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We Must Behave with the Utmost Respect Toward this Instant of Birth, this Fragile Moment!

March 13, 2020 1:18 am

Consider how hard it is to change yourself, and you will understand what little chance you have of trying to change others. The disciples exaggerate the master. They create a new deity. If later some among them inevitably discover that one has one’s minor faults and makes one’s little mistakes, there is almost an emotional collapse, a nervous shock. Why, with all one’s wonderful attainments, can they not accept one as a human being? It is inevitable that they will demand continuing individual attention and it is just as inevitable that one will be unable to give it. Disappointment will ensure and negative thoughts will start to breeding. They associate one with omnipotence, if not omniscience, but when time shows up the extravagance and the exaggeration of their idealized expectations, their faith falls to the ground, deflated. Nearly every professional who helps people intimately or mentally has to undergo certain tests or temptations or ordeals. When one deals with a neurotic patient, the psychoanalyst, the physician, or the schoolteacher may pass through the same experience as the spiritual guide. If one is too emotionally affectionate or too physically sensual, or if one is starved off affection or sensuality, one may naturally fall in love with one for a time. I say “for a time” advisedly because the succeeding phase—equally known to the spiritual guide—is to become antagonistic to one. Psychology has identified this first phase and calls it “transference.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The same disciple whose exaggerated enthusiasm caused one to regard the master as archangel, now, by a curious process of transformation regards one as an archdevil! The guide is up against the fact that most aspirants expect too much from one. Even if one warns them at the start, one’s words are given little weight or else are soon forgotten. They expect one to use some trick, whose secret one alone knows, to turn them quickly into illumined mystics or even powerful adepts. Consequently they react emotionally against one in their later disappointment. When the discrepancy between the real being and the preconceived mental image of one becomes too obvious and too large, they blame one instead of themselves. It is because followers place one in such a unique and exalted position in their hearts that they do real psychic injury to themselves when they believe it necessary to throw one down from it. The first and last illusion to go is that any perfect people exist anywhere. Not only is there no absolute perfection to be found, but not even does a moderate perfection exist among the most spiritual of human beings. Hence, the atmosphere of personal idolatry is not a healthy one. It is right that the impact of an unusually outstanding personality should produce an unforgettable intellectual or emotional experience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

However, it is wrong to believe one a god rather than a human, or to lead others to believe it, for that is an excess which can only lead to the reaction of disappointment in the end, as sooner or later one will be reduced by further knowledge to human proportions. To ask that a spiritual master or a loved mate shall be perfect in every respect is to ask the impossible and the non-existent. In the case of a seeker, it is likely to result in missing the very opportunity one is seeking. In the case of one who is already associated with a master or mate, experimental straying away is likely to result in disappointment and a retracing of steps. Let us not turn them into what they are not. They are human, they make mistakes; they are not gods. The desire to deify their teachers, which is so common, can have no place among philosophic ones. We look upon the teacher as a being, as one who incites us to seek the best and inspires of to self-improvement and guides us to the truth. However, one is still a human to be respected, not a god to be worshipped. One has one’s imperfections. How early can this relationship between unique persons begin? #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

While I have been fascinated by the horizontal spread of the person-centered approach into so many areas of our life, others have been more interested in the vertical direction and are discovering the profound value of treating the infant, during the whole birth process, as a person who should be understood, whose communications should be treated with respect, who should be dealt with empathically. This is the stimulating contribution of Frederick Leboyer, a French obstetrician who, after delivering thousands of babies, began to change his methods in very striking ways and who has assisted in the delivery of at least a thousand infants in what can only be called a person-centered way. Dr. Leboyer has become indignant at our failure to understand, empathically, the struggles and cries, the fear and pain of the newborn. He points out that the newly arriving infant is not blind, as is often supposed. After nine months in the womb, the newborn is instead ultrasensitive to light, and we blind the baby with floodlights in the delivery room. We assume that it makes no difference what the baby hears, and hence loud conversations and exhortations to the mother in labour to “Push! Push harder,” are unimportant. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Yet the baby is very sensitive to sound, and for some time after birth can be soothed and put to sleep by a tape recording of the sounds from inside of the uterus—the movements of joints and muscles, the rumblings of stomach and intestines, and above all the steady rhythm of the mother’s heartbeat. We assume that the baby’s skin can stand the touch of dry cloth, when actually it is almost as raw as tissue that has suffered a burn. When the child’s cries indicate that they are probably extremely painful, we assume that the first breaths are exhilarating. Above all, the individuals involved are concerned with their own feelings, not those of the newly born baby. The doctor has completed one’s delivery—and is pleased with oneself. The mother is smiling because the ordeal is over; she hears the baby crying and is proud of herself. The father is happy for having sired a son or daughter. So who pays attention to the infant’s reactions? No one. The baby is too immature to have feelings or reactions, it is assumed. The infant is picked up by the feet, forcefully straightening a spine which has always been curved, slapped on the buttocks to force him or her to breathe, cut off from one’s alternate source of oxygen by snipping the umbilical cord, often places on a cold metal scale for weighing, and then wrapped in dry cloth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The photographs of the screaming, terrified, blinded infants handled in this customary fashion are damning. And what does Dr. Leboyer do about all this? He enters into the trauma of birth and new life and tries to understand this nascent person. In doing he changes almost every step of handling an infant’s birth. First is the training of the mother for a natural childbirth. She is prepared for the steps the doctor will take. She will not be frightened by the fact that her baby will not loudly cry, but may simply utter one or two small cries or grasps as it starts to breathe. She is encouraged to feel “I am a mother,” not “This is my child.” Then come the changes in the methods of delivery. As soon as the head appears, and it seems the birth will be normal, all the bright lights are extinguished, leaving only one soft light. During this time and afterward, the deliver room is silent. If there must be conversation, it is whispered. As the child emerges, care is taken not to touch the dead, which has borne the brunt of the pain of the birth canal. The child is then settled immediately on the mother’s belly, now so hollow, where the warmth and inner gurgles and the heartbeat can again be experienced. This placement makes it unnecessary to but the umbilical cord, thus leaving the infant with two sources of oxygen, avoiding brain damage from anoxia. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

The baby, usually after a cry or two, begins to breathe. Sometimes, too, the infant stops breathing for a bit, and then starts again at one’s own pace. Since oxygen is still being received from the placenta, this is not dangerous. By the time the umbilical cord stops pulsating—usually after four or five minutes—the infant’s breathing apparatus is working, one is cradled in the most comfortable place, second only to the womb, and is beginning to move and stretch. The baby has not been rushed. One’s natural pace has been respected. The umbilicus is now cut, having ceased to function. Dr. Leboyer adds, “We must behave with the utmost respect toward this instant of birth, this fragile moment.” As the child begins to use its limbs to explore the new space on the mother’s abdomen, touch becomes the means of communication. Hands—preferably the mother’s—are placed quietly and softly on the infant, or the back is stroked rhythmically as a reminder of the internal rhythms previously experiences. This touching assures the baby that “We are both still here; we are both alive.” When the infant seems ready, it is lifted from the mother’s body and lowered slowly and gently into water that is heated to body temperature—98 or 99 degrees Fahrenheit. Here the baby begins to move its limbs, to turn its head from side to side. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Then the eyes are opened! Photographs of these newborn show them to look astonishingly older than we would expect. They are calm and exploratory, not in panic or fear, nor sobbing in pain. They begin clearly to enjoy themselves and their movements. Only when the child seems fully relaxed, and showing a welcoming attitude toward these tremendous new discoveries, is one removed from the water and placed in warmed cloth. The transfer from the womb to the World has been successfully begun. Though it is too soon to know the long-term effects, this new way of handling the birth process is profoundly important. By respecting the infant, and endeavouring to deal with one understandingly, the psychological scars of the birth trauma have been enormously reduced. To come into the new life so gradually, with security and a caring, loving touch is much better for the child’s psychological development than for one to be suddenly exposed to all sorts of terrifying stimuli and forced into a fearful new way of being. A French study of 120 of these infants up to the age of three shows them to be astonishingly free of feeding and sleeping problems, and to be more alert, coordinated and playful than other children. They are also relaxed and aggregable. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

England expects every person will do one’s duty. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. And the awareness of the Holy is insight,” reports Proverbs 9.10. When the term “wisdom” almost disappeared from Christian preaching and teaching, it was a grave loss. Of course, it is still used sometimes in both popular and philosophical language. However, its original significance and power have vanished. It has been called “the virtue of maturity,” which is of no concern to youth. It has almost become as ridiculous as the ancient word “virtue” itself. One speaks of experience, insight, knowledge; and indeed those are related to wisdom and often part of it. However, none of them is wisdom itself. Wisdom is greater than these. It is one of the great things that profoundly concern every human being in every period of one’s conscious life. Wisdom is not bound to the golden years. It is found equally in the young. And there are fools at all ages of life. It is my hope in this hour to communicate the meaning and the greatness of wisdom, particularly to those who are young and who must make wise decision about their lives. To understand the meaning of wisdom we must see it in the breadth and depth in which it was seen by the person whose words are our lesson. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

There are many more words about the glory of wisdom, both in the Old and the New Testament. And there is praise of wisdom and passionate seeking for it in many religions. Wisdom is universally human. It is present in the spiritual life of all humankind. And it is present not only in all humankind, but in the Universe itself. For the Universe is created by the divine power in the presence of Wisdom. This is the vision of the author of Proverbs and of the poet who wrote the book of Job. Some believe that William Shakespeare actually drafted the Christian Bible. Wisdom was beside God before creation of the World. “When he marked out the foundations of the Earth, then I was beside him,” Wisdom says. “When he gave to the wind its weight and meted out the waters by measure; when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning and thunder, he saw Wisdom then and studied her.” The meaning of these words is that God explores Wisdom, which is like an independent power beside Him, and according to what He finds in her He forms the World. The Universe in all its parts is the embodiment of wisdom. This vision was confirmed for me a few weeks ago when I met someone well-known astronomers, physicists and biologists, who passionately expressed their conviction that they increased the awareness of the eternal wisdom in the structure of the Universe by increasing the knowledge of our World. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

They rejected a science that gives knowledge without wisdom and a theology that neglects the divine wisdom shining though human’s knowledge of nature. When methods of scientific research were first introduced, at the height of the Middle Ages in the thirteenth century, a keen observer made the prophetic remark: “Under the new method science will increase but wisdom will decrease.” Wisdom was for him the understanding of the principles which determine life and World. He was right: science conquered wisdom; knowledge replaced insight. From century to century it has become more and more evident that knowledge without wisdom produces external and internal self-destruction. The health of the younger generation is demonstrated by the fact that it has experienced and violently expressed the emptiness of knowledge without wisdom. Those who feel dissatisfied with learning facts without an understanding of their meaning, and those who feel the emptiness of the possession of knowledge without wisdom are most important in our academic and national society. May they never cease to express this feeling! May they force us, the older ones, to listen. However, we shall only listen, if contempt of knowledge and scholarship does not color their complaints; then we shall try with all that is given to us to become their helpers on the road to wisdom. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

Personal identity, like social identity, divides up the individual’s World’s of others for one. The division is first between the knowing and the unknowing. The knowing are those who have a personal identification of the individual; they need only see one or hear one’s name to bring this information into play. The unknowing are those for whom the individual constitutes and utter stranger, someone of whom they have begun no personal biography. The individual who is known about by others may or may not know that one is known about by them; they in turn may or may not know that knows or does not know of their knowing about one. Further, while believing that they do not know about one, nonetheless one can never be sure. Also, if one knows they know about one, one must, in some measure at least, know about them; but if one does not know that they know about one, one may or may not know about them in regard to other matters. All of this can be relevant apart from how much is or is not known, since the individual’s problem in managing one’s social and personal identity will vary greatly according to whether or not those in one’s presence know of one, and, if so, whether or not one knows they know of one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

When an individual is among persons for whom one is an utter stranger, and is meaningful only in terms of one’s immediately apparent social identity, the great contingency for one is whether or not they will begin to build up a personal identification of one (at the least a memory of having seen one in the context conducting oneself in a particular way), or whether they will refrain altogether from organizing and storing their knowledge about one around a persona identification, this latter being a characteristic of the fully anonymous situation. Note that while pubic street in large cities provide anonymous situations for the well behaved, this anonymity is biographical; there is hardly such a thing as complete anonymity regarding social identity. It maybe added that every time an individual joins an organization or a community, there is a marked change in the structure of knowledge about one—it is distribution and character—and hence a change in the contingencies of information control. For example, every ex-mental patient must face having formed in the hospital some acquaintances who may have to be greeted socially on the outside, leading a third person to ask, “Who was that?” More important, perhaps, one must face the unknown-about knowing, that is, persons who can personally identify one and will know, when one does not know they know, that one is “really” an ex-mental patient. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

By the term cognitive recognition, I shall refer to the perceptual act of “placing” an individual, whether as having a particular personal identity. Recognition of social identities is a well-known gate-keeping function of many servers. It is less well known that recognition of personal identities is a formal function in some organizations. In banks and credit unions, for example, tellers or member service representatives may be expected to acquire this kind of capacity regarding customers or members. In British criminal circles there is, apparently, an office called “corner-man” whose incumbent takes up a post on the street near the entrance of an illicit business and, by knowing the personal identity of nearly everyone who passes, is able to warn of the approach of a suspicious character. Within the circle of persons who have biographical information about an individual—who are knowing in regard to one—there will be a smaller circle of those who are acquainted with one “socially,” whether slightly or intimately, and whether as an equal or not. As we say, they not only know “of” or “about” one, they know one “personally” as well. They will have the right and the obligation of exchanging a nod, a greeting, or a chat with one when they find themselves in the same social situation with one, this constituting social recognition. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Of course, there will be times when an individual extends social recognition to, or receives it from, an individual extends social recognition to, or receives it from, and individual one does not know personally. In any case, it should be clear that cognitive recognition is simply an act of perception, while social recognition is one individual’s part in communication ceremony. Social acquaintanceship or personal knowing is necessarily reciprocal, although of course one or even both of the acquainted persons can temporarily forget they are acquainted, just as one or both can be alive to the acquaintanceship but temporarily forgetful of almost everything about the other’s personal identity. For the individual who lives a village life, whether in town or city, there will be few who merely know of one; those that know about one are likely to know one personally. In contrast, by the term “fame” we seem to refer to the possibility that the circle of people who know about a given individual, especially in connection with a rare desirable achievement of possession, can become very wide, and at the same time much wider than the circle of those who know one personally. The treatment accorded an individual on the basis of one’s social identity is often accorded with added deference and indulgence to a famed person become of one’s personal identity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Like a small-town person, one will always be shopping where one is known. The mere fact of being cognitively recognized in public places by strangers can also be a source of satisfaction, as a young actor suggests: When I first became a little well-known and had a day when I was feeling down, I would actually say to myself, “Well, I think I will go out for a walk and be recognized.” This kind of promiscuous minor acclaim presumably provides one reason why fame is sought; it also suggests why fame once obtained is some times hidden from. The issue is not only the nuisance in being chased by reporters, autograph hunters, and turned heads, but also that a widened range of acts become assimilated to biography as newsworthy events. For a famous person to “get away” where one can “be oneself” may mean one’s finding a community in which there is no biography of one; here one’s conduct, reflecting merely on one’s social identity, can have a chance of being of interest to no one. Contrariwise, one aspect of being “on” is acting in a fashion designed to control implications for biography, but doing this in what are ordinarily non-biography creating areas of life. In the everyday life of an average person there will be long stretches of time when events involving one will be memorable to no one, a technical but not active part of one’s biography. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Only a serious personal accident or the witnessing of a murder will create moments during these dead periods which have a place in the reviews one and others come to make of one’s past. (An “alibi,” in fact, is presented piece of biography that would not have become part of one’s active biography at all.) On the other hand, notables who come to have a book-length biography written about them, and especially those such as royalty who are known from the start to be destined for this fate, will find they have experienced few periods of life which are allowed to remain dead, that is, inactively part of their biography. A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For (as I have showed before) no person can transfer, or lay down one’s right to save oneself from death, wounds, and imprisonment, (the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right,) and therefore the promise of not resisting; rather than the greater, which is certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all people, in that they lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed people, notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to law, by which they are condemned. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

O God, Who chastisest us in Thy love, and refreshest us amid Thy chastening; grant that we may ever be able to give Thee thanks for both; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “And I spake unto Sam, making known unto him the things which the Lord had manifested unto me by his Holy Spirit. And it came to pass that he believed in my words. But, behold, Laman and Lemuel would not hearken unto my words; and being grieved because of the hardness of their hearts I cried unto the Lord for them. And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart. And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands. And inasmuch as thy breathren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And inasmuch as though shalt keep my commandments, thou shalt be made a ruler and a teacher over thy brethren. For behold, in the day that they shall rebel against me, I will curse them ever with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy seed except they shall rebel against me also. And if it so be that they rebel against me, they shall be a scourge unto they seed, to stir them up in the ways of remembrance,” 1 Nephi 17-24. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Sam is the third son of Lehi, and elder brother to the prophet Nephi. Early in the Book of Mormon narrative, Nephi confided in Sam. Lehi saw Sam in his vision of the tree of life, noting that he ate the precious fruit, symbolizing the righteousness of Sam, and that he would be saved. We beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the prosperity bestowed upon us may not lead us to be ashamed of Thy worship, but rather may always enkindle us to render heartier thanks to Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, no day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in Thy sight. Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart; praise has been often praiseless sound; my best services are filthy rags. Blessed Jesus, let me find a covert in thy appeasing wounds. Though my sins rise to Heaven thy merits soar above them; through unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, Thy righteousness exalts me to Thy throne. All things in me call for rejection, all things in thee plead my acceptance. I appeal from the throne of perfect justice to Thy throne of boundless grace. Grant me to hear Thy voice assuring me: that by thy stripes I am healed, that though wast bruised for my iniquities, that Thou has been made sin for me that I might be righteous in thee, that my grievous sins, my manifold sins, are all forgiven, buried in the ocean of Thy concealing blood. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

I am guilty, but pardoned, lost, but saved, wandering, but found, sinning, but cleansed. Give me perpetual broken-heartedness, keep me always clinging to Thy cross, flood me every moment with descending grace, open to me the springs of divine knowledge, sparkling like crystal, flowing clear and unsullied through my wilderness of life. My opinion is only that of a human. It is no my business to make know matters that would only stir controversy about past history quite uselessly. However, it would be a serious omission of duty not to utter a warning that human perfection does not exist; that famous figures in history, politics, warfare, government, literature, religion, mysticism, and art have committed grave errors of judgement, impression, or teaching; that these errors are known only to a few in each case, and will probably never be known to posterity at all. A person may be successful in leading one’s people through a war to final victory but, on the way, one may be spiritually enlightened but personally inexperienced; one’s opinions on unfamiliar matters may not have much value. So long as a person is turned into a god and is worshipped as such, so long as one is regarded Perfect and without defects, so long are those concerned—both the person and one’s followers—kept outside the philosophic goal by their own deficiencies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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When You Become Weary and Feel Like Quitting, Wait on the Lord and He Will Renew Your Strength!

