story of the Temptation clearly reveals the nature of the psychic power with which Jesus came into collision: it was the power-intoxicated devil of the prevailing Caesarean psychology that led him into dire temptation in the wilderness. As if it were trying to make a Caesar of him, this devil was the objective psyche that held all the peoples of the Roman Empire under its sway, and that is why it promised Jesus all the kingdoms of the Earth. Obeying the inner call of his vocation, Jesus voluntarily exposed himself to the assaults of the imperialistic madness that filled everyone, conqueror and conquered alike. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In this way, by exposing himself to the World’s suffering, Christ recognized the nature of the objective psyche which had plunged the whole World into misery and had begotten a yearning for salvation that found expression even in the pagan poets. Far from suppressing or allowing oneself to be suppressed by this psychic onslaught, Christ let it act on him consciously, and assimilated it. Thus was World-conquering Caesarism transformed into spiritual kingship, and the Roman Empire into the universal kingdom of God that was not of this World. While the whole Jewish nation was expecting an imperialistically minded and politically active hero as a Messiah, Jesus fulfilled the Messianic mission not so much for one’s own nation as for the whole Roman World, and pointed out to humanity the ancient truth that where force rules there is no love, and where love reigns force does not count. The religion of love was the exact psychological counterpart to the Roman devil-worship of power. This Roman devil-worship of force and power has its grip on Americans, especially those in California. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
However, the example of Christianity is perhaps the best illustration of the previous abstraction argument. This apparently unique life became a sacred symbol because it is the psychological prototype of the only meaningful life, that is, of a life that strives for the individual realization—absolute and unconditional—of its own particular law. Well may we exclaim with Tertullian: anima naturaliter christiana! (A natural Christian soul.) The deification of Jesus, as also of the Buddha, is not surprising, for it affords a striking example of the enormous valuation that humanity places upon the ideal of personality. Though it seems at present as if the blind and destructive dominance of meaningless collective forces would thrust the ideal of personality into the background, yet this is only a passing revolt against the dead weight of history. Once the revolutionary, unhistorical, and therefore uneducated inclinations of the rising generation have had their fill of tearing down tradition, new heroes will be sought and found. Even the Bolseviks, whose radicalism leaves nothing to be desired, have embalmed Lenin and made a saviour Karl Marx. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The ideal of personality is one of the ineradicable needs of the human soul, and the more unsuitable it is the more fanatically it is defended. Indeed, the worship of Caesar was itself a misconceived cult of personality, and modern Protestantism, whose critical theology has reduced the divinity of Christ to vanishing point, has found its last refuge in the personality of Jesus. Yes, this thing we call personality is a great and mysterious problem. Everything that can be said about it is curiously unsatisfactory and inadequate, and there is always a danger of the discussion losing itself in pomposity and empty chatter. They very idea of personality is, in common usage, so vague and ill-defined that one hardly ever finds two people who take the word in the same sense. If I put forward a more definite conception of it, I do not imagine that I have uttered the last word. I should like to regard all I say here only as a tentative attempt to approach the problem of personality without making any claim to solve it. Or rather, I should like my attempt to be regarded as a description of the psychological problems raised by personality. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
All the usual explanations and nostrums of psychology are apt to fall short here, just as they do with the human of genius or the creative artist. Inferences from heredity or from environment do not quite come off; inventing fictions about childhood, so popular today, ends—to put it mildly—in unreality; explanations from necessity—“he had no money,” “he was a sick man,” et cetera—remain caught in externals. There is always something irrational to be added, something that simply cannot be explained, a deus ex machina or an asylum ignorantiae, that well-known sobriquet for God. The problem thus seems to border on the extrahuman realm, which always been known by a divine name. Wherever we look or search, probe or analyse in this Universe, we find nothing that is permanent. Everything is moving slowly or swiftly to change of condition, whether this be growth or deterioration, and moves in the end to complete disintegration. There is no stability anywhere but only the show of it. Whether it be human’s fortunes or a mountain’s surface, everything is evanescent. Only the rate of this evanescence differs but the fact of it does not. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Throughout all things in the Universe and not only in the plant and animal kingdoms, we find the presence of growth and decay, and ripe and rot. There are no golden ages, no utopias, no Heavens on Earth. This World is a scene of continuous process, or diversification—which means it is an ever-changing scene. Sometimes it is better, sometimes it is worse—if looked at from a human standpoint—but none these two conditions remains forever fixed. Only romantic dreamers or pious, wishful thinkers look or wait for one that is. If fortunate, what we may reasonably look for and, hope to find, is an inner equilibrium within ourselves which will yield a peace or a presence. Let us not lessen what we are by refusing to accept the responsibility, by practising self-pity, or by blaming environments. They have their place and may make their contribution, but in the end it is our own ignorance of our own possibilities which is the basic cause. Whatever is done to improve human affairs and arrangements will not last. When it will need to be improved again, the time will come. In just the same way even the planet itself changes its features, turns tropical zones to temperate ones and great seas to sandy deserts. Only in the Void is there no activity, no change. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
If anything is perfect it cannot be improved. Whoever therefore demands perfection must understand that one is demanding finality. Perhaps that is why, even at an approximate 24,000 square feet (which is at least ten times larger than most homes), Sarah Winchester’s Mansion was never completed, even though it is one of the largest and most unique estates in the World! Could there be such a thing in this ever-changing World as perfection? There are no permanent solutions because there are no permanent problems. Millions of animal and human bodies have entered the Earth’s composition through drowning in vast floods or dying in droughts, famines, and epidemics, through earthquakes and eruptions. It has been an immense graveyard and crematorium. Yet equally it has brought into living existence millions of new beings. Men and women terrify themselves with mental pictures of age, of its diseases and infirmities, its growing cancers and shrinking arteries. Yet they seldom relate their personal experience to the wider scheme of things, to the Universe as a whole. If they did, they would soon see that not only are decay and disintegration everywhere in nature, but brutality and murder are there also on an appalling scale. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Millions of animals, insects, birds, fish, and sometimes humans, attack, deform, mutilate or kill other creatures. Civilizations do not progress; they grow, but they crumble by their own weight, or, rather, overweight. If anything every impressed me with the truth of civilization’s transformatory nature it was my reading of the Frenchman Volney’s book The Ruins of Empires, together with my visit to the remains of two cities. One, Anuradhapura in Ceylon, sixteen miles long and sixteen miles wife stretching in the sunshine with thousands of golden and sliver pillars, was eaten up by jungle growth or dissolved into dust! The other, Angkor in Cambodia, displayed huge temples rising out of the thick clogging undergrowth and broken, weather-beaten states of Buddhas tangled with, root-bound in, gnarled wrinkled trees. If it was in Beijing or Shanghai, maybe X’ian, possibly Hangzhou, I cannot recall. However, something else I found fascinating was in China, they have statues of God carved into the mountain and they must be 100 feet tall, and one of them even had brown skin. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Despite the ever-confronting evidence that change is ceaseless throughout the Universe and throughout human experience, we persistently get the feeling of solidity in the Universe and permanency in experience. Is this only an illusion and the World merely a phantasm? The answer that there IS something unending behind both. There is no stability anywhere in the Universe, given enough time, and there is none in human life. Yet the craving for it exists. That there is a metaphysical meaning behind this phenomenon. It exists because THAT which is being the craving person is the only stable thing there is, or rather no-thing, because IT has no shape, no colour, is soundless and invisible and beyond the grasp of ordinary thoughts. It is this hidden contact, or connection, which keeps humans seeking for what one never finds, hoping for what one never attains, refusing to accept the message of ceaseless change which Nature and Life continue to utter in one’s ears, and opposing the adjustments that experience and events demand periodically from one. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There is no permanency anywhere except in ourselves. And even there it is so deep down, and so hard to find, that most people accept the mistaken idea that their ego’s ever-changing existence is the only real existence. The communities of God, to which Christ has become teacher and guide, are, in comparison with communities of the pagan people among whom they live as strangers, like Heavenly lights in the World. “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. One who does not love abides in death,” reports 1 John 3.14. Now, if we are to be spiritually formed in Christlikeness, we must find out what our relationships to others must be like. The natural condition of life for human beings is one of reciprocal rootedness in others. As firmness of footing is a condition of walking and secure movement, so assurance of others being for us is the condition of stable, healthy living. There are many ways this can be present in individual cases, but it must be there. If it is not, we are but walking wounded, our life more or less a shambles until we die. When the required type of “for-ness” is adequately present, human “circles of sufficiency” emerge. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The most fundamental form of a circle of sufficiency is that of a mother and child (the Virgin Mary and Jesus). Then perhaps mother and child and father. (What some more modern spiritualist consider the “Holy Trinity.”) Then there are young lovers, reciprocally absorbed, as well as mature mates. Of course numerous forms of human association can take on some degree of this “sufficiency,” and always with a distinctive character arising out of the precise nature of the relationships involved. These circles of sufficiency, natural and essential to the human condition and so profoundly beautiful to behold, are always illusory at the merely human level, and even the illusion itself is terrifyingly fragile. To assure an anxious child we may say, “Everything is okay now.” However, it never is. In this World it is never true that everything is okay, and perhaps it is least true in those very situations where we feel the need to say it. Every human circle presupposes for its “really being okay” a larger context or circle that supports it. The mother and child, for example, presuppose the larger family that cares for and sustains them, making it possible for them to be absorbed in one another as they need to be, ignoring all else. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
These larger circles also depend upon yet larger circles, which, while ever less intimate, are still crucial to making the inner circles possible. That is just how human life is. The togetherness of the mother and child may be drastically affected by economic conditions on the other side of the Earth. Ultimately, if it is not caught up in the life of the only genuinely self-sufficient circle of sufficiency, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, every human circle is doomed to dissolution. Only when rooted in that divine Trinitarian circle can the broken individuals from the broken circles recover from the wounds received in their circles of origin and find wholeness on their long journey from the womb to the eternal City of God. Of course it was never God’s intention that the natural human circles of sufficiency, or reciprocal rootedness, would be illusory, fragile, and eventually broken; and if they were lived within his kingdom, they would not be. “And there came also in the days of Com many prophets, and prophesied of the destruction of the great people except they should repent, and turn unto the Lord, and forsake their murders and wickedness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“And it came to pass that the prophets were rejected by the people, and they fled unto Com for protection, for the people sought to destroy them. And they prophesied unto Com many things; and he was blessed in all the remainders of his days. And he lived to a good old age, and begat Shiblom; and Shiblom reigned in his stead. And the brother of Shiblom rebelled against him, and there began to be an exceedingly great war in all the land. And it came to pass that the brother of Shiblom caused that all the prophets who prophesied of the destruction of the people should be put to death; And there was great calamity in all the land, for they had testified that a great curse should come upon the land, and also upon the people, and that there should be a great destruction among them, such an one as never had been upon the face of the Earth, and their bones should become as heaps of Earth upon the face of the land except they should repent of their wickedness. And they hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord, because of their wicked combinations; wherefore, there began to be wars and contentions in all the land, and also many famines and pestilences, insomuch that there was a great destruction. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“The destruction was so great that is was such an one as never had been known upon the face of the Earth; and all this came to pass in the days of Shiblom. And the people began to repent of their iniquity; and inasmuch as they did the Lord did have mercy on them. And it came to pass that Shiblom was slain, and Seth was brought into captivity, and did dwell in captivity all his days. And it came to pass that Ahah, his son, did obtain the kingdom; and he did reign over the people all his days. And he did do all manner f iniquity in his days, by which he did cause the shedding of much blood; and few were his days. And Ethem, being a descendant of Ahah, did obtain the kingdom; and he also did do that which was wicked in his days. And it came to pass that in the days of Ethem there came many prophets, and prophesied again unto the people; yea, they did prophesy that the Lord would utterly destroy them from off the face of the Earth except they repented of their iniquities. And it came to pass that the people hardened their hearts, and would not hearken unto their words; and the prophets mourned withdrew from among the people. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“And it came to pass that Ethem did execute judgment in wickedness all his days; and he begat Moron. And it came to pass that Moron did reign in his stead; and Moron did that which was wicked before the Lord. And it came to pass that there arose another mighty man; and he was a descendant of the brother of Jared. And it came to pass that he did overthrow Moron and obtain the kingdom; wherefore, Moron dwelt in captivity all the remainder of his days; and he begat Coriantor. And it came to pass that Coriantor dwelt in captivity all his days. And in the days of Coriantor there also came many prophets, and prophesied of great and marvelous things, and cried repentance unto the people, and except they should repent the Lord God would execute judgment against them to their utter destruction; and that the Lord God would send or bring forth another people to possess the land, by his power, after the manner by which be brought their fathers. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“And they did reject all the words of the prophets, because of their secret society and wicked abominations. And it came to pass that Coriantor begat Ether, and he died, having dwelt in captivity all his days,” reports Ether 11.1-23. Lord, our hearth, God who guards the heart of our home, threefold flame who shines in the center: we honour and praise you, we offer you our words of worship. King of Poets, may our lives be creative. King of Smithers, may our lives be useful. King of healers, may our lives be healthy. Your family is standing before you here, confident you will do what is right. May the snow start falling to create the waters of the Earth, so it can soak deep into the Earth, and conceive a healthy environment. Being to birth the cold and rainy days. And be God’s treasured people in His hand, a diadem His kingly brow to band. By God, we were uplifted, carried, crowned, thus honoured inasmuch as precious found. God’s glory is on me, and mine on Him. And when I call God is not far or dim. God loves His folks; the meek will glorify, and, shrined in prayer, draw their rapt reply. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Truth is Thy primal word; at Thy behest the generations pass—O assist our quest for Thee, and set my host of song on high, and let my psalmody come very nigh. My praises as a coronal account, and let my prayer as Thine incense mount. Deem precious unto Thee the poor man’s song, as those that to Thine altar did belong. Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth, the breeding, quickening, righteous force of Earth. Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod, my choicest incense offered to my God. And let my meditation grateful be, for all my being is athirst for Thee. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power, the glory and victory and the majesty; for all that is in the Heaven and on the Earth is Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted supreme above all. Who can recount the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can proclaim all His full praise? I will extol Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast raised me up, and hast not allowed mine enemies to rejoice in triumph over me. O Lord, my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou didst heal me; O Lord, Thou savest me from the peril of death; Thou didst keep me alive, that I should not go down to the grave. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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The Best Humans Cannot Suspend their Fate: The Good Die Early, and the Bad Die Late!
Love at eighteen is largely an attempt to find out who we are by listening to our echoes in the words of another, and it means always apologizing first, even when you think you did nothing wrong. The phenomena of the World-form tyrannously and completely masks its reality, so completely that only a dwindling number of people even suspect there is any reality behind it. Spiritual intuition has never been so dormant among the race as during the past hundred and fifty years. Form, which should have been a wicket-gate giving entry to its diviner significance, has become a prison in which they are held captive by their own obtuseness. There is great beauty in the silent Universe. There is an intrinsic principle in created things which is not expressed. The self-actualized looks back to the beauty of the Universe and penetrates into this principle. These seeming shadows of the spiritual domain are more real than the tangible things which are everywhere taken for reality. The question, “Are inanimate things included in the infinite life?” must answer itself, if you take one of the meanings of this term as being the Great, the All. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
As a matter of fact, however, science now knows that there are no inanimate things. Its high-power microscopes reveal the presence of minute living cells in materials and substances and liquids which are seemingly dead, and its sensitive electrical instruments reveal the presence of energies in others, such as steel. In the end we have to come back to the basic idea that the Universal existence is like (but is not actually) a dream inasmuch as it is all a series of mental experiences projected from one’s own mind. And because even the inanimate things such as tables and houses which a dreamer sees are really one’s ideas—that is, reflections of one’s own mind and therefore of one’s own life-energy—consequently they are no really dead things. So too for the mountains and rivers in God’s dream. From this standpoint there is no such thing as death, only life. However, of course, when compared to the life of the divine World, the life of a limited World is poetically like death. There is a marked intelligence within every atom of the cosmos and within every living creature within the cosmos. So far as the human mind shows forth its own native intelligence it reveals, however faintly, the presence of that master-intelligence out of which it spends itself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
The circling Earth makes its way through space just as a human makes one’s way through city streets. It is an intelligent living entity. If there is life in the plant kingdom, there must be consciousness also. What, then, is this consciousness? It is like that of a deep sleep. Nay, we may even go back further and assert of the mineral kingdom that there is life in it, too. For the cells of plants are built up out of the molecules. It is impossible for the human mind to conceive of what the mineral consciousness is like, but the closet description would be that of the deepest trance. Whether in the fragile China Doll tree or the sturdy redwood three there is life, intelligence, and being. They are fellow dwellers on this curious planet just like all of us. American-Indian ceremonies emphasize the sacredness of the human personality. The Hupa Boat Dance ritual creates sacred space for a community mysticism that revitalized the community and makes the trial members feel special in the perceptions of the Creator. This is a spirituality in which the tribal members “know” they are recognized by the Creator. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
The Boat Dance honours the dead and helps their spirits to make the crossing into the Great Mystery. It is also a ritual for reminding the living that they are sacred and that every individual is important in this communitarian Worldview. The archetypal sounds from the dance and the archetypal experiences of the observer/participants allow this serious ontological enactment of death to become an experience of beauty. In certain communities it is a cultural norm not to talk about the deceased for the death experience is supposed to be settled in ritual ceremony. However, the emotional trauma of a death can lead to substance abuse problems due to the emotional trauma surrounding a death; and the therapist unfamiliar with the culture will label the nondisclosing, nonverbal youth as untreatable. Often in such a case, the district attorney will recommend that the youth be placed in a residential treatment facility or in the state’s youth prison. These placements are usually far from the youth’s home, separating one from the healing, cultural matrix of family, tribe, landscape, and associates. This separation further aggravates the grief process, and for most youth, superimposes post-traumatic stress symptoms upon the death and grief trauma. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
The psychology and Worldview of some American cultures, especially those connected to the Old World, holds that it is in the solitude of the mind and heart, along with the ceremonial way, that one understands one’s “limitations and freedoms.” When these youth are pressured by the dominant culture’s mental health professionals to speak about a death in the family, one becomes painfully caught in a clash of cultural values. The cultural conflict over how to process the experience of death brings about feelings of dread, despair, anxiety, isolation, and limitedness. Certain Old World cultures have norms he prescribe that one can only speak with respect for the dead; and it is better not to speak at all than to risk drawing the spirit of the deceased back into the World. The therapist’s unenlightened disposition of the silence, words, rituals, and ancestors disrupts the dialogical healing process in the meeting of client and therapist. The family tradition is a stronger determinant of what the youth will share with the psychotherapist than is the court’s intimidation. There are many highest principles both of life and of philosophy, and accordingly there are just as many different forms of compensation by opposition. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
It has come to light that on closer investigation that different types of personalities have a predilection to marry its opposite, each being unconsciously complementary to the other. So, that is something to keep in mind with any kind of relationship one is trying to establish with an individual. Nonetheless, the reflective nature of the introvert causes one always to think and consider before acting. This naturally makes one slow to act. One’s shyness and distrust of things induces hesitation, and so one always has difficulty in adapting to the external World. Conversely the extravert has a positive relation to things. One is, so to speak attracted by them. New, unknown situations fascinate one. In order to make closer acquaintance with the unknown one will jump into it with both feet. As a rule one acts first and thinks afterwards. Thus one’s action is swift, subject to no misgivings and hesitations. The two types therefore seem created for a symbiosis. The ne takes care of reflection and the other sees to the initiative and practical action. When the two types marry, they may effect an ideal union. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
So long as they are fully occupied with their adaptation to the manifold external needs of life they fit together admirably. However, when the dominant person in the relationship as made enough money, or if a fine legacy should drop from the skies and external necessity no longer presses, then they have time to occupy themselves with one another. Hitherto they stood back to back an defended themselves against necessity. However, now they turn face to face and look for understanding—only to discover that they have never understood one another. Each speaks a different language. Then the conflict between the two types begins. This struggle is envenomed, brutal, full of mutual depreciation, even when conducted quietly and in the greatest intimacy. For the value of the one is the negation of value for the other. It might reasonably be supposed that each, conscious of one’s own value, could peaceably recognize the other’s value, and that in this way any conflict would be superfluous. I have seen a good number of cases where this line of argument was adopted, without, however, arriving at a satisfactory goal. Where it is a question of normal people, such critical periods of transition will be overcome fairly smoothly. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
By “normal” I mean a person who can somehow exist under all circumstances which afford one the minimum needs of life. However, many people cannot do this; therefore not so very many people are normal. What we commonly mean by a “normal person” is actually an ideal person whose happy blend of character is a rare occurrence. By far the greater number of more or less differentiated persons demand conditions of life which afford considerably more than the certainty of food and sleep. For these the ending of a symbiotic relationship comes as a severe shock. It is not easy to understand why this should be so. Yet if we consider that no human is simply introverted or simply extraverted, but has both attitudes potentially in one—although one has developed only one of them as a function of adaption—we shall immediately conjecture that with the introvert extraversion lies dormant and undeveloped somewhere in the background, and that introversion leads a similar shadowy existence in the extravert. And this is indeed the case. The introvert does possess an extraverted attitude, but it is unconscious, because one’s conscious gaze is always turned to the subject. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In the introvert the influence of the object produces an inferior extraversion, while in the extravert an inferior introversion takes the place of one’s social attitude. And so we come back to the proposition from which we stared: “The value of the one is the negation of value for the other.” Positive as well as negative occurrences can constellate the inferior counter-function. When this happens, sensitiveness appears. Sensitiveness is a sure sign of the presence of inferiority. This provides the psychological basis for discord and misunderstanding, not only as between two people, but also in ourselves. The essence of the inferior function is autonomy: it is independent, it attacks, it fascinates and so spins us about that we are no longer master of ourselves and can no longer rightly distinguish between ourselves and others. And yet it is necessary for the development of character that we should allow the other side, the inferior function, to find expression. We cannot in the long run allow one part of our personality to be care for symbiotically by another; for the moment when we have a need of the other function may come at any time and find us unprepared. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
And the consequences maybe bad: the extravert loses one’s indispensable relation to the object, and the introvert loses one’s to the subject. Conversely, it is equally indispensable for the introvert to arrive at some form of action not constantly bedeviled by doubts and hesitations, and for the extravert to reflect upon oneself, yet without endangering one’s relationships. In extraversion and introversion it is clearly a matter of two antithetical, natural attitudes or trends, which Goethe once referred to as diastole and systole. They ought, in their harmonious alternation, to give life a rhythm, but it seems to require a high degree of art to achieve such a rhythm. Either one must do it quite unconsciously, so that the natural law is not disturbed by any conscious act, or one must be conscious in a much higher sense, to be capable of willing and carrying out the antithetical movements. Since we cannot develop backwards into animal unconsciousness, there remains only the more strenuous way forwards into higher consciousness. Certainly that consciousness, which would enable us to live the great Yea and Nay of our own free will and purpose, is an altogether superhuman ideal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Still this superhuman ideal is the goal. Perhaps our present mentality only allows us consciously to will the Yea and to bear with the Nay. When that is the case, much is already achieved. The problem of opposites, as an inherent principle of human nature, forms a further stage in our process of realization. As a rule it is one of the problems of maturity. The practical treatment of a patient will hardly ever begin with this problem, especially not in the case of young people. The neuroses of the young generally come from a collision between the forces of reality and an inadequate, infantile attitude, which from the causal point of view is characterized by an abnormal dependence on the real or imaginary parents, and from the teleological point of view by unrealizable fictions, plans, and aspirations. Here the reductive methods of Dr. Freud and Dr. Adler are entirely in place. However, there are many neuroses which either appear only at maturity or else deteriorate to such a degree that the patients become incapable of work. Naturally one can point out in these cases that an unusual dependence on the parents existed even in youth, and that all kinds of illusions were present. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
However, all that did not prevent them from taking up a profession, from practising it successfully, from keeping a marriage of sorts until that moment in riper years when the previous attitude suddenly failed. In such cases it is of little help to make them conscious of their childhood fantasies, dependence on the parents, et cetera, although this is a necessary part of the procedure and often has a not unfavourable result. However, the real therapy only begins when the patient sees that it is no longer father and mother who are standing in one’s way, but oneself—id est, an unconscious part of one’s personality which carries on the role of father and mother. Even this realization, helpful as it is, is still negative; it simply says, “I realize that it is not father and mother who are against me, but I myself.” However, who is it in one that is against one? What is this mysterious part of one’s personality that hides under the father- and mother-imagoes, making one believe for years that the cause of one’s trouble must somehow have got into one from outside? This part is the counterpart to one’s conscious attitude; and it will leave one no peace and will plague one until it has been accepted. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
For young people a liberation from the past may be enough: a beckoning future lies ahead, rich in possibilities. It is sufficient to break a few bonds; the life-urge will do the rest. However, we are faced wit another task in the cause of people who have left a large part of their life behind them, for whom the future no longer beckons with marvelous possibilities, and nothing is to be expected but the endless round of familiar duties and the doubtful pleasures of old age. If ever we succeed in liberating young people from the past, we see that they always transfer the imagos of their parents to more suitable substitute figures. For instance, the feeling that clung to the mother now passes to the wife, and the father’s authority passes to respected teachers and superiors or to institutions. Although this is not a fundamental solution, it is yet a practical road which the normal human treads unconsciously and therefore with no notable inhibitions and resistances. The problem for the adult is very different. One has put this part of the road behind one with or without difficulty. One has cut loose from one’s parents, long since dead perhaps, and has sought and found the mother in the wife, or, in the case of a woman, the father in the husband. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
One has duly honoured one’s fathers and their institutions, has oneself become a father, and, with all this in the past, has possibly come to realize that what originally meant advancement and satisfaction has now become a boring mistake, part of the illusion of youth, upon which one looks back with mingled regret and envy, because nothing now awaits one but old age and the end of illusions. Here there are no more fathers and mothers; all the illusions one projected upon the World and upon this gradually come home to one, jaded and way-worn. The energy streaming back from these manifold relationships falls into the unconscious and activates all the things one had neglected to develop. In a young man, the instinctual forces tied up in the neurosis give him, when released, buoyance and hope and the chance to extend the scope of one’s life. To the human in the second half of life the development of the function of opposites lying formant in the unconscious means a renewal; but this development no longer proceeds via the solution of infantile ties, the destruction of infantile illusions and the transference of old imagos to new figures: it proceeds via the problem of opposites. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
There is no balance, no system of self-regulation, without opposition. The psyche is just such a self-regulating system. If the psyche is regarded as a self-regulating system, it follows that the attitude of consciousness is compensated by the attitude of the unconscious. In Jungian analysis, the principal, though not the only, way of discovering the attitude of the unconscious is through the study and interpretation of the patient’s dream. Neurotic symptoms, also, can be compensatory to a distorted, one-sided conscious attitude, and may this be valuable pointers toward a new adaptation rather than being simply disagreeable. I am not altogether pessimistic about neurosis. In many cases we have to say: “Thank Heaven he could make up his mind to be neurotic.” Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure, just as any physical disease is in part an attempt at self-cure. We cannot understand a disease as an ens per se any more, as something detached which not so long ago it was believed to be. Modern medicine—internal medicine, for instance—conceives of disease as a system composed of a harmful factor and a healing factor. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
