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One Half of the World Cannot Understand the Pleasures of the other, but in Charity there is No Excess!

ImageA professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep. Excellence in education is the key to our nation’s future. If we are truly to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, we must empower all our students with the best schools and guidance possible. At a time when we face stark choices about how best to strengthen our economic future, our commitment to education and to children must stand absolutely firm. We have a sacred obligation to put our children’s needs first and to make the essential investments that will help them to succeed. The importance of the family for the moral development of individuals was far more often recognized by political theorists of the past than it is by those of the present. Hegel, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Mill, and Dewey are obvious examples that come to mind. Rousseau, for example, shocked by Plato’s proposal to abolish the family, says that it is “as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one’s nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the state; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one.” Defenders of both autocratic and democratic regimes have recognized the political importance of different family forms for the formation of citizens. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

ImageOn the one hand, the nineteenth-century monarchist Louis de Bonald argued against the divorce reforms of the French Revolution, which he claimed had weakened the patriarchal family, on the grounds that “in order to keep the state out of the hands of the people, I is necessary to keep the family out of the hands of women and children.” Taking this same line of thought in the opposite direction, the United States Supreme Court decided in 1879 in Reynolds v. Nebraska that familial patriarchy fostered despotism and was therefore intolerable. Denying Mormon men the freedom to practice polygamy, the Court asserted that it was an offense “subversive of good order” that “leads to the patriarchal principle, [and] when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism, while that principle cannot long exist in connection with monogamy.” However, while de Bonald was consistent in his adherence to an hierarchical family structure as necessary for an undemocratic political system, the Supreme Court was by no means consistent in promoting an egalitarian family as an essential underpinning for political democracy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

Image For in other decisions of the same period—such as Bradwell v. Illinois, the famous 1872 case that upheld the exclusion of women from the practice of women from the practice of law—the Court rejected women’s claims to legal equality, in the name of a thoroughly patriarchal, though monogamous, family that was held to require the dependence of women and their exclusion from civil and political life. While bigamy was considered patriarchal, and as such a threat to republican, democratic government, the refusal to allow a married woman to employ her talents and to make use of her qualifications to earn an independent living was not considered patriarchal. It was so far from being a threat to the civil order, in fact, that it was deemed necessary for it, and as such was ordained by both God and nature. Clearly in both Reynolds and Bradwell, “state authorities enforced family forms preferred by those in power and justified as necessary to stability and order.” The Court noticed the despotic potential of polygamy, but was blind to the despotic potential of patriarchal monogamy. This was perfectly acceptable to them as a training ground for citizens. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

ImageMost theorists of the past who stressed the importance of the family and its practices for the wider World of moral and political life by no means insisted on congruence between the structures of practices of the family and those of the outside World. Though concerned with moral development, they bifurcated public from private life to such an extent that they had no trouble reconciling inegalitarian, sometimes admittedly unjust, relations founded upon sentiment within the family with a more just, even egalitarian, social structure outside the family. Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville—all thought the family was centrally important for the development of morality in citizens, but all defended the hierarchy of the material structure while spurning such a degree of hierarchy in institutions and practices outside the household. Preferring instead to rely on love, altruism, and generosity as the basis for family relations, none of these theorists argued for just family structures as necessary for socializing children into citizenship in a just society. The position that justice within the family is irrelevant to the development of just citizens was not plausible even when only men were citizens. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

ImageJohn Stuart Mill, in The Subjection of Women, takes an impassioned stand against justice in the family being considered irrelevant to the development of just citizens. He argues that the inequality of women within the family is deeply subversive of justice in general in the wider social World, because it subverts the moral potential of men. Mill’s first answer to the questions, “For whose good are all these changes in women’s rights to be undertaken?” is: “the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice.” Making marriage a relationship of equals, he argues, would transform this central part of daily life from “a school of despotism” into a “s school of moral cultivation.” He goes on to discuss, in the strongest of terms, the noxious effect of growing up in a family not regulated by justice. Consider, he says, “the self-worship, the unjust self-preference,” nourished by a boy growing up in a household in which “by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race.” Mill concludes that the example set by perpetuating a material structure “contradictory to the first principles of social justice” must have such “a perverting influence” that it is hard even to imagine the good effects of changing it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