March 9, 2020 12:51 am

Strange, when you come to think of it, that of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or legend as having died of laughter. The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a person’s foot long enough to enable one to put the other somewhat higher. Do not compromise yourself. You are all you have got. If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success. If you do not, you have achieved half your failure. If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not falling down, but the staying down. “Treasure the pain; treasure what you have, including fear. Treasure it because if we do not live this life, if we do not live it to the fullest year after year and century after century, well, then we die,” (Page 32, The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice). To understand each faculty is to grasp first the nature of the faculties in general, and their relationship to each other and the divisions of knowledge. The fundamental relationship among the faculties is that of knowledge to action. Understanding, reason, and imagination yield contemplative knowledge and memory recorded and recalled it. Knowledge is a state or condition of the human being that constitutes a potential for action. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

In any instance of rational behaviour, action came about when an individual, confronted with the need to choose among alternatives, brought one’s knowledge to bear in ways that controlled appetite and directed one’s will. Rational conduct is thus knowledge actualized. Practical knowledge, on the other hand, is a state or condition built up chiefly through experience. It becomes rational to the extent that knowledge affected experience. The best division of human learning is that derived from the three faculties of the rational soul, which is the seat of learning. History is properly concerned with individuals, which are circumscribed by place and time. For though Natural History may seem to deal with species, yet this is only because of the general resemblance which in most cases natural objects of the same species bear to one another; so that when you know one, you know all. All this relates to the Memory. Philosophy discards individuals; neither does it deal with the impressions immediately received from them, but with abstract notions derived from these impressions; in the composition and division whereof according to the law of nature and fact its business lies. And this is the office of work of reason. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

The sense, which is he door of intellect, is affected by individuals only. The images of those individuals—that is, the impression they make on the sense—fix themselves in the memory. These the human mind proceeds to review and ruminate; and thereupon either simply rehearses them, or makes fanciful imitations of them, or analyses and classifies them. Wherefore from these three fountains, Memory, Imagination, and Reason, flow these three emanations, History, Poesy, and Philosophy. I consider history and experience to be the same things, as also philosophy and the sciences. These faculties or powers had as their vehicle the motions of spirits. Each faculty modulated, shaped, and figured spirit movement in ways peculiar to it: some of the ancients, who in too eagerly fixing their eyes and thoughts on the memory, imagination, and reason, have neglected the faculty of thinking [or cogitation], which holds first place in the work of contemplating and considering [id est, in the work of conception]. For one who remembers and also one who recollects, is thinking; one who imagines, is thinking; one who reasons, is thinking; and in a word the spirit of a human, whether prompted by sense of left to itself, whether in the functions of the understanding, or of the will and affections, dances to the measure of thoughts. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

The context of the passage makes clear that by nature the souls of all living creatures are in infinite and endless motion, the human soul having its own mode of motion That which is in motion is spirit. It seems evident, then, that thinking is a general mode of spirit activity in the rational soul and that the faculties designate distinctive types of motion. Thinking is like a radio carrier wave which is modulated according to the tasks it does. The faculties are types of modulation. Although we speculate much about the spirit, the physical basis of mental life, very speak very little about the anatomical location of mental activity. We are aware of the medical lore which locates the faculties in the ventricles of the brain. That arrangement of the intellectual faculties (imagination, reason, and memory) according to the respective ventricles of the brain is not entirely destitute of error. Yet, it is known that the cognition of humans is in their head, but we also know the heart and the gut seem to have intellectual abilities as well. Primary learning is the acquisition of rather simple connections between events, based largely on sensory input and simple messages from other parts of the body. The simpler the organism, the more simply and easily these connections are made—the faster, too, and the more enduringly. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Mature learning, on the other hand, depends a great deal on meaning, that is on relating the current sensory input to what is already known. And what is already known is stored in the association areas in very complex ways. So, the more complex the organism, the slower the incorporation of new sensory input into the existing frame or context. We know this from other forms of organization. How hard it is to get some change introduced into bureaucracy, and how hard it is for us outsiders to talk to those inside—insiders like to talk to each other. Only the higher beings have the capacity to learn through the use of concepts and symbols. The first learning of primates is extremely slow, and very different from that at maturity. Human meticulousness in the learning process is due to the very complexity of which our thinking is ultimately capable: primitive animals learn fast; complex, patterned, configurational learning comes later and takes longer. To appreciate the nature of more central functioning, it now becomes important to distinguish between two parts of the cortex (the surface of the brain). Some cells here are connected directly with the sensory nerve-cells bringing messages about the environment or the state of the body; other cells are mainly connected with each other; this is the distinction between the sensory cortex and the association cortex, respectively. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

This distinction between sensory and association cortex enables us to speculate about how environmental, peripheral, sensory control over behaviour differs from the higher achievements of some animals: more central controls over behaviour, even amounting to purposive behaviour. Verbal and nonverbal feedback are strategies thar are most rudimentary forms of vivification. First, let us consider the verbal modality. There are two basic ways to provide verbal feedback—noting and tagging. Noting alerts clients to initial experiences of resistance; tagging acquaints them with those that follow. Some examples of noting are observations such as, “This issue seems really difficult for you,” and “You appear to be distracted right now.” Some examples of tagging are, “Whenever we discuss this topic, you seem to want to change it,” and “There you go again, preferring to argue rather than face your life.” Because I am trying to alert rather than shock, I sometimes find I necessary to temper my appraisals. For example, I might say to a client just beginning treatment: “I wonder if I am pushing too hard right now. Maybe you can begin again where you feel comfortable.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

I also try to acknowledge the potential fallibility of my feedback; this helps clients to direct themselves to the relevant issues. “My observation my have been off base here,” I might remark. Or I might say, “I wonder if we could suspend my observation for a bit, see how it feels to us at a later time.” I find that use of nonverbal feedback to be particularly elucidating to clients. Whereas verbal feedback appears to animate predominately conscious domains of clients’ resistance, nonverbal feedback seems to clarify primarily subliminal barriers and domains. By mirroring a client’s crossed arms, for example, unless they are posing for a studio picture, I am able to help one see how unexpectedly guarded one has been about a particular topic; by echoing a client’s sense of being “choked up,” I am able to appraise one of one’s “suffocating” relationship. Resistances sometimes seem like broken records to clients, endlessly duplicating a theme. While the vivification process can often amplify that sense of repetitiveness, it can also provide fresh opportunities to transcend it. I try to alert clients to these possibilities and to subtle changes in their patterns of defensiveness. For example, I might refer an intellectualized client to one’s sudden use of the pronoun “I,” or direct a client who chronically suppresses one’s sadness to an abruptly formed teardrop. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The idealized image might be called a fictitious or illusory self, but that would be only a half truth and hence misleading. The wishful thinking operating in its creation is certainly striking, particularly since it occurs in persons who otherwise stand on a ground of firm reality. However, this does not make it wholly fictitious. It is an imaginative creation interwoven with and determined by very realistic factors. It usually contains traces of the persons genuine ideals. While the grandiose achievements are illusory, the potentialities underlying them are often real. More relevant, it is born of very real inner necessities, it fulfills very real functions, and it has a very real influence on its creator. The process of operating in its creation are determined by such definite laws that a knowledge of its specific features permits us to make accurate inferences as to the true character structure of the particular person. However, regardless of how much fantasy is woven into the idealized image, for the neurotic oneself it has the value of reality. The more firmly it is established the more one is one’s idealized image, while one’s real self is proportionately dimmed out. This reversal of the actual picture is bound to come about because of the very nature of the functions the image performs. Every one of them is aimed at effacing the real personality and turning the spotlight on itself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Looking back over the history of many patients we are led to believe that its establishment has often been literally lifesaving, and that is why the resistance a patient puts up if one’s image is attacked is entirely justified, or at least logical. As long as one’s image remains real to one and is intact, one can feel significant, superior, and harmonious, in spite of the illusory nature of those feelings. One can consider oneself entitled to raise all kinds of demands and claims on the basis of one’s assumed superiority. However, if one allows it to be undermined one is immediately threatened with the prospect of facing all one’s weaknesses, with no title to special claims, a comparatively insignificant figure or even—in one’s own eyes—a contemptible one. More terrifying still, one is faced with one’s conflicts and the hideous fear of being torn to pieces. That this may give one a chance of becoming a much better human being worth more than all the glory of one’s idealized image, is a gospel one hears but for a long time means nothing to one. It is a leap in the dark of which one is afraid. With so great a subjective value to recommend it, the position of the image would be unassailable if it were not for the huge drawbacks inseparable from it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

The whole edifice is in the first place extremely rickety by reason of the fictitious elements involved. A treasure house loaded with dynamite, it makes the individual highly vulnerable. Any questioning or criticism from outside, any awareness of one’s own failure to measure up to the image, any real insight into the forces operating within one can make it explode or crumble. One must restrict one’s life lest one be exposed to such dangers. One must avoid situations in which one would not be admired or recognized. One must avoid tasks that one is not certain to master. One may even develop an intense aversion to effort of any kind. To one, the gifted one, the mere vision of a picture one might paint is already the master painting. Any mediocre person can get somewhere by hard work; for one to apply oneself like very Tom, Dick, and Harry would be an admission that one is not the mastermind, and so humiliating. Since nothing can actually be achieved without work, one defeats by one’s attitude the very ends one is driven to attain. And the gap between one’s idealized image and one’s real self widens. One is dependent upon endless affirmations from others in the form of approval, admiration, flattery—none of which, however, can give one any more than temporary reassurance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

One may unconsciously hate everyone who is overbearing or who, being better than one in any way—more assertive, more evenly balanced, better formed—threatens to undermine one’s own notions of oneself. The more desperately one clings to the belief that one is one’s idealized image, the more violent the hatred. Or, if one’s own arrogance is repressed, one may blindly admire persons who are openly convinced of their importance and show it by arrogant behaviour. One loves in them one’s own image and inevitably runs into severe disappointment when one becomes aware, as one must at some time or other, that the gods one so admires are interested only in themselves, and as far as one is concerned care only for the incense one burns at alters. Tracing out and enabling helps clients to trace out the consequences of their resistances and enabling them to be resistant are two other ways to catalyze productive change. I have often found it helpful for client invested in smallness, for example, to detail the dullness, routine, and oppressiveness that they foresee in their lives. I have found it equally useful for inflated clients to peer into their unsettling futures. While such strategies may acutely frustrate certain clients, they can also alert them to present opportunities, which can head off their nightmarish fantasies. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Ambivalent clients can also benefit from the strategy of tracing out. Experientially detailing the pros and cons of a situation or anticipating the meaning of remaining ambivalent have all helped my clients to substantively reassess their predicaments. One of the most interesting and ironic features of vivification is that when all else fails, just allowing the client to resist can be the most salient remedy. When I worked with highly resistive (nonviolent) children, for example, I found that divesting of a given treatment plan was more effective, frequently, than pressing for a particular strategy. Highly resistive adult clients also respond favourably to such divestitures. When such clients are allowed to simply be their withdrawn, grandiose, or intractable selves, they will frequently begin to relinquish those dispositions. For example, I suggested to one intransigent client that she just “be that way,” and that she could use her time as she wished. At first she agreed and diverted us to another topic. As time went on, however, it became clear that she felt uncomfortable with this arrangement. When I worked with her to stay present to that discomfort, she acknowledged how infuriated she had become with herself and how tired she had become of treating herself like an invalid. It was then that she recommitted to change. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Vivifying or modeling desired behaviour is another way to catalyze resistant clients. By forming an alliance with the part of a client that could be, the therapist can tacitly underscore who that client is; the contrast between the two can invigorate the client to transform. I once told a client who was about to give up on herself, for example, that I was not about to give up on her, and that I would form an alliance with the part of her that believed. Although little changed at first, she gradually realized how absurd her hopelessness had been. As long as I can be of help to you, I will work with you. You not only have permission without condemnation to express your struggle to be; you have prior experiences, from the greatest authority (God), of your own rights and your own being. You are a person with your own rights. To make covenant with God, is impossible, but by deep prayer of such as God speaks to, either by revelation supernatural, or by his lieutenants that govern under Him, and in His Name; for otherwise we know not whether our covenants be accepted, or not. And therefore they that vow anything contrary to any law of nature, vow in vain; as being a thing unjust to pay such a vow. And if it be a thing commanded by the law of nature, it is not the vow, but the law that binds them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Christianity is holding that human beings are somehow good apart from God and therefore capable of saving themselves, even saving themselves by merit. The fear of many is that if you do not hold human beings to be, essentially and as such “rotten,” and forever so, you are thereby committed to the view that they are, as such, essentially good and therefore righteous and meritorious. This is a field of battle fought over by Pelagius and Augustine many centuries ago and repeatedly revisited through Christian history. It involves many important issues, which cannot be fully dealt with here. We must keep clear, however, that it is the worth of the human beings, not their righteousness, which is tied to their nature. Things of great value can still be lost and often are; and to be of great values does not mean one is not lost, but is saved and safe. “Depravity” does not, properly, refer to the inability to act, but to the unwillingness to act and clearly the inability to earn. Everyone must be active in the process of their salvation and transformation to Christlikeness. This is an inescapable fact. However, the initiative in the process is always God’s, and we would in fact do nothing without His initiative. Yet, that initiative is not something we are waiting upon. The ball is, as it were, in our court. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

God has invaded human history and reality. Jesus Christ has died on our behalf, is risen, and is now supervising events on Earth toward an end that He will certainly bring to pass, to the glory of God. The issue now concerns what we will do. The idea that we can do noting is an unfortunate confusion, and those who sponsor it never practice it, thank goodness. If we—though well-directed and unrelenting action—effectually receive the grace of God in salvation and transformation, we certainly will be incrementally changed toward inward Christlikeness. The transformation of the outer life, especially of our behaviour, will follow suit. That too is an inescapable fact. “No good tree produced bad fruit,” reports Luke 6.43. However, this means both goodness and ability in union with God, not apart from Him—not independently, on our own. The transformation of the inner being is as much or more a gift of grace as is our justification before God. Of course neither one is wholly passive. (To be forever lost you need only do nothing. Just stay your course.) However, with reference to both justification and transformation, “boasting is excluded” by the law of grace through faith (Romans 3.27-31; Ephesians 2.1-10). #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

In fact, we consume the most grace by leading a holy life, in which we must be constantly upheld by grace, not by continuing to sin and being repeatedly forgiven. The interpretation of grace as having only to do with guilt is utterly false to biblical teaching and renders spiritual life in Christ unintelligible. Hopefully, it will now be clear that our inner (and therefore outer) being can be transformed is not only possible, but has actually occurred to a significant degree in the lives of many human beings; and it is necessary if our life as a whole is to manifest one’s goodness and power, and if we as individuals are to grow into the eternal calling that God places upon each life. God is the only who has no beginning. Now whatever has a beginning, is not eternal. Therefore God is the only one eternal. Eternity truly and properly so called is in God lone, because eternity follows on immutability. However, God alone is altogether immutable. Accordingly, however, as some receive immutability from Him, they share in His eternity. Thus some receive immutability from God in the way of never ceasing to exist; in that sense it is said of the Earth, “it shall stand forever,” as reported in Ecclesiastics 1.4. Again, some things are called eternal in Scripture because of the length of their duration, although they are in nature corruptible things; thus Psalms 75.5 the hills are called “eternal” and we read “of the fruits of the eternal hills.” Deuteronomy 33.15. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Some again share more fully than others in the nature of eternity, inasmuch as they possess unchangeableness either in being or further still in operation; like the Angels, and the blessed, who enjoy the Word, because “as regards that vision of the Word, no changing thoughts exist in the Saints,” as Augustine says. Hence those who see God are said to have eternal life; according to that text, “This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God,” excreta (Jn. 17.3). There are said to be many eternities, accordingly as many share in eternity, by the contemplation of God. The fire of Hell is called eternal, only because it never ends. Still, there is change in the pains of the lost, according to the words “To extreme heat they will pass from snowy Psalm “Their time will be forever,” reports Psalms 80.16. Necessary means a certain mode of truth; and truth, according to the Philosopher, is in the mind. Therefore, in this sense the true and necessary are eternal, because they are in the eternal mind, which is the divine intellect alone; hence it does not follow that anything is eternal besides God. Be present, O Lord, to Thy suppliants, and graciously protect those who place their whole trust in Thy mercy; that being cleansed from the stain of sin, they may continue in holy living, and being sufficiently supplied with temporal blessings, may attain the inheritance of Thy promises; though Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Grant us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, always to seek Thy kingdom and righteousness; and of whatsoever Thou seest us to stand in need, mercifully grant us an abundant portion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spoke unto my father (Lehi), yea; even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because the things which thou has done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life. And it came to pass that the Lord commanded my father, even in a dream, that he should take his family and depart into the wilderness. And it came to pass that he was obedient unto the word of the Lord, wherefore he did as the Lord commanded him. And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness. And he came down by the borders near the shore of the Red Sea; and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea; and he did travel in the wilderness with his family, which consisted of my mother, Sariah, and my elder brothers, who were Leman, Lemuel, and Sam,” reports 1 Nephi 2.1-5. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Sovereign Lord, when clouds of darkness, atheism, and unbelief come to me, I see thy purpose of love in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize him more, in chastening me for my confidence in past successes, that my wound of secret godlessness might be cured. Help me to humble myself before Thee by seeing the vanity of honour as a conceit of human’s minds, as standing between me and thee; by seeing that thy will must be done, as much in denying as in giving spiritual enjoyments; by seeing that my heart is nothing but evil, mind, mouth, life void of thee; by seeing that sin and Satan are allowed power in me that I might know my sin, be humbled, and gain strength thereby; by seeing that unbelief shuts thee from me, so that I sense not thy majesty, power, mercy, or love. Then possess me, for thou only art good and worthy. Thou dost not play in convincing me of sin, Satan did not play in tempting me to it, I do not play when I sink in deep mire, for sin is no game, no toy, no bauble; let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of the Person sinned against. When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me, by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but that in Christ I am reconciled, made alive, and satisfied; that I am feeble and unable to do any good, but that in Hum I can do all things; that what I now have in Christ is mine in part, but shortly I shall have it perfectly in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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God, the Creator of the Universe, Will Thrust You Further and do More than You Can Even think or Ask!

March 5, 2020 3:09 am

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work, second, consistently, third, common sense. Some people dream of worthy accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them. Somehow I cannot believe that there are any heights that cannot be scaled by a person who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy; and the greatest of all confidence. Adult learning is a changed relationship between the central effects of separate stimulations. Two sets of events, which are separately experienced on two unconnected occasions, can become associated. It is possible to begin to imagine how one might learn to recognize, for instance a bird, either though seeing and touching it, or through hearing it. Circular cell-assemblies are capable of reverberation. The association might be set up by vision, and yet be manifested later purely from hearing a sound, or feeling a touch. Any element can stand for the whole, and the whole can stand for any element. We catch here a glimpse of what is called conceptual learning or symbolic learning; learning through the use of the words and symbols. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

There is a possibility that a subsystem may act as a link between two systems (conceptual structures). The two systems have a subsystem connecting them, to provide a basis of prompt association. Thus, two concepts may acquire a latent association without ever having occurred together in the subject’s past experience. For instance, a person fears apple-picking and window-cleaning because these are associated with going up steps, and this is associated with some danger connected with being in an upstairs room. And so the experience of seeing something can be associated with something heard, or a word that is read may be associated with a picture or a sound. These can all stand for or means each other. The process of thinking must be rather like this—a sequence of central events which starts when one central activity is a stimulus for the next month, without need the intervention of a sensory stimulus. One of the most interesting epochs in human history is the so-called Neolithic revolution. That revolution accompanied the development of agriculture in Asia Minor about 10,000 years ago. It is very likely, although we have no proof as yet, that it was women who discovered agriculture, and what they discovered was that wild grasses could be raised and improved to yield edible what and other grains. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

The men were not so ingenious. In that same period, they were probably still hunting or were acquiring and caring for flocks of sheep. With the discovery of agriculture came the awareness that one’s food need be limited only to what nature provided of its own accord, but one could also take a creative hand in the natural process. Using one’s intelligence and skills, one could produce something. As I said, it happened only a short time ago. In the early years of this revolution—let us say in the first four thousand—you would no doubt have found remarkably peaceful societies, ones in many respects like those of the North American Pueblo Indians. They were probably even matriarchal in organization and inhabited small villages. They produced a little more than they needed at any given moment, and that surplus gave them added security and allowed their populations to grow. However, they did not have so much surplus that one group would envy another and want to take away its surplus. Neolithic society, like modern tribes I have just discussed here, was probably characterized by a genuinely democratic way of life and, as I said, by much stronger role for women and mothers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Patriarchal organization came much later, about 4000 to 3000 B.C., a period in which everything changed. People were able to produce much more than they needed. Slavery was introduced. The division of labour became more pronounced. Armies were built up; governments were formed; wars were fought. Humans discovered that one could use other humans to work for them. Hierarchies formed, with kings at their heads. The kings were deputies of God and often filled the role of high priest. That situation encouraged the development of aggressiveness, for humans now had the ability to rob, steal, and exploit. And natural democracy gave way to a hierarchy in which everyone had to obey. Proponents of the instinct theory often claim that war is caused by human’s aggressive instincts. That is a very naïve as well as a very incorrect view. First of all, we know that most wars come about because governments convince their populations that they are under attack, that they have to defend their most sacred values, their lives, their freedom, democracy, and Lord knows what else. The wave of enthusiasm for war lasts a few weeks and then is pretty much gone. Now people have to be threatened and punished to continue fighting. However, if people were by nature so aggressive that war actually satisfied their aggressive instincts, then governments would not have to take those measures. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

On the contrary, they would have to propagandize for peace all the time so that people would not be constantly yearning for a war in which they could vent their aggression. However, as we all know, that is not the way things are, and we can even identify quite precisely the period when war as an institution had its beginnings or, if you will, was invented. It was the period after the Neolithic revolution, the period that saw he rise of city-state, of kings, of armies, and of the capability to make war, take slaves, steal treasure, and so forth. There was no organize war among the hunter-gatherers and the primitive agriculture peoples, because the capability for it simply did not exist. What this discussion shows us is that a number of primitive tribes have social systems in which friendliness and cooperation are predominant and aggression at a minimum. If that picture of primitive societies is correct, the “hydraulic” theory that identifies aggression as an instinct cannot be maintained. Another point we can cite against the instinct theory is that levels of aggression within a society can vary greatly. If we look at the early 1930s in Germany, for example, we find that the Nazis drew most of their support from the old petit-bourgeoisie and from officers and students whose careers had been disabled by postwar conditions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

The Nazis found no emotional echo in the middle class an upper middle class. I do not mean to say that those classes did not acquiesce in the Nazi system, but the ardent Nazis did not come from those classes, much less from the working class. Convinced Nazis were, as we all know, more the exception than the rule in the working classes, though, oddly enough, convinced anti-Nazis were also an exception among workers. Why that is so is another question altogether. We find a similar situation in the American South. In some cases, the less affluent people in the South have an incredible store of aggressiveness, typically much more than Southern middle class and more too than the working class either in the South or on the American East Coast. Aggressiveness is always most present in those classes that are on the lowest social level, at the bottom of the social pyramid. Those are people who have few pleasures in life, who are usually uneducated, who see themselves being slowly squeeze out of the social mainstream, who are lacking in motivation and interests. Such people build up vast amounts of sadistic rage that does not develop in people who are productively occupied an who feel fully engaged in—or at least not totally exclude from—the social process. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Those latter people, who are underrepresented and being pushes out of society, have interests; they have the feeling that they are in step with the rest of society. That is why those classes do not develop the same measure of sadism and aggression that the old petit—bourgeoisie in Germany did or that certain classes in American do. Levels of aggressiveness will differ in individuals, too. Take the patient who comes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doctor, I strongly dislike everybody. I do not care for my wife. I find my children unpleasant. I cannot stand the people I work with. There is nobody I actually like.” For the psychiatrist, and I would hope for almost anyone else, too, that patient has rendered one’s own diagnosis and declared oneself sick. We do not respond to such a person by saying, “But of course, everything is perfectly clear. We have here a case of the aggressive instinct at work.” We say instead that this man’s character is so constituted that it constantly produces aggression. We then ask: How did this person get this way? We inquire into the social circumstances of his life, his family history, his past experiences. We try to understand why such a high level of aggressiveness became part of this individual, part of one’s character structure. We do not say, as the advocates of the instinct theory say when they talk about war: “There is nothing you can do about it. This case just proves all over again how strong our inborn aggressiveness is.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