It is exactly the same with neurosis. It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in no way different from the function of dreams—only rather more forceful and drastic. When we gaze observantly and reflectively around an object—whether it be a microscope—revealed cell or a telescope—revealed star—it inescapably imposes upon us the comprehension that an infinite intelligence rules this wonderful cosmos. The purposive way in which the Universe is organized betrays, if it be anything at all, the working of a Mind which understands. God’s immanence is reflected throughout the whole Universe. God’s reality is indicated by the very existence of the Universe. God’s intelligence is revealed by the intelligence of the creatures in the Universe. To recognize that the order of the cosmos is superbly intelligent beyond human invention, mysterious beyond human understanding, and even divinely holy is not to lapse into being sentimental. It is to accept the transcendence and self-sufficiency of THAT WHICH IS. Thought is the spirit of the Universe, thoughts are the forms of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Everything in the Universe testifies to a super-intelligent power being behind it. We live in a Universe that is spun out of the divine intelligence and sustained by the divine energy. At the center of each human, each animal, each plant, each cell, and each atom, there is complete stillness. A seemingly empty stillness, yet it holds the divine energies and the divine Idea for that thing. For many of us today, our body is in a constant state of agitation and discomfort. That is the contemporary condition and explains our astonishing degree of dependence on prescription and drugs and vaccines. In some cases, of course, this may be due to strictly physical conditions. However, more often, it is not so, but is due to tendencies of the self that have settled into our body’s parts and put it at war with itself. Wounds, fears, unsatisfied desires, shames, losses, and unhealthy ambitions and images of the self sink beneath the horizon of our awareness. We may even deny them. However, they continue to disrupt our body and can even take over our life through the body’s “automatic” responses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Frank Laubach—partly because, to be “noble,” he had voted for the other candidate—was denied a position as president of a college in the Philippines, where he had been serving as a missionary. He lost by one vote. He was frustrated and bitter, and for two years was almost continuously ill. A biographer writes, “He suffered from flu, appendicitis, paratyphoid, a strained leg muscle, an ulcerated eye, and shingles! In a sate of bitter self-pity, he hobbled around, work inefficiently, and wore a patch over one eye much of the time. His failure to accept the defeat was costing him his health. The fact that his desire to exercise Christian principles resulting in him hurting himself increased the inner tension and conflict These were years of despondency and aimlessness. He was fighting the battle of his soul. In fact, what we see in such a cast is soul disruption manifesting itself in disorders of the body, which in turn threaten to take over life as a while and could even lead to physical death. Thank God, Laubach in time found the spiritual key to turning all this around and bringing one’s body into the health of a person radiant with the presence of Christ. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
The Void which humans find at the center—whether of one’s own being or of the Universe’s—is divine. It holds both godlike Mind and godlike Energy. It is still and silent, yet it is the source of all the dynamic energies, human and universal. “And it came to pass that Orihan did execute judgment upon the land in righteousness all one’s days, whose days were exceedingly many. And he begat sons and daughters; yea, he begat thirty and one, among whom were twenty and three sons. And it came to pass that ne also begat Kib in his old age. And it came to pass that Kib reigned in his stead; and Kib begat Corihor. And when Corihor as thirty and two years old he rebelled against his father, and went over and dwelt in the land of Nehor; and he begat sons and daughters, and they become exceedingly fair; wherefore Corihor drew away many people after him. And when he had gathered together an army he came up unto the land of Moron where the king dwelt, and took him captive, which brought to pass the saying of the brother of Jared that they would be brought into captivity. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Now the land of Mormon, where the kind dwelt, was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites. And it came to pass that Kib dwelt in captivity, and his people under Corihor his son, until he became exceedingly old; nevertheless Kib begat Shule in his old age, while he was yet in captivity. And it came to pass that Shule was angry with his brother; and Shule waxed strong, and become mighty as to the strength of a human; and he was also mighty in judgment. Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kid. And now because of the thing which Shule had done, his father bestowed upon him the kingdom; therefore he began to reign in the stead of his father Kib. And now because of the thing which Shule had done, his father bestowed upon him the kingdom; therefore he began to reign in the stead of his father. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And it came to pass that he did execute judgment in righteousness; and he did spread his kingdom upon all the face of the land, for the people had become exceedingly numerous. And it came to pass that Shule also begat many sons and daughters. And Cori repented of the many evils which he had done; wherefore Shule have him power in his kingdom. And it came to pass that Corihor had many sons and daughters. And among the sons of Corihor there was one whose name was Noah. And it came to pass that Noah rebelled against Shule, the king, and also his father Corihor, and drew away Cohor his brother, and also all his brethren and many of the people. And he gave battle unto Shule, the kind, in which he did obtain the land of their first inheritance; and he became king over that part of the land. And it came to pass that he gave battle again unto Shule, the king; and he took Shule, the king, and carried him away captive into Moron. And it came to pass as he was about to put him to death, the sons of Shule crept into the house of Noah by night and slew him, and broke down the door of the prison and brought out their father, and placed him upon his throne in his own kingdom. #RandolpHarris 21 of 24
“Wherefore the son of Noah did build up his kingdom in his stead; nevertheless they did not gain power any more over Shule the king, and the people who were under the reign of Shule the king did prosper exceedingly and wax great. And the country was divided; and there were two kingdoms, the kingdom of Shule, and the kingdom of Cohor, the son of Noah. And Cohor, the son of Noah, caused that his people should give battle unto Shule, in which Shule did beat them and did slay Cohor. And now Cohor had a son who was called Nimrod; and Nimrod gave up the kingdom of Cohor unto Shule, and did gain favour in the eyes of Shule; wherefore Shule did bestow great favours upon him, and he did do in the kingdom of Shule according to his desires. And also the reign of Shule there came prophets among the people, who were sent from the Lord, prophesying that the wickedness and idolatry of the people was bring a curse upon the land, and they should be destroyed if they did not repent. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And it came to pass that the people did revile against the prophets, and did mock them. And it came to pass that king Sule did execute judgment against all those who did revile against the prophets. And he did execute a law throughout all the land, which gave power unto the prophets that they should go whithersoever they would; and by this cause the people were brought unto repentance. And become the people did repent of their iniquities and idolatries the Lord did spare them, and they began to prosper again in the land. And it came to pass that Shule begat sons and daughters in his old age. And there were no more wars in the days of Shule; and he remembered the great things of the Lord had done for his fathers in brining them across the great deep into the promised land; wherefore he did execute judgment in righteousness all his days,” reports Ether 7.1-27. It will be a dark night indeed, for, even though the stars give what light they can, it comes from far away, and is scattered and spent when it falls on the Earth. Where is the light that comes from nearer, from our own World’s companion, our own World’s sister? She hides from us tonight. Tonight there will be no Moon. Tonight we will have no companion to guide us through the darkness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
However, though we cannot see you, you live in our hearts. Strengthen us in the darkness: is that not what darkness is for? Raised against the empty Winter sky, the barren limbs of trees and my hands reach out in prayer. I ask from the gods of Winter the strength I will need to endure until spring and the wisdom I require to learn from the dark and the cold the lessons they will teach. May I receive them without flinching. With silent steps you come, snow spirits, silently descending, silently landing. You who silence the World with your falling, silence it so I can hear from you: I hear silence. Please drop welcome tears upon the Earth, fertile sky. Awaken it to new life, please feed its thirsty mouth. The Lord reigneth; He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, He hath girded Himself with strength. Now is the Earth firmly established; it shall not be moved. Thy throne is established of old; thou art from everlasting. The waters lift up their voices, O Lord, the water lift up their roaring; yet above the voices of many waters, above the breakers of the sea, Thou, O Lord, art mighty. Thy law is true and unfailing; holiness is becoming to Thy house, O Lord, forevermore. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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I Have Heard the Cloudy Thunder: Where is My Power?
If students could take a stand against taking a stand, they would be much better off. We are in the act of discovering ourselves, not what we have been instructed to discover by the culture. It was an archaic level that pre-philosophical humans lived and experience the World. They were entirely in the grip of their emptions. All passions that made their blood boil and their heart pound, that accelerated their breathing or took their breath away, that “turned one’s bowels to water” – all this was a manifestation of the “soul.” Therefore they localized the soul in the region of the diaphragm (in Greek phren, which also means mind) and the heart. It was only with the first philosophers that the seat of reason began to be assigned to the head. There are still people today whose “thoughts” are localized principally in the belly, and some “think” with their hearts. Pueblo Indians believe, “only madmen think with their hearts.” On this level consciousness is essentially passion and the experience of oneness. Yet, serene and tragic at once, it was just this archaic being who, having started to think, invented that dichotomy of the discovery of pairs of opposites, the division into odd and even, above and below, good and evil. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
It was the work of the old Pythagoreans, and it was their doctrine of moral responsibility and the grace metaphysical consequences of sin that gradually, in the course of the centuries, percolated through t all strata of the population, chiefly owning to the spread of the Orphic and Pythagorean mysteries. Plato even used the parable of the white and black horses to illustrate the intractability and polarity of the human psyche, and, still earlier, the mysteries proclaimed the doctrine of the good rewarded in the Hereafter and of the wicked punished in hell. These teachings cannot be dismissed as the mystical humbug of the “backwoods” philosophers, as Nietzsche claimed, or as so much sectarian cannot, for already in the sixth century B.C. Pythagorreanism was something like a state religion throughout Graecia Magna. Also, the ideas underlying its mysteries never died out, but underwent a philosophical renaissance in the second century B.C, when they exercised the strongest influence on the Alexandrian World of thought. Their collision with Old Testament prophecy then led to what one called the beginnings of Christianity as World religion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
From Hellenistic syncretism there now arose a classification of humans into types which were entirely alien to the “humoral” psychology of Greek medicine. In the philosophical sense, it established gradations between the Parmenidean poles of light and darkness, of above and below. It classified humans into hylikoi, psychikoi, and pneumatikoi—material, psychic, and spiritual beings. This classification is not, of course, a scientific formulation of similarities and dissimilarities; it is a critical system of values based not on the behaviour and outward appearance of humans as a phenotype, but on definitions of an ethical, mystical, and philosophic kind. Although it is not exactly a “Chrisitan” conception it nevertheless forms an integral part of early Christianity at the time of St. Paul. Its very existence is incontrovertible proof of the split that had occurred in the original unity of a human as a being entirely in the grip of one’s emotions. Before this, one was merely alive and there, the plaything of experience, incapable of any reflective analysis concerning one’s origin and destination. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Now, suddenly, humans found themselves confronted by three fateful factors and endowed with body, soul, and spirit, to each of which one had moral obligations. Presumably it was already decided at birth whether one would pass one’s life in the hylic or pneumatic states, or in the indeterminate center between the two. The ingrained dichotomy of the Greek mind has now become acute, with the result that the accent shifted significantly to the psychic and spiritual, which was unavoidably split off from the hylic realm of the body. All the highest and ultimate goals lay in human’s moral destination, in a spiritual, supramundane end-state, and the separation of the hylic realm broadened into a cleavage between World and spirit. Thus the original, suave wisdom expressed in the Pythagorean pairs of opposites became a passionate moral conflict. Nothing, however, is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness at being at war with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
This process is called cultural development. It is, at any rate, a development of human’s powers of discrimination and capacity for judgment, and of consciousness in general. With the increase of knowledge and enhanced critical faculties the foundations were laid for the whole subsequent development of the human mind in terms of intellectual achievement. The particular mental product that far surpassed all the achievements of the ancient World was science. It closed the rift between humans and nature in the sense that, although humans were separated from nature, science enabled them to find their rightful place again in the natural order. One’s special metaphysical position, however, had to be jettisoned—so far as it was not secured by belief in the traditional religion—whence arose the notorious conflict between “faith and knowledge.” At all events, science brought about a splendid rehabilitation of matter, and in this respect materialism may even by regarded as an act of historical justice. However, one absolutely essential field of experience, the human psyche itself, remained for a very long time the preserve of metaphysics, although increasingly serious attempts were made after the Enlightenment to open it up to scientific investigation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The scientific investigations began, tentatively, with the sense perceptions, and gradually ventured into the domain of associations. This line of research paved the way for experimental psychology, and it culminated in the “physiological psychology” of Wundt. A more descriptive kind of psychology, with the medical people soon made contact, developed in France. Its chief exponents were Taine, Ribot, and Janet. It was characteristics of this scientific approach that it broke down the psyche into particular mechanisms or processes. In the face of these attempts, there were some who advocated what we today would call a “holistic” approach—the systematic observation of the psyche as a whole. It seems as if this trend originated in a certain type of biography, more particularly this kind that an earlier age, which also had its good points, used to describe as “curious lives.” In this connection I think of Justinus Kerner and his Seeress of Prevorst, and the case of the elder Blumhardt and his medium Gottliebin Dittus. To be historically fair, however, I should not forget the Medieval Acta Santorum. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
The World-Idea contains so many combinations of pattern and characteristic that the possibility of living human creatures duplicating one another during the same historic epoch is non-existent. There is no thing or person, no creature or object, which has not its individual place in the cosmic pattern. Such is one item of this revelation. Each item in the World-Idea is unique: nowhere is there another precisely like it. The characteristics of a natural thing which it shares in common with similar thins in its category are not alone: there are others which belong solely to it alone, for Nature produces no two things wholly alike. Differences in function exist throughout Nature—variety is everywhere—but this need not imply difference in status. Every imaginable kind of human comes sometime somewhere to birth. No one else has a self like yours. It is unique. Be it creature or plant, it seeks expression for those attributes of which its form is both symbol and meaning. The amazing uniqueness of each human being’s body extends not only to its measurements and its movements but also to its psychic aura; there is not one which is not special, different in some way or to some degree. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
No two persons have the same appearance. Now, if we could examine them, the same minds. Not only are no two creatures alike, but no creature ever has two experiences which are alike. Plant several seeds from the same plant. They will not grow up into identical plants but into individually different ones, no two roots, stems, or branches being alike. What is the reason why each human is unique? This solitariness is true not only of the body but also of the mind. No other human in this World is like me. The true answer to the question is also the only possible one. The Infinite World-Mind manifests itself in an infinite variety of forms in the attempt to express its own infinitude. However, since every form is necessarily limited, full success is necessarily impossible. The process of creation will be an eternal one. No two humans are ever alike, no two hands are ever the same. The Infinite Being tries to express itself in infinite individuality, just as it tries to reproduce itself in infinitely varied degrees of consciousness. Each human is unique because the Infinite Mind has an infinite number of diverse ways in which to express itself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
We can take the manifestations of the psyche as expressions of its intrinsic being, and try to establish certain conformity types. When one begins as a young doctor, one’s head is still full of clinical pictures and diagnoses. In the course of the years, impressions of quite another kind accumulate. One is struck by the enormous diversity of human individuals, by the chaotic profusion of individual cases, the special circumstances of whose lives and whose special characters produce clinical pictures that, even supposing one still felt any desire to do so, can be squeezed into the straitjacket of a diagnosis only by force. The fact that the disturbance can be given such and such a name appears completely irrelevant beside the overwhelming impression one has that all clinical pictures are so many mimetic or histrionic demonstrations of certain character traits. The pathological problem upon which everything turns has virtually nothing to do with the clinical picture, but is essentially an expression of character. Even the complexes, the “nuclear elements” of a neurosis, are beside the point, being mere concomitants of a certain characterological disposition. This can be seen most easily in the relation of the patient to one’s paternal family. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
One is, let us say, one of four siblings, is neither the eldest nor the youngest, has had the same education and conditioning as other. Yet one is sick and they are sound. The anamnesis shows that a whole series of influences to which the others were exposed as well as one, and from which indeed they all suffered, had a pathological effect on one alone—at least to all appearances. In reality these influences were not aetiological factors in one’s case either, but prove to be false explanation. The real cause of the influences emanating from the environment. By comparing many such cases it gradually became clear to me that there must be two fundamentally different general attitudes which would divide human beings into two groups—provided the whole of humanity consisted of highly differentiated individual. Since this is obviously not the case, one can only say that this difference of attitude becomes plainly observable only when we are confronted with a comparatively well-differentiated personality; in other words, it becomes of practical importance only after a certain degree of differentiation has been reached. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Pathological cases of this kind are almost always people who deviate from the familial type and, in consequence, no longer find sufficient security in their inherited instinctual foundation. Weak instincts are one of the prime causes of the development of an habitual one-sided attitude, though in the last resort it is conditioned or reinforced by heredity. I have called these two fundamentally different attitudes extraversion and introversion. Extraversion is characterized by interest in the external object, responsiveness, and a ready acceptance of external happenings, a desire to influence and be influenced by event, a need to join in and get “with it,” the capacity to endure bustle and noise of every kin, and actually find them enjoyable, constant attention to the surrounding World, the cultivation of friends and acquaintances, none too carefully selected, and finally by the great importance attached to the figure one cuts, and hence by a strong tendency to make a show of oneself. Accordingly, the extravert’s philosophy of life and one’s ethics are as a rule of a highly collective nature with a strong streak of altruism, and one’s conscience is in large measure dependent on public opinion. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Moral misgivings arise mainly when “other people know.” One’s religious convictions are determined, so to speak, by majority vote. The actual subject, the extravert as a subjective entity, is, so far as possible, shrouded in darkness. One hides it from oneself under veils of unconsciousness. This disinclination to submit one’s own motives to critical examination is very pronounced. One has no secrets one has not long since shared with others. Should something unmentionable nevertheless befall one, one prefers to forget it. Anything that might tarnish the parade of optimism and positivism is avoided. Whatever one thinks, intends, and does is displayed with conviction and warmth. The psychic life of this type of person is enacted, as it were, outside oneself, in the environment. One lives in and through other; all self-communings give one the creeps. Danger lurk there which are better drowned out by noise. If one should ever have a “complex,” one finds refuge in the social whirl and allows oneself to be assured serval times a day that everything is in order. Provided one is not too much of a busy-body, too pushing, and too superficial, one can be a distinctly useful member of the community. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Introversion, on the other hand, being directed not to the object but to the subject, and not being oriented by the object, is not easy to put into perspective. The introvert is not forthcoming, one is as though in continual retreat before the object. One holds aloof from external happenings, does not join in, has a distinct dislike of society as soon as one finds oneself among too many people. In a large gathering one feel lonely and lost. The more crowded it is, the greater becomes one’s resistance. One is not in the least “with it, and has no love of enthusiastic get-togethers. One is not a good mixer. What one does, one does in one’s own way, barricading oneself against influences from the outside. One is apt to appear awkward, often seeming inhibited, and it frequently happens that, by a certain brusqueness of manner, or by one’s glum unapproachability, or some kind of malapropism, one causes unwitting offence to people. One’s better qualities one keeps to oneself, and generally does everything one can to dissemble them. One is easily mistrustful, self-willed, often suffers from inferiority feelings and for this reason is also envious. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
One’s apprehensiveness of the object is not due to fear, but to the fact that is seems to one negative, demanding, overpowering or even menacing. One therefore suspects all kinds of bad motives, has an everlasting fear of making a fool of oneself, is usually very touchy and surrounds oneself with a barbed wire entanglement so dense and impenetrable that finally oneself would rather do anything than sit behind it. One confronts the World with an elaborate defensive system compounded of scrupulosity, pedantry, frugality, cautiousness, painful conscientiousness, stiff-lipped rectitude, politeness, and open-eyed distrust. One’s picture of the World lacks rosy hues, as one is over-critical and finds a hair in every soup. Under normal conditions one is pessimistic and worried, because the World and human beings are not in the least good but crush one, so one never feels accepted and taken to their heart. Yet one oneself does not accept the World either, at any rate not outright, for everything has first to be judged by one’s own critical standards. Finally only those things are accepted which, for various subjective reasons, one can turn one’s own account. For one self-communings are a pleasure. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
One’s own World is a safe habour, a carefully tended and walled-in garden, closed to the public and hidden from prying eyes. One’s own company is the best. One feels at home in one’s World, where the only changes are made by oneself. One’s best work is done with one’s own resources, on one’s own initiative, and in one’s own way. If ever one succeeds, after long and often wearisome struggles, in assimilating something alien to oneself, one is capable of turning it to excellent account. Crowds, majority views, public opinion, popular enthusiasm never convince one of anything, but merely makes one creep still deeper into one’s shell. Only when safety is guaranteed, and one can lay aside one’s defensive distrust, one’s relations with other people become warm. All too often one cannot, and consequently the number of friends and acquaintances is very restricted. Thus the psychic life of this type is played out wholly within. Should any difficulties and conflicts arise in this inner World, all doors and windows are shut tight. The introvert shuts oneself up with one’s complexes until one ends in complete isolation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
In spite of these peculiarities the introvert is by no means a social loss. One’s retreat into oneself is not a final renunciation of the World, but a such for quietude, where along it is possible for one to make one’s contribution to the life of the community. This type of person is the victim of numerous misunderstandings—not unjustly, for one actually invites them. Nor can one be acquitted of the charge of taking a secret delight in mystification, and that being misunderstood gives one a certain satisfaction, since it reaffirms one’s pessimistic outlook. That being so, it is easy to see why one is accused of being cold, proud, obstinate, selfish, conceited, cranky, and what not, and why one is constantly admonished that devotion to the goals of society, clubbableness, imperturbable urbanity, and selfless trust in the powers-that-be are true virtues and the marks of a sound and vigorous life. The introvert is well enough aware that such virtues exist, and that somewhere, perhaps—only not in one’s circle of acquaintances—there are divinely inspired people who enjoy undiluted possession of these ideal qualities. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
However, one’s self-criticism and one’s awareness of one’s own motives have long since disabused one of the illusion that one oneself would be capable of such virtues; and one’s mistrustful gaze, sharpened by anxiety, constantly enables one to detect on one’s fellow humans a finely clothed fool trying to pretend to be something one is not. The World and humans are for one a disturbance and a danger, affording no valid standard by which one could ultimately orient oneself. What alone is valid for one is one’s subjective World, which one sometimes believes, in moments of delusion, to be the objective one. If it were certain beyond a doubt that only one objective World existed, we could easily charge these people with the worst kind of subjectivism, indeed with morbid individualism. However, this truth, if such it be, is not axiomatic; it is merely a half truth, the other half of which is the fact that the World also is as it is seen by human beings, and in the last resort by the individual. There is simply no World at all without the knowing subject. This, be it never so small and inconspicuous, is always the other pier supporting the bridge of the phenomenal World. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
This appeal to the subject therefore has the same validity as the appeal to the so-called objective World, for it is grounded on psychic reality itself. However, this is a reality with its own peculiar laws which are not of a secondary nature. The two attitudes, extraversion and introversion, are opposing modes that make themselves felt not least in the history of human thought. For the extravert the object is interesting and attractive a priori, as is the subject, or psychic reality, for the introvert. We could therefore use the expression “numinal accent” for this fact, by which I mean that for the extravert the quality of positive significance and value attaches primarily to the object, so that it plays the predominant, determining, and decisive role in all psychic processes from the start, just as the subject does for the introvert. However, the numina accent does not decide only between subject and object; it also selects the conscious function of which the individual makes the principle use. I distinguish four functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. The essential function of sensation is to establish that something exists, thinking tells us what it means, feeling what is value is, and intuition surmises whence it comes and whither it goes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
When it is thus made central to human life, the human body is betrayed in its own nature. It is created for spiritual life in the kingdom of God and to be honoured—indeed, glorified—in that context. However, when take out of that context and made the central focus of human experience and endeavour, it is betrayed—robbed of the spiritual resources meant to sustain its life and proper functioning—and in turn it then betrays those who center their life on it. The sense of this betrayal is what lies at the heart of youth worship in Western societies. It also is the source of the fear, shame, disgust, and even the anger directed at above average weight, old age (or just gaining), and death and dying that dominate our culture. An outlook focused entirely on the body finds the body’s failure and cessation to be, of course, the ultimate insult from which there is no recovery. If you want to understand Western life and culture, you have to understand this. The same mis-location of the body explains many other intractable problems now facing much of our World: the glamourizing of pleasures of the flesh, how to deal with unplanned families, eating disorders, and the racial and other discriminations. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
All these cultural issues are rooted in taking the body—our own or that of others—to be the person and thereby depriving ourselves of the spiritual perspective on the person, which alone can enable us to cherish the body and its central role in our life. Body hatred also comes from disappointment about our future with it, even from outright fear of the body—of what it is going to do to us. Not accepting God as God puts un in his place, I have noted, and leaves us with nothing to trust and worship but out body and its natural powers. The frenzy over physical attractiveness that we see all around us today and the despair over its loss—eventually, in aging and death, for everyone—are the main characteristics of the contemporary climate of life. However, that only illustrates, once more, that to be carnally minded—that is, obsessed with the merely natural—is death indeed. We should now be able to see the truth of this in everything we view or read in today’s World. However, by contrast, to be spiritually minded—that is, to be Focused on our nature as spiritual beings and our place in God’s eternal life and kingdom. “The mind of the sinful human is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace,” reports Romans 8.6. Then the body is beautified and beatified in its proper place. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
By an act of faith we may accept the religious belief in creation, that God brought the Universe to be, and it was. “And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after the he should be lifted up upon the cross; and for this cause did king Mosiah keep them, that they should not come unto the World until after Christ should show himself unto his people. And after Christ truly has showed himself unto his people he commanded that they should be made manifest. And now, after that, they have all dwindled in unbelief; and there is none save it be the Lamanites, and they have rejected the gospel of Christ; therefore I am commanded that I should hide them up again in the Earth. Behold, I have written upon these plated the very things which the brother of Jared saw; and there never were greater things made manifest than those which were made manifest uno the brother of Jared. Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“And he commanded me that I should seal them up; and he also hath commanded that I should seal up the interpretation therefore; wherefore I have sealed up the interpreters, according to the commandments of the Lord. For the Lord said unto me: They shall not go forth unto the Gentiles until the day that they shall repent of their iniquity, and become clean before the Lord. And in that day that they shall exercise faith in me, saith the Lord, even as the brother of Jared did, that they may become sanctified in me, then will I manifest unto them the things which the brother of Jared saw, even to the unfolding unto them all my revelations, saith Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of the Heavens and of the Earth, and all things that in them are. And one that will contend against the word of the Lord, let one be accursed; and one that shall deny these things, let one be accursed; for unto them will I show no greater things, saith Jesus Christ; for I am one who speaketh. And at my command the Heavens are opened and shut; and at my word the Earth shall shake; and at my command the inhabitants thereof shall pass away, even so as by fire. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And one that believeth not my words believeth not my disciples; and if it so be that I do not speak, judge ye; for ye shall know that it is I that speaketh, at the last day. However, one that believeth these things which I have spoken, one will I visit with the manifestations of my Spirit, and one shall know and bear record. For because of my Spirit one shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth humans to so good. And whatsoever thing persuadeth human to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. I am the same that leadeth humans to all good; one that will not believe my words will not believe me—that I am; and one that will not believe me will not believe the Father who sent me. For behold, I am the Father, I am the light, and the life, and the truth of the World. Come unto me, O ye Gentiles, and I will show you the greater things, the knowledge which is hid up because of unbelief. Come unto me, O ye house of Israel, and it shall be made manifest unto you how great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation of the World; and it hath not come unto you, because of unbelief. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“Behold, when ye shall rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, then shall the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the World from you—yea, when ye shall call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then shall ye know that the Father hath remembered the covenant which he made unto your father, O house of Israel. And then shall my revelations which I have caused to be written by my servant John be unfolded in the eyes of all the people. Remember, when ye see these things, ye shall know that they shall be made manifest in very deed. Therefore, when ye shall receive this record ye may know that the work of the Father has commenced upon all the face of the land. Therefore, repent all ye ends of the Earth, and come unto me, and believe in my gospel, and be baptized in my name; for one that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but one that believeth not shall be damned; and signs shall follow them that believe in my name. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“And blessed is one that is fond faithful unto my name at the last day, for one shall be lifted up to dwell in the kingdom prepared for one for the foundation of the World. And behold it is I that hath spoken it. Amen,” reports Ether 4.1-19. I pour out praise to the King of Heaven, the Father of Wonders, shining tonight. The aura the it forms guides your grace to me as you look down. Please accept my prayers as a thank you for all that you give so freely. Happy is the human whom Thou dost discipline, O Lord, and teachest out of Thy law; that Thou mayest give one rest from the days of evil, until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance. For righteousness shall be again vindicated, and there is hope for the upright in heart. Who will rise up for me against the evil doers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Had the Lord not been my help, my soul would have dwelt in the silence of death. When I thought, “My foot slips,” Thy mercy, O Lord, did hold me up. When depressing thoughts upset me, Thy comfort delights my soul. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Clearly She Saw, as Other Eyes Would Know Pale Limbs at Bottom of a Crystal Well!