ImageAll other attempts to educate people to respect and practice justice, Mill claims, will be superficial “as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked.” Mill felt as much hope for what the family might be as he felt despair at what it was not. “The family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom,” primary among which was “justice, grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympathetic association.” Mills bot saw clearly and had the courage to address what so many other political philosophers either could not see, or saw and turned away from. Despite the strength and fervor of his advocacy of women’s rights, however, Mill’s idea of a just family structure falls short of that of many feminists even of his own time, including his wife, Harriet Taylor. In spite of the fact that Mill recognized both the empowering effect of earnings on one’s position in the family and the limiting effect of domestic responsibility on women’s opportunities, he balked at questioning the traditional division of labour between the genders. For him, a woman’s choice of marriage was parallel to a man’s choice of a profession: unless and until she has fulfilled her obligations to her husband and children, she should not undertake anything else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

ImageBut clearly, however equal the legal rights of husbands and wives, this position largely undermines Mill’s own insistence upon the importance f marital equality for a just society. His acceptance of the traditional division of labour, without making any provision for wives who were thereby made economically dependent upon their husbands, largely undermines his insistence upon family justice as the necessary foundation for social justice. Thus even those political theorists of the past who have perceived the family and the wider social order, which suggests that families themselves need to be just. Even when they have, as with Mill, they have been unwilling to push hard on the traditional division of labour within the family in the name of justice or equality. Contemporary theorists of justice, with few exceptions, have paid little or no attention to the question of moral development—of how we are to become just. Most of them seem to think, to adapt slightly Hobbes’s notable phrase, that just men spring like mushrooms from the Earth. Not surprisingly, then, it is far less often acknowledged in recent than in past theories that the family is important for oral development, and especially for instilling a sense of justice. As I have already noted, many theorists pay no attention at all to either the family or gender. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

ImageIn the rare case that the issue of justice within the family is given any sustained attention, the family is not viewed as potential school of social justice. In the rare case that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that a theorist pays any sustained attention to the development of a sense of justice or morality, little if any attention is likely to be paid to the family. Even in the rare event that theorists pay considerable attention to the family as the first major locus or moral socialization, they do not refer to the fact that families are almost all still thoroughly gender-structured institutions. Among major contemporary theorists of justice, John Rawls alone treats the family seriously as the earliest school of moral development. He argues that a just, well-ordered society will be stable if its members continue to develop a sense of justice. And he argues that families play a fundamental role in the stages by which this sense of justice is acquired. From the parents’ love for their child, which comes to be reciprocated, come the child’s “sense of one’s own value and the desire to become the sort of person that they are.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

ImageThe family, too, is the first of that series of “associations” in which we participate, from which we acquire the capacity, crucial for a sense of justice, to see things from the perspectives of others. This capacity—the capacity for empathy—is essential for maintaining a sense of justice of the Rawlsian kind. Rawlsian justice is a theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. The goal is to create a permanently peaceful and tolerant international order. For the perspective that is necessary for maintaining a sense of justice is not that of the egotistic or disembodied self, or of the dominant few who overdetermine “our” traditions or “shared understandings,” or (to use Nagel’s term) of “the view from nowhere,” but rather the perspective of every person in the society for whom the principles of justice are being arrived at. The problem with Rawls’s rare and interesting discussion of moral development is that it rests on the unexplained assumption that family institutions are just. If gendered family institutions are not just, but are, rather, a relic of caste or feudal societies in which responsibilities, roles, and resources are distributed, not in accordance with innate differences that are imbued with enormous social significance, then Rawls’s theory of moral development would seem to be built on uncertain ground. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