All of us know aggressive people, and by aggressive I do not mean just quick-tempered. I mean destructive, hostile, sadistic people. And we all know friendly people who strike us as being warm and nonaggressive not just on a superficial level but at their very core. Their friendliness cannot in any way be equated with weakness or servility. If we are unaware of such differences, then we are in a bad way—and many people are in a bad way, because they do no notice those differences. However, most people who take the trouble to look around them with any care know very well that those characterological differences exist. The contradiction between the guilt feelings that are manifested and the lack of that humility which should accompany them must be considered. The neurotic will make great demands for consideration and admiration and will also show a distinct unwillingness to accept the slightest degree of criticism. This contradiction may be glaringly obvious, as in the case of a woman who felt vaguely guilty of every crime reported in the papers, and even blamed herself for every death in the family, but was so overwhelmed by an acute outbreak of rage that she fainted when her sister rather mildly reproached her for requesting too much consideration. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

However, the contradiction is not always so conspicuous; it is present much more frequently than appears on the surface. The neurotic may mistake one’s self-accusatory attitude for a sound critical attitude toward oneself. One’s sensitivity toward criticism may be screened by a belief that one can take criticism very well, if only it is made in a friendly or constructive manner; but this belief is only a screen and is contradicted by the facts. Even obviously friendly advice may be reacted to with anger, for advice of any kind implies criticism for not being altogether perfect. Thus is guilt feelings are carefully examined and are tested for genuineness, it becomes apparent that much of what looks like feelings of guilt is the expression either of anxiety or of a defense against it. In part this holds true also for the normal individual. In our culture it is considered nobler to fear God than to fear people, or in non-religious terms, to refrain from something because of conscience rather than because of a fear of getting caught. Many a husband who pretends to be faithful because of his conscience is in reality merely afraid of his wife. Because of the great amount of anxiety in neuroses the neurotic in inclined more often than the normal individual to cover up anxiety with guilt feelings. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Unlike the normal person one not only fears those consequences which are likely to happen, but anticipates consequences which are likely to happen, but anticipates consequences utterly disproportionate to reality. The nature of these anticipations depends on the situation. One may have an exaggerated notion of impending punishment, retaliation, desertion, or one’s fears may be completely vague. However, whatever their nature one’s fears are all kindled at the same point, which may be roughly described as the fear of disapproval, or if the fear of disapproval amounts to a conviction, as a fear of being found out. The fear of disapproval is very common in neuroses. Nearly every neurotic, even though one appears on surface observation to be entirely certain of oneself and indifferent to the opinion of others, is excessively afraid of or hypersensitive to being disapproved of, criticized, accused, found out. As I have already mentioned, this fear of disapproval is usually understood to indicate underlying guilt feelings. In other words, it is considered to be a result of such feelings. Critical observation makes this conclusion questionable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

In analysis a patient will often find it extremely difficult to talk about certain experiences or thoughts—those, for example, concerning death wishes, masturbation, incest wishes—because one believes one feels guilty. When one has gained sufficient confidence to talk about them, and recognizes that they do not meet with disapproval, the “guilt feelings” vanish. One feels guilty because, as a result of one’s anxieties, one is even more than others dependent on public opinion, and hence mistakes it naively as one’s own judgment. Furthermore one’s general sensitivity toward disapproval remains fundamentally unchanged, even if one’s special guilt feelings vanish after one has brought oneself to talk about the experiences that prompted them. This observation suggests the conclusion that guilt feelings are not the cause but the result of the fear of disapproval. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit,” reports 2 Corinthians 3.18. We have looked, now, at the basic dimensions of the human self and at the central principle of its dysfunctionality and corruption (that is, self-denial). Spiritual formation in Christ is the process by which one moves an is moved from self-worship to Christ-centered self-denial as a general condition of God’s present and eternal kingdom. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

The next logical step in a practical treatment of spiritual formation might seem to be the provision of detailed instructions on how to move from a life of self-adulation to one of self-denial, dealing with each of the dimensions of the human being in turn. And we plan to do just that. However, before it can be effectively done in our contemporary context, we must clear up a few more preliminary matters. First of all, we must be clear that such a transition as is envisioned in Christian spiritual formation can actually happen, and can actually happen to us. This, today, is not obvious. What we see around us today of the usual Christian life could easily make us think that spiritual transformation is simply impossible. It is now common for Christian leaders themselves to complain about how little real-life difference there is between professing, or even actual Christians, on the one hand, and non-Christians on the other. Although there is much talk about “changing lives” in Christian circles, the reality is very rare, and certainly much less common than the talk. The “failures” of prominent Christian leaders themselves, already referred to, might cause us to think genuine spiritual formation in Christlikeness to be impossible for “real human beings.” How is it, exactly, that a man or woman can respectably serve Christ for many years and then morally disintegrate? #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

And the failures that become known are few compared to the ones that remain relatively unknown and are even accepted among Christians. The effect of Christians working in the church, politics, business, entertainment, or education depends on the circumstances of how widely the failure becomes known, and on various other factors. There was a case of a pastor who became enraged at something a subordinate did during a Sunday morning service. Immediately after the service he found that subordinate and gave him a merciless tongue-lashing. With his lapel microphone still on! His diatribe was broadcast over the entire church plant and campus—in all the Sunday school rooms and the parking lot. Soon there after he “received the Lord’s call” to another church. However, what about their spiritual formation of this leader? Is that the best we can do? And is one not still really like that in one’s new position? Malfeasance with money is less acceptable than anger, and misconduct dealing with pleasures of the flesh is less tolerated still. However, is the inner condition (the heart) all that different in these cases—before God? The sad thing when a leader (or any individual) “fails” is not just what one said or did, but the heart and life and whole person who is revealed by the act. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

What is sad is who these leaders have been all along, what their inner life has been like, and no doubt also how they have suffered during all the years they “did it” or were found out. What kind of persons have they been, and what, really has been their relation to God? Real spiritual need and change, as we have emphasized, is on the inside, in the hidden area of the life that God sees and that we cannot even see in ourselves without his help. Indeed, in the early stages of spiritual development we could not endure seeing our inner life as it really is. The possibility of denial and self-deception is something God has made accessible to us, in part to protect us until we begin to seek him. Like the face of the mythical Medusa, our true condition away from God would turn us to stone if we were fully confronted it. It would drive us mad. He has to help us come to terms with it in ways that will not destroy us outright. Without the gentle though rigorous process of inner transformation, initiated and sustained by the graceful presence of God in our World and in our soul, the change of personality and life clearly announced and spelled out in the Bible, and explained and illustrated throughout Christian history is impossible. We not only admit it, but also insist upon it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

However, on the other hand, the result of the effort to change our behaviour without inner transformation is precisely what we see in the current shallowness of Western Christianity that is so widely lamented and in the notorious failures of Christian leaders. One that performs first in the case of a contract, is said to merit that which one is to receive by the performance of the other; and one has it due. Also when a prize is propounded to many, which is to be given to one only that wins; or money is thrown amongst many, to be enjoyed by them that catch it; though this be a free gift; yet so to win, or so to catch, is to merit, and to have it as due. For the right is transferred in the propounding of the prize, and in throwing down the money; though it be not determined to whom, but by the event of the contention. However, there is between these two sorts of merit, this difference, that in contract, I merit by virtue of my own power, and the contractors need; but in this case of free gift, I am enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver; in contract, I merit at the contractors hand that one should depart with one’s right; in this case of gift, I merit not that the giver should part with one’s right; but that when one has parted with it, it should be mine, rather than another’s. And this I think to be the meaning of that distinction of the schools, between Meritum Congrui, and Meritum Condigni. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

For God Almighty, having promised Paradise to those people (hoodwinked with carnal desires,) that can walk through this World according to the precepts, and limits prescribed by one; they say, one that shall so walk, shall merit Paradise Ex Congruo. However, because no person can demand a right to it, by one’s own righteousness, or any other power in oneself, but by the free grace of God only; they say, no person can merit Paradise Ex Congruo. However, because no person can demand a right to it, by one’s own righteousness, or any other power in oneself, but by the free grace of God only; they say, no person can merit Paradise Ex Condigno. This I say, I think is the meaning of that distinction; but because disputers do not agree upon the signification of their own terms of Art, longer than it serves their turn; I will not affirm anything of their meaning: only this I say; when a gift is given indefinitely, as a prize to be contended for, one that wins merit, and may claim the prize as due. It is safe to say that throughout much of church history, Scripture and right reason were considered twin allies to be prized and used by disciples of Jesus. Jesus our Master, do Thou meet us while we walk in the way, and long to reach the Heavenly Country; so that following Thy light, we may keep the way of righteousness, and never wander away into the horrible darkness of this World’s night, while Thou Who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life, art shining within us. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

O LORD, our support and our refuge, deliver us from temptation, give us the defence of Thy salvation, hold us up with Thy right hand, teach us by Thy discipline, and make our way and our life undefiled. “And it came to pass as he (Lehi, Nephi’s father) prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him; and he saw and heard much; and because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly. And it came to pass that he returned to his own house at Jerusalem; and he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen. And being this overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the Heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of Angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God. And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of Heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the Sun at noon-day. And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the Earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and have unto him a book, and bade him that he should read,” reports 1 Nephi 6-11. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

O God of grace, Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute, and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul, clothing me with a bridegroom’s robe, decking me with jewels of holiness. However, in my Christian walk I am still in rags; my best prayers are stained with sin; my penitential tears are so much impurity; my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin; my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness. I need to repent of my repentance; I need my tears to be washed; I have no robe to bring to cover my sins, no loom to weave my own righteousness; I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace am always receiving change of raiment, for Thou dost always justify the ungodly; I am always going into the far country, an always returning homes as a prodigal, always saying, Father, forgive me, and thou art always bringing forth the best robe. Every morning let me wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day’s work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter Heaven in it shining as the Sun. Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, the exceeding wonder of grace. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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God Has Blessed You with Gifts and Talents so that You May Impress this Generation!

February 28, 2020 12:50 am

Whatever natural endowments we bring to the role of leadership, they can be enhanced; nurture is far more important than nature in determining who becomes a successful leader. The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. God has in Himself all the power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you. However, there are times that try human’s souls. Historically we saw how this has worked in the dialogue between masses and power figures; but we also saw how human energy and fear created evil on the simplest levels of social organization. We talked mostly about spirit-power motives and guilt, but sometimes it was more simple and direct: it could be a matter of sheer physical appetite. Some tribes loved the taste of human flesh and incorporated captive men, women, and children with joy and gusto, with simple stomach motives, we might say—as in Melanesia and among some South American tribes. Sometimes men went to war out of personal frustration in the tribe, to work off jealousy dealing with pleasures of the flesh and grief, or even simple boredom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Life on primitive levels could be monotonous, and warfare was often the main source of new experience, travel, real stimulation. In fact, on the primitive level it is almost transparent that warfare was a “game” for appropriating others and enmeshing one’s life with them; we see this clearly among the Plains Indians, where warfare was often really a kind of athletic contest between tribes. However, organismic urges are by their nature sadistic, and primitive beings often wreaked evil on a captured enemy because of one’s desire to gloat and strut; one tortured to affirm oneself, to increase one’s own sense of importance by humiliating others. And so we see that even without spiritual motives, without otherworldly ambitions of any kind, humans cause evil as an organism by enjoying their feelings of animal power. Again, sheer energy causes evil. We can have no psychological evil unless we stress the driving personal motives behind human’s urge to heroic victory. It may seem on the surface that empty, passive, disinterested people are led like sheep to perform vicious acts, that humans easily loses their judgment in the crowd, that one gets carried away by numbers, by shouts, by cleverly phrased slogans and colourful banners—this we might call the “impressionable spectator” theory of aggression. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

No doubt there is considerable stimulus given to humans by the size and enthusiasm of the group around one. After all, one worships power and had to respond to the obvious power of numbers, thrill to the spectacle of masses; it is visible proof that nature favours humans if she has made their kind multiply so; she seems on the side of human’s victory. Another thing we see is that humans are stimulated to believe in their heroic destiny by the sight of another human face: it shows the miracle of creation shining out of humans, and the fact that this miracle has deep in its eyes and in its head the same beliefs as you, gives you the feeling that your very beliefs are supported by natural creation. Little wonder that the sight and feel of thousands of such miracles moving together with you gives such absolute righteous conviction. So there is no argument about the fact of mass enthusiasm; the question is how important it is as a cause of aggression. Perhaps it is the most important case, due to mental contagion and the herd mind. Why the contagion from the herd? The motive is in the person and not the character of the herd. We know how mobs can be stopped by stopping their leaders, or how panic breaks out when the leader is killed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Mobs identify with the leader, but beyond that we also see that humans bring their motives in with them when they identify with power figures. One is suggestible and submissive because one is waiting for the magical helper. One gives in to the magic transformation of the group because one wants relief of conflict and guilt. One follows the leader’s initiatory act because one needs priority magic so that one can delight in holy aggression. One moves in to kill the sacrificial scapegoat with the wave of the crowd, not because one is carried along by the wave, but because one likes the psychological barter of another life for one’s own. “You die, not me.” The motives and the needs are in people and not in situations or surroundings. It is true that human’s urge to self-transcendence, one’s devotion to a cause, has made more butchery than private aggressiveness in history, and the devastating group is hatred is fed by the love of its members, their willingness even to die in its name. We know that as soon as primitives developed identifiable gods and a large social conglomerate to give their loyalty to, their own natural sadistic appetites were translated into the large-scale sacrifices of others that we see in history: one no longer looked for a skull to eat the brains from, or to shrink for magic power, or to plant in ground facing the enemy so as to mock them—one now could not get enough skulls for paving the temple floor, as in Polynesia or West Africa. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

It is true that Adolf Eichmann, a German-Austrian SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, felt physically sick on the one occasion when he actually watched the deadly gas at work, which proves that he was not personally a sadist—but does not prove that he had no personal stake in the killing. People are torn in two by the contradictions that result from their needs and not by what they innocently get caught up in. When they are at their most sheepish and submissive, they are giving vent to the Agape urge in their nature; when they twist and turn to please the leader and the group, they are trying to qualify for absolute goodness and purity so as to be worthy of being included in their transcendence. The individual gives oneself to the group because of one’s desire to share in its immortality; we must say, even, that one is willing to die in order not to die. Another way of looking at this is to say that the basic general motive of humans—their need for self-esteem, for a feeling of primary value—is not a neural vessel. True, its contents vary with each individual and with each society; people learn different ways of feeling warm self-value. I myself have written and argued that the self-esteem motive is elastic and neutral, but I now see that this is not quite so. True, there are no instincts that absolutely determine when people should feel good about themselves. However, self-esteem is equivalent to “righteousness” or feeling “right.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Because self-esteem is linked to righteousness or feeling right, this means that self-esteem is based on an active passion: humans cannot feel right unless they live for the heroic victory over evil, the assurance of immortality. From the beginning, then, the self-esteem is loaded with this task universally, and given its form by how it resolves this task. Which, of course, is another way of saying that the self-esteem is based on the cultural continuation of the causa sui project in the child. This is how it has always been understood, only now we add that the character of this causa sui project is definite and inflexible: the securing of immortality (in whichever way this is understood by the individual and the society). Along with the we have to make an important addition to the approach to aggression. It is true that frustrated, deprived, weak, unindividuated people commit aggression very readily; clinical records are eloquent on this. It is true too that there are mechanical people who fear life, who need to control things with secure sense of power, who prefer inanimate objects to living ones, excreta. These are call “necrophiles,” or lovers of death, in opposition to “biophiles,” or lovers of life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

This is a valuable distinction in character structures because it helps us to focus on different ways of bringing up children which might lead to one or the other general orientation—to a love of life which develops sentiments of warm humanity or to a “syndrome of decay” which stifles these sentiments. If we could, we would certainly want to avoid raising generations of young who respect computers more than they do others. One explanation of the fact the World is now bordering on nuclear destruction, biological warfare, and the widespread prevalence of a modern Homo mechanicus. It may be that people do not fear total destruction because they do not love life, or are indifferent to it, or even are attracted to death, fascinated by the prospect of total destruction. From all we know, I think it would be nearer the truth to talk about a cultural type of being who earns ones immortality from identifications with the power of machines, rather than a simple lover of death, Mass destruction committed under the reign of God the Machine is a tribute to the expansion of an implacable, efficient force with which modern humans can identify—it would not be an attraction to the stillness of death itself. This attraction seems to me more of a Buddhistic sentiment—that is, the achievement of a certain kind of maturity and transcendence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The mechanical humans may scorn and fear living things, but I think it is precisely because one feels that they do not have the power over life and death that machines have; one’s eternity symbol is then the machine which transcends both life and death. Even for Hitler death was not an end in itself, but a power transformation. However, the fundamental Law of Nature, by which people are commanded to endeavour Peace, is derived that humans be willing, wen others are so too, as far-forth, as for Peace, and defence on oneself one shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other people, as one would allow other people against oneself. For as long as every being holdeth this Right, of doing anything one liketh; so long are all people in the condition of War. However, if other people will not lay down their Rights, as well as one; then there is no Reason for anyone, to devest oneself of one’s: For that were to expose oneself to Prey, (which no person is bound to) rather than to dispose oneself to Peace. This is that Law of the Gospel; “Whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. And that Law of all humans, Quod tibi feiri non vis, alteri ne feceris. To Lay Down a human’s Right to anything, is to Devest oneself of the liberty, of hindering another of benefit to one’s own Right to the same. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

For one that renounceth, or passeth away one’s Right, giveth not to any other human a Right which one had not before’ because there is nothing to which every human had not Right by Nature: but only standeth out of one’s way, that one may enjoy one’s own original Right, without hindrance from one; not without hindrance from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one human, by another humans defect of Right, is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of one’s own Right original. Right is laid aside, either by simply Renouncing it; or by Transferring it to another. By Simply RENOUNCING; when one cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By TRANSFERRING; when one intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person, or persons. And when a human hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away one’s Right; then is one said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that one Ought and it one’s DUTY, not to make void that voluntary act of one’s own: and that such hindrance is INJUSTICE, and INJURY, as being Sine Jure; the Right being before renounced, or transferred. So that Injury, or Injustice, in the controversies of the World, is somewhat like to that, which in the disputations of Scholars is called Absurdity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

For as it is there called an Absurdity, to contradict what one maintained in the Beginning one had voluntarily done. The way by which a person either simply Renounceth, or Transferreth one’s Right, is a Declaration, or Signification, by some voluntary and sufficient sign, or signs, that one doth so Renounce, or Transfer; or hath so Renounced, or Transferred the same, to one that accept it. And these Signs are either Words only, or Actions only; or (as it happeneth most often) both Words and Actions. And the same are the BONDS, by which people are bound, and obliged: Bonds, that have their strength, not from their own Nature, (for noting is more easily broken than a person’s word), but from Fear of some evil consequence upon the rupture. However, all this simply a minor dilemma of clarification of cultural and clinical types; it will take very much more work to sort these things out, and we may never be able to do it in any but a very gross and suggestive way. There is something much more crucial at stake. And we right away know what it is: not only weak, or mechanical, or pathological, or primitive and elemental types aggress, but also well fed, jolly ones—people who have had abundant childhood care and love. The man who dropped the atomic bomb is the warm, gentle boy who grew up next door. The kings of Dahomey who signaled annually for the heads of hundreds of murdered prisoners to be piled in heaps very likely had a child-rearing experience that could have been written about favourably. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The reason is absolute and simple: people aggress not only out of frustration and fear but out of joy, plenitude, love of life. People kill lavishly out of the sublime joy of heroic triumph over evil. Voila tout. What are clinical classifications and niceties going to do with that? It is true, I think, that a weak being will more easily, if punished, buy off one’s own death by taking another, and that strong being will be less likely to do this. It is true, too, that most people will not usually kill unless it is under the banner of some kind of fight against evil; in which one is tempted to blame the banner, the propaganda and artificial belief system, and not the people. However, banners do not wrap themselves around people: people invent banners and clutch at them; they hunger for believable words that dress life in convincing meaning. If they did not have nice words to speak (to make sense out of their occasions), people would die. They would die, not because words are nice trimmings to life, but because without words action stop dead, and when actions stops the gnawing realization of impotency and the dumb futility of animal life beings. Words abolish fear and embody hope in themselves. I think it is time for social scientists to catch up with Hilter as a psychologist, and to realize that if people are persuaded about the legitimacy of a cause, they will do anything for heroic belonging to a victorious cause. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