Today our Problem is not making miracles—but managing them. I am going to build the kind of nation the President Roosevelt hoped for, President Trump is working to create (one of great financial prosperity, where one can still look forward to the American Dream), and President Kennedy died for. Research has indicated that eighty-four percent of Americans agree that a major cause of disrespect in our society is the fact that too many parents are failing to teach respect to their kids. Seventy-five percent of Americans want parents to teach their kids that cursing is always wrong. Only 19 percent of Americans never curse. These last two points highlight a major contradiction in American attitudes toward children’s rude behaviour. As adults, we are all part of the problem—and the potential solution. Whether you are a parent or not, it does not matter. Children learn by mimicking adult behaviour. Let me repeat that: Children learn by mimicking adult behaviour. The key to teaching our children to respect really grows out of self-respect. We need to teach by example and to show our children that we have respect for the, both as our children and as our eternal brothers and sisters. “The Lord God hath given a commandment that all humans should have charity, which charity is love,” reports 2 Nephi 26.30. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Today we live in times of conflict, differences of opinion, disagreements. There is a need for us, perhaps more than ever before, to allow respect, charity, and forgiveness to influence our actions. Children learn for our behaviour, so if you swear in front of your kids they will think it means, “A grown adult swearing—that must mean that when I get really mad, it is okay to swear.” When children hear adults threatening other people they will think, “A grown adults threatening revenge—that must mean that it is okay to do violence to another person as long as I can justify it.” These horrible and incorrect philosophies will become imprinted in their memories. Therefore you can see, as children are observers, you do not have to have a kid of your own to have an impact on them. When it comes to teaching kids to be more respectful and less rude, there is no magical spell I know of to resolve this matter. It is a process that involves all of us and that will take time. We all need to recognize that how we act will be reflected in the behaviour and attitudes of tomorrow’s adults. We must understand respect, reasons we sometimes act disrespectfully, and find principles in the gospel to help us be better teachers. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
If every adult starts making a conscious decision to model considerate, respectful behaviour in one’s daily life, kids will start reflecting that behaviour. The sooner we do this, the sooner our children’s good behaviour will be reinforced. There are at least two definition of respect. The first refers to being polite or civil to those we meet or with whom we interact. This would include being respectful of a teacher. We hope grandchildren will treat grandparents respectfully during visits. We usually treat strangers with polite respect. Another meaning, however, refers to our feelings toward those who merit respect through honourable living. We admire their commitment or standards. For example, we might respect a supermodel who gave up winning a modeling competition on a yacht to save a man who fell overboard. On the other hand, we do not respect one who embezzles or another who treats the elderly, disabled, or children harshly in the supermarket. Yet if we were to interact with these people, we would likely treat them with respectful or polite manners, regardless of our feelings about their transgressions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Ultimately, even if we do not honour or admire their acts, we can treat people respectfully. As parents and leaders, we are to honour both definitions. We want children not only to treat us with respect—using good manners—but also to honour our standards, which we seek to exemplify through Christlike living. Be extra careful around children. You are already influencing children every time you are around them by the way you act, speak, and carry yourself. Being the male parent is not simply a matter of taking a larger role in chores around the house in order to take pressure off your mate so one can focus on raising the children. Being a male, dominant male, parent, or dominant parent also mean being a part of the child care—and not just in the first few weeks. It means being an equal partner in the care of your children for the next few decades of their lives, and then some. Sharing the load sometimes involves serious sacrifice. For instance, on any given Sunday afternoon, just as Tom Brady throws a Hail Mary pass to put the game into overtime, the phone rings. My daughter is one the line: “Can you pick me up now?” My wife is making dinner, so I have to make sure she gets home safely. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
While the gospel teaches us to be respectful toward others without qualification, sometimes we may find ourselves falling into rationalization about being disrespectful based on their behavior. A person who causes a problem is often seen as warranting disrespectful treatment. In other words, if others would have behaved differently, we would not have to behave badly. Going bad on a person is a kind of thinking that shifts responsibility for our behaviour to others. It makes us think that our disrespectful acts are someone else’s fault. Children pick this up quickly. When they are impolite, they often justify their disrespect with the excuse that other humans or living being or inanimate objects do not deserve good treatment. Also, keep in mind, dads cannot always be fun. Discipline is part of parenting, and for it to work, both partners have to participate. The mom, or non-dominant parent cannot always be the judge and jury. If you are always the parent who consoles the children and play good officer, the non-dominant will resent you for making them the enforcer. Be willing to be a parent who enforce the law, and support your spouse in their choices when one has to enforce the law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Respect is an expression of our sense of universal humanity—a testimony of our membership in the human family. It acknowledges our common humanity and shows our reverence for children of God. The gospel teaches us that we are to hold the same esteem for others that we hold for ourselves. “And again I say unto you, let every human esteem others humans as oneself,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 38.25. I have heard more primary school holiday concerts than I care to remember. Each one was important to Leo and Annie, and it was so important that both of their parents were there to share in their performance. Whether your child is the star or a member of the chorus, you make time to attend, you applaud thunderously, and you congratulate your child as though it was one’s opening night on Broadways. Acting disrespectfully suggest we do not esteem the other person as ourselves. “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that humans should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets,” reports Matthew 7.12. Take the time to listen to your children. They have wonderful thoughts and an ever-fresh perspective, and talking with them will bring those thoughts out. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
When I was a young parent, I could always tell the kids whose parents listened to them. If I was driving them home after a visit, they were the kids who would talk your ear off, even though you were a relatively unfamiliar adult. Those conversations were always a joy, especially compared to driving a kid home whose vocabulary consisted of grunted, monosyllabic responses to my questions. Time passes quickly. Before you know it, those little toddlers will be off living on their own. So make the effort to share in the raising of your kids. In the process of raising them, you will build a stronger relationship with your spouse and give your kids the best possible opportunity to grow up happy and successful. Prejudice is a result of disrespect for our fellow humans. We cannot participate in attitudes of prejudice without distancing ourselves from others. True respect, then, comes as we develop our ability to love our brothers and sisters as ourselves. Gossip, another everyday form of disrespect, is incompatible with love. What we say about people in their absence should be what we would say to them with love while they are in our presence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
As adults, we admit that we are modeling bad behaviour, but we want and expect different behaviour from our kids. Learning does not work that way. When my older daughter was in grade school, I discovered this. She had a teacher whom I firmly believed was the perfect example of what is wrong with the guaranteed job policies in private education—and one day I voiced my displeasure about her in from of my daughter. I remember it so clearly. A short while later, during a discussion about a problem my daughter was having with a teacher, I heard my daughter spout my back at me. And then she said, “I pray you get to hear my craft.” The lightbulb immediately went off in my head: How could I possibly expect her to follow my admonition to “respect her teacher” when I was teaching her to disrespect that same person? Kids do not understand, “Do as I say, not as I do.” They do understand “Do as I do.” Feeling empathy for others is a symptom of respectful behaviour, while feeling unsympathetic is a symptom of disrespectful acts. A good friend of mine coaches his son’s lacrosse team. When I learned this, I could not help but think: Here is a formula for disaster. However, it happens every day and dads can do it successfully. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Be impartial. The key is to look at your child as a team member and not as your son, your daughter, your competition, a pay check, or your enemy. You have taken on the job so you have sone very difficult task. When it is your child sitting on the bench, this can be tough. At the start of the season, talk with your child. Explain that you love him or her but you also have to be the coach for the team and that means no favouritism. It is important not only for both your sakes but for the effect your impartiality will have on the other players and their parents as well. Yelling, berating and/or sarcasm do not work as motivator, especially for children. Children want to learn; they want to improve. And when their teacher, parent, or coach instructs them in a beneficial, constructive way, the child preforms best. Respect is also synonymous with care about. Sometimes we excuse our disrespect, even for people we care about, by holding against them their lack of caring or concern for us. To feel compassion, one has to give up one’s attitude of resentment and disrespect. Protect yourself, defend yourself by transforming yourself and no longer use anyone’s bad behaviour to justify your own poor behaviour. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
We are so proud of our kids. We want them to do well. We want their team to be the best. And sometimes we get caried away: We see a call on the sport’s field that seems unfair, and we scream at the ref. We see the coach call our son or daughter out of the game, and we scream at the coach. We see a teammate make an unwise play, and we scream at the teammate. We see our own son or daughter miss a play they have made hundreds of times in the backyard, and we scream at him or her. All this screaming does not work. The referee is not going to change one’s call; the coach is not about to suddenly see things your way and send your kid back in; the teammate is not going to magically turn into an all-star candidate. And your son or daughter is now likely to be more focused on your incessant, embarrassing screaming than on one’s own play. Youth leagues now have spectator standards, and they are serious about enforcing them. They will even require parents to watch a video and sign a statement promising that they will adhere to the league’s standards of spectator behaviour. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
They are serious: one infraction and the offending parent is placed on probation. A second infraction and they are banded from attending future events. “And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every human according to that which is one’s due,” reports Mosiah 4.13. To promote greater respect within families and youth groups, we must teach correct principles and share good examples. Chatter. Whispering. Complaining to each other. Parents do it all the time with other parents on their kids’ youth teams. Frankly, it drives the coaches and the league organizers crazy. The parents band together and then approach the coach. “Strength in numbers,” they think t themselves. If you believe this is a good idea, I have a bridge in Oakland I would like to talk to you about. You are a parent, you are in the stands, and you should be supportive not only of your kids, but of the coaches and the program as well. If others start jabbering, try to stop them or at least refuse to be part of their grousing. Respect is an expression of Christlike living. It is closely linked to all other qualities we are counseled to cultivate. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
We must cultivate patience, long-suffering, humanly kindness, and love unfeigned. It is a feature of selfless service and humble repentance. When healing or dissolving hostilities, it is essential. Respect for others shows reverence for God and his creations. Through showing respect, we truly feel more a part of the human family and recognize and honour our common divine parentage. Teach your children to respect their neighbours. Teach your children to respect their bishops and the teachers that come to their homes to teach them. Teach your children to respect their elders. Teach your children when they go to school, they should honour their teachers in that in which is true and honest, in that which is manly and womanly, and worthwhile. Teach your children to honour the law of God and the law of the state and the law of our country. Teach them to respect and hold in honour those who are chosen by the people to stand at their head and execute justice and administer the law. Teach them to be loyal to their country, loyal to righteousness and uprightness and honour, and thereby they will grow up to be men and women of choice above all the men and women of the World. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
How do we know when we are being treated respectfully or disrespectfully? Do we sometime rationalize our treatment of others because of their behaviour? How can we avoid this? Why does developing love for others lead to respectful treatment of them? Are you aware of someone who is being treated disrespectfully? How might you show respect to that person? The greatest danger to our prospects for spiritual transformation at this point is that we will fail to take all this talk about respect and our body being the temple of God literally. It may help us to consider ordinary situations of temptation. Temptation is a matter of being inclined to do what is wrong. However, where do those inclinations primarily reside? The answer is, they primarily exist in the parts of our body. Those inclinations are actually present in those parts and can even be felt there by those who are attentive to their body and who are informed, thoughtful, and willing to admit what they find upon careful reflection. Others, too, can recognize the tendencies present in our bodily parts—hands, feet, shoulder, eyebrows, loins, tongue, overall posture—and they can play upon those tendencies, to trap us, ensnare us, use us, destroy us. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Those who purposefully prey upon others constantly play upon tendencies they can use to destroy others. They become experts at it. These various tendencies actually present in our bodily parts can move our body into action independently of our overall intentions to the contrary—often quite genuine—and of our conscious thoughts. Thus we act or speak “before we think.” The part of our character that lives in our body carries us away. The tongue, for example. James said that “the tongue is a small part [member, mela] of the body,” reports James 3.5. However, “the tongue is a fire, the cosmos of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members s something which defiles the entire body, setting fire to the natural course of things and itself on fire by hell,” reports James 3.6. James had no doubt observed the incredible power of the tongue to stir up the inclinations of the whole body and of all its parts—our own body as well as that of others. Have you observed this? It is perhaps the last bodily part to submit to goodness and rightness. No one can tame it, James said, and indeed that is right. Physical violence usually always introduced by verbal violence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
It is only as we habitually subject the tongue to the grace of God as instrument reserved for him, to do His will, that grace comes literally to inhabit and govern it. And when that happens the effects spread throughout all the body. “If anyone does not stumble in word,” James said, “that is a perfect human, able even to guide one’s entire body aright,” reports James 3.2. “The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver,” reports Proverbs 10.20, and “A healing tongue is a tree of life,” reports Proverbs 15.4. Other members of the body, though not as central to life as the tongue, have their own readiness to act wrongly, with the associated feeling states—“Haughty eyes,” the wise man said, “a lying tongue, hands to shed innocent blood, and feet that run quickly to the devil,” reports Proverbs 6.17-18. If they have not already been permeated by the real presence of Christ, the shoulders, the stomach and the private parts, the fists and the face are constantly moving us away from God. A person caught up in rage or lust or resentment—or religious self-righteousness, for that matter—is basically one whose body has taken over and, at least for the moment, is totally running one’s actions or even life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Sometimes we say, “I just lost my temper.” “Temper” refers to the capacity to handle all kinds of situations and maintain one’s balance. It is in fact close to character, as when we say of someone that they are “acting out of character” or “are out of pocket” or “are not themselves” today. However, what does one lose one’s temper or character to? Things will be happening around us, of course, and they may get blamed, as a baby spanks the floor where it falls on it. However, what we lose or temper or our “control” to, what begins to govern our action at that point, is precisely our body and the inclinations to wrong that, as Paul and James both knew, actually inhabit its parts as living forces. You can verify this by carefully observing the bodily behaviour of the next person you see in a rage. God does not need us. He is perfectly capable of carrying out His plans without our leadership. However, wonder of wonders, joy of joys, He has chosen to use us. We must take our call to leadership seriously. We must glory in the work, but never in ourselves. Nonetheless, one thing is for sure: leadership must have a dream, a vision, a mental image, a precise goal of what is to be accomplished. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Vision is the currency of leadership. A vision or dream must grab the leader, and when it does, it will pull others long. The challenge of leadership is so great today because modern humans are dreamless. Next, a leader must not only have a dream, one must be able to communicate it. This is true with artists, educators, military leaders, fast-food franchisers. A great leader communicates with clarity, whether by speech, metaphor, diagram, or model. Good leaders then delegate and orchestrate. They surround themselves with competent people. They build consensus. And they elevate the people with whom they work. Good leaders lead by demonstration. They pull people along with them instead of pushing them. General Eisenhower used to demonstrate the art of leadership in a simple but forceful way. He would place a single piece of sting on a table and say, “Pull it and it follows wherever you want it to go; push it and it goes nowhere. Good leaders are determined. Nothing in the World can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful humans with a great talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Education will not; the World is full of educated derelicts. Persistence, determination along are omnipotent. Humans, if we wish to be good leaders we must recognize and embrace this conventional wisdom: vision, communication, delegation, and organization, demonstration, and determination. We laud and commend all this, but we must practice it as well. However, there is far more beyond this in our call to spiritual leadership. If we are embraced as disciplines of spiritual leadership, our collective energy will provide the animus for wisely living out conventional leadership wisdom. Put another way, the transcending wisdom of spiritual leadership will energize and elevate other types of wisdom we have received—thus producing dynamic leadership. Mature leadership is rare in the Church. Are you part of the problem or the answer? Be honest with yourself and God. Humans, if we sincerely want to improve our leadership capacities there are some things we must word for: The commitment to and practice of intercessory prayer. The pursuit of a great and growing vision of God. A growing worship of and devotion to God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
We must also have a big-hearted magnanimity that thrills at the elevation of others. A Faith that transcends the doubts of others. A liberating understanding and embracing of one’s expendability. Rise up, people of God! The Church for you does wait, her strength unequal to her task; rise up, and make her great! In what ways does God want you to take a greater stand of faith? “And it came to pass that Jared and his brother, and their families, and also the friends of Jared and his brother and their families, went down into the valley which was northward, (and the name of the valley was Nimrod, being called after the mighty hunter) with their flocks which they had gathered together, male and female, of every kind. And it came to pass that when they had come down into the valley of Nimrod the lord came down and talked with the brother of Jared; and he was in a cloud, and the brother of Jared saw him not. And it came to pass that the Lord commanded them that they should go for the into the wilderness, yes, int that quarter where there never had man been. And it came to pass that the Lord did go before them, and did talk with them as he stood in a cloud, and gave directions whither they should travel.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord. And the Lord would not suffer that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God has preserved for a righteous people. And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them. And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath small come upon them. And the fullness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity. For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore one that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fullness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fullness come, that ye may not bring down the fullness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done. Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under Heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the thing which we have written. And now I proceed with my record; for behold, it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years. And it came to pass at the end of four years that the Lord came again unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and talked with him. And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord for his brethren who were with him. And the Lord said unto him: I will give thee and they brethren of their sins; but thou shalt not sin any more, for ye shall remember that my Spirit will not always strive with man; wherefore, if ye will sin until ye are fully ripe ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And these are my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance; for it shall be a land choice above all other lands. And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water. And they were built after a manner that they were exceedingly tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And I came to pass that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, I have performed the work which thou hast commanded me, and I have made the barges according as thou directed me. And behold, O Lord, in them there is no light; whither shall we steer? And also we shall perish for in the we cannot breathe, save it is the air which is in them; therefore we shall perish. And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive the air. And if it be so that the water come upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hold, that ye may no perish in the flood. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did so, according as the Lord had commanded. And he cried again unto the Lord saying: O Lord, behold I have done even as thou hast commanded me; and I have prepared the vessels for my people, and behold there is no light in them. Behold, O Lord, wilt thou suffer that we shall cross this great water in darkness? And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in piece; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire. For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth. And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?” reports Ether 2.1-25. As the Sun retreats you enter the sky. Create the night, Great Father. Produce for your children a dark sky. Create our dreams that will fill our sleep. God standeth in the holy assembly, He pronounceth judgment: How long will ye judge unjustly, and favour the persons of the wicked? Do justice to the poor and fatherless; deal righteously with the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked! #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes
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A Human Delirious, or Noted for Falsehood and Villainy, Has No Manner of Authority with Us!