ImageThis problem is exacerbated by suggestions in some of Rawls’s most recent work that families are “private institutions,” to which it is not appropriate to apply standards of justice. However, if families are to help form just individuals and citizens, surely they must be just families. In a just society, the structure and practices of families must give women the same opportunities as men to develop their capacities, to participate in political power and influence social choices, and to be economically secure. However, in addition to this, families must be just because of the vast influence that they have on the moral development of children. The family is the primary institution of formative moral development. And the structure and practice of the family must parallel those of the larger society if the sense of justice is to be fostered and maintained. While many theorists of justice, both past and present, appear to have denied the importance of at least one of these factors, my own view is that both are absolutely crucial. A society that is committed to equal respect for all of its members, and to justice in social distributions of benefits and responsibilities, can neither neglect the family nor accept family structures and practices that violate these norms, as do current gender-based structures and practices. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

ImageIt is essential that children who are to develop into adults with a strong sense of justice and commitment to just institutions spend their earliest and most formative years in an environment in which they are loved and nurtured, and in which principles of justice are abided by and respected. What is a child of either gender to learn about fairness in the average household with two full-time working parents, where the mother does, at the very least, twice as much family work as the father? What is a child to learn about the value of nurturing and domestic work in a home with a traditional division of labour in which the father either subtly or not so subtly uses the fact that he is the wage earner to “pull rank” on or to abuse his wife? What is a child to learn about responsibility for others in a family in which, after many years of arranging her life around those needs of her husband and children, a woman is faced with having to provide for herself and her children but is totally ill-equipped for the task by the life she agreed to lead, has led, and expected to go on leading? Difficulties already present in partnerships are sometimes brought in the open in person-centered climates. A young could had been living together and were planning to marry. They were together in an encounter group and asked the group’s permission to explore their relationship with the help of the participants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

ImageAs they began to open up to each other, it was clear that they knew each other hardly at all. They had differing goals and sharply differing perceptions. For example, the young woman thought of herself as reasonably adequate, certainly not inferior. She was astonished and hurt to find that her lover saw her as much inferior to him in social status and intellect. As they explored their differences, they became much more open with each other, but their partnership seemed highly precarious. Yet a letter more than a year later told me of their marriage, their growing areas of mutual interest and work, and their current satisfaction with their relationship. Evidently the risk they took in exploring their profound differences had deepened the bonds of partnership rather than breaking them. The areas of difference may occur in a variety of fields. In one couple the husband is hedonistic, works when he had to, regards himself as essentially “a lazy bum,” while his wife is strongly imbued with a work ethic. Says she, “My heart skips a beat when I hear him say, ‘I just want to be rich and have fun.’” She thinks he should be more serious about his work. It is an indication of the incredible complexity of human relationships that the work-oriented wife is, with her husband’s consent, a topless go-go danger, while the “lazy bum” is business! However, exploration of their differing goals is helping to bring them together. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

ImageAt the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus enjoined His followers to prayerful tenacity: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; known and the door will be opened to you,” reports Matthew 7.7. The language is unusually compelling because the three verbs (“ask…seek…knock”) indicate an ascending intensity. “Ask” implies requesting assistance for a conscious need. It also suggests humility, for the Greek word here was commonly used by one approaching a superior. “Seek” involves asking, but adds action. The idea is not just to express need, but to get up and look around for help. “Knock” includes asking, plus seeking, plus persevering—for example, one who keeps pounding on a closed door. The stacking of these verbs is powerful, and the fact that they are present imperatives gives them even more punch. Jesus’ words actually read: “Keep on asking, and it shall be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it shall be opened to you.” Such tenacity is exactly what Paul has in mind in his call to petitionary prayer when he says to “be alert and always keep on praying.” Men and women, do we pray with Scriptural persistence for our families? For the Church? Are there individuals, groups, causes, souls for which we hold up our hands in prayer? There ought to be, for God answers persistent prayer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

ImageNow, the simplicity of spiritual formation is possessed in its intention. Its aim is to bring every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God and the kingdom of God. This is the simple focus. We must keep it constantly before us and not be distracted by other things, no matter how good they may appear. Of course, we cannot realize this goal on our own. However, there is no need for that. God has made provision for achieving this aim. To “grow in grace” means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace. Then, whatever we do in word or deed will all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. “And whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” reports Colossians 3.17. The greatest saints are not those who need less grace, but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are most in need of grace—those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being. Grace to the is like breath. Spiritual formation is holistic. Each dimension of spirituality is not separate, so we must keep a sharp awareness that they are always profoundly influencing one another in the flow of real life. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