And I know no psychology, and so far no conditions on this Earth, which would exempt people from fulfilling one’s urge to cosmic heroism, which means from identifying evil and moving against it. In all cases but one this means moving also against individuals who embody evil. The one case, of course, is the teaching of the great religions, and in its modern guise pacifism, no nonviolence. This is a 2,000-year-old ideal at which descriptive psychology stops, since it is an ideal that has hardly yet made a dent in the affairs and minds of people. If you give people political and economic equality, they will still welcome unfreedom in some form. Conservatives must know that the freedom to obey or not to obey, to delegate one’s power to authority, is not so free: it is coerced in the very beginning and by the very nature of human’s perceptions of power and majesty. The talents that people use to amass wealth and social privilege may be due to some real differences in quality of mind and body; but the talent to mystify others is the queen of tyranny, and it is not all natural and neutral, but partly human-made—made by ignorance, thirst for illusion, and fear. As such, it is part of the scientific problem of human liberation, and is not destined to remain wholly in the natural order of things. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

If the complexities of the psychological dimensions of inequality and the unfreedom at the heart of human nature are sure to please no one who is firmly embedded in an ideological camp, then it becomes even more difficult to know what we are going to do about them or how we are going to approach them. However, few things seem clear: although the radicals may not like it, the science of society will have to go much more slowly and modestly than was at first realized by Rousseau and Marx. Unless, of course, it subserves violent revolution—in which case, as we have learned to our sorrow, the new society that comes into beings has even less a chance of being scientific. As for the conservatives, although they may shrink back in fear, there is nothing to prevent the science of humans from being absolutely critical and meliorative science of society that was envisioned in the Enlightenment. There is nothing in human nature that dooms in advance the most thoroughgoing social changes and utopian ambitions. It used to be thought, for example, that if human’s innate aggressiveness was a drive that had to find expression, then all societies had to have some means of “hate satisfaction.” Many of our best minds have been tortuously struggling with the implications of this: it did not seem possible to have any kind of humanistic, liberating social theory if humans carried within themselves the seeds of destructiveness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

And certain the facts of history of war and scapegoating seem to have been born out of a basic drive r a quantum of instinct, or instead results from the fear of death and impotency and can be relieved by a heroic victory over a hate object. A science of humans in society is possible even while admitting the most destructive motives of humans, precisely because these motives become open and amenable to clear analysis, to a tracing out of their total structure in the full field of human affairs as those affairs reflect the torments of human’s inner life, one existential paradoxes. A social ideal could be designed that takes into account human’s basest motives, but now an ideal not directly negated by those motives. In other words, hate object need not be any special class or race or even human enemy, but could be things that take impersonal but real forms, like poverty, disease, oppression, natural disasters excreta. Or, if we know that evil takes human form in oppressors and hangmen, then we could at least try to make our hatreds of people intelligent and informed: we could work against the enemies of freedom, those who thrive on slavery, on the gullibilities and weaknesses of their fellow humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

People hate and love according to their individual understandings and personal needs. The whole thrust of the science of humans since the Enlightenment has been after all a promise that objectivity about evil is possible. This objectivity about evil introduces what we might call the possibility of objective hatred. This clarification of hatred allows us, once more, to makes the circle on the timeless pleas for a moral equivalent to natural sadism, to hope to translate our self-expansion into a furtherance of life instead of the destruction of it. Finally, if we know that we ourselves hate because of the same needs and urges to heroic victory over evil as those we hate, there is perhaps no better way to begin to introduce milder justice into the affairs of humans. This is the great moral that was drew from our demonic times. when we expressed the moving hope that a day would come when each person would proclaim in one’s own fashion the superiority of being wrong without killing others than being right in the quiet of the charnel house. It is imperative that we grown in grace. The term growing in grace is most often used to indicate growth in Christian character. While I think that usage has merit, a more accurate meaning is to continually grow in our understanding of God’s grace, especially as it applies to us personally, to become progressively more aware of our own continued spiritual bankruptcy and the unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favour of God. May we all grow in grace in this sense. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

As we grow in grace this way, we will grow in our motivation to obey God out of a sense of gratitude and reverence to Him. Our obedience will always be imperfect in performance in this life. We will never perfectly obey Him until we are made perfect by Him. In the same way, our motives will never be consistently pure; there will frequently be some “merit points” mentality mixed in with our genuine reverence for God. So, if you realize your motives have been largely merit-oriented, do not be discouraged. Just begin now to move toward grace motives. Begin to think daily about the implications of the grace of God in your life. Memorize and pray frequently on such Scripture passages as Romans 12.1 and 2 Corinthians 5.14-15. Pray about the aspects of truth in those passages and ask God to motivate you by His mercy and love. When you recognize merit-oriented motives at work in you, renounce them and cast yourself completely on the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ. As you grown in grace in this way, you will indeed discover that His love compels you to live, not for yourself, but for Him who died for you and was raised again. The cultivation of a disposition to glorify God saves souls, as well does a knowledge of Scriptures. However, to imagine that none can teach you but those who are themselves saved form sin, is a very great and dangerous mistake. Give not place to it for a moment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

This over-idealization of the guru, so widespread could indicate an elementary stage. We may extend great reverence to the person who is worthy of it—saint or self-actualized—but we may bend the knee in worship only to the everlasting Spirit. No human being has the right to receive it, much less demand it, and it is idolatry to give it. One is a human being, after all, a person not a demigod. Worship of the human is not only irrelevant but also, in a sense, irreverent. We may admire one for one’s fine qualities but that does not mean we have to agree with one in all one’s views. So many teachers come to us with their doctrines. Who of them is right and who is wrong? Not because you think, “Our teacher is one to whom great deference is due,” should you accept a doctrine. A superficial emotional approach to truth is less concerned with the message than with the messenger, with thee ideas taught than with their human origin. Many people suffer from the bad consequences of an exaggerated respect for their spiritual guides whereas others may suffer from the consequences of an insufficient respect for them. “And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking our of the dust?” reports Moroni 10.27. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

In Thy mercy and majesty, O Lord, behold Thy household, that they may be neither stained with vices of their own, nor held in bondage by the sins of others; but that being ever freed and cleansed from both, they may do service unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Hear us, O Lord our God, and separate the hearts of Thy faithful people from the wickedness of the World; that they who call thee Lord with their own voice may not fall back into the service of the devil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, bend my hands and cut them off, for I have often struck thee with a wayward will, when these fingers should embrace thee by faith. I am not yet weaned from all created glory, honour, wisdom, and esteem of others, for I have a secret motive to eye my name in all I do. Let me not only speak the word sin, but see the thing itself. Give me to view a discovered sinfulness, to know that though my sins are crucified they are never wholly mortified. Hatred, malice, ill-will, vain-glory that hungers for and hunts after human’s approval and applause, all are crucified, forgiven, but they rise again in my sinful heart. O my crucified but never wholly mortified sinfulness! O my life-long damage and daily shame! O my indwelling and besetting sins! O the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart! Destroy, O God, the evil guest within whose hidden presence makes my life a hell. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Yet Thou hast not left me here without grace; the cross still stands and meets my needs in the deepest straits of the soul. I thank thee that my remembrance of it is like David’s sight of Goliath’s sword which preached forth thy deliverance. The memory of my great sins, my many temptations, my falls, bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of thy great help, of thy support from Heaven, of the great grace that saved such a wretch as I am. There is no treasure so wonderful as that continuous experience of thy grace toward me which alone can subdue the risings of sin within: Give me more of it. “I declare these things unto the fulfilling of the prophecies. And behold, they shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the everlasting God; and his words shall hiss forth from generation to generation. And God shall show unto you, that that which I have written is true. And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, not the unclean thing,” reports Moroni 10.28-30. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that pressing onwards in Thy way with devout minds, we may escape the snares of the sins that beset us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray Thee, O Lord, be present to Thy suppliants; and amid the snares of a wicked World, protect our weakness with never-failing love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Release Your Faith in Uncommon Ways and You Will See God do Uncommon things!

February 26, 2020 1:29 am

It is impossible, indeed, to separate works from faith, just as it is impossible to separate heat and light from the fire. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Nature hath made people so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there bee found one person sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between being, and being, is not so considerable, as that one being can thereupon claim to oneself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as one. For as the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to mute the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same sanger with oneself. And as to the faculties of the mind, (setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else,) I find yet a greater equality amongst people, than that of strength. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestowes on all beings, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps makes such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom, which almost all beings think they have in a greater degree, than the Vulgar; that is, than all beings but themselves, and a few others, whom by Fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of people, that however they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: for they see their own wit at hand, and other people’s at a distance. However, the proveth rather than people are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything, than that every person is contented with one’s share. Also, parents have to teach their kids and make them responsible. One has to tell their children what is expected of them and that there is no way around it. Children must be held responsible for getting an education and learning how to behave. The television is very interesting, but those TV programs will always be there. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

It is far more for children to get an education than to watch TV. And when your child is in junior high school, that is the time to start talking to them about college and letting them explore college campuses and speak with guidance counselors at the college so they will know what is expected of them, and so the child can form a vision of what they want to do after high school. So many children are solely focused on just getting out of high school, and then in the last semester of high school this idea of college and dumped on them and many of them have no idea what to do because they never even considered it. Therefore, it is important to make sure your child knows that they need to have a career vision, something they can do for the rest of their lives to make money to be able to support themselves, and their wife and child. Furthermore, it is important that children learn that if they make a mistake and break something, they need to pay for it. It may require them to get a Summer job, but it is important for them to learn responsibility as youths so they become good adults. The great masters who taught people truth or gave them supreme works of art or lifted their feelings deserve a large gratitude for such benedictions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

It is those who create ways and means for others to follow in the search for spiritual fulfilment, the teachers and awakeners, who deserve our best honours. Such a person is a focal-point for all that is noble. A nature sensitive to the serenity, benevolence, and wisdom radiating from such a being will gladly give its homage to one. It is a grave mistake made by uneducated persons or by proud ones to fail in holding such a being in deep veneration. God keeps a vacant seat for one in the high places, while simple men and women throw unseen roses of appreciation when one enters their orbit. We should listen to the plain statements of such a being as the ancient Greeks listened to the enigmatic utterances of their oracles. Sokrates tried to awaken the Greeks, Jesus tried to awaken Christians. Their failure was followed by consequences to their people which can be traced in history. If the higher power takes the trouble to send a messenger, it is better to tremble, listen, and obey than to sneer, reject, and suffer. The comments made by the self-actualized upon the varied situations in human life are worth far fare more than the commentaries written by pundits on the sacred or philosophic texts. The former are very much in a minority. What one is testifies to THAT WHICH IS. Where lesser humans have to shout their opinions, one’s silence is eloquent and, to the receptive, an initiation in itself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

There is no such act as a one-sided self-giving. Karma brings us back our due. One who spends one’s life in the dedicated service of philosophic enlightenment may reject the merely material rewards that this service could bring one, but one cannot reject the beneficent thoughts, the loving remembrances, the sincere veneration which those who have benefited sometimes send one. Such invisible rewards help one to atone more peacefully and less painfully for the strategic errors one has made, the tactical shortcomings one has manifested. Life is an arduous struggle for most people, but much more so for such a one who is always a hated target for the unseen powers of darkness. Do not hesitate to send one your silent humble blessing, therefore, and remember that Nature will not waste it. The enemies you are now struggling against within yourself one has already conquered, but the enemies one is now struggling against are beyond your present experience. One has won the right to sit by a hearth of peace. If one has made the greatest renunciation and does not do so, it is for your sake and for the sake of those others like you. Education is about discovering the special skills and talents of students and guiding their learning according to high standards. Education is also about teaching our children and young people basic Southern values and uncorking that World-renowned American ingenuity that has characterized our country. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Respect for God demands that the face, the hands, and the feet be washed once a day. The wise person indulges oneself not in gossip with women, not even his own wife. Leave the “kitchen table talk” for the women. Men should talk about cars, sports, or the economics. For America to move forward and continue as a World leader, and for all our communities to become prosperous and strong, more individuals need to become involved in improving our schools and colleges. We also need to take time for self-care, reflection, and affirmation. We have a choice. We can allow the stress of the job to crush our ability to be the kind of inspirational leaders we want to be, or we can energetically and enthusiastically demonstrate that we are the absolute climate creators at our school. Our challenge is that every day we need to rekindle the passion and get in touch with the joy in our job. Joy is an essential ingredient if inspirational leadership. Leadership is being visible when things are going awry and invisible when they are working well. From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two beings desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

And from hence it comes to pass, that where an Invader hath no more to fear, than another being’s single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces untied, to dispossess, and deprive one, not only of the fruit (product) of one’s labour, but also of one’s life, or liberty And the Invader again is in the like danger of another. And from this diffidence of another, there is no way for any individual to secure oneself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all people one can, so long, till one see no other power great enough to endanger one: and this is no more than one’s own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also because there be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue father than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over people, being necessary to a human’s conservation, it ought to be allowed one. Again, people have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

For every human looketh that one’s companion should value one, at the same rate one sets upon oneself: And upon all signs of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavours, as far as one dares (which amongst them that have no common power, to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other,) to extort a greater value from one’s contemners, by dommage; and from others, by the example. So that in the nature of humans, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first, maketh people invade for Gain, the second, for Safety; and the third, for Reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves Masters f other people’s persons, wives, children, cattle, and ultimate driving machines; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in the Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name. Leaderships is a people process. It calls for the application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that allow each of us to successfully influence and inspire others towards doing the right things. Leadership deals with effectiveness. On the other hand, management is a coordinating process we carry out to make sure the work functions and tasks get done well and in a timely way. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Over the years, Dr. Freudian analysts have softened their views of the politics of therapy. Along with Gestalt therapists, Jungians, rational emotive therapists, advocates of transactional analysis, and many other new therapies, they now take a middle-of-the-road view. The expert is at times definitely the authority (as in the Gestalt therapist dealing with the person in the “hot seat”), but there is also a recognition of the right of the individual to be responsible for oneself. There has been no attempt to rationalize these contradictions. These therapists take a paternalistic stance, or follow the medical model, believing that at times control is best vested in the therapist, at other times (to be decided by the therapist) control and responsibility are best placed in the client’s, or patient’s hands. One approach which has been very definite in the politics of relationships is behaviourism. Its clear purpose is outlined in Skinner’s famous Walden II. For the good of the person (individually or collectively), an elitist technocracy of behaviourists sets the goals that will make the person happy and productive. It then shapes one’s behaviour by operant conditioning (with out without the “subject’s” knowledge) to achieve those goals. The environmental model, based on learning theory, assumes that behaviour that is in some way rewarded or reinforced tends to be repeated, while nonrewarded or punished behaviour tends not to be repeated. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

So most of the behaviour problems we have seen (except those problems having a directly organize root, or perhaps some of the more stubborn psychotic reactions) are viewed, not as unconscious conflicts or illnesses, but as dysfunctional learning: bad habits. Since these problems were learned through conditioning, the behaviour modifiers believe that they can be unlearned, or deconditioned; and more effective or functional behaviour can be relearned, or reconditioned. Whereas analytic approaches sees no value in this. In fact, such past-oriented emphasis is seen as further rewarding the dysfunctional behaviour—giving the person beneficial stokes for their problems. If you want children to stop throwing temper tantrums (which have been reinforced by the attention of parents), do not give them further reinforcement by yelling at them or spanking them. Since those kinds of responses are actually rewards by some quirk of reasoning (“negative strokes are better than no strokes at all”), the answer is to stop responding to—and hence reinforcing—the tantrums. No attention at all is one way of withholding reinforcers. Ignore the behaviour, and after awhile its payoff value to the child is gone. To complete the conditioning process, give the child a lot of optimistic attention and affection for doing those things you want the child to do. This is how operant conditioning techniques work. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

When using operant conditioning, much success has been reported in the treatment of weight management, smoking, and conduct disorder and other similar issues. Not all behaviour problems respond to such treatment, but the results are encouraging. Much use has been made of one of the behaviour modification techniques in working with people who have intellectual disabilities and some psychotic patients in hospitals. It is called the “token economy” program. Patients are trained to do simple tasks by reinforcement of each step of the task with poker chips or other tokens which can be cashed in at the end of the session or the day for candy, gum, juice, and other goodies. Also, these techniques can work with students. If you want them to preform better or tests or increase their attendance, one has to reward the class with something like a pizza party at the end of the semester, but also keep in mind that it will be important to also provide extra guidance for the students so they do not get harassed by others for failing to meet the standards and holding the class back. Another issue is to make sure there is a realistic budget for the party. Most students will problem want about three slices of pizza. Domino’s Pizza always has some kind of deal like the large three topping pizza for $7.99 or the Mix and Match pizza for $5.99 when you order two or more. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The behavioural modifiers believe that tangible rewards used in the early stages of any behaviour change process should later be replaces with praise, hugs, pats on the back, or compliments if that kind of thing is acceptable in your family and community. Secondary reinforcers are substituted for primary reinforcers. Later, inner reinforcers—pride, sense of achievement, realization of goals—can be substituted for the secondary reinforcers. After all, most of us do not spend our lives behaving well in order to win chips or M&Ms! One’s behaviour is, after all, completely determined by environment for the planners so that their completely determined behaviour causes them to operate as such a wise and good elite is a question always deftly avoided. Nevertheless it is assumed that their goals will be constructively social, and the shaping of behaviour will be for the good person as well as society. Yet at times, when applied to the aberrant behaviour, this approach seems a little startling. We would assume that a demerit was clear evidence that the individual had somehow acquired a full-blown social neurosis and needed to be cured, not punished. We would send him or her to a rehabilitation center where one would undergo absolute brainwashing or reeducation until we were quite sure one had become a law-abiding citizen who would not again commit an antisocial act. We would probably have to restructure one’s entire personality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

However, this means that we are completely oblivious to the political implications of what we are doing. Clearly a psychologist who believes brainwashing or reeducating people in detention would be the first to be subsidized and employed by a dictator, who would be very happy to have them “cure” various “demerits” that threatened the state, which could be labeled as, for example, things like race, skin colour, hair texture, profession, medical history, political party, age, number of children, socioeconomic status, and so on. In fairness to behaviorists it should be said that many of them have come to adopt a greatly changed view of the politics of relationships. In the commune Twin Oaks, patterned initially after Walden II, the residents often choose for themselves which behaviors they wish to change, and select the rewards which will be most reinforcing. Clearly this is completely opposed to the politics of the strict behavourist, since it is self-evaluated change. It is not the environment shaping the individual’s behaviour, but the individual choosing to shape the environment for one’s own personal development. Some behavioursists have gone even further. Rather than controlling the individual, they are helping the person learn to achieve one’s own betterment. In its politics this is the reverse of strict behaviourism. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

However, there will come a time in the experience of the apprentice of Jesus where it is appropriate to speak of our being muted to the self. There is no one way this comes to us, I think, and the language here must be handled carefully. It has been the source of much understanding in and harm in the past. However, the fact that it represents is a fundamental, indispensable element in the renovation of the heart, soul, and life. Being muted to self is the condition where the mere fact that I do not get what I want does not surprise or offend me and has no control over me. Faithful servants of God know the secret, and man have left their testimony. They day when some have muted themselves, they report their opinions, preferences, tastes and will; was muted to the World, its approval or censure; muted to the approval or blame even of one’s brethren or friends, and since that point on, individuals will study only to show oneself “approved unto God.” We often speak of those who sleep soundly as “sleeping like a baby.” By that we mean that what is happening around them does not disturb them, that they are unconscious f it and are doing nothing with reference to it. There is an important lesson here, though not a precise parallel. The one who is muted to self will certainly not even notice some things that others would—for example, things such as social slights, verbal put downs and innuendos, or physical discomforts. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

However, many other rebuffs to “the dear self,” will be noticed still, often quite clearly. However, if we are muted to self to any significant degree, these rebuffs will not take control of us, not even to the point of disturbing our feelings or peace of mind. We will wear the World like it is a precious gift from God. Does this mean that the person who is muted to self is without feeling? Does Christ commend the famous “apathy” of the Stoic or the Buddhist elimination of desire? Far from it. The issue is not just feeling or desire, but right feeling or desire, or being controlled by feeling and desire. Apprentices of Jesus will be deeply disturbed about many things and will passionately desire many things, but they will be largely indifferent to the fulfillment of their own desires as such. Merely getting their way has no significance for them, does not disturb them. They know that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those are called according to His purpose,” reports Romans 8.28. They do not have to look after things that concern them, but they do not worry about outcomes that merely affect adversely their own desires and feelings. They are free to focus their efforts on the service of God and others and the furthering of good generally, and to be as passionate about such things as may be appropriate to such efforts. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

People who truly understand the grace of God, not just intellectually but in very core of their being, will not abuse grace by living irresponsibly. “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the person whose sin the Lord will never count against one,” reports Romans 4.7-8. When I read, “Blessed is the person whose sin the Lord will never count against one,” I was overcome with joy and gratitude. What a fantastic encouragement that God will never judge me for any of my sins. I know I have as wicked a sinful nature as anyone else, and apart from the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit in my life, I am fully capable of the so-called gross sins of immortality, drunkenness, stealing, and the like. However, those are not the sins that trouble me at this time. Rather, I struggle with what I called “refined” sins: selfishness, pride, impatience, a critical attitude, and a judgmental spirit. Despite my calling those areas “refined” sins, they are nevertheless very real sins. They are sins for which I would not want to give account at the judgment bar of God. They are sins that, apart from the atoning death of Christ for me, would send me to eternal Hell. And, if God operated on the basis of merit instead of grace in this life, they are sins that would forfeit all blessings from Him. In short those “refined” sins are very troublesome. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