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law….that would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks the law that conscience tells one is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. All we want is that we get our story told, and get it told right. Spiritual feelings are good and necessary but they are not enough; they need to be completed and complemented by spiritual knowledge. We have much to gain by learning the laws and knowing the process which the World-Mind has imprinted upon the cosmos. Otherwise we are likely to violate those laws or interfere with those processes through ignorance. The result will then be suffering and unhappiness. It is Human’s true business in the World to discover one’s real self and to ascertain one’s relationship to the surrounding World. One’s mind will then shine with the Secret glory of human nature and one’s life will come into harmony with the cosmic order and beauty. Is life only a stream of rando events following one another haphazardly? Or is there an order, a meaning, a purpose behind it all? #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Philosophy offers as a first truth the affirmation that we live in a Universe of purpose and not one of caprice. We live in an orderly Universe, not an accidental one. Its movements are measured, its events are plotted, and its creatures develop towards a well-defined objective. All this could not be possible unless the Universe were ruled by immutable laws. There is an invisible mechanism within the universe and an intelligent mind directing this mechanism. The cosmic order behind thins is a divine one or it would be supplanted by nothing less than chaos. It is creative, intelligent, conscious—it is MIND. If there were not some sort of equilibrium holding it together, some sort of balancing arrangement as in the spinning of the Earth on its axis and the planets around the sun, the Universe could not exist as such. A little thought will show the same principle in the just relation of human beings to the World-Mind and among themselves. Here it appears as the seeds we sow. If the moon, Earth, and planets came into existence, and were thenceforward directed, by mere chance or whim, there would be no pattern in their positions and no rhythm in their movements; that is, there would be no World order. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
Were the sun and stars involved in the same caprice, we would not know when to expect daylight and darkness, nor where the North Pole would be found. However, because there is a World-Idea, there is law, orderliness, and some certainty: there is a Universe, not a chaos. If there were no World-Idea, then would all things be governed by mere chance, then would all be in dense obscurity; all our lives would flit through past, present, and future in a haphazard way. If it were itself without the World-Idea behind it, the Universe would be without meaning and without purpose. If there were no World-Idea there would be no World as we now know it, for its elements would have interacted and associated quite irresponsibly by mere accident and chance. In the result the sun might or might not have appeared today, the seasonal changes would have no orderly arrangement nor food-crops any predictable or measurable probability; instead of humans there might have evolved a frightful monstrosity, half-animal and half-demon, utterly devoid of any aspiration, any conscience, any pity at all. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
All our reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on a species of ANALOGY, which lead us to expect from any cause the same events, which we have observed to result from similar causes. Where the causes are entirely similar, the analogy is perfect, and the inference, drawn from it, is regarded as certain and conclusive: Nor does any human ever entertain a doubt, where one sees a piece of iron, that it will have weight and cohesion of parts; as in all other instances, which have ever fallen under one’s observation. However, where the objects have not so exact a similarity, the analogy is less perfect, and the inference is less conclusive; though still it has some force, in proportion to the degree of similarity and resemblance. The anatomical observations, formed upon one animal, are, by this species of reasoning, extended to all animals; and it is certain, that when the circulation of blood, for instance, is clearly proved to have place in one creature, as a frog, of fish, it forms a strong presumption, that the same principle has place in all. These analogical observations may be carried farther, even to this science, of which we are now treating. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
And any theory, by which we explain the operations of the understanding, or the origin and connexion of the passions in humans, if we find, that the same theory is requisite to explain the same phenomena in all other animals. We shall makes trial of this, with regard to the hypothesis, by which, we have, in the foregoing discourse, endeavoured to account for all experimental reasonings; and it is hoped, that this new point of view will serve to confirm all our former observation. First, it seems evident, that animals, as well as human learning many things from experience, and infer, that the same events will always follow from the same causes. By the principle they become acquainted with the more obvious properties of external objects, and gradually, from their birth, treasure up a knowledge of the nature of fire, water, Earth, stones, height, depths, and et cetera, and of the effects, which result from their operation. The ignorance and inexperience of the young are here plainly distinguishable from the cunning and sagacity of the old, who have learned, by long observation, to avoid what hurt them, and to pursue what gave ease or pleasure. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
A horse, that has been accustomed to the field, becomes acquainted with the proper height, which one can leap, and will never attempt what exceeds one’s force and ability. An old greyhound will trust the more fatiguing part of the chase to the younger, and will pace oneself so as to meet the hare in her doubles; nor are the conjectures, which one forms on this occasion, founded in anything but one’s observation and experience. This is still more evident from the effect of discipline and education on animals, who, by the proper application of rewards and punishments, may be taught any course of action, the most contrary to their natural instincts and propensities. When you menace one, or lift up a whip to beat him, is it not experience, which renders a dog apprehensive of pain? Is it not even experience, which makes one answer to one’s name, and infer, from such an arbitrary sound, that you mean one rather than any of one’s fellows, and intend to call one, when you pronounce it in a certain manner, and with a certain accent? In all these cases, we may observe, that the animal infers some fact beyond what immediately strikes one’s senses; and that this inference is altogether founded on past experience, while the creature expects from the present object the same consequences, which it has always found in its observation to result from similar objects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
Secondly, It is impossible, that this inference of the animal can be founded on any process of argument or reasoning, by which one concludes, that like events must follow like objects, and that the course of nature will always be regular in its operations. For if there by in reality any arguments of this nature, they surely lie too abstruse for the observation of such imperfect understandings; since it may well employ the utmost care and attention of a philosophic genius to discover and observe them. Animals, therefore, are not guided in these inferences by reasoning: Neither are children: Neither are the generality of humankind, in their ordinary actions and conclusions: Neither are philosophers themselves, who, in all the active parts of life, are, in the main, the same with the vulgar, and are governed by the same maxims. Nature have provided some other principle, of more ready, and more general use and application; nor can an operation of such immense consequence in life, as that of inferring effects from causes, be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation. Were this doubtful with regard to humans, it seems to admit of no question with regard to the brute creation. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
And the conclusion being once firmly established in the ought to be universally admitted, without any exception or reserve. It is custom alone, which engages animals, from every object, that strikes their sense, to infer its usual attendant, and carries their imagination, from the appearance of the one, to conceive the other, in that particular manner, which we dominate belief. No other explication can be given of this operation, in all the higher, as well as lower classes of sensitive beings, which fall under our notice. Since all reasonings concerning facts or causes is derived merely from custom, it may be asked how it happens, that humans so much surpass animals in reasoning, and one human so much surpasses another? Has not the same custom the same influence on all? We shall here endeavour briefly to explain the great difference in human understandings: After which the reason of the difference between humans and animals will easily be comprehended. When we have lived any time, and have been accustomed to the uniformity of nature, we acquire a general habit, by which we always transfer the known to the unknown, and conceive the later to resemble the former. By means of this general expect a similar event with some degree of certainty, where the experiment has been made accurately, and free from all circumstances. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
It is therefore considered as a mater of great importance to observe the consequence of things; and as one human many very much surpass another in attention and memory and observation, this will make a very great difference in their reasoning. Where there is a complication of causes to produce any effect, one mind may be much larger than another, and better able to comprehend the whole system of objects, and to infer justly their consequence. One human is able to carry on a chain of consequences to a great length than another. Few humans can think long without running into a confusion of ideas, and mistaking one for another; and there are various degrees of this infirmity. The circumstances, on which the effect depends, is frequently involved in other circumstances, which are foreign and extrinsic. The separation of it often requires great attention, accuracy, and stability. The forming of general maxims from particular observation is a very nice operation; and nothing is more usual, from haste or narrowness of mind, which sees not on all sides, than to commit mistakes in this particular. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
When we reason from analogies, the human, who has the greater experience or the greater promptitude of suggesting analogies, will be a better reasoner. Biases from prejudice, education, passion, party, et cetera, hang more upon one mind than another. After we have acquired a confidence in human testimony, books and conversation enlarge much more the sphere of one human’s experience and thought than those of another. It would be easy to discover many other circumstances that make a difference in the understandings of humans. However, though, animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate INSTINCTS, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. However, our wonder will, perhaps, cease or diminish; when we consider, that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beast, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknow to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
And in its chief operations this instinct or mechanical power, is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas, as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a human to avoid the fire; as much as that, which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursey. The real presence—the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharist is acknowledged on all hand, and the learned prelate, says that the authority, either of the scripture or of tradition, is founded merely in the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witness to those miracles of our Saviour, by which he proved his divine mission. Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our sense; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in pass from them to their disciples; nor can anyone rest such confidence in their testimony, as in the immediate object of one’s senses. Those sceptics who assert that the Universe is meaningless are themselves making a meaningful statement about it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
That is, they are unconsciously setting themselves up as being more knowledgeable about whatever intelligence lies behind the designs and patterns we see everywhere in nature. However, weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in scriptures, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It contradicts sense, though both the scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built, carry not such evidence with them as sense; when they are considered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home to everyone’s breast, by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument of this kind, which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument of a like nature, which, if just, will with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusions, and consequently, will be useful as long as the World ensures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matter of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors. One, who in our climate should expect better weather in any week of JUNE than in one of DECEMBER, would reason justly, and conformably to experience; but it is certain, that one may happen, in the event, to find oneself mistaken. However, we may observe, that, in such a case, one would have no cause to complain of experience; because it commonly informs us beforehand of he uncertainty, by that contrariety of events, which we may learn from a diligent observation. All effects follow not with like certainty all ages, to have been constantly conjoined together: Others are found to have been more variable, and sometimes to disappoint our expectations; so that, in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise human, therefore, proportions one’s belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, one expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards one’s past experience as a full proof of the future existence of the event. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
In other cases, one proceeds with more caution: One weighs the opposite experiments: One considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments: To that side one inclines, with doubt and hesitation; and when at last one fixes one’s judgment, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability. All probability, then, supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence, proportioned to the superiority. A hundred instances of experiments on one side, and fifty on another, afford a doubtful expectation of any event; though a hundred uniform experience, with only one that is contradictory, reasonably beget a pretty strong degree of assurance. In all cases, we must balance the opposite experiments, where they are opposite, and deduct the smaller number from the greater, in order to know the exact force of the superior evidence. The great World which move so marvellously and rhythmically through our sky, however, must least the more reflective minds with a wondering sense of sublime intelligence which has patterned the Universe. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
The materialist who sees in the course of Life only a blind, irrational, chaotic, and arbitrary movement, has been deceived by appearances, mislead by the one-sidedness of one’s own psyche. There is enough evidence in Nature and in humanity for the existence of God. Those who say they cannot find it have looked through the coloured spectacles of preconceived notions or else in too limited an area. There is plenty of it for those who look aright, and who widen their horizon; it will then be conclusive. There are orderly pattens in Nature which we can call “laws” in its timings, properties, measurements, and lives. The cosmos exists in a great harmony for it obeys laws which are divinely perfect. It requires deep thought to discover that the improvements in Nature’s laws which can so easily be suggested would, in the long term, probably lead to worse results than those now existent. There is an established order in the Universe, scientific laws which govern all things, and no magician who seems to produce miracles has been permitted under special dispensation to violate that order or to flout those principles. To apply these principles to a particular instance; we may observe, that there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of humans, and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
This species of reasoning, perhaps, one may deny to be founded on the relation of cause and effect. I shall not dispute a word. It will be sufficient to observe, that our assurance in any argument of this kind is derived from no other principle than our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses. It being a general maxim, that no objects have any discoverable connexion together, and that all the inferences, which we can draw from one to another, are founded merely on our experience of their constant and regular conjunction; it is evident, that we ought not to make an expcetion to this maxim in favour of human testimony, whose connexion with any event seems, in itself, as little necessary as any other. Were not the memory tenacious to a certain degree; had not humans commonly an inclination to truth and a principle of probity; were they not sensible to shame, when detected falsehood: Were not these, I say, discovered by experience to be qualities, inherent in human nature, we should never repose the least confidence in human testimony. A human delirious, or noted for falsehood and vallaniny, has no manner of authority with us. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
And as the evidence, derived from witnesses and human testimony, is founded on past experience, so it varies with the experience, and is regarded either as a proof or a probability, according as the conjunction between any particular kind of report and any kind of object has been found to be constant or variable. There are a number of circumstances to be taken into consideration in all judgments of this kind; and the ultimate standards, by which we determine all disputes, that may arise concerning them, is always derived from experience and observation. Where this experience is not entirely uniform on any side, it is attended with an unavoidable contrariety in our judgments, and with the same opposition and mutual destruction of argument as in every other kind of evidence. We frequently hesitate concerning the reports of others. We balance the opposite circumstances, which cause any doubt of uncertainty; and when we discover a superiority on any side, we incline to it; but still with a diminution of assurance, in proportion to the force of its antagonist. This contrariety of evidence, in the present case, may be derived from several different causes; from the opposition of contrary testimony; from the character or number of witnesses; from the manner of their delivering their testimony; or from the union of all these circumstances. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
We entertain a suspicion concerning any matter of fact, when the witnesses contradict each other; when they are but few, or of a doubtful character; when they have an interest in what they affirm; when they deliver their testimony with hesitation, or on the contrary, with too violent asseverations. There are many other particulars of the same kind, which may diminish or destroy the force of any argument, derived from human testimony. Suppose, for instance, that the fact, which the testimony endeavours to establish, partakes of the extraordinary and the marvellous; in that case, the evidence, resulting from the testimony, admis of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual. The reason, why we place any credit in witnesses and historians, is not derived from any connexion, which we perceive a priori, between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them. However, when the fact attested is such a one as has seldom fallen under our observation, here is a contest of two opposite experiences; of which the one destroys the other, as far as the force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force, which remains. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
The very same principle of experience, which gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance against the fact, which they endeavour to establish; from which contradiction there necessarily arises a counterpoise, and mutual destruction of belief and authority. I should not believe such a story were it told me by CATO; was a proverbial saying in ROME, even during the lifetime of that philosophical patriot. The incredibility of a fact, it was allowed, might invade so great an authority. The INDIAN prince, who refused to believe the first relations concerning the effect of frost, reasoned justly; and it naturally required very strong testimony to engage his assent to the facts, that arose from a state of nature, with which he was unacquainted, and which bore so little analogy to those events, of which he had had constant and uniform experience. Though they were not contrary to his experience, they were not conformable to it. (The inhabitants of SUMATRA have always seen water fluid in their own climate, and the freezing of their rivers ought to be deemed a prodigy: But they never saw water in MUSCOVY during the Winter; and therefore they cannot reasonably be absolute what would there be the consequence.) Consider how orderly is the periodicity of a giant-dimensioned planetary travels as well as microscopic atomic weights. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
Can we rightly say it is a mere chance that our Earth rotates around the sun, and does s in a certain precise measured rhythm? Is there not evidence of intelligence here? Whenever we search in the Universe, whether among the stars or the molecules, its structure reveals both orderliness and intelligence. The facts of history pre-exists in the minds as laws. The presence of these laws should not make us picture the Universe to ourselves as if it were a kind of manufactory filled with the whirr of wheels turning mechanically and automatically—ugly, lifeless, and loveless—utterly indifferent toward the hapless individuals who happen to find themselves in it. In order to increase the probability against the testimony of witnesses, let us suppose, that the fact, which they affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miraculous; and suppose also, that the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof; in that case, there is proof against proof, of which the strongest of its antagonist. A miracle is a violation of these laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
Why is it more than probable, that all humans must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to precent them? If it ever happened in the common course of nature, nothing is esteemed a miracle. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. However, it is a miracle, that a dead man or woman should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country (that we know of yet, except in the tales of Anne Rice). There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full uniform proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior. Sometimes an event may not, in itself, seem to be contrary to the laws of nature, and yet, if it were real, it might by reason of some circumstances, be denominated a miracle; because in fact, it is contrary to these laws. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Thus if a person, claiming to be a divine authority, should command a sick person to be well, a healthful man or woman to fall down dead, the clouds to pour rain, the winds to blow, in short, should order many natural events, which immediately follow upon one’s command; these might justly be esteemed miracles, because they are really, in this cause, contrary to the laws of nature. For if any suspicion remain, that the event and command concurred by accident, there is no miracle and no transgression of the laws of nature. If this suspicion be removed, there is evidently a miracle, and a transgression of these laws; because nothing can be more contrary to nature than that the voice or command of a human should have such an influence. A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent. A miracle may either be discoverable by humans or no. This alters not its nature and essence. The raising of a house of ship into the air is a visible miracle. When the wind wants ever so little of a force requisite for that purpose, the raising of a feather is a real miracle, though not so sensible with regard to us. The elements which chemically make up the physical Universe interact mechanically. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
However, because it is a Universe and not a chaos there is a direct chaos there is a directing Intelligence behind the orderliness of this interaction. The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.” When anyone tells me, that one saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which one relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of one’s testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. “And now, behold, I would speak somewhat unto the remnant of this people who are spared, if it so be that God may give unto them my words, that they may know of the things of their fathers. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“Yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel; and these are the words which I speak: Know ye that ye are of the house of Israel. Know ye that ye must come unto repentance, or ye cannot be saved. Know ye that ye must lay down your weapons of war, and delight no more in the shedding of blood, and take them not again, save it be that God shall command you. Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of your fathers, and repent of all your sins and iniquities, and believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God and that he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again, whereby he hath gained victory over the grace; and also in him is the sting of death swallowed up. And he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead, whereby humans must be raised to stand before his judgment-seat. And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the World, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“Therefore repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and lay hold upon the gospel of Christ, which shall be set before you, not only in this record but also in the record which shall come unto the Gentiles unto you. For behold, this is written for the intent that ye may believe that; and if ye believe that ye will believe this also; and if ye believe this ye will know concerning your fathers, and also the marvelous works which were wrought by the power of Gd among them. And ye will also know that ye are a remnant of the seed of Jacob; therefore ye are numbered among the people of the first covenant; and if it so be that ye believe in Christ, and are baptized, first with water, then with fire and with the Holy Ghost, following the example of our Saviour, according to that which he hath commanded us, it shall be well with you in the day of judgment. Amen,” report Mormon 7.1-10. What is that there, appearing in the purple west, what swims into sight as the Sun sets? A new Moon is shining. You have followed the Sun, and now you are ready to take your own place. Welcome, New Moon, Welcome, Sweet Maiden. “The Earth is the Lord’s and all its fulness, the World, and they that dwell therein. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
“For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not set in one’s mind on what is false, and has not sworn deceitfully. One shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of one’s salvation. Such is the generation of them that Seek God, that seek the presence of the God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who then is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts; He is the King of glory,” reports Psalm 24. When the existence of Power is granted and its reality accepted, it will be easy to grant and accept that causation is everywhere present. Life in the Universe then becomes meaningful. Because the Universe is mental in origin and character, it cannot be devoid of intelligibility and purpose. This far-stretching Universe is the expression of Mind and therefore it is under the rule of law, not chance, for all laws are the consequences of mental activity. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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Dignity and humility are the cornerstones of compassion. Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all. People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. To forgive is a divine attribute. It is to pardon or excuse someone from blame for an offense or misdeed. The Lord commands us to repent of our sins and seek His forgiveness. He also commands us to forgive those who offend or hurt us. If we can find forgiveness in our hearts for those who have caused us hurt and injury, we will rise to a higher level of self-esteem and well-being. We must learn to do away with fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry. One needs no help from supernatural sources to engage in fornication, the many pollutions involving pleasures of the flesh, indulgences in passions and desires for what is evil, or greed to possess what belongs to others. The inclinations just happen. These are the parts of human life that are upon the Earth, in the sense that they do not come from Heaven or God. Because of them, human beings become children of disobedience. Their basic nature becomes disobedience or rebellion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
They are inherently at war with God and therefore subject to God’s wrath. “Cease, therefore, whatever belongs t your Earthly nature: immorality in pleasures of the flesh, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. However, now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, sine you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self with, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator,” reports Colossians 3.5-10. Our relationship with God and other humans must have a solid foundation on which they can be built. It must be founded on love, affinity, and trust. For we must carry credentials brought down from Heaven. In the end, it is n external person who can save us but only the internal soul itself. Forget the teacher’s person, remember the teacher’s doctrine. The lessons we learn are the gate through which we can pass to reach God. When we have fully learned our lesson, we will look to no other humans being for that which our Heavenly Father alone ought to be looked to. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future. Do not spend too much time looking back. If your past is gaining on you and you keep looking back, one of these days it will run you over. If we understand the purpose for doing so, it is not wrong to look back. The Lord wants us to learn from our mistakes. However, we can learn from them only by keeping them in perspective and not dwelling of them. If we continually dwell on past mistakes, we fall into a deep pit of discouragement. We can also become discouraged by blaming ourselves for sins we did not commit. For example, victims of abuse often feel responsible somehow for the abuse they received. They sometimes even feel guilty for having survived the abuse. If people blame themselves and dwell on the past, those who have been victimized by the sins of others continue to be victims. When they seek the Lord’s help to rise above the sorrow and turn their pain into a blessing, healing comes. Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harbouring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
Forgiveness is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves. Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours. The folly of rehashing long-past hurts does not bring happiness. Some hold grudges for a lifetime, unaware that courageously forgiving those who have wronged us is wholesome and therapeutic. When we have faith in God and trust in His word, forgiveness comes more readily. Such faith enables people to withstand the worst of humanity. It also enables people to look beyond themselves. More importantly it enables them to forgive. However, just because you forgive someone, it does not mean you can trust them again. That is an important distinction. It just means you are letting go of the poison of anger and hurt and resentment. To achieve frequent inner contact with God, we must relax our mind from everyday affairs and concentrate upon the quest anew, must separate it from it burden of cares and desires and doubts, and let everything go. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
We must abate the everlasting dominance of the personal ego and come as a humble child into the presence which we seek to invoke. This is how we catch the mental radiations from the Lord and transform them into intuitions and inspirations as a radio set catches electrical waves from a broadcasting station and transforms them into sounds. The impact of such telepathic blessings upon the disciple’s mind may be instantaneously felt. Or it may first start a subconscious process working which will produce the same result more slowly and less certainly. An important part of the process is to understand God holds us continually inside His own heart. Inevitable, this draws forth our affection and creates desire for union with God. The effect will be like the sun holding a tiny seedling continually within its rays. The seedling cannot escape natural growth through the actions of the sunlight nor the inevitable seeking for and love of the sun itself. In the same way, we who are given God’s grace, may depart from or desert the Lord, but in the end, we will have to recognize that the presence of God, the efficiency of God and we will accept God back in our lives again. To complete this process, we should also keep a mental picture of God in our hearts. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
By keeping God in our hearts, we are pointing the path, clearing intellectual doubts and difficulties, encouraging, inspiring and so on. The help is given telepathically and we will begin to sense during quiet periods and at odd times the current of peace flowing toward us. It is not human power we are receiving; it is spiritual power. We come to God for inspiration, improvement, purification, and blessings. Superior people know how to shut out the Worldly voices, and let in only the presence of God—nothing else. This is nonduality. We know that one mind can influence another through the medium of speech or writing: we know also that it may even influence another directly and without any medium through the silent power of telepathy. All this work takes place on the level of thought and emotion. Therefore, one must go into the innermost core of one’s own being and there touch the innermost core of God. In this way, Spirit speaks to Spirit, but without words or even thoughts. Within our inner most being there is a mysterious purity. A place that is morally clean. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
In this morally clean threshold, there is a peculiar power, filled with a magical potency. Those echoes reverberate telepathically across space. When we feel this power, the inner greatness, we are approaching the verge of spiritual attainment, and are stimulated and excited as a result. If we have enough faith in the principle of mentalism to believe that this blessing will come our way, the spiritual help which we need, we will be in a position to receive it. There will be advancement, a renewed effort at self-improvement, and the renewed determination to eliminate evil qualities from the character. The human embryo gets its earliest nutrition in the mother’s matrix by absorbing it from the fluids which surround it; this process of nourishment by osmosis leads to its growth and development until the first of its organs, the heart, is born. Then, with the later appearance of blood-tubes, the litter being begins to pump blood and feel itself. Osmosis is a process which may help us to understand its parallel—putting on the armour of God. Such experiences of a divine inflow are not imaginary ones but are the genuine reception of grace. When there is external silence, even then help is being given. Do not measures it volume against the volume of physical communications. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
The power of God is such that we become its channel and it can affect others. God illuminates and transfers Grace to us all the time, even though we may be unaware. The inward relationship matters. There is a system very much like a telephone switchboard. The incoming “calls” are plugged into God. The “line” itself is composed out of our own faith and devotion; one alone can make this connection. Then, one’s wishes, dreams, and thoughts travel along it to God, where they are registered and dealt with according to one’s needs. The Lord has said that “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundation of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtained any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.20-21. All laws being founded on rewards and punishments, it is supposed as a fundamental principle., that these motives have a regular and uniform influence on the mind, and both produce the good and prevent the evil actions. We may give this influence what name we please; however, as it is usually conjoined with the action, it must be esteemed a cause, and be looked upon as an instance of that necessity, which would here establish. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