ImageReal life means the totality of the events we are actually involved in and the actions we actually carry out. In Spiritual formation the process and the outcome in Christ is beneficial to our lives. There are no formulas—no definitive how-tos—for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. However, there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and “if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we shall surely find him,” reports Jeremiah 29.13. Or, as the prophet Azariah said, “If you seek Him, He will let you find him,” We can count on God’s goodness. The Second Book of Nephi—an account of the death of Lehi. Nephi’s brethren rebel against him. The Lord warns Nephi to depart into the wilderness. His journeyings in the wilderness, and so forth. In chapter 1, Lehi prophesies of a land of liberty—his seed will be scattered and smitten if they reject the Holy One of Israel—he exhorts his sons to put on the armor of righteousness. About 588-570 Before Chris. “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had mad an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem. And he spake up them concerning the rebellious upon the waters, and the mercies of God in sparing their lives, that they were not swallowed up in the sea. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

Image“And he also spake unto them concerning the land of promise, which they had obtained—how merciful the Lord has been in warning us that we should flee out of the land of Jerusalem. For, behold, said he, I have seen a vision, in which I know that Jerusalem is destroyed; and had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished. However, he said, notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him who he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shell be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall blessed forever. And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would over run the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Image“Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever. However, behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having  a knowledge of the creation of the Earth, and all people, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the World; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

Image“Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds, and great visitations among them; wherefore, my sons, I would that ye would remember; yea, I would that ye would hearken unto my words. O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of humans, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gul of misery and woe. Awake! And arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the Earth. However, behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love. And I desire that ye should remember to observe the statuses of the judgments of the Lord; behold, this hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning. My heart hath been weighed down with sorrow from time to time, for I have feared, lest for the hardness of your hearts the Lord your God should come out in the fullness of his wrath upon you, that ye are visited by sword, and by famine, and are hated, and are led according to the will and captivity of the devil. O my sons, that these things might be a choice and a favoured people of the Lord. However, behold, his will be done; for his ways are righteous forever. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

Image“And he hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this World with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity; that ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a just God upon you, unto the destruction, yes, the eternal destruction of both soul and body. Awake, my sons; put on the armour of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity and arise from the dust. Rebel no more against your brother, whose views have been glorious, and who hath kept the commandments from the time that we left Jerusalem; and who hath been an instrument in the hands of God, in bringing us forth into the land of promise; for were it not for him, we must have perished with hunger in the wilderness; nevertheless, ye sought to take away his life; yea, and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

Image“And I exceedingly fear and tremble because of you, lest he shall suffer again; for behold, ye have accused him that he sought power and authority over you; but I know that he hath not sought for power nor authority over you, but he hath sought the glory of God, and your own eternal welfare. And ye have murmured because he hath been plain unto you. Ye say that he hath used sharpness; ye say that he hath been angry with you; but behold, his sharpness was the sharpness of the power of the word of God, which was in him; and that which ye call anger was the truth, according to that which is in God, which he could not restrain manifesting boldly concerning your iniquities. And it must needs be that the power of God must be with him, even unto his commanding you that ye must obey. However, behold, it was not he, but it was the Spirit of the Lord which was in him, which opened his mouth to utterance the he could not shut it. And now my son, Laman, and also Lemuel and Sam, and also my sons who are the sons of Ishmael, behold, if ye will hearken unto the voice of Nephi ye shall not perish. And if ye will hearken unto him I leave unto you a blessing, yea, even my first blessing. However, if ye will not hearken unto him I take away my first blessing, and it shall rest upon him. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