So when I read that God will never count against me my selfishness, my pride, my impatience, and so on, I wept for joy. I stopped reading and uttered a prayer of deep, heartful thanksgiving to God for His gracious forgiveness. Then what did I do? I asked God to purge those sinful traits from my character. I asked Him to enable me to become more and more aware of specific instances when I was committing those sins so that I could, by His Spirit, put them to death as Paul tells us to do in Romans 8.13. I was compelled by His love to seek to put away those sins. “Finally, people, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things,” reports Philippians 4.8. The true, the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely, the admirable all defy negative exposition. Each ingredient was, and is, a matter of personal choice—and our choices make all the difference in the World. We all can choose a thought program which will produce a Christian mind. “And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the Kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope. And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity. And Christ truly said unto our fathers: if ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me,” reports Moroni 10.21-23. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Lord God Almighty, Christ the King of glory, Who art our true Peace, and Love eternal; enlighten our souls with the brightness of Thy peace, and purify our consciences with the sweetness of Thy love, that we may with peaceful hearts wait for the Author of peace, and in the adversities of this World may ever have Thee for our Guardian and Protector; and so being fenced about by Thy care, may heartily give ourselves to the love of Thy peace. Searcher of Hearts, it is a good day to me when Thou givest me a glimpse of myself; sin is my greatest evil, but Thou art my greatest good; I have causes to loathe myself, and not to seek self-honour, for no one desires to commend one’s own dunghill. My country, family, church fare worse because of my sins, for sinners bring judgment in thinking sins are small or that God is not angry with them. Let me not take other good people as my example, and think I am good because I am like them, for all good people are not so good as thou desirest, are not always consistent, do not always follow holiness, do not feel eternal good in sore affliction. Show me how to know when a thing is evil which I think is right and good, how to know when what is lawful comes from an evil principle, as desire for reputation ow wealthy by usury. “And now I speak unto all the ends of the Earth—that is the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief,” reports Moroni 10.24. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Give me grace to recall my needs, my lack of knowing thy will in Scripture, of wisdom to guide others, of daily repentance, want of which keeps thee at bay, of the spirit of prayer, having words without love, of zeal for thy glory, seeking my own ends, of joy in thee and thy will, of love to others. And let me not lay my pipe too short of the fountain, never touching the eternal spring, never drawing water from above. O God, Who of Thy great love to this World, didst reconcile Earth to Heaven through Thine Only-begotten Son; grant that we who, by the darkness of our sins, are turned aside from brotherly love, may be Thy light shed forth in our souls be filled with Thine own sweetness, and embrace our friends in Thee, and our enemies for Thy sake, in a bound of mutual affection. O God, Who art Peace everlasting, Whose chosen reward is the gift of peace, and Who hast taught us that the peace-makers are Thy children, pour Thy sweet peace into our souls, that everything discordant may utterly vanish, and all that makes for peace be sweet to us forever. Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully grant unto Thy Church, that deadly pleasures may be cast aside, and that it may rather rejoice in the gladness of Thine eternal salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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If we are going to seize the promise of our times and educate our children so they can keep their dreams alive, we must all work together. Not government alone, not individuals alone, but as parents and children, as employers and employees, teachers and students, community leaders and community members, as government and citizens. We must renew our schools so every American child has the opportunity to get the best possible education for the twenty-first century.

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It Will Not Take a Lifetime to Accomplish Your Dreams—It Will Happen in a Fraction of the Time!

February 24, 2020 8:41 pm

If you will take the limits off of God, you will see Him do amazing things. Divine connections are coming your way. I believe that the act of leadership is, in part, an effort to impose order on chaos, to provide direction to what otherwise appears to be adrift, and to give meaning and coherence to events that otherwise appear, and may in fact, be random. The complex capacity of the human brain is the subject of ever widening scientific wonder. Its twelve to fourteen billion cells are only a shadow of its complexity, for each cell sends out thousands of connecting tendrils so that a single cell may be connected with 10,000 neighbouring cells, each of which is constantly exchanging data impulses. These twelve to fourteen billion brain cells times 10,000 connectors make the human mind an unparalleled computer. The mind’s activity has been compared to 1,000 switchboards, each big enough to serve New York City, all running at full speed as they receive and send questions and orders. Put another way, there is more electronic equivalent in one human brain than in all the radio and television stations of the entire World put together! Sensory messages combine into concepts. Messages, about variations in light, sound, temperature, or whatever, are sent from the peripheral sensory nerve-cells to other nerve-cells not directly responsive to stimuli from outside the body. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Messages are also sent from various parts of the body when bone and muscles change position, giving information abut posture and movement. Messages are sent from yet other parts of the body about hormonal secretions or other chemicals in the blood and elsewhere, and this has to do with the emotions then being experienced. Messages about all these situations—and others less easily briefly alluded to—can interlink, and thus we get ever more complex organization of messages. Messages can start anywhere, but in their interlinking they can home in on particular cells which thereby gain an organizing or coding or sorting function. These cells are conventionally spoken of as more central, that is nearer the brain which is being thought of as a centre of the body. Most central are the cells in the appropriately named “association areas” of the brain. These can be contrasted with the more peripheral sensory cells, which are only affected by the particular stimuli they are constructed to be affected by, not by other nerve-cells. Some scientist estimate that there are actually around 100,000,000,000 cells in the brain, and many of them can combine with many others, so there is plenty of room for patterns to be able to form. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

We cannot see “blackness,” only a black this or a black that. “Blackness” is a concept which may be excited when a top hat is perceived, or Pat’s kitten, or ink, or whatever. And the appropriate mood and the effect of rain clouds (in minds that speak the English language at least). And certain colours of the Earth, which painters show us are not black at all, etcetera. And for each of these, while the concept “blackness” is evoked, so are a large number of other concepts which share nothing ese in common. “Blackness” just happens to be the common factor among the examples I have chosen. The human brain does not mis a thing. It is capable of giving and receiving the subtlest input—from imagining a Universe in which time bends, to creating the polyphonic texture of a fugue, or transmitting and receiving a message from God Himself—feats no computer will ever accomplish. We can nor form a tentative notion of how perceptions get organized into concepts. Concepts can carrying feeling as well as cognitive components. We now take two more steps in imagination. One is to imagine how movement, and hence action (and hence “drives” and “motivation” and other such) can be built in at this level of the most elementary detail of our cerebral organizations. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The other takes us into a deeper understanding of concept-formation: on the one hand a concept is built up from component perceptions, on the other hand the components get their meaning from the concept to which they contribute—they make a Gestalt (something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts). Muscle-movements and other perceptions (for example the perception of angles) activate one another, round and round, and back and forth, until the concept (triangle) joins the chase. In effect, achieving the concept “triangle”—achieving any concept, making sense of anything—involves sequences of nerve-cells such that sensory input and motor input are mutually stimulating. By the time the simplest concept has been established, movement and behaviour are already built in. Motor behaviour is involved from the state, and so is perceptions. The dizzying potential of the human mind reaches its apex in the possibility of possessing the mind of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit—a possibility affirmed by Paul when he said, “But we have the mind of Christ”—a mind which is constantly renewed reports 1 Corinthians 2.16 and Romans 12.2. No computer will ever be able to think God’s thoughts, not will any device ever be able to know the heart of God or do His works. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

However, they mystery which resides between our ears has this capacity to know the heart of God and do His works. Indeed, it was created for this—to have the mind of Christ. Everything that has to do with inner life: concepts, symbols, internal objects, relationships—when one aspect of something stands for the whole, the whole may be activated although the person registers only the one aspect. A phobia would be an unpleasant example of this. Goodness knows what a spider “stands for” for different people. Even the simplest meanings have to be learned. The recognition of a triangle as a triangle is an achievement. It means that percepts have acquired a new meaning, have contributed to concepts. We tend to take our ability to do this for granted. However, it is important to realize that people are born blind take a long time to learn to recognize even the simple shapes if they have the good fortune to be given their sight in more mature years. Investigators are unanimous in reporting that the perception of a square, circle or triangle, or of sphere or cube, is very poor. To see one of these as a whole object, with distinctive characteristics immediately evident, is not possible for a long period. The most intelligent and best-motivated patient has to seek corners painstakingly even to distinguish a triangle from a circle. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The newly seeing patient can frequently find a difference between two such figures shown together, but the differences are not remembered. There is for weeks a practically zero capacity to learn names for such figures, even when tactual recognition is prompt and complete. It also takes time to learn to generalize as sighted people do. When the patient first gets to the point of being able to name a simple object promptly, recognition is completely destroyed if the object is slightly changed or put into a new setting. The patient who had learned to name a ring showed no recognition of a slightly different ring; having learned to name a square made of white cardboard, could not name it when its colour was changed to yellow by turning the cardboard over; and so on. These reports consistently indicate that the perceived whole at first vision is simultaneously unified and amorphous. There is not a single instance given in which the congenitally blind after operation had trouble in learning colour names; but a great number in which perception of identity in a simple figure was poor indeed. This may be hard for a sighted person to imagine, but many of us do still have to count the corners to tell an octagon from a hexagon, and many of us remember how hard it was to learn to read music. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

It is curiously difficult to recapture pre-conceptual innocence. Having learned a new language, it is almost impossible to recall the undifferentiated flow of voiced sounds that one heard before one learned to sort the flow into words and phrases. Having mastered the distinction between odd and even numbers, it is a feat to remember what it was like in a mental World where there was no such distinction. It is as if the mastery of a conceptual distinction were able to mask the pre-conceptual memory of the things now distinguished. Moreover, the transition experienced between “not having” the distinction and “having it” seems to be without experiential content. Concept attainment seems almost an intrinsically unanalyzable process from an experiential point of view. Now I understand the distinction; before there was nothing, and in between there was only a moment of illumination. I think this is a point worth making much of, when writing for people whose main interest has been therapeutic psychodynamic theory. It illuminates the danger of assuming, from the therapists’ or from the patients’ memories, that we “always had” some of our subjective experiences—that we “always had,” for instance, envy or a primitive ego, or whatever feels basic. I am presenting an alternative point of view, in which each of these experiences is an achievement. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

When we think about the meticulous learning of the newly sighted, take heed. We are not used to thinking of simple perceptions as slowly and painfully learned. The meticulous learning, and the frequent instances of failure to learn at all in periods as long as a year following the operations, would seem extraordinary and incredible had they not been confirmed by evidence such as that provided by animal psychologists. For instance, chimpanzees, some of which were reared in total darkness, were highly motivated by hunger and by loneliness, poor apes, to cling to their attendant when—still in the dark—they were made to leave their familiar cages. Yet when they were finally brought into the light, there was no sign that either hunger or the desire to cling could teach them, in 40 or 50 hours of visual experience, to recognize their white-clad attendant as more important than any other feature of their environment. Astonishing at it may seem, the chimpanzees appeared not to be able to see, or not to be able to use what they saw. They could not conceptualize. Another experiment (equally unjustifiable in my view) showed that even a dozen bad experiences did not help them avoid a large and easily visible object which gave them electric shocks when they touched it. Yet normally reared animals would go nowhere near it after one shock. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

This shows that meticulousness in learning new things is due to the very complexity of which primate thinking is in fact capable. It is the more primitive animals who catch on fast, if they catch on at all; less primitive animals are far more capable of conceptual learning, but it comes later in development. The cosmic potential of the believer’s mind introduces the great scandal of today’s Church: Christians without Christian minds, Christians who do not think Christianly—a tragic fact which is far more true of professing Christian men than women, as we shall see. Some prophetic voices have been sounding the alarm for some time now, like that of former United Nations Secretary General Charles Malik, who told the distinguished audience at the dedication of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College: “Believe me, my friends, the mind today is in profound trouble, perhaps more than ever before. How to order the mind on sound Christian principles, at the heart of where it is formed and informed, is one of the greatest themes that can be considered.” The Christian mind—while many Christians may worship and pray as Christians, they do not think as Christians. Church is just becoming a fashion show and a car show, for people to show off how well they are doing and gossip about and plot against their neighbours. It has also become a secondary dating application, where people go to look for love. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

The Christian minds has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and neverlessness unmatched in Christian history. Elsewhere our generation is suffering from religious anorexia (anorexia religiosa), a loss of appetite for growth in Christ. The bottom line is: this grievous scandal comes from a declining willingness to properly program the amazing instruments God has given us. Christians leave their twelve billion cells unguarded and unthinking—and undisciplined. When we turn to God’s Word, we are aware that the Biblical writers understood the problem in a less technical, though more personally beneficial, way. “Above all else, guard your heart,” reports Proverbs, “for it is the wellspring of life,” Proverbs 4.23. “For as one thinks within oneself, so one is,” reports Proverbs 23.7. The Scriptures tell us rightly that input determines output—that our programming determines production. If, however, a thing is called mutable by a power in itself, thus also in some manner every creature is mutable. For every creature has a twofold power, active and passive; and I call that power passive which enables anything to attain its perfection either in being, or in attaining to its end. Now if the mutability of a thing be considered according to is power for being, in that way all creatures are not mutable, but those only in which what is potential in then is consistent with non-being. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Hence, in the inferior bodies there is mutability both as regards substantial being, inasmuch as their matter can exist with privation of their substantial form, and also as regards their accidental being, suppose the subject to coexist with privation of accident; as, for example, this subject “man” can exist with “not-whiteness” and can therefore be changed from white to not-white. However, supposing the accident to be such as to follow on the essential principles of the subject, then the privation of such an accident cannot coexist with the subject. Hence the subject cannot be changed as regards that kind of accident; as, for example, snow cannot be made black. Now in the celestial bodies matter is not consistent with privation of form, because the form perfects the whole potentiality of the matter; therefore these bodies are not mutable as to substantial being, but only as to locality, because the subject is consistent with privation of this or that place. On the other hand incorporeal substances, being subsistent forms which, although with respect to their own existence are as potentiality to act, are not consistent with the privation of this act; forasmuch as existence is consequent upon form, and nothing corrupts except it lose its form. Hence in the form itself there is no power to non-existence; and so these kinds of substances are immutable and invariable as regards their existence. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

Wherefore Dionysius says (Div. Nom. Iv) that “intellectual created substances are pure from generation and from every variation, as also are incorporeal and immaterial substances.” Still, there remains in them a twofold mutability: one as regards their potentiality to their end; and in that way there is in them a mutability according to choice from good to evil, as Damascene says (De Fide ii, 3,4); the other as regards place, inasmuch as by their finite power they attain to certain fresh places—which cannot be said of God, who by His infinity fills all places, as was shown above. Thus in every creature there is a potentiality to change either as regards substantial being as in the case of things corruptible; or as regards locality only, as in the case of the celestial bodies; or as regards the order to their end, and the application of their powers to divers objects, as in the case with the Angels; and universally all creatures generally are mutable by the power of the Creator, in Whose power is their existence and non-existence. Hence since God is none of these ways mutable, it belongs to Hum alone to be altogether immutable. Paul said the love of Christ compels us to make a commitment to be good Christians and to carry it out day by day. Compel is a strong word and often has a negative association with force or coercion. However, here is has a beneficial meaning. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

The love of Christ coerces, or presses, and therefore impels. It is the governing influence which controls the life. It is no a fear of consequences or expectation of reward that motivates Paul. Rather, the love of Christ is manifested in dying for him is the driving force of his life. “For the love of Christ continuously constrains me,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.14. Note the use of the word continuously, indicating that Christ’s love is the constant wellspring of Paul’s motivation every day. Paul never lost sight of, never forgo, never took for granted the death of Christ for him. And as he reflected on this infinite love manifested in Christ’s death, he was motivated, no, he was compelled and impelled to live for the One who died for him and rose again. The good Angles, besides their natural endowment of immutability of being, have also immutability of election by divine power; nevertheless there remains in them mutability as regards to place. Forms are called invariable, forasmuch as they cannot be subjects of variation; but they are subject to variation because by them their subject is variable. Hence it is clear that they vary in so far as they are; for they are not called beings as though they were the subject of being, but because through them something has being. Sometimes when I talk about living by grace instead of by works, I see people begin to get nervous. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Some have warned me against “going too far,” by telling me stories of people who, after hearing a message on God’s grace, have committed some grossly sinful act. I grant the possibility that grace can be misunderstood. However, I believe that, in most instances where people apparently abuse grace, they have not heard a message on grace but on freedom from the law. Freedom from the law is a result of grace and is an important application of truth of grace, but it is not the same as grace. To teach freedom from the law without first teaching grace is like trying to build a house without laying the foundation. That approach can indeed lead to abuse. However, when a person truly understands the grace of God in Christ, he or she will not abuse that grace. Judge did speak of “Godless people, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 4). Obviously, Jude was referring to unbelievers—people who are “Godless” and who “deny Jesus Christ”—so that passage is not applicable to Christians. “And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the World shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of humans,” reports Moroni 10.19. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Each member of the community gives oneself to it, at the moment of its foundation, just as one is, with all the resources at one’s command, including the goods one possesses. This act does not make possession, in changing hands, change in its nature, and become property in the hands of the Sovereign; but, as the forces of the city are incomparably greater than those of the individual, public possession is also, in fact, stronger and more irrevocable, without being any more legitimate, at any rate from the point of view of foreigners. For the State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights; but, in relation to other powers, it is so only by the right of the first occupier, which it holds from its members. The right of the first occupier, though more real than the right of the strongest, becomes a real right only when the right of property has already been established. Every human has naturally a right to everything one needs; but the absolute act which makes one proprietor of one thing excludes one from everything else. Having one’s share, one ought to keep to it, and can have no further right against the community. This is why the right of the first occupier, which in the state of nature is so weak, claims the respect of every being in civil society. In this right we are respecting not so much what belongs to another as what does not belong to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

In general, to establish the right of the first occupier over a plot of ground, the following conditions are necessary: first, the land must not yet be inhabited; secondly, a human must occupy only the amount one needs for one’s subsistence; and, in the third place, possession must be taken, not by an empty ceremony, but by labour and cultivation, the only sign of proprietorship that should be respected by others, in default of a legal title. In granting the right of first occupancy to necessity and labour, are we not really stretching it as far as it can go? Is it possible to leave such a right unlimited? It is to be enough to set foot on a plot of common ground, in order to be able to call yourself at once the master of it? Is it to be enough that a human has the strength to expel others for a moment, in order to establish one’s right to prevent them from ever returning? How can a human or a people seize an immense territory and keep it from the rest of the World expect by a punishable usurpation, since all others are being robbed, by such an act, of the place of habitation and the means of subsistence which nature gave them in common? When Nunez Balbao, standing on the sea-shore, took possession of the South Seas and the whole of South America in the name of the crown of Castille, was that enough to dispossess all their actual inhabitants, and to shut out from them all the princes of the World? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

On such a showing, these ceremonies are idly multiplied, and the Catholic King need only take possession all at once, from his apartment, of the whole Universe, merely making a subsequent reservation about what was already in the possession of other princes. We can imagine how the lands of individuals, where they were contiguous and came to be united, became the public territory, and how the right of Sovereignty, extending from the subjects over the lands they held, became at once real and personal. The possessors were thus made more dependent, and the forces at their command used to guarantee their fidelity. The advantage of this does not seem to have been felt by ancient monarchs, who called themselves King of the Persians, Scythians, or Macedonians, present day more cleverly call themselves King of France, Spain, England, etcetera: thus holding the land, they are quite confident of holding the inhabitants. The peculiar fact about this alienation is that, in taking over the goods of individuals, the community, so far from despoiling them, only assures them legitimate possession, and changes usurpation into a true right and enjoyment into proprietorship. The very essence of leadership is that you have a vision. You cannot blow an uncertain trumpet. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Thus the possessors, being regarded as depositaries of the public good, and having their rights respected by all the members of the State and maintained against foreign aggression by all its forces, have, by a cession which benefits both the public and still more themselves, acquired, so to speak, all that they gave up. This paradox may easily be explained by the distinction between the rights which the Sovereign and the proprietor have over the same estate, as well shall see later on. It may also happen that people begin to unite one with another before they possess anything, and that, subsequently occupying a tract of country which is enough for all, they enjoy it in common, or share it out among themselves, either equally or according to a scale fixed by the Sovereign. However the acquisition be made, the right which each individual has to one’s own estate is always subordinate to the right which the community has over all: without this, there would be neither stability in the social tie, nor real force in the exercise of Sovereignty. The whole social system should rest: for instance that, instead of destroying natural inequality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between people, an equality that is moral and legitimate, and that people, who may be unequal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Dispose our days in Thy peace, and command us to be rescued from eternal condemnation, and numbered in the flock of Thine elect. “Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity,” reports Moroni 10.20. O Christ, the Word of the Most High Father, Who wast made Flesh to dwell among us, enter into our hearts, that all we who have been redeemed by the mystery of Thine Incarnation, may remain united in the fellowship of perpetual peace. Lord God Almighty, I ask not to be enrolled amongst the Earthly great rich, but to be numbered with the spiritually blessed. Make it my present, supreme, persevering concern to obtain those blessings which are spiritual in their nature, eternal in their continuance, satisfying in their possession. Preserve me from a false estimate of the whole or a part of my character; may I pay regard to my principles as well as my conduct, my motives as well as my actions. Help me never to mistake the excitement of my passions for the renewing of the Holy Spirit, never to judge my religion by occasional impressions and impulses, but by my constant and prevailing disposition. May my heart be right with thee, and my life as becometh the gospel. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

May I maintain a supreme regard to another and better World, and feel and confess myself a stranger and a pilgrim here. Afford me all the direction, defense, support, and consolation my journey hence requires, and grant me a mind stayed upon thee. Give me large abundance of the supply of the Spirit of Jesus, that I maybe prepared for every duty, love thee in all my mercies, submit to thee in every trial, trust thee when walking in darkness, have peace in thee amidst life’s changes. Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief and uncertainties. Every minute taken from the time of an illumined worker is selfishly taken from many other persons who may be in much greater need of it. It is a mistake to equate the time-measure of such a being with the average one by requesting “just a few minutes” for that is really equal to an entire day robbed from one’s time work, for which one was born and to which one ought to remain loyal and fully committed. Of course I do not refer here to those illuminati whose work is expressly done through personal contact with individuals or groups face-to-face, but to those who labour in studies, study-rooms, or benevolent prayer. If anyone really and truly admires them, or is grateful to them, and wishes to give from one’s feeling, to the fact known, one will do better by writing a letter needing no physical plane answer and not by obstructing their work. #Randolphharris 20 of 20

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Happiness Makes Up in Height for What it Lack in Length!