The only proper object of hatred or vengeance, is a person or creature, endowed with thought and consciousness; and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, it is only by their relation to the person, or connexion with one. Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the character and disposition of the person who performed them, they can neither redound to one’s honour, if good; nor infamy, if evil. The actions themselves may be blameable; they may be contrary to all the rules of mortality and religion: But the person is not answerable for them; and they proceeded from nothing in one, that is durable and constant, and leave nothing of that nature behind them, it is impossible one can, upon their account, become the object of punishment or vengeance. According to the principle, therefore, which denies necessity, and consequently causes, a human is as pure and untainted, after having committed the most horrid crime, as the first moment of one’s birth, nor is one’s character any wise concerned in one’s actions; since they are not derived from it, and the wickedness of the one can never be used as proof of the depravity of the other. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
Humans are not blamed for such actions, as they perform ignorantly and casually, whatever may be the consequences. Why? but because the principles of these actions are only momentary, and terminate in them alone. Humans are less blamed for such actions as they perform hastily and unpremeditatedly, than for such as proceed from deliberation. For what reason? but because a hasty temper, though a constant cause of principle in mind, operates only by intervals, and infects not the whole reformation of life and manners. How is this to be accounted for? but by asserting, that actions render a person criminal, merely as they are proofs of criminal principles in the mind; and when, by an alteration of these principles, they cease to be just proofs, they likewise cease to be criminal. However, except upon the doctrines of necessity, they never were just proofs, and consequently never were criminal. Something is right, a social system say, when an ideally rational and impartial spectator would approve of it from a general point of view should one possess all the relevant knowledge of the circumstances. A rightly ordered society is one meeting the approval of such an ideal observer. Now, there may be several problems with this definition, for example, whether the notions of approval and relevant knowledge can be specified without circularity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
However, I shall leave these questions aside because the essential point here is that there is no conflict so far between this definition and justice as fairness. For suppose we define the concept of right by saying that something is right and only if it satisfies the principles which would be chosen in the original position to apply to things of is kind. (First, the original position states: we are to assume a veil of ignorance, we know nothing about the parties. This is a principle that guarantees each citizen a robust package of liberal rights to such things as freedom of conscience, freedom to vote and stand in elections, and right to due process in law. Second, a principle that ensured fair equality of economic opportunity as well as shares of income and wealth that were maximally beneficial to people with the least amount of income and wealth.) It may well be the case the an ideally rational and impartial spectator would approve of a social system if and only if it satisfies the principles of justice which would be adopted in the contract scheme. The definition may be true of the same things. This possibility is not ruled out by the ideal observer definition. Since this definition makes no specific psychological assumptions about the impartial spectator, it yields no principles to account for one’s approvals under ideal conditions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
One who accepts this definition to accept justice as fairness for this purpose: one simply allows that an ideal observer would approve of social systems to the extent that they satisfy the two principles of justice. (The two principles of justice as fairness—these guiding ideas of justice as fairness are given institutional form by its two principles of justice: First Principle: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all. Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: a. They are t be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; b. They are to be to the greatest benefits of the least-advantaged member of society.) Fulfillment of the first principle takes priority over the difference principle. Unequal rights would not benefit those who get a lesser share of the right, so justice requires equal rights for all, in normal circumstances. Citizens’ equal liberty must have priority over economic policy. The impartial spectator definition makes no assumptions from which the principles of right justice must be derived. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
The impartial spectator definition is designed instead to single out certain central features characteristic of moral discussion, the fact that we try to appeal to our considered judgments after conscientious reflection, and the like. The contractarian definition is more ambitious: it attempts to provide a deductive basis for the principles that account for these judgments. The conditions of the initial situation and the motivation of the parties are intended to set out the necessary premises to achieve this end. Now while it is possible to supplement the impartial spectator definition with the contract point of view, there are other ways of giving it a deductive basis. Thus suppose that the ideal observer is thought of as a perfectly sympathetic being. Then there is a natural derivation of the classical principle of utility along the following lines. An institution is right, let us say, if an ideally sympathetic and impartial spectator would approve of it more strongly than any other institution feasible in the circumstances. For simplicity we may assumes that approval is a special kind of pleasure which arises more or less intensely in contemplating the workings of institutions and their consequences for the happiness of those engaged in them. This special pleasure is the result of sympathy. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
Sympathy is quite literally a reproduction in our experience of the satisfactions and pleasures which we recognize to be felt by others. Thus an impartial spectator experiences this pleasure in contemplating the social system in proportion to the net sum of pleasures felt by those affected by it. The strength of one’s approval corresponds to, or measures, the amount of satisfaction in the society surveyed. Therefore one’s expressions of approval will be given according to classical utility. To be sure, sympathy is not a strong feeling. Not only is self-interest likely to inhibit the frame of mind in which we experience it, but self-interest tends to override its dictates in determining our actions. Yet when humans do regard their institutions from a general point of view, sympathy is the main psychological propensity at work, and it will at least guide our considered moral judgments. However, weak sympathy may be, it nevertheless constitutes a common ground for brining our moral opinions into agreement. Human’s natural capacity for sympathy suitably generalized provides the perspective from which they can reach an understanding on a common conception of justice. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Thus we arrive at the following view. A rational and impartial sympathetic spectator is a person who takes up a general perspective: one assumes a position where one’s own interest are not at stake and one possesses all the requisite information and powers of reasoning. So situated one is equally responsive and sympathetic to the desires and satisfactions of everyone affected by the social system. One’s own interests do not thwart one’s natural sympathy for the aspirations of others and one has perfect knowledge of these endeavours and what they mean for those who have them. Responding to the interests of each person in the same way, an impartial spectator gives free reign to one’s capacity for sympathetic identification by viewing each person’s situation as it affects that person. Thus one imagines oneself in the place of each person in turn, and when one has done this for everyone, the strength of one’s approval is determined by the balance of satisfactions to which one has sympathetically responded. When one has made the rounds of all the affected parties, so to speak, one’s approval expresses the total. Sympathetically imagined pains cancel out sympathetically imagined pleasures, and the final intensity of approval corresponds to the net some of positive feeling. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
It is instructive to note that a contrast between the features of the sympathetic spectator and the conditions defining the original position. The elements of the sympathetic spectator definition, impartiality, possession of relevant knowledge, and the powers of imaginative identification, are to assure the complete and accurate response of natural sympathy. Impartiality prevents distortion of bias and self-interest; knowledge and the capacity for identification guarantee that the aspirations of others will be accurately appreciated. We can understand the point of the definition once we see that its parts are designed to give free scope to the operation of fellow feeling. In the original position, by contrast, the parities are mutually disinterested rather than sympathetic; but lacking knowledge of their natural assets or social situation, they are forced to view their arrangements in a general way. In the one case perfect knowledge and sympathetic identification result in a correct estimate of the net sum of satisfaction; in the other, mutual disinterestedness subject to a veil of ignorance leads to the two principles of justice. There is a sense in which classical utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinction between persons. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
The principle of rational choice for one human is taken as the principle of social choice as well. (Rational choice theory states that individuals use rational calculation to make balanced choices and achieve outcomes that are aligned with their own personal objectives. These results are also associated with an individual’s best, self-interests. Social choice theory is the study of collective decision processes and procedures. It is a theoretical framework for analysis of combining individual opinions, preferences, interests, or welfares to reach a collective decision of social welfare in some sense.) How does this come about? It is the consequence, as we can now see, of wanting to give a deductive basis to an ideal observer definition of right, and of presuming that human’s natural capacity for sympathy provides the only perspective from which their moral judgments can be brought into agreement. With this background, it is tempting to adopt the approvals of the impartial sympathetic spectator as the standard of justice. The one person of the classical doctrines is, then, identical with the impartial sympathetic spectator. This spectator is the one self who includes all desires and satisfactions within one experience as one imaginatively identifies in turn with the members of society. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
It is one who compares their aspirations and approves of institutions according to the extent to which they satisfy the one system of desires that one constructs as one views everyone’s desires as if they were one’s own. The classical view results, then, in impersonality, in the conflation of all desires into one system of desires. We can equally well ask why we should concern ourselves about our own future feelings as about the feelings of other persons. Presumably because the answer is identical in each case: it is necessary to achieve the greatest sum of satisfaction. These remarks seem to suggest the conflation view. Only if the proper steps are taken, time can heal wounds. Fear can lead to a lifetime of sorrow and pain. The only real release is repentance. Heavenly Father has provided the Atonement for us so that we may rise above sorrow and pain. Why is it that so many—if not most—seekers feel the need of personal spiritual guidance, and emotional inspiration, there is a further, a profounder, and sometimes unconscious need. The formless Infinite is a conception the human mind can hardly comprehend, much less hold for any sustained period. Therefore many people know only those who has experienced it can say how utterly true and intensely real it is. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
God the impersonal assumes the form of a personal guide. This is why Jesus proclaimed himself to be the door. If so many students are running hither and thither in search of a master, it is not only for the commonly given reasons that they do so, but also because of their need of a personal symbol of the impersonal God, their need of a human gate to the gateless Void. There are some seekers who can draw from within themselves the guidance they need, the light upon their path, and the intuition to comprehend the Absolute. They can get along quite well without a human guide. Such souls are fortunate and blessed, and those others who do not come into their category need and must find a spiritual leader. First they must find one in the World without. Later, with more understand and increased development, they must find one within themselves. “And it came to pass that I did go forth among the Nephites, and did repent of the oath which I had made that I would no more assist them; and they gave me command again of their armies, for they looked upon me as though I could deliver them from their afflictions. However, behold, I was without hope, for I knew the judgments of the Lord which should come upon them; for they repented not of their iniquities, but did struggle for their lives without calling upon that Being who created them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
“And it came to pass that the Lamanites did come against us as we had fled to the city of Jordan; but behold, they were driven back that they did not take the city at that time. And it came to pass that they came against us again, and we did maintain the city. And there were also other cities which were maintained by the Nephites, which strongholds did cut them off that they could not get into the country which lay before us, to destroy the inhabitants of our land. However, it came to pass that whatsoever lands we had passed by, and the inhabitants thereof were not gathered in, were destroyed by the Lamanites, and their towns, and villages, and cities were burned with fire; and thus three hundred and seventy and nine years passed away. And it came to pass that we did again take to flight, and those whose flight was swifter than the Lamanites’ were swept down and destroyed. And now behold, I, Mormon, do not desire to harrow up the souls of human in casting before them such an awful scene of blood and carnage as was laid before mine eyes; but I, knowing that these things must surely be made known, and that all things which are hid must be revealed upon the house-tops. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“And also that a knowledge of these things must come unto the remnant of these people, and also unto the Gentiles, who the Lord hath said should scatter this people, and this people should be counted as naught among them—therefore I write a small abridgment, daring not to give full account of the things which I have seen, because of the commandment which I have received, and also that ye might not have too great sorrow because of the wickedness of this people. And now behold, this I speak unto their seed, and also to the Gentiles who have care for the house of Israel; yea, they will sorrow for the destruction of this people; they will sorrow for that this people had not repented that they might have been clasped in the arms of Jesus. Now these things are written unto the remnant of the house of Jacob; and they are written after this manner, because it is known of God that wickedness will not being them forth unto them; and they are to be hid up unto the Lord that they may come forth in his own due time. And this is the commandment which I have received; and behold, they shall come forth according to the commandment of the Lord, when he shall see fit, in his wisdom. #Randolphharris 21 of 26
“And behold, they shall go unto the unbelieving of the Jews; and for this intent shall they go—that they may be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; that the Father may bring about, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose, in restoring the Jews, or all the house of Israel, to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God hath given them, unto the fulfilling of his covenant; and also that the seed of this people may more fully believe his gospel, which shall go forth unto them from the Gentiles; for this people shall be scattered, and shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been amongst us, yea, even that which hath been among the Laminates, and this because of their unbelief and idolatry. For behold, the Spirit of the Lord hath already ceased to stive with their fathers; and they are without Christ and God in the World; and they are driven about as chaff before the wind. They were once a delightsome people, and they had Christ for their shepherd; yea, they were led even by God the Father. However, now, behold, they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land. However, behold, it shall come to pass that they shall be driven and scattered by the Gentiles; and after they have been driven and scattered by the Gentiles, behold, then will the Lord remember the covenant which he made unto Abraham and unto all the house of Israel. And also the Lord will remember the prayers of the righteous, which have been put up unto him for them. And then, O ye Gentiles, how can ye stand before the power of God, except ye shall repent and turn from your evil ways? Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God? Know ye not that he hath the power, and at his great command the Earth shall be rolled together as a scroll? Therefore, repent ye, and humble yourselves before him, lest he shall come out in justice against you—lest a remnant of the seed of Jacob shall go forth among you as a lion, and tear you in pieces, and there is none to deliver,” reports Mormon 5.1-24. We are affected by our associates; one who keeps company with criminals is apt to descend into crime oneself; one who seeks the spiritually minded as friends is apt to ascend to spirituality. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
Chase your Father, little one; swiftly he sinks and swiftly you follow him. Grow in strength and in sureness. Grow into yourself as the month goes by. As one rises in the morning, let one declare: Sovereign of all Worlds! Not because of our righteousness do we offer our supplications before Thee, but because of Thy great mercies. What are we? What is our life? What is our goodness? What is our righteousness? What our help? What is our strength? What is our might? What can we say before Thee, O Lord our God and God of our fathers? Are not the mightiest as naught before Thee, and humans of renown as though they were not, wise humans as if they were without knowledge, and humans of understanding as though they were lacking in discernment? For in Thine eyes the multitude of their works is emptiness, and the days of their life mere vanity. The pre-eminence of human over beast would be naught; all would be vanity—were it not that we are Thy people, children of Thy covenant, descendants of Abraham Thy beloved, to whom, at Mt. Moriah Thou didst give Thy promise, seed of Isaac his only son, who was bound upon the altar, the congregation of Jacob Thy first born, whom Thou didst name Israel and Jeshurun out of Thy love for him and Thy delight in him. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
It is therefore our duty to give thanks unto Thee and extol Thee, to bless and hallow Thy name in offering Thee praise and thanksgiving. Happy are we! How goodly is our portion, how pleasant our lot, how beautiful our heritage! Happy are we who pray morning and evening, declaring twice every day: Here, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. Thou, O Lord, wast God before the World was created. Thou art God since the World was formed; Thou art God both in this World and in the World to come. Sanctify Thy name through those who call Thee holy. Yea, hallow Thy name in Thy World, and through Thy salvation rise up and exalt our destiny. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest Thy name before all humans. Thou art the Lord our God in Heaven and on Earth and in all the Heavenly sphere. In truth Thou art the first and Thou art the last, and besides Thee there is no God. O gather from the four corners of the Earth those that Hope in Thee. Then all humankind shall understand and acknowledge that Thou alone art God over all the kingdoms of the Earth. Thou hast made the Heavens and the Earth, the sea and all that is therein. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
Who of all Thy handiwork, both above and below, can say unto Thee: What doest Thou? Our Father who art in Heaven, deal mercifully with us for the sake of Thy great name by which we are called; and fulfill unto us, O Lord our God, the words of Holy Scripture: At that time will I bring you in, and at that time will I gather you; for I will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the Earth, when I redeem you from captivity before your every eyes, saith the Lord. May it by Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to grant our portion in Thy Scriptures and may the Temple be rebuilt in our day. There we will serve Thee with awe as in the days of old. Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during the days of your life and during the life of all the house of Israel, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. May His great name be blessed for ever and ever. Exalted and honoured be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory transcend, yea, is beyond all praises, hymns and blessings that human can render unto Him; and say ye, Amen. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
Cresleigh Homes
Today we’re giving you an inside look at Residence 1 at #MillsStation, located in beautiful #CresleighRanch. Head to the link in our bio to check it out! https://cresleigh.com/blog/
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And My Soul Had Been Poured Out in Prayer unto My God All the Day Long for them!
People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. Put together, narcissistic people can provide considerable misery for each other and an interesting evening for others. Social relations among the members of hunting-gathering society are characterized by the absence of what is called “dominance” among animals. Hunting-gathering bands differ more completely from the apes in this matter of dominance than do any other kinds of human society. There is no peck-order based on physical dominance at all, nor is there any superior-inferior ordering based on other sources of power such as wealth, hereditary classes, military or political office. The only consistent supremacy of any kind is that of a person of greater age and wisdom who might lead a ceremony. Even when individuals possess greater status or prestige than others, the manifestation of the high status and the prerogatives are the opposite of ape-like dominance. Generosity and modesty are required of persons of high status in primitive society, and the rewards they receive are merely the love or attentiveness of others. A man, for example, might be stronger, faster, braver, and more intelligent than any other member of the band. Will he have higher status than the others? Not necessarily. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
If these desirable qualities are put to work in the service of the group—in hunting, let us say—and if he therefore produces more game to give away, and if he does it properly, modestly, only then will prestige be accorded him. Thus, to simplify a bit, greater strength in ape society results in greater dominance, which results in more food and mates and any other things desired by the dominant one; in primitive human society greater strength must be used in the service of the community, and the person, to earn prestige, must literally sacrifice to do so, working harder for less food. As for the mates, he ordinarily has but one wife just like other men. It seems that the most primitive human societies are at the same time the most egalitarian. This must be related to the fact that because of the rudimentary technology this kind of society depends on cooperation more fully more of the time than any other. Apes do not regularly cooperate and share, human beings do—that is the essential difference. Service gives a picture of the kind of authority we find among the hunter-gatherer peoples. In these societies there is of course a need for administration of group action: Administration is the role authority assumes with respect to problems of concerted group action. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
It is what we ordinarily mean by the word “leadership.” The necessities for administration of group action and close coordination are varied and numerous in hunting-gathering societies. They would include such usual things as camp movements, a collaborative hunting drive, and particularly any kind of skirmishing with enemies. However, despite the obvious significance of leadership in such activities, a hunting-gathering society is, as in other matters, distinctive in that it has no formal leadership of the sort that we see in later stages of cultural development. There is no permanent office of headman; leadership moves from one person to another depending on the type of activity that is being planned. For example, one very old man might be the favourite for planning a ceremony because of his great ritual knowledge, but another person, younger and more skilled at hunting, might be the normal leader of the hunting party. Above all, there is no leader or headman in the sense usually associated with the word chief. This lack of hierarchy and chiefs is all the more noteworthy because it is a widely accepted cliché that such control institutions are to be found in virtually all civilized societies are based on a genetic inheritance from the animal kingdom. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
We have seen that among chimpanzees the dominance relationships are rather mild, but they are nevertheless there. The social relationships of primitive people show that humans are not genetically prepared for this kind of dominance-submission psychology. An analysis of historical society, with five or six thousand years of exploitation of the majority by a ruling minority, shows very clearly that the dominance-submission psychology is an adaptation to the social order, and not its cause. For the apologist of a social order based on control by an elite, it is of course very convenient to believe that the social structure is the outcome of an innate need of man and, hence, natural and unavoidable. The egalitarian society of the primitive shows that this is just no so. The question must arise how primitive humans protect themselves against asocial and dangerous members, in the absence of an authoritarian or bureaucratic authoritarian regime. There are several answers to this first questions. Frist of all, much of the control of behaviour is achieved merely in terms of custom and etiquette. However, assuming that custom and etiquette did not prevent individuals from asocial behaviour, what are the sanctions against them? #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
The usual sanction is a general withdrawal from the culprit and a diminished degree of courtesy toward one; there is gossip and ridicule; in extreme cases, ostracism. If a person constantly misbehaves, and one’s behaviour harms groups other than one’s own, one’s own group may even decided to terminate the life of that individual. However, these cases are extremely rare, and most problems are solved by the authority of the older and wiser males in the group. Although feuds and warfare are relatively rare in band societies, they do consistently threaten and there must be some way of stopping them or of preventing their spread. Often they begin as mere quarrels between individuals, and for this reason it is important to stop them early. Within a given community the adjudication of a quarrel between two persons will ordinarily be handled by an elder who is a common relative of them both. If this person were in the same relationship to each of one of the quarreling humans, it would be ideal for them it would be evident that one would not be so likely to take sides. However, of course this is not always the case, nor is it possible that the person in this kinship status position might wan to adjudicate. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Sometimes one person is clearly enough in the right and the other in the wrong, or one person popular and the other unpopular, that the public becomes the adjudicator and the case is settled as soon as this common opinion becomes well-known. When quarrels are not settled in any of the above ways, then some form of contest is held, preferable a game, that takes the place of an outright battle. Wrestling or head-butting contests are typical forms of quasi-dueling in Eskimo society. It is done in public and the winner is considered by the public to have won his case. Particularly interesting is the famous Eskimo song duel: the weapons used are words, “little, sharp words, like the wooden splinters which I hack off with my axe.” Song duels are used to work off grudges and disputes of all orders, save termination of life. An East Greenlander, however, if one is physically too weak to gain one’s end, or if one is so skilled in singing as to feel certain of victory, may seek one’s satisfaction for the loss of the life of a relative. Inasmuch as East Greenlanders get so engrossed in the mere artistry of singing as to forget the cause of the grudge, this is understandable. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Singing skill among these Eskimos equals or outranks gross physical powers. The singing style is highly conventionalized. The successful singer uses the traditional patterns of composition which one attempts to deliver with such finesse as to delight the audience to enthusiastic applause. One who is most heartily applauded is “winner.” To win a song contest brings no restitution in its train. The sole advantage is in prestige. One of the advantages of the song duel carried on at length is that it gives the public time to come to a consensus about who is correct or who should admit guilt in the dispute. Ordinarily, people have some idea of whose side they are on, but as in most primitive communities the unanimity of the community as a whole is felt to be so desirable that it takes a while before the people can find out where the majority opinion lies. Gradually more people are laughing a little harder at one of the duelist’s verses than at the other’s, until it becomes apparent where the sympathy of the community lies, and then opinion quickly becomes unanimous and the loser retires in discomfiture. Among other hunting societies private quarrels are not solved as charmingly as by the Eskimos, but by a spear throwing duel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
When a dispute is between an accuser and a defendant, which is commonly the case, the accuser ritually hurls the spears from a prescribed distance, while the defendant dodges them. The public can applaud the speed, force, and accuracy of the accuser as he hurls his spears, or then can applaud the adroitness with which the defendant dodges them. After a time unanimity is achieved as the approval for one or the other’s skill gradually becomes overwhelming. When the defendant realizes that the community is finally considering one guilty, one is supposed to fail to dodge a spear and allow oneself to be wounded in some fleshy part of one’s body. Conversely, when the accuser becomes aware that public opinion is going against him, he simply stops throwing the spears. In modern times, we see much of the same behaviour playing out amongst Worldly people. However, Christians are supposed to employ different methods for settling disputes. The dynamics of resistance (conflict) builds strong bodies. If all decisions had but two alternatives, one clearly marked “right” and the other clearly marked “wrong,” our personal development in spiritual muscle building would not be nearly so strengthening. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Quite conceivably, the Lord recognized that humans would gain much more learning and experience through dealing with conflict than with simple, clear-cut alternatives, and He therefore provided for this in our mortal period of life. If it is not so, why did He place a set of principles in conflict before Adam and Even in the very beginning? The first mortals were commanded to multiply and replenish the Earth and at the same time not to partake of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. To obey one command required the violation of the other. Here are steps that may provide a start in handling the problems of conflict. Clarify exactly which principles may be in conflict. Arrange a priority of principles. That is, we know that some principles are more important than others. For instance, there is no conflict in, “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” When two principles are in conflict, choose to obey the higher law. One of the important keys to obeying the higher law is to approach the decision with prayer. When attempting to apply this concept of principles in conflict, the agony is not removed from all decision making, but will assist in selecting better alternatives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
When the principles involved are wide apart in priority, the decisions are easier. As the principles are more nearly aligned in priority, the more difficult it becomes to identify the higher of the two. For example, a man works for a store whose owner decides to do business on Sundays. The man can get another job but it would mean a 25 percent reduction in income. It would be difficult to manage, but the family could handle their financial obligations on the reduced salary. Here is the principle of Sabbath observance versus available money for such things as education, music lessons, travel, and vacations. What should he do? It is easy to rationalize, to do what is most comfortable, but the Saviour did not promise that His way would be easy. There are some who may say that one cannot live by hard and fast principles. They contend that the circumstances at any particular time will determine what one should do. Under social or economic pressures, rationalizing is often mistaken for reason. It becomes a matter of placing priority on alternatives, in selecting ones that, in our judgment, are most consistent with gospel principles. Those principles will be best served in the spirit of humility, guided by prayer and fasting. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Never let things which matter most be at the mercy of things which matter least. The choices are sometimes difficult, but then living by principle has never been very easy. Agency is the ability God gives us to choose and to act for ourselves. Agency is essential in the plan of salvation. Without agency, we would not be able to learn or progress or follow the Saviour. With it, we are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all humans, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil,” reports 2 Nephi 2.27. In our premortal life we had moral agency. One purpose of Earth life is to show what choices we will make. “And to being about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one of the other,” reports 2 Nephi 2.15-16. If we were forced to choose the right, we would not be able to show what we would choose for ourselves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Also, when we have made our own choices, we are happier doing things. Agency was one of the principle issues to arise in the premortal Council in Heaven. It was one of the main causes of the conflict between the followers of Christ and the followers of Satan. The Lord has said that all people are responsible for their own motives, attitudes, desires, and actions. Even though we are free to choose our course of action, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. The consequences, whether good or bad, follow as a natural result of any choice we make. “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what one has done,” reports Revelation 22.12. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his might power. Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark World, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evils comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand,” reports Ephesians 6.10-13. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Therefore Paul tells us that those who live in terms of the “flesh”—the merely natural powers of the human being, based in the human body—have their minds set on (or are totally preoccupied with) the flesh (or what they can manage on their own). He continues on to say that to have the mind “set on” the flesh in this way is “death.” “Those who lives according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God,” reports Romans 8.5-8. A sinful mind is hostile toward God because God threatens its god. And it is unable to live in accordance with what God says, because it is working against God. To understand this situation and how it must be transformed, we must look more deeply into the role of physical reality, especially of our own body, in the human life. The Master can help the aspirant with the benefit of a lifetime’s experience on the Quest and with the Grace ne has attained from having to endure the vicissitudes, ordeals, temptations which mark the way. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