Image“And now, Zoram, I speak unto you: Behold, thou art the servant of Laban; nevertheless, thou hast been brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and I know that thou art a true friend unto my son, Nephi, forever. Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed with his seed, that they dwell in prosperity long upon the face of this land; and noting, save shall be iniquity among them, shall hard or disturb their prosperity upon the face of this land forever. Wherefore, if ye shall keep the commandments of the Lord, the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son,” reports 2 Nephi 1-32. All-sufficient King, when I come into Thy presence I see the gory of Thy perfections, the throne f eternal and universal empire, the ten thousand times ten thousand who minister to Thee. Impress my mind with the consciousness of Thy greatness, not to drive me from Thee but to inspire me to approach thee; not to diminish my confidence in Thee, but to lead me to admire Thy great condescension. Thou has been mindful of me and visited me, taken charge of me from birth, cared in all conditions for me, fed me at Thy table, drawn the curtains of love around me, given me new mercies every morning. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

ImageSuffer me not to forget that I look for yet greater blessings—a hope beyond the grave, the earnest and foretastes of immortality, holiness, wisdom, strength, peace, joy—all these thou hast provided for me in Christ. I grieve to think how insensible I have been of the claims of Thy authority, and the endearments of Thy love; how little I have credited Thy truth, trusted Thy promises, feared Thy threats, obeyed Thy commands, improved my advantages, welcomed Thy warnings, responded to Thy grace; but notwithstanding my desert I yet live. May Thy goodness always lead me to repentance, and Thy longsuffering prove my salvation. O God, by Whose command the moments of our life run their course; receive our prayers for Thy servants lying sick, on whose behalf we implore Thy mercy; that our fears on account of their danger may be turned into joy at their recovery; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, the eternal Salvation of believers, hear us for Thy servants, for whom we implore the assistance of Thy mercy; that their healthy may be restored to them, and they may give thanks to Thee in Thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who didst add fifteen years to the life of Thy servant Hezekiah; please let Thy power raise up Thy servants from the bed of sickness unto health; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22Image

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A Person Should Know Something of One’s Own Country, too, Before One Goes Abroad!

ImageAlmost all our misfortunes in life some from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know people thoroughly, to judge events sanely is, therefore, a great step toward happiness. Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences. We must make sure that life does not fade away into a shadow-World in which, finally, even the date of the year becomes uncertain. For then even the names of people will become vaporized and therefore will be considered to have never existed. However, even if all disparities are somehow eliminated, we will still not attain equal opportunity for all. This is because what has not been recognized as an equal opportunity problem, except in feminist literature and circles, is the disparity within the family, the fact that its gender structure is itself a major obstacle to equality of opportunity. This is very important in itself, since one of the factors with most influence on our opportunity in life is the social significance attributed to pleasures of the flesh. The opportunities of girls and women are centrally affected by the structure and practices of family life, particularly by the fact that women are almost invariably primary parents. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

ImageMy definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. What nonfeminists who see in the family an obstacle to equal opportunity have not seen is that the extent to which a family is gender-structured can make the gender women belong to a relatively insignificant aspect of their identity and their life prospects or an all-pervading one. This is because so much of the social construction of gender takes place in the family, and particularly in the institution of female parenting. Moreover, especially in recent years, with the increased rates of single motherhood, separation, and divorce, the inequalities between the genders have compounded the first part of the problem. This disparity among families has grown largely because of the impoverishment of many women and children after separation or divorce. The division of labour in the typical family leaves most women far less capable than men of supporting themselves, and this disparity is accentuated by the fact that children of separated or divorced parents usually live with their mothers. The inadequacy—and frequent nonpayment—of child support has become recognized as a major social problem. Thus the inequalities of gender are now directly harming many children of both genders as well as women themselves. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

ImageEnhancing equal opportunity for women, important as it is in itself, is also a crucial way of improving the opportunities of many of the most disadvantaged children. As there is a connection among the parts of this problem, so is there a connection among some of the solutions: much of what needs to be done to end the inequalities of gender, will also help to equalize opportunity from one family to another. Subsidized, high-quality day care is obviously one such thing; another is the adaptation of the workplace to the needs of parents. One of the things that theorists who have argued that families need or cannot be just, or who have simply neglected them, have failed to explain is how, within a formative social environment that is not founded upon principles of justice, children can learn to develop that sense of justice they will require as citizens of a just society. Rather than being one among money co-equal institutions of a just society, a family is its essential foundation. It may seem uncontroversial, even obvious, that families must be just because of the vast influence they have on the moral development of children. But this is clearly not that case. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