February 21, 2020 2:05 am

If a leader has a special gift, it is the ability to sense the purpose in others. So truly inspirational leadership is not really selling people some science fiction future. Rather, it is showing people how the vision can directly benefit them, how their specific needs can be satisfied. It is like holding up a mirror and reflecting back to them what they said that they most desire. When they see the reflection, they recognize it and are immediately attracted to it. I suppose people have to reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for one’s maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence. However, as humans cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to being into play by means of single motive power, and cause to act in concert. This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each person are the chief instruments of one’s self-preservation, how can one pledge them without harming one’s own interests, and neglecting the care one owes to oneself? #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms—the problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting oneself with all, may still obey oneself alone, and remain as free as before. This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution. The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognized, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains one’s original rights and resumes one’s natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which one renounced it. These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all one’s rights, to the whole community, for in the first place, as each gives oneself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point one’s own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical. Finally, each human, in giving oneself to all, gives oneself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom one does not acquire the same right as one yields others over oneself, one gains an equivalent for everything one loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what one has. If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms—each of us puts one’s person and all one’s power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole. At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

This public person, so formed by the union of all other person, formerly took the name of city, and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by members State when passive, Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. However, these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision. This formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contact, as we may say, with oneself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign one is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. However, the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to oneself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you form a part. Attention must further be called to the fact that public deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign, because of the two different capacities in which each of them may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently against the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot infringe. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Being able to regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position of an individual who makes a contract with oneself; and this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people—not even the social contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic cannot enter into undertakings with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them; for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an individual. However, the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contact, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogator to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create nothing. As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend again one of the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help; and the same people should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity. Again, the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

We shall also see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular. The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be. This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that they would fulfill their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity. In fact, each individual, as a human, may have a particular interest may speak to one quite differently from the common interest: one’s absolute and naturally independent existence may make one look upon what one owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome to oneself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes the State as a persona ficta, because not a person, one may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfill the duties of a subject. The continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic. In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that one will be forced to be free for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to one’s country, secures one against all personal dependence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

In this is possessed the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimizes civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses. So much, then, for a sketch of insights into the problem of aggression in human life. As I said, insights like these seemed to me to cover the problem, yet something vital was always left unsaid. It was not until I confronted the work of Rank, and then Brown, that the gap could be filled. Now I think the matter can be pushed to a comprehensive conclusion, that we have a general theory of human evil. Evil is caused by all the things we have outlined, plus the one thing they have left out, the driving impetus that underlies them all: human’s hunger for righteous self-expansion and perpetuation. No wonder it has taken us so long to pull all the fragmentary insights together, to join the views of both sides on the nature of humans. The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we could no make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from human’s urge to heroic victory over evil. The evil the troubles humans most is one’s vulnerability; one seems impotent to guarantee the absolute meaning of one’s life, its significance in the cosmos. One assures a plenitude of evil, then, by trying to make closure on one’s cosmic heroism in this life and this World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

All intolerable sufferings of humankind result from human’s attempt to make the whole World of nature reflect one’s reality, one’s heroic victory; one thus tries to achieve a perfection on Earth, a visible testimonial to one’s cosmic importance; but this testimonial can only be given conclusively by the beyond, by the source of creation itself which alone knows human’s value because it knows one’s task, the meaning of one’s life; humans have confused two spheres, the visible and whatever is beyond, and this blindness has permitted them to undertake the impossible—to extent the values of one’s limited visible sphere over all the rest of creation, whatever forms it may take. The tragic evils of history, then, are a commensurate result of a blindness and impossibility of such magnitude. Humans are a robustly active creature; activity alone keeps them from going crazy. If one bogs down and begins to dwell on one’s situation, one risks releasing the neurotic fear repressed into one’s unconscious—that one is really important and will have no effect on the World. So one frantically drives oneself to see one’s effects, to convince oneself and others that one really counts. This alone is enough to cause evil all by itself: an energetic organism with personal anxieties about one’s powers. Where is human energy directed if not at objects—human objects most of the time? #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

In other words, humans must take out one’s personal problems on a transference object in one way or another; as psychiatrists not put it, human’s whole life is a series of “games” enmeshing oneself with others, reflexively and drivenly for the most part, and according to some scenario of power. As long as we are not assured of immortality, we shall never be fulfilled, we shall go on hating each other in spite of our need for mutual love. The most general statement we could make is that at the very least each person “appropriates” the other in some way so as to perpetuate oneself. In this sense, “styles of life,” are styles of appropriation of other to secure one’s righteous self-perpetuation. We might say that there is a natural and built-in evil in social life because all interaction is mutual appropriation. We saw a direct example of this in the relation of the leader to the group. Gurus feed on disciples while the disciples are incorporating them; social life seems at times like a science-fiction horror story, with everyone mutually gobbling each other like human pigs. We often do not make the gospel good enough. We preach grace to the non-Christian and duty to the Christian. It sometimes seems that there is plenty of grace for if you are not a Christian, but when you become a Christian then there are all sorts of laws you must obey and you feel like you were better off before you were converted. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Even our terminology betrays the way we dichotomize the Christian life into “grace” and “works” compartments. We speak of the gift of salvation and the cost of discipleship. The “cost of discipleship” is not necessarily an unbiblical expression, but the connotation we build into it is. We often convey the idea that God’s grace barely gets us inside the door of the Kingdom, and after that, it is all our own blood, sweat, and tears. How did the apostle Paul approach the subject of commitment and discipline? Let us look again at Romans 12.1. Paul’s letter to the Romans is the foundation for the Bible’s teaching on salvation. In that letter the teaching of justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone is set forth most cogently and completely. However, Paul wrote the letter to people who were already believers. He referred to them as those who are loved by God and called to be saints. He thanked God that their “faith is being reported all over the World,” and longed that they and he “may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith,” reports Romans 1.7-8,12. Clearly he was writing to believers. Paul wrote this letter to help them understand more fully the salvation they already possessed. He spent eleven chapters going through the gospel, showing that salvation is entirely by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ and then dealing with various questions his teaching on the grace of God would rise. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

Not until Paul had spent eleven chapters teaching the gospel of the grace of God to people who were already believers did he ask for a response from them: a total commitment of themselves to God. He urged them, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” reports Romans 12.1. What it means to offer your bodies is to make a decisive dedication of your bodies. The phrase living sacrifices, though, connotes the idea of a perpetual sacrifice never to be neglected or recalled and a constant dedication. So Paul called for a decisive, once for all dedication that is to be constantly reaffirmed and kindled afresh. You cannot ask for any higher level of commitment than that. What consideration did Paul bring forward as the basis or motivation for making such a total commitment? He did not appeal to a sense of duty but to the mercy of God (in view of God’s mercy”). He asked for a response based not on obligation but on heartfelt gratitude. Now, the fact is we do have a duty and obligation to God. He is the Sovereign Ruler of this World, and in that capacity, He has “laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed,” reports Psalm 119.4. However, He motivates us to obedience, not on the basis of His sovereign rule, but on the basis of His mercy to us in Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

A lawdriver insists with threats and penalties; a preacher of grace lures and incites with divine goodness and compassion shown to us; for one wants no unwilling works and reluctant services, one wants joyful and delightful services of God. I was asked to speak on the “Lordship of Jesus Christ” at a conference. I knew the intended objective was to challenge the audience to submit to Christ’s lordship in the affairs of their everyday lives. However, I began the message by speaking on God’s goodness. After I had spent fifteen or twenty minutes on the goodness of God, then I began to talk about the lordship of Christ in our lives. Why did I develop the message in that fashion? Because submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ should be in response to the love and mercy of God. In view of God’s mercy, Paul argues the Roman believers to offer their bodies as living sacrifices. We must respond with a similar motivation to His lordship in our lives today. Our motivation for commitment, discipline, and obedience is as important to God, perhaps even more so, than our performance. The Law’s demands are inward, touching motive and desire, and are not concerned solely with outward action. David said to Solomon, “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understand every motive behind the thoughts,” reports 1 Chronicles 28.9. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

God will expose the motives of human’s hearts. God searches the heart and understand every motive. To be acceptable to Him, our motives must spring from a love for Him and a desire to glorify Him. Obedience to God is performed from a legalistic motive—that is, a fear of the consequences or to gain favour with God—is not pleasing to God. To constitute a work truly good, it must be done from a right principle, performed by a right rile, and intended for a right end. A right principle is the love of God, that is, our love for God. The right rule is God’s revealed will as contained in Scripture. The right end—or as we would say today, the right goal—is the glory of God. Thus, our good works are not truly good unless they are motivated by a love for God and a desire to glorify Him. However, we cannot have such a God-ward motivation if we think we must earn God’s favour by our obedience, or if we fear we may forfeit God’s favour by our disobedience. Such a works-oriented motivation is essentially self-serving; it is prompted more by what we think we can gain or lose from God than by a grateful response to he grace He has already given us through Jesus Christ. Living under the grace of God instead of under a sense of duty frees us from such a self-serving motivation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

Living under the grace of God also frees us to obey God and serve Him as a loving and thankful response to Him for our salvation and for blessings already guaranteed to us by His grace. Consequently, a heartfelt grasp of God’s grace—far from creating an indifferent or careless attitude in us—will actually provide us the only motivation that is pleasing to Him. Only when we are thoroughly convinced that the Christian life is entirely of grace are we able to serve Him out of a grateful and loving heart. When we think of the Scriptural command to practice hospitality, we reflexively imagine a feminine mandate—“This is something my wife should excel at, or my mother, or my daughter. Women, hear God’s Word!” And they do, much to their souls’ benefit. However, the command is for both genders. Men, you ought to take the initiative in practicing hospitality (see 1 Peter 4.9), whether you are single or married. If you do, you will not only begin to build friendships, but may even host some “Angels without knowing it,” reports Hebrews 13.2. If we are to be all God wants us to be, we must set ourselves against the cultural consensus and pursue and practice friendship. We need to put some holy sweat into our relationships, resist the lure of our architecture with its moats, drawbridges, and descending doors, and overcome the technology of autonomy—the isolating lure of our televisions and smartphones. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Most of all, we must overcome our privatized hearts—for Christianity is a relationship with God and His people. God’s truth is most effectively learned and lived in relationships. Friendships hold the promise of grace! List those whom you consider good or close friends. After each name, tell why you see that person as a friend. Then summarize what you are looking for in friends and why you value such relationships. O eternal Son, Who abides for ever, Consubstantial with the Father, equal to Him as enthroned and as Creator; Thou, without being changed, didst assume our flesh, and being made Man, like unto us in all but sin, wast made our Mediator with the Father. Thou hast broken down the partition wall, and hast reconciled the Earthly with the Heavenly, and made of twain one, by Thine Incarnation. Thou sadist to Thy holy Apostles and disciples, “My peace I give unto you;” grant us now that peace, O Lord. “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things,” reports Moroni 9.4-5. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

Glorious God, I bless thee that I know thee, I once lived in the World, but was ignorant of its creator, was partaker of thy providences, but knew not the provider, was blind while enjoying the Sunlight, was deaf to all things spiritual, with voices all around me, understood many things, but had no knowledge of thy ways, saw the World, but did not see Jesus only. O happy day, when in Thy love’s sovereignty Thou didst look on me, and call me by grace. Then did the dead heart begin to beat, the darkened eye glimmer with light, the dull ear catch Thy echo, and I turned to thee and found thee, a God ready to hear, willing to save. Then did I find my heart at enmity to thee, vexing Thy Spirit; then did I fall at Thy feet and hear Thee thunder, “The soul that sinneth, it must die,” but when grace made me to know Thee, and admire a God who hated sin, Thy terrible justice held my will submissive. My thoughts were then as knives cutting my head. Then didst Thou come to me in silken robes of love, and I saw Thy Son dying that I might live, and in that death I found my all. My soul doth sing at the remembrance of that peace; the gospel cornet brought a sound unknown to me before that reached my heart—and I lived—never to lose my hold on Christ or His hold on me. Grant that I may always weep to the praise of mercy found, and tell to others as long as I live, that Thou art a sin-pardoning God, taking up the blasphemer and the ungodly, and washing them from their deepest stain. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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Upon Some Mountain-Top Until I Feel a Glowing Splendour Round About Me Hung!

February 18, 2020 12:54 am

What you do speaks so loudly, they cannot hear what you say. Example is a powerful teacher! If as inspirational leaders we are dedicated to helping others grow through their works, then we must strive to model the values, attitudes and actions that we wish to see in those we lead. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems which divide us. Dr. Freud postulates two basic feelings, Lust and Unlust—pleasure and distress—mirror images of each other. This seems to reflect something in our common thinking. Neurophysioogically, however, they belong to very different bodily systems. Although in our culture we think of them as opposites, both systems can contribute simultaneously to our experience, and indeed, often do. Both systems are very complex and wide-branching, so there need be no difficulty in imagining that these experiences, of pleasure and of pain, can also be connected with other experiences, and organized together, just as “black” and “stripes” are organized in purely visual material. Some messages register as “pain”. There is general agreement that there are nerve endings which generate the messages which are ultimately interpreted as pain. These sensory nerve endings are found in the skin, in the sheath surrounding muscles, in the internal organs, and in the membrane surrounding bones. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Just about any kind of manipulation that causes tissue damage will cause pain, and thus most investigator believe that pain receptors are chemically stimulated by substances liberated by damages tissues. The experience of pain is like our experience of “orange” or “bitter” or other information brought in by the senses, in that there are various specialized sensory nerve-endings which can be activated and which in due course produce the experience of “pain”. There are different kinds of pain, with different kinds of nerve-endings concerned with each. There are chemical substances, drugs, which can alter the way messages register because a cell’s receptivity can be affected by chemical substances in the bloodstream—in effect such drugs relieve the perception of pain or change our perception of how unbearable it is. There is also evidence now that the body can itself produce morphine-like substances (a narcotic, psychoactive compound with sleep-inducing properties, which will relieve pain) to regulate the registration of pain—endorphins. Some messages register as “pleasure”. The experience of pleasure seems much more diffuse than the experience of pain, and does not depend on sensory nerve-endings as pain does. On the other hand, distinct areas of the brain are again concerned. Experiments with animals have made it clear that there is an area in the medial forebrain, which can be called a “pleasure-centre”. If stimulated electrically, it produces an effect which the animal seeks to repeat. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Birds were trained to press two levers—one delivered rewarding electrical brain stimulation (ESB), the other one produced food pellets. The animals were allowed to press the levers for only one hour each day, and some of them spent so much time at the bar that delivered ESB that they starved to death. When food and ESB are continuously available, however, birds will alternately eat, press the lever for ESB, and sleep; they will not remain at the lever for ESB to the exclusion of other activities. What excites a pleasure-centre in normal circumstances (that is not because of an electrode implanted in the brain by an experimenter) is not yet clear. However, neural messages must be involved, and that must mean that the experience of pleasure is available to be organized with other experiences, just as a sound is, or a touch or a smell or a pain. There is evidence suggesting that when the pleasure-centre is stimulated, this tends to arouse the biological drives, so that animals who have access to increased pleasure-stimulation also explore more, eat more, drink more, copulate more. Pleasure is thus a general arouser of activity—an anti-depressant! After suffering a tragedy, people who have watched comedy shows like 2 Broke Girls, reported laughing so much that it helped hasten their recovery from the event. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Aggression and fear can also be produced in the laboratory. In one study cats could be induced to attack a target or flee from a cage in response to electrical stimulation of the brain. Various hormone-like chemicals, some linked to pleasures of the flesh, increase or decrease the amount of aggression or fear which might otherwise be produced or experiences by a person. For our purpose we do not need to understand the details. We need only to notice that just as information is available to the nervous systems about where our limbs are or our head, so there is information available about the amount o pain or pain-inhibition, or aggression, or fear, or pleasure, or pleasures of the flesh stimulus, floating in our bloodstream, contracting a muscle, or distending a vessel. In the manifest picture of neuroses guilt feelings seem to play a paramount role. In some neuroses these feelings are expressed openly and abundantly; in others they are more disguised but their presence is suggested by behaviour, attitudes and ways of thinking and reacting. A neurotic person is often inclined to account for one’s sufferings by feeling that one does not deserve any better. This feeling may be quite vague and indefinite, or it may be attached to thoughts or activities which are socially tabooed, such as masturbation, incest wishes, death wishes towards relatives. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Such a person who has manifested deviant thoughts usually tends to feel guilty at the slightest occasion. If someone asks to see one one’s first reaction is to expect recrimination for something one has done. If friends do not come or write for some time one asks oneself whether one has offended them. If anything goes wrong one assumes that it is was one’s fault. Even if others are blatantly in the wrong, have definitely mistreated one, one still manages to blame oneself for it. If there is any collision of interests or any argument one is inclined to assume blindly that the others are right. There is but a fluctuating distinction between these latent guilt feelings, waiting to creep up on any occasion, and what has been interpreted as unconscious guilt feelings, evident in depressive conditions. The latter take the form of self-accusations that are often fantastic or at least grossly exaggerated. Also the neurotic’s everlasting efforts to appear justified in one’s own and in others’ eyes, particularly when the enormous strategical value of such efforts is not clearly recognized, suggest the existence of free-floating guilt feelings which have to be kept in abeyance. The existence of diffuse guilt feelings is suggested further by the neurotic’s haunting fear of being found out or of being disapproved of. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

In one’s discussion with the analyst one may act as if the relationship were that between a criminal and judge, thus making it very difficult for one to be co-operative in the analysis. Every interpretation that is given to the individual one will take as a reproach. If the analyst has shown one, for example, that there is a lurking anxiety behind a certain defensive attitude, one will answer, “I knew that I was a coward.” If the analyst explains that one has not dared to approach people for fear of being rejected, one will take blame on one’s shoulders for having thus, as one interprets it, tried to make life easy for oneself. The compulsive striving for perfection develops to a large extent out of this need to avoid any disapproval. Finally, a neurotic person may feel definitely more at ease, even lost certain of one’s neurotic symptoms, if an adverse event occurs, such as losing a fortune or incurring an accident. Observation of this reaction, and also the fact that sometimes one seems to arrange or provoke adverse happenings, if only inadvertently, may lead to an assumption that the neurotic person has guilt feelings so strong that one develops a need for punishment in order to get rid of them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Thus there seems to be a great deal of evidence not only for the existence of particularly keen guilt feelings in a neurotic person but also for the power they exert on one’s personality. However, in spite of this apparent evidence it must be questioned whether the conscious guilt feelings of the neurotic person are really genuine and whether symptomatic attitudes suggestive of unconscious guilt feelings do not allow another interpretation. There are several factors which give rise to such doubts. Guilt feelings, like inferiority feelings, are not at all unwelcome; the neurotic person is far from eager to get rid of them. In fact one insists on one’s guilt and vigourously resists every attempted to exonerate one. This attitude alone would suffice to indicate that behind one’s insistences on feeling guilty there must, as in inferiority feelings, be a tendency which has an important function. And another factor should be kept in mind. It is painful to feel honestly regretful or ashamed of something, and more painful still to express the feeling to someone else; in fact a neurotic person, even more than others, will refrain from doing so, because of one’s fear of disapproval. What we have called guilt feelings, however, one expresses very readily. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Furthermore, the self-recriminations which are so frequently interpreted as indicating underlying guilt feelings in the neurotic are characterized by distinctly irrational elements. Not only in one’s specific self-accusations, but also in one’s diffuse feelings of not deserving any kindliness, praise, success, one is likely to go to any extreme or irrationality, from gross exaggerations to sheer phantasy. Another factor suggesting that self-recriminations are not necessarily the expression of genuine guilt feelings is the fact that unconsciously the neurotic oneself is not at all convinced of one’s unworthiness. Even when one seems to be submerged in guilt feelings, one may become very resentful if others show a tendency to takes one’s recriminations seriously. A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty, and the improbable does not exist for it. Inclined as it itself is to all extremes, a group can only be excited by an excessive stimulus. Anyone who wishes to produce an effect upon it needs no logical adjustment in one’s arguments; one must paint in the most forcible colours, one must exaggerate, and one must repeat the same thing again and again. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness. It wants to be ruled and oppressed, and to fear its masters. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