From a true spiritual leader, the aspirant can lean painlessly in a short time what another has to learn through years of suffering and blundering alone. For the earnest seeker, the true spiritual leader will not only provide all these helps, one will also give assistance in the art of prayer so that it will be more easily and quickly learned than could otherwise have been possible. Unfortunately, church leaders have not always appropriated this lesson. John Claypool said in his 1979 Yale Lectures on Preaching that while in seminary he experienced jealous jockeying for position, and that life in the perish ministry had not been much different. His tragic comments came after attending national conventions of church leaders where most of the conversation in the hotel rooms either were full of envy for a leader who was doing well or scarcely concealed delight over the failure of another. Truly spiritual leadership knows none of this, as the example of the great Charles Simeon eloquently shows. Simeon, who pastored Holy Trinity in Cambridge at the beginning of the nineteenth century, is credited with establishing the evangelical wing of the Church of England through his immense leadership exhibited in his powerful personality, his great preaching which filled twenty-one influential volumes, and his personal discipleship of some of the Church’s greatest missionaries and leaders. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Such a man could have been tempted to resent others who might displace him—as, for example, when his health broke and he had to spend eight months away recuperating his curate, Thomason, stepped in to preach. Thomason surprised everyone with a preaching ability that rivaled Simeon’s. And what was the great man’s response? Rejoicing! In fact, as his biography says, he referenced John 3.30 (“He must become greater; I must become less”) and told a friend, “Now I see why I have been laid aside I bless God for it.” True spiritual leadership knows nothing of a self-promoting Spirit. “For who is greater, the one who is at the same or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves,” reports Luke 22.27. Those who qualify for spiritual leadership are big-hearted, supportive to each other and to all those around. Leadership should be structured in such a fashion that it gives rise to experience by giving voice to it, regardless of how frightening or anxiety-provoking it may be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
People are looking for in a leader, signs of sincerity, genuine, and goodwill underneath all. They are looking to make contact with the sane part of the personality, irrespective of how insane the rest of it might be. The help provided by a spiritual leader during a joint intercessory prayer is provided by one’s simply being there! One’s presence may help to deepen the student’s own prayer. One who has awakened one’s own super-physical energy, intuited one’s own higher knowledge, can develop a skill beneficial to others whenever they come within one’s orbit. For one can inform them of what they can do to themselves for themselves and how they can do it. To receive instruction from an inspired teacher or from inspired books has been the most common way in most cases resulting in enlightenment. This, or course, has been accompanied by the following practices, doing the exercises, making the studies, and undergoing the purification required by the teaching. However, there have also been a few causes where enlightenment has come by itself, spontaneously, without either the help of a teacher or the labour of training. Such humans can thereafter radiate their grace as much as the other but, not having travelled the path to enlightenment, cannot properly or adequately or satisfactorily engage in teaching and act the master. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
It is not for the spiritual leader to make one’s disciples’ decisions for them. One’s statement may or may not be justified by argument and certified by documentary quotations, for one leaves it to others to take them up or not as clues, hints, suggestions to be tried experimentally on the way. One cannot tell with certainty whether one is on the right path. It is then that one needs a guide. The master will benefit one’s students no only by one’s verbal or written instruction but also by one’s example and counsel. One does not insist, like lesser humans, on making one’s disciples into facsimiles of oneself, subject solely to the influence of one’s personality. “And it came to pass that the Lamanites did not come to battle again until ten years more had passed away. And behold, I had employed my people, the Nephites, in preparing their lands and their arms against the time of battle. And it came to pass that the Lord did say unto me: Cry unto this people—Repent ye, and come unto me, and be ye baptized, and build up again my church, and ye shall be spared. And I did cry unto this people, but it was in vain; and they did not realize that it was the Lord that had spared them, and granted unto them a chance for repentance. And behold they did harden their hearts against the Lord their God. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“And after it came to pass that after this tenth year had passed away, making, in the whole, three hundred and sixty years from the coming of Christ, the king of the Lamanites sent an epistle unto me, which gave unto me to know that they were preparing to come again to battle against us. And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward. And there were did place our armies, that we might stop the armies of the Lamanites, that they might not get possession f any of our lands; therefore we did fortify against them with all our force. And it came to pass that in the three hundred and sixty and first year the Lamanites did come down to the city of Desolation to battle against us; and it came to pass that in that year we did beat them, insomuch that they did return to their own lands again. And in the three hundred and sixty and second year they did come down again to battle. And we did beat them again, and did slay a great number of them, and their dead were cast into the sea. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“And now, because of this great thing which my people, the Nephites, had done, they began to boast in their own strength, and began to swear before the Heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren who had been slain by their enemies. And they did swear by the Heaven, and also by the throne of God, that they would go up to battle against their enemies, and would cut them off from the face of the land. And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness and abomination. Before, I had lead them, notwithstanding their wickedness I had lead them, according to the love of God which was in me, with all my heart; and my soul had been poured out in prayer all the day long for them; nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their hearts. And thrice have I delivered them out of the hands of their enemies, and they have repented not of their sins. And when they had sworn by all that had been forbidden them by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that they would go up unto their enemies to battle, and avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren, behold the voice of the Lord came unto me saying: #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“Vengeance is mine, and I will repay; and because this people repented not after I had delivered them, behold, they shall be cut off from the face of the Earth. And it came to pass that I utterly refused to go up against mine enemies; and I did even as the Lord had commanded me; and I did stand as an idle witness t manifest unto the World the things which I saw and heard, according to the manifestations of the Spirit which had testified of things to come. Therefore I write unto you, Gentiles, and also unto you, house of Israel, when the work shall commence, that ye shall be about to prepare to return to the land of your inheritance; yes, behold, I write unto all the ends of the Earth; yea, unto you, twelve tribes of Israel, who shall be judged according to your works by the twelve whom Jesus chose to be his disciples in the land of Jerusalem. And I write also unto the remnant of this people, who shall also be judged by the twelve whom Jesus chose in this land; and they shall be judged by the other twelve whom Jesus chose in the land of Jerusalem. And these things doth the Spirit manifest unto me; therefore I write unto you all. And for this cause I write unto you, that ye may know that ye must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human family of Adam. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“And ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil; and also that ye may believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, which ye shall have among you; and you that the Jews, the covenant people of the Lord, shall have other witness besides him whom they saw and heard, that Jesus, whom they slew, was the very Christ and the very God. And I would that I could persuade all ye ends of the Earth to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ,” reports Mormon 3.1-22. From the deep emptiness of a sleepless night, my pleas are sent to God of sleep. To the giver dreams I call, to Him who comes in the night, not as a danger, but as a bringer of peace. Please come to me, as I lie alone in the dark. Please quietly through the night and place your hands on my brow, soothing me gently until I slide into sleep. O my God, the soul with which Thou didst endow me is pure. Though didst create it and fashion it; Thou didst breathe it into me and Thou preservest it within me. Thou wilt reclaim it from me but Thou wilt restore it to me in the life to come. So long as the breath of life is within me, I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord my God and God of my fathers, Master of all works, Lord of all souls. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who restores life to mortal creatures. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast given the mind understanding to distinguish between day and night. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has made me in Thine image. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast made me free. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast made me free. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has made me an American. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who openest the eyes of the blind. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who clothest the naked. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe who releasest the bound. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who raisest up them that are bowed down. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who stretchest out the Earth over the waters. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast provided for all my needs. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who guidest the steps of humans. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast provided for all my needs. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who girdest America with strength. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who crownest America with glory. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe who givest strength to the weary. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who removest sleep from mine eyes and slumber from mine eyelids. May it by Thy will, Lord my God and God of my father to deliver me this day and every day from arrogance and from the arrogant humans, from every corrupt person, from every evil companion and neighbour, and from all mishap; from the dangers that lurk about me, from a harsh judgment and an implacable opponent, whether or not one be an adherent of out faith. May be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our father, to cause us to walk in the way of Thy law and to cleave to Thy precepts. Let us not fall into the power of sin, transgression or iniquity, nor succumb to temptation or shame. Please keep us far from the influence of wicked humans and corrupt companions. Please make us cleave to our good inclination and to perform good deeds. O bend our will to Thy service, and please grant us this day and every day, grace, kindness, and mercy, both in Thy lovingkindness upon us. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bestowest Thy bountiful love upon the people of America. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Cresleigh Homes
These graceful windows flood the great room, kitchen, and dining room with glittering light, making this home the perfect place for entertaining loved ones this Thanksgiving. // #Riverside Residence 1
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When a person points a finger at someone else, one should remember that four of one’s fingers are pointing at oneself. I have never met anyone who believed in democracy. I have met many who prefer it to any other form of government and who are willing to die for it. I have met many who are willing to abide by majority opinion, but I have never met anyone who believed in mass judgment. That is what democracy is. Also, it seems, indeed, that there are two behaviour patterns that might have been genetically programmed through hunting behaviour: cooperation and sharing. Cooperation between members of the same band was a practical necessity for most hunting societies; so was the sharing of food. Since meat is perishable in most climates except that of the Arctic, it could not be preserved. Luck in hunting was not equally divided among all hunters; hence the practical outcome was that those who had luck today would share their food with those who would be lucky tomorrow. Assuming hunting behaviour led to genetic changes, the conclusions would be that modern humans have an innate impulse for cooperation and sharing, rather than for killing and cruelty. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
Unfortunately, humanity’s record of cooperation and sharing is rather spotty, as the history of civilization shows. One might explain this by the fact that hunting life did not produce genetic changes, or that the impulses for sharing and cooperation have become deeply repressed in cultures whose organization discouraged these virtues and instead encourages ruthless egotism. Nevertheless, one might still speculate whether the tendency to cooperate and to share which we find in many societies today outside of the modern industrialized World do not point to the innate character of these impulses. In fact, even in modern warfare, in which the soldier by and large does not feel much hate against one’s enemy, and only exceptionally indulges in cruelty, we find a remarkable degree of cooperation and sharing. While in civilian life most people do not risk their lives to save another human’s life or share their food with others, in war this is a daily occurrence. Perhaps one might even go further and suggest that one of the factors which make war attractive is precisely the possibility of practising deeply buried human impulses which our society when at peace, considering—in fact, although not ideologically—to be foolish. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
Modern society, with its almost limitless readiness for destruction of human lives for political and economic ends, can best defend itself against the elementary human question of its right to do so by the assumption that destructiveness and cruelty are not engendered by our social system, but are innate qualities in humans. Fortunately, our knowledge of hunting behaviour is not restricted to speculations; there is a considerable body of information about still existing primitive hunters and food gatherers to demonstrate that hunting is not conducive to destructiveness and cruelty, and that primitive hunters are relatively unaggressive when compared to their civilized brothers. There are certain direct data on the life of the prehistoric hunter to be found in animal cults which point to the fact that they lacked the alleged innate destructiveness. The cave paintings associated with the life of prehistoric hunters did not exhibit any fighting between humans. Colin Turnbull, a specialist in this study, has reported: “In the two groups known to me, there is almost total lack of aggression, emotional or physical, and this is borne out by the lack of warfare, feuding, witchcraft, and sorcery. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
“I am also not convinced that hunting is itself an aggressive activity. This is something that one must see in order to realize; the act of hunting is not carried out in an aggressive spirit at all. Due to the consciousness of depleting natural resources, there is actually a regret at killing life. In some cases, this killing may even bear an element of compassion. My experience with hunters has shown them to be very gentle people, and while it is certainly true that they lead extremely hard lives, this is not the same thing as being aggressive.” The most obvious and probably most crucial characteristic of the hunting-gathering societies is their nomadism, required by the foraging economy which leads to loose integration of families into a “band” society. As for their needs—in contrast to modern humans who require a house, an automobile, clothing, electricity, and so on—for the primitive hunter food, and the few devices employed by obtaining it, is the focus of economic life…in a more fundamental sense than it is in more complicated economies. Anything we are capable of experiencing cannot, in and of itself, be pathogenic. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
Rather, it is the suppression of the experience that gives rise to distortions in consciousness that we associate with psychopathology. Hence anything that we are called upon to experience must have a purpose. We are accustomed, because of the nature of our own economy, to think that human beings have a natural propensity to truck and bater, and that economic relations among individuals or groups are characterized by economizing, by maximizing the result of effort or by selling dear and buying cheap. Primitive peoples do none of these things, however; in fact, most of the time it would seem that they do the opposite. They give things away, they admire generosity, they expect hospitality, they punish thrift as selfishness. And the strangest of all, the more dire the circumstances, the more scarce (or valuable) the goods, the less “economically” will they behave and the more generous do they seem to be. We are considering, of course, the form of exchange among persons within a society and these persons are, in band society, all kinsmen of some sort contrasts directly with the principles ascribed to the formal economy. We “give” food, do we not, to our children? We “help” our brothers and “provide for” aged parents. Others do, or have done, or will do, the same for us. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
At the generalized pole, because close social relations prevail, the emotions of love, the etiquette of family life, the morality of generosity all together condition the ways goods are handled, and in such a way that the economic attitude toward the goods is diminished. Anthropologists have sometime attempted to characterize the actual transaction with words like “pure gift” or “free gift” in order to point up the fact that this is not trade, but barter, and that the sentiment involved in the transaction is not one of a balanced exchange. However, these words are not quite evocative of the actual nature of the act; they are even somewhat misleading. Once Peter Freuchen was handed some meat by an Eskimo hunter and responded by gratefully thanking him. The hunter was cast down, and Freuchen was quickly corrected by an old man: “You must not thank for your meat: it is your right to get parts. In this country, nobody who gives or gets gifts, for thereby you become dependent. With gifts you make slaves just as with whips you make dogs.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
The word “gift” has overtones of charity, not of reciprocity. In no hunting-gathering society is gratitude expressed, and, as a matter of fact, it would be wrong even to praise a human as “generous” when one shares one’s game with one’s campmates. On another occasion one could be said to be generous, but not in response to a particular incident of sharing, for then the statement would have the same implications as an expression of gratitude: that the sharing was unexpected, that the giver was not generous simply as a matter of course. It would be right to praise a human for one’s hunting prowess on such an occasion, but not for one’s generosity. Of particular importance, both economically and psychologically is the question of property. One of the most widespread cliches today is that the love for property is an innate trait in humans. Usually the confusion is made between property in instruments one needs for one’s work and in certain private items like ornaments, et cetera, and property in the sense exclusive possession other people can be made to work for oneself. Such means of production in the industrial society are essentially machines or capital to be invested in machine production. In primitive society the means of production are land and hunting areas. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
In no primitive band in anyone denied access to the resources of nature—no individual owned these resources. The natural resources on which the bands depend are collective, or communal, property, in the sense that the territory might be defended by the whole band against encroachment by strangers. Within the band, all families have equal right to acquire these resources. Moreover, kinsmen in neighbouring bands are allowed to hunt and gather at will, at least on request. The most common instance of apparent restriction in rights to resources occurs with respect to nut or fruit-bearing trees. In some instances, particular trees or clumps of trees are allocated to individual families of the band. This practice is more a division of labour, however, then a division of property, for its purpose seems to be to prevent the waste of time and effort that would occur if several scattered families headed for the same area. It is simply to conventionalize that allotted use of the several groves, inasmuch as trees are much more permanently located than game or even wild vegetables and grasses. At any rate, even if one family acquired many nuts or fruits and another failed, the rules of sharing would apply so that no one would go hungry. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
Things that seem most like private property in prehistoric society are those that are made and used by individual persons. Weapons, knives and scrapers, clothing, ornaments, amulets, and the like, are frequently regarded as private property among hunters and gathers. However, it could be argued that in primitive society even these personal items are not private property in the true sense. Inasmuch as the possession of which things is dictated by their use, they are functions of the division of labour rather than an ownership of the means of production. Private ownership of such things is meaningful only if some people possess them and others do not—when, so to speak, an exploitative situation becomes possible. However, it is hard to imaging (and impossible to find in ethnographic accounts) a case of some person or persons who, though some accident, owned no weapons or clothing and could not borrow or receive such things from more fortunate kinsmen. A true guide wills surely serve one’s disciples, sometimes without the title of teacher, certainly without the pay for one’s work for self. One will teach a small number so that, after attaining a certain degree of mystical understanding and practical achievement, they in turn may become helpful guides of others. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
In modern times, neurosis is the consequence extremely personal secrets that we somehow hide from ourselves. These secrets are repressed from consciousness because they concern terrible disappointments we experienced early in our development. Suppressing our knowledge of these experiences by “forgetting” them temporarily relives the anguish and frustration they originally elicited. So, yes, you can forget a person whom caused a painful situation and/or memory. The suppression of painful experiences produces psychical conflicts which, in turn, may give rise to psychopathology, symptomatic expressions of pain that was being denied. That is why it is important to be completely candid with one’s therapist during the analytic hour. If carried out sincerely, the exercise of candour should reverse the conflicts that have been caused by repression. Our tendency to conceal painful experiences from ourselves could be compounded by families who keep secrets from each other: I know what you are thinking, but you deny it and pretend to think the opposite; or I know how I feel, but you insist that I really believe the opposite. This kind of mystification can become so extreme that a child does not know what one thinks. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
One’s sense of reality becomes so compromised that one seeks refuge in a psychotic—rather than merely neurotic—withdrawal from an intolerable situation. However, experience cannot be reduced simply to one’s subjective awareness of or involvement in an event, in the sense that I have an experience of writing this sentence. When I truly experience something, I am affected by it. It comes as a shock. It changes everything. My experience of something confronts me with the unexpected. It violates my familiar view of things by forcing something new into consciousness. Due to its intrinsically unsettling nature, experience elicits despair because it disturbs my cozy accommodation to reality. On the other hand, despair lead so to something new because experience always occasions a transformation of some kind. In other words, since experience displaces what is familiar to me, it does not simply cause change: It is change. Experience is not simply subjective. It is also transcendental because it takes me outside myself and places me inside a situation that alters my perspective. The effect that my experience has over me changes, to some degree, who I am. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
This dialectical process which consciousness executes on itself—n its knowledge as well as on its object—in the sense that out of it the new and true object arises, is precisely what is termed Experience. There are revelatory aspects of experience as well as transformative ones. In other words, experience does not merely change the World inhabit, it also reveals things to me that I had not known. Consequently, experience elicits truth. One’s experience could be nudged in a certain direction for a specific purpose so long as one prepared oneself for it. In other words, by anticipating my experiences purposefully, deliberately, and thoughtfully, I can make use of experience to gain knowledge about myself. There are degrees to which I experience things; it is not all or nothing. Experiences do not just fall on me whether I want them to our not. I am capable of resisting experience. In turn, the degree to which I am able to experience something is determined by how willing I am to submit to whatever it is that I was to experience. To undergo an experience with something—be it a thing, a person, or a god—means that this something befalls us, strikes us, overcomes us, overwhelms and transforms us. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
When we talk of “undergoing” an experience, we mean specifically that the experience is not of our own making; to undergo here means that we endure it, suffer it, receive it as it strikes us and submit to it. It is this something itself that comes about, comes to pass, happens. The extent to which I am able or willing to listen to what my experience tells me will determine how fully I experience that I am doing, whether I am eating a meal, solving a problem, or undergoing psychoanalysis. Because experience is transformative, I am afraid of it and resist it by holding it back. I am perfectly capable of suppressing my experiences (if they happen to be painful) and even repressing the significance or memory of experiences I have had in order to “forget” them. In other words, I can resist change by suppressing experience, just as I can elicit change by being open to it. Sometimes, however, when one attempts both to escape the experience of an unlivable situation and hold on to that which one is escaping this is what is known as a “psychotic breakdown.” In other words, the psychotic individual is simply trying to be true to one’s experience. Because of the opposition that one encounters in one’s environment, one is compelled to withdraw from the reality that one is in order to protect what experience tells one. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
This “compromise” comprises one’s psychosis. The psychotic gets stuck in one’s psychosis and cannot find one’s way out of it. “Are you unaware that your body is a shrine to the Holy Spirit from God, Who is within you? And that you are not your own property? A price has been paid for you. So make your body a showplace of God’s grace,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.19-20. “No longer present the parts of your body to sin as weapons of wickedness, but present yourselves to God like people, who coming out of death, have eternal life; and present your bodily part to him as weapons of righteousness,” reports Romans 6.13. Although it is seen as just a mental process the mind is the brain, and the brain is physical. Therefore, it is also part of our body and it is important are our brains are functioning at their best. There are so many problems in society today because people lack mental fitness. Mental health challenges can impact anyone, regardless of education, geography, faith, calling, or family. They are nothing to be ashamed of and should be met with love. Spiritual transformation into Christlikeness is the process of forming the inner World of the human self in such a way that it takes on the character of the inner being of Jesus himself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
The result is that the “outer” life of the individual increasingly becomes a natural expression of the inner reality of Jesus and of his teachings. Doing what he said and did increasingly becomes a part of who we are. However, for this to happen our body and mind must increasingly be poised to do what is good and refrain from what is evil. The inclinations to wrongdoing that literally inhabit its parts must be eliminated. The body must come to serve us as a primary ally in Christlikeness. For good or for evil, the body lies right at the center of the spiritual life—a strange combination of words to most people. One can immediately see all around us that the human body is a (perhaps in some cases even the) primary barrier to conformity to Christ. However, this certainly was not God’s intent for the body and mind. It is not in the nature of our being as such. (The being is not inherently evil.) Nor is it caused by the body or mind. However, still it is a fact that the body and mind usually hinders people in doing what they know to be good and right. Being formed in evil it, in turn, fosters evil and constantly runs ahead of our good intentions—but in the opposite direction. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
Still our total being is a good thing. God made if for good. That is why the way of Jesus Christ is so relentlessly incarnational. The complete being should be cherished and properly cared for, not as our master, however, but as a servant of God. For most people, on the other hand, their body governs their live and they ignore their conscience. And that is the problem. Even professing Christians, by and large, devote to their spiritual growth and well-being a tiny fraction of the time they devote to their body, and If we include what one worries about, it is an even tinier fraction. What is going on here? Can our holistic being truly become our ally in Christlikeness? It can and it must, but its essential role in spirituality is the one thing most likely to be overlooked in understanding and practicing growth in grace. We find an aspect of Joshua’s preparation for leadership in Exodus 33, where we glimpse his growing devotion to God. He was serving in the Tabernacle with Moses while the pillar of the cloud towered above the tent. Verse 11 tells us: “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friends. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Though he was not privileged, like Moses, to speak with God face to face, Joshua was so overcome by God’s presence that he would not leave the Tabernacle! There is such passion in this picture. “Lord, You are so wonderful, I cannot leave this room. I beg You, let me stay.” Joshua’s New Testament counterpart is Mary of Bethany, who would not leave the room where Jesus was as she sat enraptured at His feet despite her sister’s scolding. And she was so right! As we have it from the Lips of our Lord, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her,” reports Luke 10.42. It was this same Mary who poured a year’s fortune on Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair and of whom Jesus said, “She has done a beautiful thing to me,” report Mark 14.6. True spiritual leadership is born for devotion and demands to be closeted with God. We cannot name one great leader in the Church who has not made personal worship a top priority. Such were the lives of Luther, Bunyan, Edwards, Wesley, Muller, Lloyd-Jones, and every other truly spiritual leader. There is no spiritual leadership apart from passionate devotion. Such is the grace of God that it inspires humans of the most different types to arise and help their fellow. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
One hundred years ago the great C.J. Vaughn said, “If I wished to humble anyone, I should question one about one’s prayers. I know nothing to compare with the topic for its sorrowful confessions.” Humans, leaders, how would you answer such a question? Humans as widely apart as General Booth, who founded the Salvation Army, and the late Lord Haldane, who sought to translate his philosophical vision into unselfish public service were inspired by the grace of God. Thus, even in the darkest epochs someone eventually appears to help the most unenlightened, the most sinful, and the most illiterate, even as someone eventually appears to guide the virtuous, educated, and intellectual. Inability to comprehend the highest truth or inability to live up to the loftiest ethics is not made by true self-actualized beings a bar to bestowing help. They assist the undeveloped from where they now stand. And such is the wisdom of the self-actualized that they know just how much to give and in what form it can best be assimilated, even as they know when it is better to convey material assistance only and when ethical, religious, mystical, or philosophical instruction should also be given. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Human ruin comes from placing oneself at the center of one’s Universe, in place of God. If not inevitable, this naturally leads to worship of the body and to the life of sensuality that results. If not the only instrument, the body becomes our primary source of gratification and the chief for getting what we want. That is perversion of the role of the body in life as God intended it; and it results in “death,” in alienation from God and the loss of all we will have invested our lives in. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A human reaps what one sows. The one who sows to please one’s sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to tall people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers,” reports Galatians 6.7-10. The capacity to receive truth is limited by the moral, intellectual, and intuitional limitations of the receiver. The first work of the self-actualized is to plow up the field of one’s pupil’s mind, to make it fit to receive fresh seed. One has no desire to get humans interested in one’s own personality, to have them turn to, and rely on, oneself but would rather turn them toward their own higher nature. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
The master who gives truth is a greater creator of values and contributor to humanity than the greatest music composer. When eloquence is untied with enlightenment, we may expect sentences which pierce us with their rightness, which are rich in truth and stimulating to goodness. One’s statements make truth clearer; one’s declarations are like a sparkling glass of eternal water. “And it came to pass in that same year there began to be a war again between the Nephites and the Lamanites. And notwithstanding I being young, was large in stature; therefore the people of Nephi appointed me that I should be their leader, or the leader of their armies. Therefore it came to pass that in my sixteenth year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites, against the Lamanites; therefore three hundred and twenty and six years passed away. And it came to pass that in the three hundred and twenty and seventh year the Lamanites did come upon us with exceedingly great power, insomuch that they did frighten my armies; therefore they would not fight, and they began to retreat toward the norther countries. And it came to pass that we did come to the city of Angola, and we did take possession of the city, and make preparations to defend ourselves against the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“And it came to pass that we did fortify the city with our might; but notwithstanding all our fortification the Lamanites did come upon us and did drive us out of the city. And they did also drive us forth out of the land of David. And we marched forth and came to the land of Joshua, which was in the borders west by the seashore. And it came to pass that we did gather in our people as fast as it were possible, that we might get them together in one body. However, behold, the land was filled with robbers and with Lamanites; and notwithstanding the great destruction which hung over my people, they did not repent of their evil doings; therefore there was blood and carnage spread throughout all the face of the land, both n the part of the Nephites and also on the part of the Lamanites; and it was one complete revolution throughout all the face of the land. And now, the Lamanites had a kind, and his name was Aaron; and he came against us with an army of forty and four thousand. And behold, I withstood him with forty and two thousand. And it came to pass that I beat him with my army that he fled before me. And behold, all this was done, and three hundred and thirty years had passed away. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“And it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man could keep that which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land. Thus there began to be a mourning and a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially among the people of Nephi. And it came to pass that when I, Mormon, saw their lamentation and their mourning and their sorrow before the Lord, my heart did begin to rejoice within me, knowing the mercies and the long-suffering of the Lord, therefore supposing that he would be merciful unto them that they would again become a righteous people. However, behold, this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always duffer them to take happiness in sin. And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives. #Randolphharris 22 of 26