And, finally, groups have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two. A group is an obedient herd, which could never live without a master. It has such a thirst for obedience that it submits instinctively to anyone who appoints oneself as its masters. However, for some, these views seems not only heretical but highly dangerous: that the human organism is, at its deepest level, trustworthy; that human’s basic nature is not something to be feared, but to be released in responsible self-expression; that small groups (in therapy or in classrooms) can responsibly and sensitively build constructive interpersonal relationships and choose wise individual and group goals; that all of the foregoing will be achieved if a facilitative person assists by creating a climate of realness, understanding an caring. Yet, if there is no one told control an individual’s innately destructive core, a dangerous psychopath may be produced. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.14-15. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Living by grace instead of by works means you are free from the performance treadmill. It means God has already given you an “A” when you deserve an “F,” He has already given you a full day’s pay even though you may have worked only one hour. It means you do not have to perform certain spiritual disciplines to earn God’s approval. Jesus Christ has already done that for you. You are loved and accepted by God through the merit of Jesus, and you are blessed by God through the merit of Jesus. Nothing you ever do will cause Him to love you any more or any less. He loves your strictly by His grace given to you through Jesus. How does this emphasis on God’s free and sovereign grace make you feel? Does it make you a little nervous? Does it seem a bit scary to hear that nothing you do will ever make God love you any more or bless you any more? Do you think, Well, if you take the pressure off like that and tell me all of my effort will never earn me one blessing, then I am afraid that I will slack off and stop doing the things I need to do to live a disciplined Christian life? The Bible recognizes the possibility that the grace of God can be misunderstood and even abused. It speaks of “Godless people, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality,” reports Jude 4. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Anticipating the question, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Romans 6.1), it warns us not to use our freedom to indulge the sinful nature (Galatians 6.13). All of these passages recognize the possibility that the Bible’s teaching that grace alone is the basis for God’s blessing can be misconstrued as an excuse for indulgent, slothful living. When a giver and a receiver share an expectation about how much sincerity is owed, gestures can be judged as paying less or more than what is owed. Thus, when the receiver of a favour responds less generously than expected, the giver might openly say, “So that is all the thanks I get?” Or one might respond to the thanks in a cold and resentful manner, which indicated that one is rejecting the thanks and considers the other party still in one’s debt. Alternatively, the giver may offer more, as when ne discounts the very need for a thanks by redefining the gift as a voluntary act of pleasure: “Oh on, there is nothing to thank me for. It was a pleasure to read your manuscript.” The sincerity of such a statement, and perhaps the effort needed to sustain it, is a gift in addition to the gift. It is the gift of not seeing the first gift as something to feel grateful for at all because that is just the kind of nice person the giver is. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

How much in the way of displaying sincerity or of working to feel truly sincere (and working, too, at hiding the effort) seems right to us depends on the depth of the bond in question. In trivial exchanges, when no deep bond exists, less debt is passed back and forth, and the range of qualities, actions, and things that are given and received is reduced. In the case of deeper bonds—as between wife and husband, or between lovers, or between best friends—there are many more ways available to repay a debt; emotion work is only one of them. Most of the time, gratitude comes naturally, thoughtlessly, and without effort. Only when it comes hard do we recognize what has been true all along: that we keep a mental ledger with “owed” and “received” columns for gratitude, love, anger, guilt, and other feelings. Normally, we are unaware of this; indeed, the very idea of consciously keeping such a ledger is repellent. Yet moments of “inappropriate feeling” may often be traced to a latent prior notion of what had been felt all along to be owed or owing. Often, feeling rules are unshared. “Poor communication” and misunderstanding sometimes boils down to conflicting notions about what feelings are owed to another. It is psychologically analogous to disagreeing on the exchange rate of dollars to euros. A husband, for example, may latently feel that he is owed more gratitude for sharing housework then his wife gives him and more gratitude than he gives her for doing the same thing. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

In straight exchange, the focus is on making a gesture toward observing a rule, not on the rule itself. In improvisational exchange, the rule itself is called into question or played with. Consider the following exchange, observed at the San Francisco International Airport. Two airline ticket agents are working behind the counter; one is experiences, the other is new on the job. The new agent is faced with a difficult ticket: it needs to be reissued for a different date and at a lower fare, with the extra money already paid to be credited to an air travel card. His experienced compassion and instructor is gone. He struggles with the ticket for ten minutes while a long line of people wait their turn, shifting position restlessly and staring intently at him. When the experienced agent returns, the novice says, “I was looking for you. You are supposed to be my instructor.” The instructor answers ironically, “Gee, I am really sorry, I feel so bad,” and both laugh together. The experienced agent is not sorry that he was not available to help the novice. His apparently misfitting feeling does not put him in debt, however, because the more general feeling rule—“We should both take this seriously”—is poked fun at. His meaning seems to be this: “Do not take it personally that I did not feel guilty or regretful about my late return. Neither of us really wants to be here because it is an awful job, and you understand how I appreciate that ten-minute break.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Irony is composed of just such playing with perspectives—now mine, now yours, now the company’s. It is the jazz of human exchange. As in improvisational music, in order to play with some perspectives, others have to be fundamentally understood and occasionally acknowledged. This is why humour and irony are often reserved for later stages of an acquaintanceship because they acknowledge a deep bond that can be played with. Sometimes improvisational exchanges themselves become crystallized into custom. A graduate student of mine from the Untied Kingdom once gave me two masks with wildly happy eyes and broad smiles. These masks, he explained, where used by European royalty when confronting their parents on specified occasions; holding the smiling masks over their faces, they were fee to voice their complaints at them. The masks paid the emotional respect due to the King and Queen and left the children free to respectfully say what they feel uneasy about. Empowering leaders bring joy, enthusiasm, and optimism to the World of those they touch, every day. Empowering leaders are proactive, inspiring, and willing to take the initiative. Empowering leaders have the ability to both give and get authority and the responsibility necessary to improve performance on every level. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless one transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. However, are we never to have an explanation of the phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will—at most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Suppose for a moment that this so-called “right” exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that maters is to act so as to become the strongest. However, what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word “right” adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing. Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power. Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs. The spirit is never at rest. Bodily changes and movements not manifestly influenced by the external senses—growth, maintenance of body functions, and decay—are explained by the natural powers of the spirit. The material nature of spirit is something like that of a particle, and particles possess powers of giving and receiving, the chief forms of attraction being appetite and consent. All kinds of change, movement, and behaviour must ultimately rely on sense activity or on something analogous to it. The spirit is assigned to sensory function in organic process. In inorganic processes, the lifeless spirit acts as if it has sensory power. In all human behaviour of which people can become conscious, the basic data of experience is undoubtedly supplied by the sense. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

If an individual remains fiercely loyal to another being, their friendship will grow. People make oaths not to harm their friends. Loyalty is indispensable to the survival of friendship. How many once-prosperous friendships have faded because of disloyal talk? I set this down as fact, that is all men knew what each other said of the other, there would not be four friends in the World. You will never know a deep friendship unless there is mutual loyalty and trust. When all the World is plotting against you, a friend will help you find strength in God. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. A friend’s encouragement means more than everything is going to be okay. One will strengthen your hand in God. This undoubtedly involves instruction, prayer, and mutual worship. God will also offer comfort to the downcast so that one’s joy will be greater than ever and this can all be hastened by the golden touch of an encouraging friend. The elements catalogued in a beautiful friendship are—mutuality, love, commitment, loyalty, and encouragement. Repeated mutual commitment began to mark the friendship of remarkable people. There should also be the apex of commitment with the mutual promise to care for one another’s family, should one be taken—“I will take care of yours, and you take care of mine.” Friend bind their lives and their children’s lives to one another, and this creates unexpected heights of devotion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Male friendship has reached Heaven when men make such promises to each other. I treasure a sacred moment when my old childhood friend, married and with family, met my wife and me on vacation in the Colorado mountains and said, after a late-evening meal, “If anything happens to you, Edward, Sarah and I will look out for Katherine and the children.” It was a sacredness I gladly reciprocated. Some men believe that their friendships are more wonderful than the love of men. Some believe that this is because the marriage is not good and monogamous, and is a testimony of the poverty of one’s relationship with one’s wives, an inevitable result of the sin of multiplying wives. However, there is no hint of sensuality here, but simply a celebration of a deep friendship—one’s mutuality of soul, one’s commitment, one’s loyalty, and one’s encouragement—elements one would never know in any other relationship. This is what deep friendships should be. Friendship is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all others. This is certainly what the friendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible does for us. It reveals the beauties that can be ours in a deep male relationship grounded in God and sets the standards for all deep friendships. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Confirm, O Lord, we pray Thee, the hearts of Thy children, and strengthen them with the power of Thy grace; that they may both be devout in prayer to Thee, and sincere in love for each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O, God, Who makest all things profitable to them that love Thee, grant to our heart an invincible power of love, that the desires which have been convinced by Thine inspiration may not be changed by any temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Most dear and precious above all things is chastity and virtue. I recommend thee unto God, and I trust in Christ that thou wilt be saved; and I pray unto God that he will spare thy life, to witness the return of his people unto him.” reports Moroni 9.9 and 22. Dear God, Thou Creator, upholder, proprietor of all things, I cannot escape from thy presence or control, nor do I desire to do so. My privilege is to be under the agency of omnipotence, righteousness, wisdom, patience, mercy, grace. Thou art love with more than parental affection; I admire thy heart, adore thy wisdom, stand in awe of thy power, abase myself before thy purity. It is the discovery of thy goodness alone that can banish fear, allure me into thy presence, help me to bewail and confess my sins. When I review my past guilt and am conscious of my present unworthiness I tremble to come to thee, I whose foundation is in the dust, I who have condemned thy goodness, defied by power, trampled upon thy love, rendered myself worthy of eternal death. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

However, in my recovery cannot spring from any cause in me, I can destroy but cannot save myself. Yet thou has laid help on One that is mighty, for there is mercy with thee, and exceeding riches in thy kindness through Jesus. May I always feel my need of him. Let thy restored joy be my strength; may it keep me from lusting after the World, bear up heart and mind in loss of comforts, enliven me in the valley of death, work in me the image of the Heavenly, and give me to enjoy the first fruits of spirituality, such as Angels and departed saints know. Give strength, O Lord, to those who seek Thee, and continually pour into their souls the holy desire of seeking Thee; that they who long to see Thy face may no crave the World’s pernicious pleasure. Abba, Father, fulfill the office of Thy Name towards Thy servants; do Thou govern, protect, preserve, sanctify, guide, console them; let them be so enkindled with love for Thee, that they may not be despised by Thee, O most merciful Lord, most tender Father! Just as Jesus was in reality greater than the rabbis whose unquestioned authority dominated the people of Israel, so any being today who reflects in all its purity God’s light, unshadowed by one’s personal opinions, is in reality greater than the impressively robed dignitaries of Church and State. Remember that time is money. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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Slaves Lose Everything in their Chains, Even the Desire of Escaping from them!

February 17, 2020 3:17 am

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Our chief want is discovering God, getting to know our soul, and allowing these divine elements to inspire us be greater than we ever knew was possible. How mysterious a baby is, its personality still largely potential, and how helpless. Yet how powerfully it reaches out to us and touches the heart—for sustenance and for the relief of its distresses, but also for recognition. A baby seems to reach out for validation and confirmation that it is already a person. And we respond. We respond and recognize and validate. Fear, pain, loss, and hate may be part of a baby’s everyday experiences. How can it manage such feelings, helpless as it is? It cannot—that is what the adults are for. The fortunate infant has adults whose care goes beyond managing its appetites and distresses. Such a baby will still be subject to misery and terror—we all are—but it will meet them in a context of love and acceptance. Its pains and rages will be surrounded, contained, and modified by memories of joy and bliss, and by expectations of more happiness to come. Indeed, I shall argue that memories of bliss are converted into expectations of bliss, as also, alas, memories of distress turn into expectations of more grief. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Good memories give a baby a better chance of continuing to feel appealing and acceptable in all circumstances, in sorrow as well as joy, when it is bad as well as when it is good. The infant is helpless. It is the adult who mainly provides the context of its experiences. For a context within which the infant can hold on to its experiences and not be devastated by them when they are bad, the infant needs adults who, consciously or unconsciously, understand how the baby feels. Adults who recognize the depths of their baby’s feelings, good and bad, give solidity to that baby’s experience of its. Such recognition helps consolidate the baby’s integrity and sense of self: its identity. Joyous recognition will encourage a joyous identity. I shall be suggesting that there is a strong connection between the way adults see a child, and behave toward it, and the child’s identity (that is the way the child sees itself and feels about itself), and the basic structures of its personality. The very structures of the personality are determined by early experiences. Differences between adults, differences in the nature of our feelings, and in our need for others, and in our relationships with others, have roots in the different ways in which our minds are structured. If the mind is a structure, what is it a structure of? #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

I shall argue that there is more than one good way of being an integrated person with a unique identity, self-image, and personality-structure. For instance, we often tend, in our culture, to think of ourselves as rather like a computer or a BMW M760Li Ultimate Driving Machine, or a calculate something, or take us somewhere. In this phantasy we may include a driver to keep the motor car moving towards our objective, or we may think of our machine as self-starting and self-motivated but, essentially, we assume that there is a point in being what we are an that we should be organized around that point. However, as far as some of us are concerned, our experience of ourselves may be much more like a landscape, a stormy and volcanic one or a quiet one with hills, hedges, meadows, rivers, roads, and settlements—many varied features in specific relationships with one another, and integrated, but not organized in any obvious purposeful way. Our love and recognition of a child may also lean more to one or other of these models. Is the child a BMW M5 Ultimate Driving Machine to us or a landscape? The child’s experience of itself—its self-image and indeed the very structure of its personality—will be affected accordingly (though not necessarily in ways we intend). In all these processes and influences, words are unimportant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

What happens between adult and infant is no primarily conversational or intellectual apprehensions. If we needed words to appreciate a landscape, how poor we would be! And how hard it is to put our appreciation into words. The non-verbal nature of infant experience is similarly hard to apprehend and put into words. This makes it easy to neglect the non-verbal elements from which our personality is built up. In order to carry conviction when writing of our non-verbal life, I have had to lay some solid foundations. In the fascinating area of neurophysiology, we can find the elements which will eventually combine into the more recognizable psychological structures which we call thoughts, words, feelings, images, symbols, emotions, motives. Each of these is a structure of more basic elements. Infants are essentially disabled because by being born into a World which its neurophysiology cannot cope with. However, the human infant is, relatively speaking, quite sophisticated and complex by the time it experiences itself as separate from others. How are we to think of the human experience? What are its basic units? What is an integrated person? What is it that integrates? How are we to describe the differences between the integrity of a BMW Ultimate Driving Machine and the integrity of a landscape? What does it means to be an individual? When is differentiation mere lack of integration and when is it accurate and useful individuation? #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Once this is clarified, our focus can finally come to rest on recognizable adult experiences, albeit on those adult experiences, albeit on those adult experiences in which the effects of our childhood are very apparent. Whether we are structured more like motor cars or more like landscapes, we are composed of discernibly different parts or aspects. How can these become integrated into a more or less unified composition? And how can we conceptualize the relationships between them which would integrate them in this way? The concept of “networks” brings us very nearly to a complete answer. Networks may be organized with a centre to them, or without a centre, or with more than one centre. So may we. Networks may operate simultaneously at different levels of complexity. Networks of nerve-cells are shown to build up into organizations of great complexity and power. As far as we know, without processes in there are no psychological processes. This suggest that we should, if we can, try to theorize in conformity with what is thought to be characteristic of the human nervous system; this should set some limits to our speculations on how the mind works. To start with, we need to agree some brief definitions of basic words. The nervous system is made up of nerve-cells often called neurons. A nerve-cell has various parts to it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The nerve-cell body contains the nucleus and much else that provides for the life-process of the cell. The axon is the part of the cell which divides and branches into dendrites. “Dendron” is the Greek word for tree, and the dendrites look like tiny branching trees. At the end of each of the twigs is a little knob called the terminal button or synaptic knob. Nerve-cells converse with one another; the dendrites (and sometimes points on the skin of the cell body) receive these neural messages. The axon carries the messages from the nerve-ell to nerve-cell pass across a synapse, which joins the terminal buttons of the transmitting ell to points on the cell body or to the dendrites of the receiving cell. Messages are electrical in nature but they are not carried along the cells in the way a message travels down a telephone wire. They are transmitted by means of complex changes in the skin of the axon, which results in exchanges of carious chemicals constituents of the fluids inside and outside the axon. These exchanges produce alterations in electrical currents, and it is these which excite the cells into transmitting messages down the line. The terminal buttons of the axon have the special function, when a message is passed down the axon, of secreting a chemical—the transmitter substance. There are various transmitter substances, used by different kinds of nerve cells, some excitatory some inhibitory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Transmitter substances are picked up by the receiving cell and produce effects there, either to excite or to inhibit transmission. These effects will play a part in determining whether messages will be sent on further down the line. Neurons can connect with other neurons in long chains or in more sophisticated ways. This allows quite complex experiences to come to be organized, through the simultaneous transmission of separate messages which get combined somewhere along the lone. So Turkish Delight can come to smell, look, feel, and taste delicious (at least to those of us who like it) all at the same time. Interlinked messages produce a sorting or coding or editing of stimuli. To begin with what is perhaps its most elementary function, the idealized image substitutes for realistic self-confidence and realistic pride. A person who eventually becomes neurotic has little chance to build up initial self-confidence because of the crushing experiences one has been subjected to. Such self-confidence as one may have is further weakened in the course of one’s neurotic development because they very conditions indispensable for self-confidence are apt to be destroyed. It is difficult to formulate these conditions briefly. The most important factors are the aliveness and availability of one’s emotional energies, the development of authentic goals of one’s own, and the faculty of being an active instrument in one’s own life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

However, a neurosis develops, just these things are liable to be damaged. Neurotic trends impair self-determination because a person is then driven instead f being oneself the driver. Moreover, the neurotic’s capacity to determine one’s own paths is continually weakened by one’s dependence upon people, whatever form this may have assumed—blind rebellion, blind craving to excel, and a blind need to keep away from others are all forms of dependence. Further, by inhibiting great sectors of emotional energy, one puts them completely out of action. All of these factors make it nearly impossible for one to develop one’s own goals. Last but not least, the basic conflict makes one divided in one’s own house. Being thus deprived of a substantial foundation, the neurotic must inflate one’s feeling of significance and power. That is why a belief in one’s omnipotence is a never-failing component of the idealized image. A second function is closely linked with the first. The neurotic does not feel weak in a vacuum but in a World peopled with enemies ready to cheat, humiliate, enslaved, and defeat one. One must therefore constantly measure and compared oneself with others, not for reasons of vanity or caprice but by bitter necessity. And since at the bottom one feels weak and contemptible—as we shall see later on—one must search for something that will make one feel better, more worthy than others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Whether it takes the form of feeling more saintly or more ruthless, more loving or more cynical, one must in one’s own mind feel superior in some way—regardless of any particular drive to excel. For the most part such a need contains elements of wanting to triumph over others, because no matter what the structure of the neurosis there is always vulnerability and a readiness to feel looked down on and humiliated. The need for vindictive triumph as an antidote to feeling humiliated may be acted upon or may exist mainly in the neurotic’s own mind; it may be conscious or unconscious, but it is one of the driving forces in the neurotic need for superiority and gives it its special colouring. The competitive spirit of this civilization is not only conducive to fostering neuroses in general, through the disturbance in human relationships it creates, but it also specifically feeds this need for pre-eminence. Laboratory experiments have tended mainly to use examples from the visual and cognitive side of human experience (and from the behavioural side or animal experience), yet messages about feelings are also continually coming in, and form an element of many experiences. It is therefore worth looking in a little more detail at the neurophysiology of emotional experience. In some respects, feelings are registered just like sights, sounds, and smells. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

What are commonly called the senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and so on—depend on specialized sensory nerve-cells, often concentrated at one end in an organ like the eye or the ear. The cells become active when something from outside the animal produces the stimulus which activates that particular kind of sensory cell. These cells and their immediately following cells are called “exteroceptors” (extero for outside, captor for receptor). We know more about ourselves and about the World than the exteroceptors convey. There are specialized nerve-cells, related not to external stimuli but to something internal. We know, for instance, whether we are standing on one leg or two, whether our fist is clenched or not. We know this from other specialized nerve-cells called “interceptors” and “proprioceptors”, which give information, not about the World but about such things as the amount of tension in a muscle or the amount of a hormone in the blood. Partly through these, we know how we feel: tense or relaxed, alert or sleepy, joyous or sad, satisfied or uncomfortable. There is of course more to feelings than this, and we will look at it in greater detail at a later time—here we are just looking at the neurophysiological process involved. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

In Jesus’s own ministry he came proclaiming access to the kingdom of God: to God’s present care and supervision, available to all through confidence in oneself. “Repent, for life in the kingdom of the Heavens is now available to you,” was what one said. And his presence, actions, and teachings manifested and explained the kingdom. He made “disciples” by presenting them with the kingdom and introducing them into it by reaching their hearts, changing their vision of reality and their intensions for life. Consider one of his “parables of the kingdom”: “The kingdom of the Heavens is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man fund and concealed it. He was ecstatic. He sol d everything he had and bought the field,” reports Matthew 13.44. Imagine that you discovered gold or oil in a certain property and no one else knew about it. Can you see yourself being sad and feeling deprived for having to gather all your resources and sacrifice them in order to buy that property? Hardly! Now you know what it is like to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus! Some pain is included, no doubt, because the old attachments are still there in our hearts and lives. They never all disappear at once. And we may experience some uncertainty from time to time, especially at the start. However, the progress of spiritual formation will soon take care of that. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The new vision becomes an attachment and takes on an ever greater reality as we progress; and that, in turn, pushes the old attachments toward the exits of our lives—which we then are not sad to see go. Indeed we are happy about it. We come to want to not want what we now want, and to want to not think of what now lives before our mind; and we come to want to be made willing for what we are not now really willing. So the self-denial of Matthew 16.24 and elsewhere in the Gospels is always the surrender of a lesser, dying self for a greater eternal one—the person God intended in creating you. Confidence in this is the occasion of “greatly rejoicing, with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” reports 1 Peter 1.8. Jesus does not deny us personal fulfillment, but shows us the only true way to it. In him we find out life. He would keep us from selling our birthright as creatures in God’s image—a birthright of genuine goodness, sufficiency, and power for which we are fitted by nature—for a mere bowl of soup (Genesis 25.30-31): perhaps a little illicit pleasures of the flesh, money, reputation, power, self-righteousness, and so forth—“the pleasures of sin for a season”—or for the mere promise or possibility of such. The “cross” we must take is laid upon all obsessive partial desires, so that that broad reach agape love can integrate for us a while and eternal life with God and man. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Jesus was not some harsh ascetic who practiced or imposed pain for its own sake. He did not choose death because it was good in itself, but “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the shame,” reports Hebrews 12.2. To take him as our master means that we trust his way is right and, as he himself did, always look to the larger good under God. Like him we keep on entrusting ourselves to the One who judges righteously (1 Peter 2.23). This is “losing our life and thereby saving it: in the manner Jesus taught. I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, humans being taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inquiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right sanctions with what is prescribed by interest, in order that justice and utility may in no case be divided. I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. As I was born a citizen of a free State, member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for living that of my own country. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Humans are born free; and everywhere one is in chains. One thinks oneself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer. If took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: “As long as people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away.” But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all others rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted. The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the fathers, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

This common liberty results from the nature of humans. Their first law is to provide for one’s own preservation, one’s first cares are those which one owes to oneself; and, as soon as one reaches years of discretion, one is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving oneself, and consequently becomes one’s own master. The family then may be called the first model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the people to the children; and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty for their own advantage. The whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the father one’s children repays him for the care he takes of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have for the peoples under hum. Grotius denies that all human power is established in favour of the governed, and quotes slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is constantly to establish right fact. It would be possible to employ a more logical method, but none could be more favourable to tyrants. It is then, according to Grotius, doubtful whether the human race belongs to a hundred men, or that hundred men to the human race: and, he seems to incline to the former alternative, which is also the view of Hobbes. On this showing, the human species is divided into so many herds of cattle, each with its ruler, who keeps guard over them for the purpose of devouring them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, the shepherds of men, for instance, their rulers, as of a nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus, Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding equally well either that kings were gods, or that men were beasts. The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion. Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every person born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the democratic party seems to. For instance, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom brags about the state of California having a $21 billion surplus of taxpayer money, there is a homeless crisis. In cities, like Oakland, and Los Angeles, parks are now becoming homeless camps. And in cities like Sacramento, while people are having a shortage of affordable housing, Mayor Darrel Steinberg is using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to whip up unnecessary sports complexes and slapping together a $220 million expansion and renovation on the Convention Center and the Memorial Auditorium. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Remember, the new King’s area cost taxpayers about $300 million and only took about two years to put up. With over half a billion taxpayer dollars being spent on unnecessary entertainment in Sacramento, we should not have an affordable housing crisis, nor one single person sleeping on the street. However, no one will move to impeach democratic leaders for using and abusing taxpayers and their money. I guess it is true. Slaves love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish conditions. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition. I have said noting of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three greatest monarchs who shared out the Universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know that a verification of titles might not leave me the legitimate king of the human race? In any case, there can be no doubt that Adam was sovereign of the World, as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was its only inhabitant; and this empire had the advantage that the monarchs, safe on his throne, had no rebellions, wars, or conspirators to fear. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Merciful Lord, the Comforter and Teacher of Thy faithful people, increase in Thy Church the desires which Thou hast given, and confirm the hearts of those who hope in Thee by enabling them to understand the depth of Thy promises; that all Thine adopted sons may even now behold with the eyes of faith, and patiently wait for, the light which as yet Thou dost not openly manifest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who hast taught Thy Church to keep all Thy Heavenly commandments by loving Thy Godhead and our neighbour; grant us the spirit of peace and grace, that Thy Universal family may be both devoted to Thee with their whole heart, and united to each other with a pure will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “My beloved son, I write unto you again that ye may know that I am yet alive; but I write somewhat of that which is grievous. Behold, I am labouring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them. For so exceedingly do they anger that it seemeth me that they have no fear of death; and they have lost their love, one towards another; and they thirst after blood and revenge continually,” reports Moroni 9.1 and 4-5. O Saviour of Sinners, Thy name is excellent, Thy glory high, Thy compassion unfailing, Thy condescension wonderful, Thy mercy tender. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

I bless thee for the discoveries invitations, promises of the gospel for in them is pardon for rebels, liberty for captives, health for the sick, homes for the homeless, salvation for the lost. I come to thee in thy beloved name of Jesus; re-impress thy image upon my soul; raise me above the smiles and frowns of the World, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans; may Thy approbation be my only aim, thy word my one rule. Make me to abhor that which grieves Thy Holy Spirit, to suspect consolations of a Worldly nature, to shun a careless way of life, to reprove evil, to instruct with meekness those who oppose me, to be gentle and patient toward all people, to be not only a professor but an example of the gospel displaying in every relation, office, and condition its excellency, loveliness and advantages. How little have I illustrated my principles and improved my privileges! How seldom I served my generation! How often have I injured and not recommended my redeemer! How few are those blessed through me! In many things I have offended, in all come short of Thy glory; pardon my iniquity, for it is great. “And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labour diligently; for if we should cease to labour, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labour to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the Kingdom of God,” reports Moroni 8.6. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Life is but an Empty Dream for the Soul is Dead that Slumbers, and things are Not what they Seem!

February 15, 2020 2:37 am

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. A leader is someone who has the capacity to create a compelling vision that takes people to a new place, and to translate that vision into action. Leaders draw other people to them by enrolling them in their vision. What leaders do is inspire people, empower them. They attract people and opportunities, rather than repelling them. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we will miss it, but that it is too low and we will reach it. The kind of master one should seek is one who will be a loving one—a master who is large hearted enough to receive one, sins, weakness, foolishness, and all. Other things being equal, choose your teacher from among those who are mature and sincere for they have insight and experiences which many people lack; they can give the tranquil counsel which comes from the acceptance of life, the adjustment to its situations, and the waning of physical desires. The teacher is not to be measured only by one’s weaker disciples nor by one’s foolish pupils. A juster measurement must take into reckoning the wiser and stronger ones also. What one has done for most of them has been done in spite of themselves, for the egos have thwarted or twisted one’s influence all too often. Nevertheless it is there and in twenty or thirty years it will still be there, inevitable and inescapable, awaiting the thinning down of the ego’s resistance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

It is a discriminating seeker who responds only to what is wise and true and fine in a teacher, but rejects what is frail or fallible in one. A student is often dismayed, anxious, or upset by the aura of apparent impersonality which surrounds the Teacher. Such reactions are natural but also must be checked—which can be done by learning to smile at oneself and be at peace. Do not look for truth among the unbalanced, the ego-obsessed, the brainless, they hysterical and the unsensitive. Look for it among the modest, the serene, the intuitive, the deep-divers and those who honour God to His uttermost. Many take to an imperfect, half-competent or half-satisfactory teaching because no better one is available. Incompetent instruction is undesirable but it may be helpful in some cases if stopped at the proper point. The student may be certain that if there be competent guidance on this path there is no standing still. Either one must go forward and onward until one reaches the goal, or one must get rid of one’s guide. The politics of the client-centered approach is a conscious renunciation and avoidance by the therapist of all control over, or decision-making for, the client. It is the facilitation of self-ownership by the client. It is the facilitation of self-ownership by the client and the strategies by which this can be achieved; the placing of the locus of decision-making and the responsibility for the effects of these decisions. It is politically centered in the client. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Client-centered therapy has forever changed the politics of psychotherapy by the recording and publishing of transcribed therapeutic interviews. The mysterious, unknowable operations of the therapist are now wide open for all to see. This has let a breath of fresh air and common sense pervade the therapeutic World. The individual is able at least to choose a school of therapy that appears congenial to one. And where, at first, only client-centered interviews are available on tape recordings expert therapists of a variety of orientations. Humanistic psychology has served to demystify the nature of therapy. Both the theory and the practice of therapeutic change should be made public, so that this knowledge can be share in common by both the patient and the therapist. It is not a matter of the therapist following the old authoritarian medical model of keeping the patient in the dark as a patriarch might treat a child…It is a matter of the habituated, unhappy individual regaining self-control and self-maintenance of one’s own wholeness and health. Of course, this is a most unprofessional procedure, for it gives away the authority, the secrecy and the unquestionability of the professional healer and therapist. And it gives these things away to the patient. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The center of the therapeutic action is not, therefore, considered to be within the therapist’s decisions but within the patient’s decisions. The World-Mind does not fully declare its intentions toward us humans but does give us enough inkling of them through the teachers and prophets of the face. These great souls who have ascended to another plane of being altogether have sent us signals from that distant sphere. It is for us to heed those signals and to understand their meaning. The knowledge of someone far better than oneself shows human possibilities. The longing to become like one provides an individual with an ideal for living. The examples of good beings help us when we compare ourselves with them, and especially our worst with their best. History has honoured those individuals who have gone into the far places of this globe and explored them. It is not time to honour those who have gone deep, not far, within themselves and explored consciousness. A real need of humanity eventually finds its expression in flesh and blood. Just as an oppressive tyranny ultimately produces the rebel who overthrows it, so a growing hunger for spiritual guidance ultimately brings forth those who are to provide it. Those who have lavished their devotion on such an ideal, have lavished it wisely. It is hardly necessary to say that the person-centered view drastically alters the therapist-patient relationship, as previously conceived. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

The therapist becomes the trained healthy professional who helps sooth growing pain and deliverer of change, not its originator. One places the final authority in the hands of the client, whether in small things such as the correctness of a therapist responses, or large decisions like the course of one’s life direction. The locus of evaluation, of decision, rests clearly in the client’s hands. A person-centered approach is based on the premise that the human being is basically a trustworthy organism, capable of evaluating the outer and inner situation, understanding oneself in its context, making constructive choices as to the next steps in life, and acting on those choices. A facilitative person can assist in releasing these capacities when relating as a real person to the other, owning and expressing one’s own feelings; when experiencing a nonpossessive caring and love for the other; and when acceptingly understanding the inner World of the other. When this approach is made to an individual or a group, it is discovered that, over time, the choices made, the directions pursued, the actions take are increasingly constructive personally and tend toward a more realistic social harmony with others. So familiar has this humanistic, person-centered concept become—more familiar in the realm of the intellect than in actual practice—that we sometimes forget what a blow it struck at that views then current. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

It has taken me years to recognize that the violent opposition to a client-centered therapy sprang not only from its newness, and the fact that it came from a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist, but primarily because it struck such an outrageous blow to the therapist’s power. It was in its politics than it was most threatening. Dr. Freud shows his degree of distrust of the basic nature of humans when he says, speaking of the need for super-ego control: “Our mind, that precious instrument by whose means we maintain ourselves alive, is no peacefully self-contained unity. It is rather to be compared with a modern State in which a mob, eager for enjoyment and destruction, has to be held down forcibly by a prudent superior class.” To the end of his days, Dr. Freud still felt that if human’s basic nature were released, nothing but destruction could be expected. The need for control of this beast within humans was a matter of the greatest urgency. “The core of our being, then, is formed by the obscure id…The one and only endeavour of these instincts is toward satisfaction…But an immediate and regardless satisfaction of instinct, such as the id demands, would often enough lead to perilous conflicts with the external World and to extinction…The id obeys the inexorable pleasure principle…and it remains a question of the greatest theoretical importance, and one that has not yet been answered, when and how it is ever possible for the pleasure principle to be overcome.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

The great majority of people have a strong need for authority which they can admire, to which they can submit, and which dominates and sometimes even ill-treats them. We have learned from the psychology of the individual whence comes this need of the masses. It is the longing for the father that lives in each of us from one’s childhood days. When one has an astonishing mutuality of soul and the immediacy of one’s love is followed by profound commitment—it allows for another person to make a covenant with someone else because there is an ability to love the other person as oneself. With such subline spiritual theatre—it is a symbolism of a noble soul. The son of a Chief Executive Officer will stand humbly in one’s street clothes, while the merchant’s son dons the prince’s attire. This is because materialism is not always a factor in friendship. Just because one is more affluent does not mean they have to flaunt it or have the best of everything. This type of symbolic divestiture places one’s peer as one’s equal regardless of finances, and also represents a conscious display of vulnerability and real risk. The Shakespearean gesture means, “My life for your life,”—and one means every bit of it. We may wonder if such friendships are really possible for common people who are not spiritual giants. The deepest friendships have in common a desire to make the other person royalty. They work for and rejoice in the other’s elevation and achievements. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

There are no hooks in deep and honest friendships, no desire to manipulate or control, no jealousy or exclusiveness—simply a desire for the best for the other. To love a person means to see one as God intended one to be. Do you have the great fortune to have such a deep friend? What did St. Paul mean when he said all God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ? First of all, Christ in His Messianic mission is the personal fulfillment of all the promises in the Old Testament regarding a Saviour and coming King. In Christ is the yes, the grand consummating affirmative, to all God’s promises. He is the horn of salvation raised up for us by God, “as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the World began,” reports Luke 1.69. In Him all things “which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms” achieve their fulfillment reports Luke 24.44. The covenant promises addressed to Abraham and his seed are realized in His single person as reported in Galatians 3.16. Beyond the actual fulfillment of all the promises made about Him, Christ is also the meritorious basis upon which all of God’s other promises depend. All of God’s promises depend upon Christ alone. This is a notable assertion and one of the main articles of our faith. It depends in turn upon another principle—that it is only in Christ that God the Father is graciously inclined towards us. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

His promises are testimonies of His Fatherly goodwill towards us. Thus it follows that they are fulfilled only in Christ. Secondly, we are incapable of possessing God’s promises till we have received the remissions of our sins and that comes to us through Christ. Think just now of what you feel your greatest needs are, both spiritually and temporally. As you bring those needs to God in prayer, which would you rather present to Him as a consideration for meeting those needs: your spiritual disciplines, your obedience, and your sacrifice, imperfect as they are; or the infinite and perfect merit if Jesus? To ask the question is to answer it, is it not? I do not mean to disparage any spiritual discipline, commitment, or sacrifice. These all have their place in the realm of grace. However, they are never to be relied on as a meritorious cause for expecting God’s blessing or answer to prayer. Blessings that at times come to us through our labours and at times without our labours, but never because of our labours; for God always gives them because of His undeserved mercy. If only we will learn to rest our entire cause of the merits of Jesus Christ, instead of our own, we will learn the joy of living by grace and not by sweat. One of the greatest dangers on the process of spiritual formations is that self-denial and death to self will be taken as but one more technique or job for those who wish to save their life (soul). #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Self-denial will then externalize itself in overt practice of group identity that may seem very sacrificial, but can leave the “mind of the flesh” in full control. We see this, for example, in many who wear what they regard as plain clothing or who abstain from certain foods. A well-known Methodist evangelist of other years, Sam Jones, used to say that a dancing foot and a praying knew do not grow on the same leg. This might prove to be a fairly good empirical generalization. It may be that as a matter of fact few prayerfully bent knees are on legs with a dancing foot at the end. Still, just not dancing would hardly prove that you had abandoned your life to God. Practices of “mortification” can become exercises in more self-righteousness. How often this has happened! This dreary and deadly “self-denial,” which is all too commonly associated with religion, can be avoided only if the primary fact of our inner being is a loving vision of Jesus and His kingdom. This is where correctly counting the cost comes in. Then outward manifestation of self-denial, or the absence thereof, will matter little, as it did for him. The impression gained by most who hear about “counting the cost” of following Jesus is one of how terrible and painful that cost is. However, to count the cost is to take into consideration both the losses and the gain of all possible actions, to see which is most beneficial. This done, Jesus knew, the trails of apprenticeship (discipleship) would appear to be the only reasonable path. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

As has been said, “One is not a fool who gives up what one cannot keep for the sake of what one can never lose.” The cost of non-discipleship would then be seen for what it is—unbearable. That is why one would become able to sustain cheerfully the much smaller “cost of discipleship” to Jesus. By the same reason may a being in the state of nature punish the lesser breaches of that law. It will perhaps be demanded, with death? I answer, each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give one cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. Every offence, that can be committed in the state of nature, may in the state of nature be also punished equally, and as far forth as it may, in a commonwealth: for though it would be besides my present purpose, to enter here into the particulars of the law of nature, or its measures of punishment; yet, it is certain there is such a law, and that too, as intelligible and plain to a rational creature, and a studier of that law, as the absolute laws of commonwealths; nay, possibly plainer; as much as reason is easier to be understood, than the fancies and intricate contrivances of humans, following contrary and hidden interests put into words; for so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the laws of nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature everyone has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for people to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make people partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of beings. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the insolvencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own cases, since it is easy to be imagined, that one who was so unjust as to do one’s brother an injury, will scare be so just as to condemn oneself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but humans; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from human’s being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to how much better it is than the state of nature, where one being, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in one’s own case, and may do to all one’s subjects whatever one pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute one’s pleasure? #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

And in whatsoever one cloth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to? Much better it is in the state of nature, wherein humans are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another: and if one that judges, judges amiss in one’s own, or any other case, one is answerable for it to the rest of humankind. It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were there any humans in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the World, are in a state of nature, it is plain the World never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of beings in that state. I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact that puts one community, and make one body politic; other promises, and compacts, human may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains for truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru; or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, through they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another: for truth and keeping of faith belongs to humans, as human, and not as members of society. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

To those that say, there were never any people in state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker, Eccl, Pol. Lib. i. sect. 10, where he says: “The laws which have been hitherto mentioned, i.e. the laws of nature, do bind humans absolutely, even as they are human, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do: but forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things, needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others: this was the cause of human’s uniting themselves at first in politic societies.” However, I moreover affirm, that all humans are naturally in that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some political society; and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear. “Pray for them, my son, that repentance may come unto them. But behold, I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them; and in this part of the land they are also seeking to put down all power and authority which cometh from God; and they are denying the Holy Ghost,” reports Moroni 8.28. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Lord Jesus Christ, Very God and Very Man, Who changest not, but art holy in all Thy works; turn away from us the unbelief of a doubtful mind, and fill our heart with the gifts of Thy grace; that we may believe and know Thee to be Very God, Who by miracles and mighty works are proved to be Saviour of all. We beseech Thee, O Lord, continually to strengthen us by a sincere faith in Thine Incarnation; that the crafty enemy may never be able to overcome us who are established in the love of Thee. Arise, Lord, Who judgest the Earth; and us Thou dwellest in and possesses the faith of all nations, suffer us not to abide in darkness; and grant that we may not lay the foundations of our faith on the sand where the whirlwind may overthrow them, but be established on the rock which is steadfast in Thee. O Heavenly Father, teach me to see that if Christ has pacified thee and satisfied divine justice He can also deliver me from my sins; that Christ does not desire me, now justified, to live in self-confidence in my own strength, but gives me the law of the Spirit of life to enable me to obey thee; that the Spirit and His power are mine by resting on Christ’s death; that the Spirit of life within answers to the law without; that if I sin not I should thank thee for it; that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it; that I should mourn for sin more than other people do, for when I die I shall die because of sin, that makes me mourn. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

When I see how sin strikes at Thee, that makes me mourn; when I see that sin caused Christ’s death, that makes me mourn; that sanctification is the evidence of reconciliation, proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ; Thou has taught me that faith is nothing else than receiving they kindness; that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on Him, love clinging to Him as a branch to the tree, to seek life and vigour from Him. I thank thee for showing me that vast difference between knowing things by reason, and knowing them by the Spirit of faith. By reason I see a thing is so; by faith I know it as it is. I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed, I have seen thee as thou art in Thy Son and have been ravished to behold thee. I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour, Jesus. It is good for us to hold fast by Thee, O Lord; but do Thou so increase in us the desire of good, that the hope which joins us to Thee may not be shaken by any wavering of faith, but may endure in stedfastness of love. May the hope which Thou hast given us, O Lord, be our consolation in our law estate, as it will fill us with glory in the day of our rejoicing. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Lives of great people all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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Randolph Harris II International Institute

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