“And it came to that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And this three hundred and forty and four years had passed away. And it came to pass that in the three hundred and forty and fifth year the Nephites did begin to flee before the Lamanites; and they were pursued until they came even to the land of Jashon, before it was possible to stop them in their retreat. And now, the city of Jashon was near the land where Ammaron had deposited the records unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed. And behold I have gone according to the word of Ammaron, and take the plated of Nephi and did make a record according to the words of Ammaron. And upon the plates of Nephi I did make a full account of all the wickedness and abominations; but upon these plated I did forbear to make a full account of their wickedness and abominations, for behold, a continual scene of wickedness and abominations has been before mine eyes ever since I have been sufficient to behold the ways of man. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And wo is me because of their wickedness; for my heart has been filled with sorrow because of their wickedness, all my days; nevertheless, I know that I shall be lifted up at the last day. And it came to pass that in this year the people of Nephi again were hunted and driven. And it came to pas that we were driven forth until we had come northward to the land which was called Shem. And it came to pass that we did fortify the city of Shem, and we did gather in our people as much as it were possible, that perhaps we might save them from destruction. And it came to pass in the three hundred and forty and sixth year they began to come upon us again. And it came to pass that I did speak unto my people, and did urge them with great energy, that they would stand boldly before the Lamanites and fight for their wives and children, and their houses, and their homes. And my words did arouse them somewhat vigour, insomuch that they did not flee from before the Lamanites, but did stand with boldness against them. And it came to pass that we did contend with an army of fifty thousand. And it came to pass that we did stand before the with such fairness that they did flee from us. And it came to pass that when they had fled we did pursue them with our armies, and did meet them again, and did beat them. #Randolphharris 24 of 26
“Nevertheless the strength of the Lord was not with us; yea, we were left to ourselves, that the Spirit of the Lord did not abide in us; therefore we had become weak like unto our brethren. And my heart did sorrow because of this great calamity of my people, because of their wickedness and their abominations. However, behold, we did go forth against the Lamanites and the robbers of Gadianton, until we had again taken possession of the lands of our inheritance. And the three hundred and forty and ninth year had passed away. And in the three hundred and fiftieth year we made a treaty with the Lamanites and the robbers of the Gadianton, in which we did get the lands of our inheritance divided. And the Lamanites dud give unto us the land northward yea, even to the narrow passage which led into the land southward. And we did give unto the Lamanites all the land southward,” reports Mormon 2.1-29. When the proper time has passed, the womb of night will give birth to day. Though I long for day, in my heart I know that the way things are is done rightly. Here in the dark, I remember this and rest in the sure concern of the Holy Ones. O Lord our God, please grant that we all and Thy people, the house of Israel, find delight in the study of the Scripture. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
May we and our children and all the future generations of the house of Israel know Thy name and learn Thy Scripture for its own sake. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who Teachest the Scripture to Thy people Israel. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of Universe, who hast chosen us from among all peoples by giving us Thy Scripture. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Giver of the Scripture. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make His countenance shine up thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord turn His countenance unto thee, and grant thee peace. May the gifts of your fruits guide you on your pilgrimage, offering sanctuary, and deeds of lovingkindness. May you enjoy your fruits while in this life, and may the principal remain for you to all eternity. Be sure to honour your mother and father, and perform deeds of lovingkindness towards them. May God make peace between all humans. God’s spirit will guide us through the darkness and stand as a wall, and protect us from all terrors. The soul which God has blessed you with is pure and will bring peace into the lives of others. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commanded,” reports Hebrews 11.1-2. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
Cresleigh Homes
Nothing wakes you up quite like a game of bocce ball in the crisp fall air. At least, that’s what we’re guessing — we’re still wrapped up in bed hoping “accio coffee” will finally work. 23rd time’s the charm, right? 😉🧙♂️
Head to the @HUBApts profile to learn more about living in the heart of #Folsom.
Enjoy the best of upscale living.
Would Come No Mystery? For Me, Dark, Dark, and Painful Vile Oblivion Seals My Eyes!
Truth is where the truth is, and it is sometimes in the candy store. You are THAT reality which you seek: give up the ego and know it. The easiest way to get into the meditative state is to begin by listening. If you simply close your eyes and allow yourself to hear all the sounds that are going on around you, just listen to the general hum and buzz of the World, as if you were listening to music. Allow them to play with your eardrums, it is all just sound. You do not have to try to understand anything, just listen to the sound. Look at your own thoughts as just noises, and soon you will find that the so called outside World and to so called inside World come together. They are happening, and everything is simply a happening, and all you are doing is watching it. It is so easy to forget who you are. Just take a shovel and go bury your hears. Why did you hold on to all of the hate? Be believing. Be happy. Do not get discouraged. Things will work out. Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve. Do not waste time pondering the past or fretting about the future. And preserve in spite of adversity. Even when many people are negative and pessimistic, we can cultivate a spirit of happiness and optimism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
There is a terrible ailment of pessimism in the land. It is almost an endemic. We are constantly fed a steady and sour diet of character assassination, faultfinding, evil speaking of one another. We must stop seeking out storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. It is important that we accentuate the optimistic. Look a little deeper for the good, still that voice of insult and sarcasm, and more generously compliment virtue and effort. While we must never ignore all criticism, since growth comes with correction, strength comes with repentance. Wise is the one who, committing mistakes pointed out by others, changes one’s course. One who is to direct the steps of others along this path needs not only to be high in character and consciousness and teaching ability, but also to be learned in the comparative history and comparative doctrines of Christianity. It is true that nobody can get sufficient data to determine the solutions of the riddle of a single person’s status, nobody can penetrate fully into any other person’s motives. I do not judge anyone and I ought not to judge. Nevertheless, one’s teaching alone is insufficient to testify to the true worth of a human; one oneself is a testimony of equal value. If one has nth inspiration and technique one’s message will carry authority, power, enlightenment, and hope to those who can receive it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
The teacher’s work will have to endure the malice of satanic human instruments and the misunderstanding of the superficial and ignorant. If parties wish to express this notion visibly in the basic structure of their society in order to secure each human’s rational interest in one’s self-respect, which principles should they choose? Now it seems that the two principles of justice achieve this aim: for all have an equal liberty and the difference principle explicates the distinction between treating humans as a means only and treating them also as ends in themselves. To regard persons as ends in themselves in the basic design of society is to agree to forgo those gains which do not contribute to their representative expectations. By contrast, to regard persons as a means is to be prepared to impose upon them lower prospects of life for the sake of the higher expectations of others. Thus we see that the difference principle, which at first appears rather extreme, has a reasonable interpretation. If we further suppose that social cooperation among those who respect each other and themselves as manifest in their institutions is likely to be more effective and harmonious, the general level of expectations, assuming we could estimate it, may be higher when the two principles of justice are satisfied than one might otherwise have thought. The advantage of the principle of utility in this respect is no longer so clear. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
The principle of utility presumably requires some to forgo greater life prospects for the sake of others. To be sure, it is not necessary that those having to make such sacrifices rationalize this demand by having a lesser appreciation of their own worth. It does not follow from the utilitarian doctrine that it is because their aims are trivial or unimportant that some individuals’ expectations are less. Yet this may often be the case, and there is a sense, as we have just noted, in which utilitarianism does not regard persons as ends in themselves. And in any event, the parties must consider the general facts of moral psychology. When we must accept a lesser prospect of life for the sake of others, surely it is natural to experience a loss of self-esteem, a weakening of our sense of the value of accomplishing our aims. When social cooperation is arranged for the good of individual, this is particularly likely to be so. That is, those with greater advantages do not claim that they are necessary to preserve certain religious or cultural values which everyone has a duty to maintain. We are not here considering a doctrine of traditional order nor the principle of perfectionism, but rather the principle of utility. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
In this instance, then, human’s self-esteem hinges on how they regard one another. If the parties accept the utility criterion, they will lack the support to their self-respect provided by the public commitment of others to arrange inequalities to everyone’s advantage and to guarantee an equal liberty for all. In a public utilitarian society humans will find it more difficult to be confident of their own worth. The utilitarian may answer that in maximizing the average utility these matters are already taken into account. If, for example, the equal liberties are necessary for human’s self-respect and the average utility is higher when they are affirmed, then of course they should be established. So far so good. However, the point is that we must not lose sight of the publicity condition. This requires that in maximizing the average utility we do so subject to the constraint that the utilitarian principle is publicly accepted and followed as the fundamental character of society. What we cannot do is to raise the average utility by encouraging humans to adopt and apply non-utilitarian principles of justice. If, for whatever reasons, the public recognition of utilitarianism entails some loss of self-esteem, there is no way around this drawback. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
It is an unavoidable cost of the utilitarian scheme given our stipulations. Thus suppose that the average utility is actually greater should the two principles of justice be publicly affirmed and realized as the basis of the social structure. For the reasons mentioned, this may conceivably be the case. These principles would then represent the most attractive prospects, and on both lines of reasoning just examined, the two principles would be accepted. The utilitarian cannot reply that one is now really maximizing the average utility. In fact, the parties would have chosen the two principles of justice. We should note, then, that unilateralism, as I have defined it, is the view that the principle of utility is the correct principle for society’s public conception of justice. And to show this one must argue that this criterion would be chosen in the original position. If we like, we can define a different variation of the initial situation in which the motivation assumption is that the parties want to adopt those principles that maximize average utility. The preceding remarks indicate that the two principles of justice may still be chosen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
However, if so, it is a mistake to call these principles—and the theory in which they appear—utilitarian. The motivation assumption by itself does not determine the character of the whole theory. In fact, if they would be chosen under different motivation assumptions, the case for the principles of justice is strengthened. This indicates that the theory of justice is firmly grounded and not sensitive to slight changes in this condition. What we want to know is which conception of justice characterizes our considered judgments in reflective equilibrium and best serves as the public moral basis of society. Unless one maintains that this conception is given by the principle of utility, one is not a utilitarian. The advocate of utility can maintain, however, that this principle also gives sense to the Kantian idea, namely, the sense provided by Bentham’s formula “everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one.” This means that one person’s happiness assumed to be equal in degree to another person’s is to be counted exactly the same. The weight in the additive function that represent the utility principle are identical for all individuals, and it is natural to take them as one. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
The principle of utility, one might say, treats persons both as ends and as means. It treats them as end by assigning the same (positive) weight to the welfare of each; it treats them as means by allowing higher life prospects for some to counterbalance lower life prospects for others who are already less favourably situated. The two principles of justice give a stronger and more characteristic interpretation to Kant’s idea. They rule out even the tendency to regard humans as means to one another’s welfare. In the design of the social system we must treat persons solely as ends and not in any way as means. The preceding arguments draw upon this more stringent interpretation. The conditions of generality of principle, universality of application, and limited information as to natural and social status are not enough by themselves to characterize the original position of justice as fairness. The reasoning for the average principle of utility shows this. These conditions are necessary but not sufficient. The original position requires the parties to make a collective agreement, and therefore the restrictions on valid undertakings as well as the publicity and finality conditions are an essential part of the argument for the two principles. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
I have discussed the role of these constraints in connection with the strains of commitment and the problem of stability. Once these considerations are established the doubts about the reasoning for the average principle become more serious. The tentative conclusion, then, is that the balance of reasons clearly favours the two principles of justice over the principle of average utility, and assuming transitivity, over the classical doctrine as well. Insofar as the conception of the original position is used in the justification of principles in everyday life, the claim that one would agree to the two principles in everyday life, the claim that one would agree to the two principles of justice is perfectly credible. There is no reason offhand to think that it is not sincere. In order for this profession to be convincing, it is not necessary that one should have actually given and honoured this undertaking. Thus it is able to serve as a conception of justice in the public acceptance of which persons can recognize one another’s good faith. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
If the predatory quality of human’s hominid ancestors cannot be made responsible for their aggressiveness, can there be a human ancestor, a prehistorical Adam who is responsible for human’s “fall”? This “Adam” may be man, the hunter. Humans have lived during 99 percent of their history as hunters, we owe our biology, psychology, and customs to the hunters of the time past: In a very real sense our intellect, interest, emotions, and basic social life—all are evolutionary products of the success of the hunting adaption. When anthropologist speak of the unity of humankind, they are stating that the selection pressures of the hunting and gathering way of life were so similar and the result so successful that populations of Homo sapiens are still fundamentally the same everywhere. The crucial question, then, is: What is this psychology of the hunter? It struck me that a certain kind of father-complex has a spiritual character, so to speak, in the sense that the father-image gives rise to statements, actions, tendencies, impulses, opinion, et etcetera, to which one could hardly deny the attribute spiritual. In men, a positive father-complex very often produces a certain credulity with regard to authority and a distinct willingness to bow down before all spiritual doctrines and covenants. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
While in women, the father-complex induces the liveliest spiritual aspirations and interests. The invisibility of this source is frequently emphasized by the fact that it consists simply of an authoritative voice which passes final judgements. Mostly, therefore, it is the figure of a “wise old man” who symbolizes the spiritual factor. Sometimes the part is played by a “real” spirit, namely the ghost of one dead, or, more rarely, by grotesque gnomelike figures or talking animals. The dwarf forms are found, at last in my experience, mainly in women; hence it seems to me logical that in Ernst Barlach’s play Der tote Tag (1912), the gnomelike figure of Steissbart (“Rumpbeard”) is associated with the mother, just as Bes is associated with the mother-goodness at Karnak. In both genders the spirit can also take the form of a boy or a youth. In women he corresponds to the so-called “positive” animus who indicates the possibility of conscious spiritual effort. In men his meaning is not so simple. He can be positive, in which case he signifies the “higher” personality, the self or filius regius as conceived by the alchemists. However, he can also be negative, and then he signifies the infantile shadow. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
In both cases the boy means some form of spirit. Graybeard and boy belong together. The pair of them play a considerable role in alchemy as symbols of Mercurius. Mercurius is a major god in Roman religion and mythology, being one of the 12 Dii Consentes (a list of twelve major deities, six gods and six goddesses) within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he also serve as the guide of souls. It can never be established with one-hundred-percent certainty whether the spirit-figures in dreams are morally good. If not of outright malice, very often they show all the signs of duplicity. I must emphasize, however, that the grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia (the tendency of thing to change into their opposites, especially as a supposed governing principle of natural cycles and of psychological development), and what good may very possible lead to evil. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
Sometimes the probate spiritus with the best will in the World, be anything other than a cautious and patient waiting to see how things will finally turn out. Humans have a carnivorous psychology fully developed by the Middle Pleistocene, around 500, 000 years ago or even earlier. The World view of the early human carnivore must have been very different from that of their vegetarian cousins. Some scientists believe that the carnivorous psychology is because humans have a drive for and pleasure in killing. It is believed that humans take pleasure in hunting other animals. Unless careful training has hidden the natural drives, humans enjoy the chase and the kill. In most cultures torture and suffering are made public spectacles for the enjoyment of all. Humas have a carnivorous psychology. It is easy to teach people to kill, and it is hard to develop customs which avoid killing. Many human beings enjoy seeing other human beings suffer or enjoy the killing of animals…public beatings and torture are common in many cultures. What are the arguments in favour of this alleged innate joy in killing and cruelty? One argument is killing as a sport. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
Perhaps this is most easily shown by the extent of the efforts devoted to maintain killing as a sport. In former times royalty and nobility maintained parks where they could enjoy the sport of killing, and today the United States government spends many millions of dollars to supply game for hunters. Some people even use the lightest fishing tackle to prolong the fish’s futile struggle, in order to maximize the personal sense of mastery and skill. And until recently war was viewed in much the same way as hunting. Other human beings were simply the most dangerous game. War has been far too important in human history for it to be other than pleasurable for the people involved. It is only recently with the entire change in the nature and conditions of war, that this institution has been challenged, that the wisdom of war as a normal part of national policy or as an approved road to personal social glory has been questioned. The extent to which the biological bases for killing have been incorporated into human psychology may be measures by the ease with which boys and modern girls, in many cases, can be interested in hunting, fishing, fighting, and games of war. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
It is not that these behaviours are inevitable, but they are learned, satisfying, and have been socially rewarded in most cultures. The skills for killing and the pleasures of killing are normally developed in play, and the patterns of play prepare the children for their adult roles. Many people enjoy killing and cruelty is true as far as it goes, but all it means is that there are sadistic individuals and sadistic cultures; but there are others that are not sadistic. One will find, for instance, that sadism is much more frequently to be found among frustrated individuals and social classes who feel powerless and have little pleasure in life, for example the lower class in Rome who were compensated for their material poverty and social impotence by sadistic spectacles, or the lower middle class in Germany from whose ranks Hitler recruited his most fanatical following; it is also to be found in ruling classes that feel threatened in their dominant position and the property or in suppressed groups that thirst for revenge. However, idea that may hunting produce pleasure in torture is an unsubstantiated and most implausible statement to apply to all human beings. All hunters as a rule do not enjoy the suffering of the animal, and in fact a sadist who enjoys torture would make a poor hunter; nor do all people who fish like to see the fish suffer. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
There also may not be real evidence that primitive hunters were motivated by sadistic or destructive impulses. On the contrary, there is some evidence to show that they had an affectionate feeling for the killed animals and possibly a feeling of guilt for the kill. Among the Paleolithic hunters, the bear was often addressed as “grandfather” or was looked upon as the mythical ancestor of humans. When the bear was killed, apologies were offered; before he or she was eaten, a sacred meal took place with the bear as an “honoured guest,” before whom were placed the best dishes; finally the bear was ceremoniously buried. The psychology of hunting, including that of the contemporary hunter, calls for extensive study, but a few observations can be made even in this context. First of all, one must distinguish between hunting as a sport of ruling elites (for instance, the nobility in a feudal system) and all other forms of hunting, such as that of primitive hunters, farmers, protecting their crop or chickens, and individuals who love to hunt. “Elite hunting” seems to satisfy the wish for power and control, including a certain amount of sadism, character of power elites. It tells us more about feudal psychology than about the psychology of hunting. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Among the motivations of the primitive professional and the modern passionate hunter, at least two kinds must be distinguished. The first have their roots in the depth of human experience. In the act of hunting, a human becomes, however briefly, part of nature again. One returns to the natural state, becomes one with the animal, and is freed from the burden of the existential split: to be part of nature and to transcend it by virtue of one’s consciousness. In stalking the animal one and the animal become equals, even though humans eventually show their superiority by the use of their weapons. In primitive humans this experience is quite conscious. Through disguising oneself as an animal, and considering an animal as one’s ancestor, one makes this identification explicit. For modern humans, with their cerebral orientation, this experience of oneness with nature is difficult to verbalize and to be aware of, but it is still alive in many beings. Of at least equal importance for the passionate hunter is an entirely different motivation, that of enjoyment in one’s skill. It is amazing how many modern authors neglect this element of skill in hunting, and focus their attention on the act of killing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
After all, hunting requires a combination of many skills and wide knowledge beyond that of handling a weapon. Hunting has placed a premium upon inventiveness, upon problem solving, and has imposed a real penalty for failure to solve the problem. Therefore it has contributed as much to advancing the human species as to holding it together within the confines of a single variable species. Hunting is obviously an instrumental system in the real sense that something gets done, several ordered behaviours are preformed with a crucial result. The technological aspects, the spears, clubs, hand axes, and all other objects suitable for museum display, are essentially meaningless apart from the context in which they are used. They do not represent a suitable place to begin analysis because their position in the sequence is remote from the several preceding complexes. The efficiency of hunting is to be understood not on the basis of the advancement of its technical bases, but by the increasing skill of the hunter: There is ample documentation, though surprisingly few systematic studies, for the postulate that primitive humans are sophisticated in their knowledge of the natural World. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
This sophistication encompasses the entire macroscopic zoological World of mammals, marsupials, reptiles, birds, fish, insects, and plants. Knowledge of tides, meteorological phenomena generally, astronomy, and other aspects of the natural World are also well developed among some variations between groups with reference to the sophistication and extent of their knowledge, and to the areas in which they have concentrated. Humans, the hunters are learning animal behaviour and anatomy, including their own. They domesticated themselves first and then turned to other animals to plants. In this sense, hunting is the school of learning that made the human species self-taught. In short, the motivation of the primitive hunter was not pleasure in killing, but the learning and optimal performance of various skills, id est, the development of humans themselves. Today, when almost everything is made by machines, we notice little pleasure in skill except perhaps the pleasure people experience with hobbies like carpentry of the fascination of the average person when one can watch a goldsmith or weaver at one’s work; perhaps the fascination with a performing violinist is not only caused by the beauty of the music one produces but by the display of one’s skill. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
In cultures where most of the production is by hand and rests on skill, it is unmistakably clear that work is enjoyable because of the skill involved in it, and to the degree to which this skill is involved. The interpretation of the pleasure in hunting as pleasure in killing, rather than in skill, is indicative of the person of our time for whom the only thing that counts is the result of an effort, in this case killing, rather than the process itself. Boys can be easily induced to any kind of pattern that is culturally accepted. Furthermore, it should be noted that there are a number of sports—from Zen sword fighting to fencing, judo, and karate—in which it is quite obvious that their fascination does not lie in the pleasure to kill, but in the skill they allow to be displayed. We will continual exploring humans as hunters, but perhaps some humans are learning primitive ways and do not truly understand what they are doing. That is why so many people are encouraging others to use the skill of discovering God. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
The Lord’s plan is a plan of happiness. If we cultivate a spirit of happiness, the way will be lighter, the worries will be fewer, the confrontations will be less difficult. How magnificently we are blessed! How thankful we ought to be! Cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving for the blessing of life and for the marvelous gifts and privileges each of us enjoy. The Lord has said that the meek shall inherit the Earth. (See Matthew 5.5.) I cannot escape the interpretation that meekness implies a spirit of gratitude as opposed to an attitude of self-sufficiency, an acknowledgment of a greater power beyond oneself, a recognition of God, and an acceptance of His commandments. This is the beginning of wisdom. Walk with gratitude before Him who is the giver of life and every good gift. “And now I, Mormon, make a record of the things which I have both seen and heard, and call it the Book of Mormon. And about the time that Ammaron hid up the records unto the Lord, he came unto me, (I being about ten years of age, and I began to be learned somewhat after the manner of the learning of my people) and Ammaron said unto me: I perceive that thou art a sober child, and art quicky to observe. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“Therefore, when ye are about twenty and four years old I would that ye should remember the things that ye have observed concerning this people; and when ye are of that age go to the land Antum, unto a hill which shall be called Shim; and there have I deposited unto the Lord all the sacred engravings concerning this people. And behold, ye shall take the plates of Nephi unto yourself, and the remainder shall ye leave in the place where they are; and ye shall engrave on the plates of Nephi all the things ye have observed concerning this people. And I, Mormon, being a descendant of Nephi, (and my father’s name was Mormon) I remembered the things which Ammaron commanded me. And it came to pass that I, being eleven years old, was carried by my father into the land southward, even to the land of Zarahemla. The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea. And it came to pass in this year there began to be a war between the Nephites, who consisted of the Nephites, who consisted of the Nephites and the Jacobites and the Josephites and the Zoramites; and this war was between the Nephites, and the Lamanites and the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“Now the Lamanites and the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites were called Lamanites, and the two parties were Nephites and Lamanites. And it came to pass that the war began to be among them in the borders of Zarahemla, by the waters of Sidon. And it came to pass that the Nephites had gathered together a great number of men, even to exceed the number of thirty thousand. It is came to pass that they did have in this same year a number of battles, in which the Nephites did beat the Lamanites and did slay many of them. And it came to pass that the Lamanites withdrew their design, and there was peace settled in the land; and peace did remain for the space of about four years, that there was no bloodshed. However, wickedness did prevail upon the face of the whole land, insomuch that the Lord did take away his beloved disciples, and the work of miracles and of healing did cease because of the iniquity of the people. And there were no gifts from the Lord, and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any, because of their wickedness and unbelief. And I, being fifteen years of age and being somewhat of a sober mind, therefore I was visited of the Lord, and tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“And I did endeavour to preach unto this people, but my mouth was shit, and I was forbidden that I should preach unto them; for behold they had willfully rebelled against their God; and beloved disciples were taken away out of the land, because of their iniquity. However, I did remain among them, but I was forbidden to preach unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake. And these Gadinaton robbers, who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the Earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again. And it came to pass that there were sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the face of the land, even unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi, and also Samuel the Lamanite,” reports Mormon 1.1.19. I speak of darkness from out of darkness, of night from out of night. Night I praise, the first of all things, the blackness within which World are formed. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
In the encompassing embrace of the arms of night, everything was held that has existence. From under the blanket that God lays over us, everything came forth that has existence. Birthplace of all, to you I pray: Worthy are you to be praised. The living God O magnify and bless, transcending time and here eternally. One Being, yet unique in unity; a mystery of Oneness, measureless. Lo! form or body He has none, and man no semblance of His holiness can frame. Before Creation’s dawn He was the same; the first to be, though never He began. He is the World’s and every creature’s Lord; His rule and majesty are manifest, and through His chosen, glorious sons expressed in prophecies that their lips are poured. Yet never like to Moses rose a seer, permitted glimpse behind the veil divine. This faithful prince of God’s prophetic line received the Law of Truth for Israel’s ear. The Law God gave, He never will amend, nor ever by another Law replace. Our secret things are spread before His face; in all beginnings He beholds the end. The saint’s reward He measures to his meed; the sinner reaps the harvest of his ways. Messiah He will send at end of days, and all the faithful to salvation lead. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
God will the dead again to life restore in His abundance of almighty love. Then blessed be His name, all names above, and let His praise resound forevermore. Judaism teaches us that even the routine functions of life reveal the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. Hence were introduced the following blessings which were originally not part of the public Synagogue service. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy precepts and enjoined on us the washing of the hands. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast fashioned humans in wisdom, and hast created within them life-sustaining organs. If but one of these function improperly, it is revealed and known before Thy glorious throne that it would be impossible for humans to survive before Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who endowest humans with health and doest wonders. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy precepts and enjoined on us to occupy ourselves with the study of the Torah. Even if it is scattered to a few, such a concept of life is too precious to die out. Be assured that they will take the greatest care to preserver its existence within the mind and memory of the race. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
Cresleigh Homes
Ever wondered what it would look like to have your future in front of you? Well, this #MillsStation Residence 2 kitchen is painting us a pretty picture of stew simmering on the stove and the pleasant aroma greeting you at the dining table.
View virtual tours of the #CresleighRanch homes on our website. Link in bio. https://youtu.be/1Rpm_C0hXkY
The kitchen opens directly to the dining room allowing for perfect flow. The large kitchen island makes food prep and entertaining easy while the walk in pantry provides ample storage. The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters.
The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is located on the first floor of this home providing easy access and eliminating the hassle of climbing stairs daily. The Owner’s bathroom is spacious and tranquil including a large free standing soaking tub, walk in shower and large walk-in closet. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-2/
This home is designed with Universal Design concepts meaning that its well equipped for life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more about this unique feature by speaking with a sales associate today!
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Full Golden—In Her Eyes a Brighter Day Dawned Blue and Full of Love!
If you wander around in enough confusion, you will soon find enlightenment. Life is an unanswered question, but let us believe in the dignity and importance of questions. When one finds one’s life unlivable, a person needs a place to go. When you want to be offstage, free from your usual roles, free to discover and define your being-for-yourself, society seems to conspire such that there is nowhere to go. Judges, critics, and commissars are omnipresent. If a human steps out of line and departs from one’s usual roles, someone is there to remind one of who one is, to define one, and to punish one for daring to define oneself. The upshot is many wives and mothers find they cannot face their families another moment without shrieking in protest against the sameness of their unappreciated daily grind. However, they stifle the shriek and carry on. Fathers and husbands become bored with the wives, infuriated by their children, and worn out by the work that lacks joy—continued only because there is no other work to do, and the bills fall due each day, week, month, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually. The children, in turn, cannot get along with each other, or with their parents. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles live a thousand miles away and cannot take the youngsters in for a day, week, or a month of respite. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Without anyone to help with housing, new employment opportunities, bills, nor child care, the trapped ones persist on their joyless, desperate treadmills until physical illness grants them a ticket admission to a hospital emergency room. Or they “blow up,” suffer from a case of neurosis, and are treated as “not in their right minds.” They may manifest a physical condition that takes years to recover from, or could lead to permeant disability, where they truly are unable to work. Or they many enter a mental hospital, there to be placed in storage until the regime of shock, tranquilizers, and periodic consultations with an overworked psychiatrist bring them “to their senses.” However, even in the hospital, there in no respite from roles; patients are cast into new ones and lack the freedom to choose their being. They return to the way of life they lived before, perhaps with the protest in them electroshocked or drugged out of existence. If new alternatives could be provided, before this drama reached its climax in the sickroom or the sanitarium, it would be helpful. If we had acceptable “checkout places,” what would life in our society be like? In moments of reverie, I have invented some. Let me describe one such, a healing-house that appeals to me. It is probably healing only for middle-class people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
It is a place where one can enter and find confirmation for any way one has chosen to be, or any way that circumstances have brought to one. If a human wises solitude, one can find it there; and if one wishes to remain silent, no one will speak to one. If one wishes congenial and enlivening body-contact, a masseur or masseuse (one can choose which) is available to provide the physical therapy. If a housewife or househusband wants to paint, listen to music, or just sit and have intercessory prayer, there is a room for one to do so. The place would be like a brand-new mansion in the suburbs, with all the amenities one could imagine, and close to shopping centers. It would be like an upscale bed and breakfast, a social club, where people could check-in, their medical insurance, employer, or government subsidy would pay for the cost of the vacation to help reduce the strain on health care system. Each person would be entitled to a rom with inviolate privacy. There one could go, and stay for a day, a week, a month, or years. It would be like an extended family with people who actually like each other and can respect others. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In this home, no one would enter your room without your invitation; and once a person closed the door, no one else could enter. There would be dinner, breakfast and lunch served as a group, or one could eat their mean in a private area of the house. Otherwise, the pantry would be always available, with abundant supplies of milk and honey, fruit, bread, raw vegetables, various kinds of meats, juice, water, and similar snacks. A resident could come and go, nibbling as one wished. If one wised conversation, one could go to the great room, where one could sit; and one’s presence alone would signify that one would be willing to talk. Or if one wished to enter into uninterrupted dialogue, one could invite someone to the privacy of the upstairs lobby, or home hub. The rule of the house would be freedom for the self, with respect for the freedom of the other. People who entered would leave their roles at the doorstep. No status, no rank, would interpose itself between the guests—who would have a first name, or surname, or no name, or a pseudonym, if that is what they chose. This would be a place where people could quite freely go out of their minds and roles, as these were known outside. All the paperwork would be handled by a confidential office before anyone reached the house so no one would know what anyone’s status and rank in society is, and all people would be screened to make sure they are safe. Also, office stand would be required to be bonded. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
It would be a place for people to unwind, relax, and get cozy before they had a nervous breakdown. Kind of like going home to your mother’s house and knowing you are safe and welcomed as long as you want to stay. It would also be a place where creative people—writers, painters, dancers, architects, lawyers, cooks, poet, et cetera—could go to live awhile and present their more tender creations in an accepting, or better, honest milieu, where commercial criteria for judging art and ideas are irrelevant. This would be a place where one could go to redefine oneself, apart from the people “back home,” who have a vested interest in keeping the person in the roles by which they knew one, but which were sickening to one. It would be a place where people could reach their ideal body image. The tense and nervous could find surcease and relaxation; the aimless might meet people with aims that could inspire and redirect their lives. These houses would be the place for one went for recreation. The directors would eschew drugs and medicines. They would heal by letting healing take place. The houses would be places where joy could be experienced, and peace. The staff of permanent residents, which would be the goal because people like stable communities, could include professional psychotherapists, resident artists, playwrights, dancers, masseurs, writers and teachers, and musicians. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Some of these residents might come and go; but all would provide seekers with an atmosphere of spiritual freedom, and examples of the quest for new avenues of being and expression. A working persons, professional person, wife or mothers, or lonely person could come daily for an hour or so, or weekly, and find relaxation, edification, or companionship. Much like a house-church, there could be a book club or house-coffee shop for friends. If they were on a private, pay-as-you-go basis, I have little doubt that such houses would pay for themselves. And I suspect that is they were underwritten by some grant, or by public-health moneys—but with their operation strictly in the hands of the director of each house—they would more than pay for themselves, in the for of physical breakdown that did not happen and a mental breakdown that would not materialize. I suspect that for the people who patronized such a house, intake of drugs and medicines would diminish radically. The mass invasion of physicians’ clinics and waiting-rooms would be reduced to manageable dimensions. And the waiting lists of practicing psychotherapists would doubtless be less packed with names. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Such houses of retreat and healing will, alas, not become part of every village, town, or city neighbourhood. However, sensible people will find ways to pool resources so that they can organize them by themselves. Or if they can afford it, they will buy or rent a “pad” on the other side of town, away from family and friends. Perhaps some organizational genius will find the necessary staff, and the capital to invest; and one will become a millionaire by providing what everyone needs, at a price all can afford to pay. If such places came into being as a normal part of society, I suspect psychotherapists would lose some of their present raison d’etre, and would have to apply their knowledge of how people sicken and become whole to teaching, and to living fulfilled lives themselves, so that by their being, they would represent viable ways. And I suspect that physicians would find their practices confined to delivering babies, setting broken bones, and stanching the flow of blood. Sales of drugs would diminish, and people could return to work or home refreshed. Transcendent-behaviour has been shown to occur most usually in persons who are committed to some goal to which they assign high value. Commitment implies price. The more fully a person is committed to some project, problem, or outcome, the more of one’s time, energy, and personal resources one freely devotes to the quest on which one is launched. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The conditions under which people are able to become strongly committed to their work, or to truth, justice, beauty, or goodness, are not as yet fully understood. When there have been leaders or predecessors who provide an inspiring example to imitate, since values are created by humans, it is most likely that an individual will become committed to some goal, achievement. Another factor which seems to promote commitment is the promise of large rewards, whether immediate or remote, concrete or symbolic. The persons who become committed to some unpopular cause—who have to fight public opinion, poverty, and even danger to life without support—are more difficult to explain. People in whom transcendent behaviour is relatively frequent occurrence likely are persons who trust themselves and have developed some measure of confidence in their powers to themselves. Self-confidence seems to derive both from history of graduated successes in coping with increasingly difficult and complex problems, and from the experience of being seen by other people as competent and trustworthy. Lack of self-doubt, is often characteristic of explorers, daredevils, and others whose achievements transcend their own previous exploits, as well as the achievements of many of their fellow humans. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Any experiences which permit average people to diminish their distrust of their own capacities and their own worth, and which permit them to attribute power to themselves, probably would contribute to the frequency with which they transcend their own usual levels of functioning. The self-concept, which, as we have seen, is a limiting factor in behaviour, can also be a freeing factor for transcendent achievement. If it is true, as existential thinkers insist, that human cannot define oneself in any fixed way, but is always in process of creating and then re-creating oneself, then it follows that the most accurate self-concept is one which permits a human to see oneself as a being with relatively unplumed capacities for all modes of function. Humans have powers of survival and adaptation which they have never imagined. It seems likely that any person who formulates a fixed concept of oneself, including a concept of one’s powers to cope, is doing oneself an injustice. Since humans tend to behave in accordance with their concepts of themselves, then they will not rise to meet a challenge that calls for behaviour in conflict with one’s present self-concept. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
If a human sees oneself as weak, one will not take challenges posed by life, but will instead avoid them. If a human sees oneself as always in process of being challenged and “tested” by life, and one’s capacities as always in process of unfolding, one probably has a self-concept more closely in tune with reality. Transcendent-behaviour has been portrayed as the release of modes of behaviour that ordinarily are suppressed by habit. Challenges can release transcendent behaviour in a person, but so also can symbols like mandalas, cameos, metaphors such as the flag, the Star of David, the name God, or the image of a loved person to whose well-being one has pledged oneself. When he was in the army, my father said that a few of the things that inspired him to actions which kept him alive where thinking about God, his family, and house. Deeply religious people report that they experience God as a Being who perpetually challenges them; and under the instigation of this challenge, they continually bring forth from themselves achievements and feats of endurance which might be impossible for persons less challenged. It may be proposed as a hypothesis that challenge, however brought about, is a highly important condition for some types of transcendent behaviour. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
One of the aims of the field of personality hygiene, beyond that of preventing mental illness, should be to understand and master the conditions for transcendent-behaviour, so that, ultimately, the average person will not be a mere non-candidate for a psychiatric hospital, but instead a being who can release one’s capacities for transcendent functioning as needed. Therapists of personality then would not be experts at restoring those with neurosis or psychosis to “normal” levels of function; rather, they would be more like those few inspired and inspiring teachers who are able to elicit transcendent performance from their students, to the surprise and delight of all. I suspect that our heroes of the playing field, of the cultural arena, of the study, or of the laboratory are persons whose fulfillment is a proof or pledge of hidden potentiality in the broad mass of the population. Too few people have any idea of their latent possibilities. Perhaps their concepts of their powers are false, and perhaps they are false because our educational procedures and fake news media indoctrinate people with a view of themselves as beings with sclerosed possibility. However, we can, indeed, seek to learn more about helping humans to experience their will and to eschew resignation to the thrust of determining forces. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
If it is possible for multibillion-dollar education program to train people to see themselves as limited beings, it should be also possible for that program to encourage people to see themselves as embodiments of the capacity to transcend their present concepts of themselves and their powers. They can explore the path to those possibilities for optimal functioning that lie buried beneath habit and socialized being, so that more can realize the experience of liberation, satori, awakening, or the attainment of selfhood. I would like to see more psychotherapists functioning as gurus and as protectors of human freedom and enlightenment, as disclosers of humans to themselves, to balance the efforts of those of us whose work has served as guidance for industrial, business, political, and institutional leaders in ways to direct masses of little humans. I would like to see psychology leading psychiatry in the arts of evoking potentials for health and full functioning, rather than following psychiatry in its search for pockets of pathology. I think the concern for human possibilities that marks a humanistic psychologist makes one an important resource person to such agencies as the Office of Education, offering guidance and suggestions as to means for enriching our present institutions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
We need to have teachers who can guide, educate, and liberate people as well as presently they indoctrinate and socialize them. We are on the brink of new leaps in the evolution of humans—because of the fantastic development of technology. We must welcome this possibility, and those of us who study humans can help our fellows and ourselves to find our ways and our possibilities in an unprecedented era. It is either that, or be grim, soulless mortals, furiously busy with irrelevant issues in the backwaters of the swamp, not the crisp, clean, waters of the mainstream, of the human course. A person’s experience with one’s attachment figures during the years of immaturity—infancy, childhood, and adolescence—are the principal determinants of the pathway along which that person’s attachment develops. When things go wrong this is due to the psychological development having somehow followed a deviant pathway. It is not due to a fixation at, or a regression to, some earlier stage of development. Disturbed patterns of attachment behaviour can be present at any age, due to a deviant development. When attachment behaviour is overreadily called forth, resulting in over-anxious attachments, a common form of disturbance occurs. Another common form is the partial or total de-activation of attachment behaviour. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
However, children do suffer when removed from their parents, and this must be taken seriously. Even now, as those know who have been an inkling of what goes on in some nursery schools, day-centers and creches, there are many misconceptions about the norms of behaviour to be expected of young children when left, even briefly, in a strange place with strange people. Misconceptions persist, especially among professional people. Again and again it is implied that a healthy normal child should not make a fuss when mother leaves, and that is one does so it is an indication either that mother spoils one or that one is suffering from some pathological anxiety. When the natural history and function of attachment-behaviour are understood, it is hoped that such reactions will be seen in a new and more realistic light. When no special effort has been made to prepare and cushion the child: yearning and searching for the missing mother, sadness, increasing protest at her absence and growing anger with her for staying away, increase ambivalence on return home and evident fear of being separated again become ingrained in the child’s consciousness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Whenever young children who have had an opportunity to develop an attachment to a mother-figure are separated from her unwillingly, they show distress: and should they also be placed in a strange environment and cared for by strange people such distress is likely to be intense. The way they behave follows a typical sequence. At first they protest vigorously and try by all the means available to recover the mother. Later they seem to despair of recovering her but nonetheless remain preoccupied with her and vigilant for her return. Later they seem to lose interest in the mother and to become emotionally detached from her. Each of the three main phases of the response of a young child to separation is related to one or another of the central issues of psycho-analytic theory. Thus the phase of protest is found to raise the problem of separation anxiety; despair that of grief and mourning; detachment that of defence. In view of the damage done by this early separation is totally reparable, and always leaves some mark on the adult personality, in severe cases having so strong an effect as to be the main determinant of the adult’s thought and feeling. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Attachment behavior has deep biological roots, and therefore the anxieties which attend separation from an attachment figure must also have deep biological roots. The deepest anxieties with the currently more widely held view that the deepest anxieties concern the fear that the organized self may be disrupted when the nervous system has to handle more stimulus than it can manage at a time, so that the emerging neural structuring disintegrates. In that view, the mother’s function is to take the overload and prevent disintegration. (There is, of course, no reason why there should be just one basic anxiety: it can certainly be argued that both may be aspects of the same anxiety.) Many take for granted the stimulus-situations that arouse fear can be regarded as naturally occurring clues to events that constitute a potential danger to the species in question. This applies especially to situations that arouse fear on the first occasion that an individual encounters them. A number of these are strangeness, being unsupported on a height, being alone, having something zoom rapidly into view, and other such. None of these is intrinsically dangerous, but to the being they indicate the possibility of an increased risk of danger. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
A natural clue is associated as a rule with a raised degree of risk, and this can make a child’s behaviour appear phobic when it occurs in situations which appear incomprehensible to the adult World. Anxiety has a survival function for the species. Anxiety motivated action to remove the painful stimulus. The person would prefer less and less stimulation till the peace of death overs all. The human being is naturally equipped to relate, indeed, to cling, and naturally equipped to move about and explore and seek stimulus, always providing that there was a person or a place of safety to move back to. However, we are not done yet! Beyond contentment lies intelligent, energetic participation in accomplishing God’s will in our World. We are no longer spectators, but are caught up in a vivid and eternal drama in which we play an essential part. We embrace our imposed circumstances, no matter how tragic they seem, and act for the good in a power beyond ourselves. “We are reigning—exercising dominion—in life by One, Christ Jesus,” reports Romans 5.17. We are “looking toward an eternity of reigning with God through ages of ages,” reports Revelation 22.5. We take action to accomplish the will of God in his power. Our tiny “willpower” is not the source of our strength. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
We hardly notice any exercise of our willpower, though it is fully dedicated to carrying out God’s purposes in every respect. However, we are carried along by the power of the divine drama within which we live actively engaged. So far from struggling to resist sin, we are devoted to realization of righteousness all around us. This is the real meaning of “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The strongest human will is always the one that is surrendered to God’s will and acts with it. This progress toward full identification of our will with God’s will is one that, perhaps for most people, may not be fully realized in this life. However, that does not really matter. It is a progression that tis there for us to enter into now, through the power at work within us as disciples of Jesus Christ. It may be that at present we cannot even imagine what it would be like for us to have a will significantly identified with God’s will as just described. However, we must never forget that He “is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, in terms of the power that is working within us,” reports Ephesians 3.20. Our part is to begin as best we can. “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” reports Isaiah 64.4. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
At any given time there are several spiritual shepherds in the World, each with one’s own distinct and separate flock. It is inevitable and right that one should sieve humanity for those alone who need one or who were born to follow one or who seek the kind of guidance which one especially can give. One’s compassion is broad-based; it is for all. However, one’s personal work is extremely narrow for it is only for the few who will receive it most readily. This implies that one works among the sympathetic and mature, not among the hostile and immature. The reason for this is the need to practise economy of time and energy that one may not waste one’s arrows of effort on the vacant air. For a similar reason one prefers to enlighten the leaders, and let the flocks alone. “For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. However, unto you that fear my name, shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves in the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with that statues and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father, les I come and smite the Earth with a curse,” reports 3 Nephi 25.1-6. Darkness descends, as the Sun lowers itself behind the horizon and I stand facing the last light, with my shadow at my back. Farewell to you, Lord of Light, as you go to your rest. I turn to face the darkness and greet it without fear. O Lord and King who art full of compassion, in whose hand is the soul or every living thing and the breath of all flesh, to Thine all-wise care do we commit the souls of our dear ones, who have departed from this Earth. Teach all who mourn to accept the judgment of Thine inscrutable will and cause them to know the sweetness of Thy consolation. Quicken by Thy holy words those bowed in sorrow, that like all the faithful in Israel who have gone before, they too may be faithful to Thy Torah and thus advance the reign of Thy Kingdom upon Earth. In solemn testimony to that unbroken faith which links the generations to one another, let those who mourn now rise to magnify and sanctify Thy holy name. I bow to the setting Sun, lowering myself as it descends over the World’s edge. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Cresleigh Homes
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The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, and quartz counters. The great room is spacious and full of natural light with a covered patio! The Owner’s suite is nestled in the rear of the home separate from the secondary bedrooms, providing maximum privacy. Enjoy a spa like experience in the Owner’s bathroom with a large walk in shower, dual vanities, and makeup counter.
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O, thus be it ever when free humans shall stand, between their loved homes and the war’s desolation; blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land. Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: “In God is our trust.” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Randolph Harris II International Institute 