ImageUnless the first and most formative example of adult interaction usually experienced by children is one of justice and reciprocity, rather than one of domination and manipulation or of unequal altruism and one-sided self-sacrifice, and unless they themselves are treated with concern and respect, they are likely to be considerably hindered in becoming people who are guided by principles of justice. Moreover, the sharing of roles by men and women, rather than the division of roles between them, would have a further beneficial impact because the experience of being a physical and psychological nurturer—whether of a child or of another adult—would increase that capacity to identify with and fully comprehend the viewpoints of others that is important to a sense of justice. In a society that minimized gender this would be more likely to be the experience of all of us. Almost every person in our society starts life in a family of some sort or other. Fewer of these families now fit the usual, though by no means universal, standard of previous generations, that is, wage-working father, homemaking mother, and children. More families these days are headed by a single parent; alternative styles of parenting is no longer so rare; many children have two wage-working parents, and receive at least some of their early care outside the home. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

ImageThere are so few who can mature with a good grace. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. While its forms are varied, the family in which a child is raised, especially in the earliest years, is clearly a crucial place for early moral development and for the formation of our basic attitudes to others. It is, potentially, a place where we can earn to be just. It is especially important for the development of a sense of justice that grows from sharing the experiences of others and becoming aware of the points of view of others who are different in some respects from ourselves, but with whom we clearly have some interest in common. How effectively suffering expresses accusation depends on the inhibitions toward raising accusations. Where the fear is not too intense, suffering may be demonstrated dramatically, with open reproaches of the general content, “Look how you have made me suffer.” This in fact is a condition under which accusations ca be expressed, because suffering makes accusations appear warranted. There is also a close connection here with the methods used to obtain affection, which we have already discussed; accusatory suffering serves at the same time as a plea for getting pity and as an extortion of favours in reparation for harm done. The greater the restraint in making accusations the less demonstrative is the suffering. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

ImageThis may go so far that the neurotic will not even bring to the attention of others the fact that one is suffering. Altogether, we find the greatest variation in one’s demonstrations of one’s suffering. Because of the fear that besets one on all sides the neurotic is constantly shuttling between accusations and self-recriminations. One result is a permanent and hopeless uncertainty as to whether or not one is right in criticizing or in considering oneself wronged. One registers or knows by experience that very often one’s accusations are not warranted by reality but are provoked by one’s own irrational reactions. This knowledge too renders it difficult for one to recognize whether or not one is really wronged, and hence prevents one from taking a firm stand when necessary. The observer is inclined to accept or interpret all these manifestations as expressions of particularly keen guilt feelings. This does not mean that the observer is neurotic, but it does imply that one as we well as the neurotic’s thinking and feeling are subject to cultural influences. To understand the cultural influences which determine our attitude toward guilt feelings we would have to consider historical, cultural and philosophical questions that would far surpass the scope of this essay. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

ImageHowever, even in passing over the problem entirely it is necessary at least to mention the influence of Christian conceptions on questions of morals. This discussion of guilt feelings can be very briefly summarized as follows. When a neurotic person accuses oneself or indicates guilt feelings in some kind, the first question should be not “What is one really feeling guilty about?” but “What may be the functions of this self-recriminating attitude?” The main functions we have found are: expression of one’s fear of disapproval; a defense against this fear; and a defense against making accusations. When Dr. Freud and with him the majority of analysts tend to consider guilt feelings as an ultimate motivation they reflect the thinking of their time. Dr. Freud recognizes that guilt feelings arise from fear, for he assumes that fear contributes to the generation of the “super-ego,” which he makes responsible for guilt feelings; but he tends to believe that demands of conscience and feelings of guilt, once established, operate as an ultimate agency. Further analysis indicated that even after we have learned to react with guilt feelings to the pressure of conscience and accepted moral standards, the motivation behind these feelings—though it may show only in subtle and indirect ways—is a direct fear of consequences. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

ImageIf it is granted that guilt feelings are not in themselves the ultimate motivating power it becomes necessary to revise certain analytical theories which have been built up on the assumption that guilt feelings—particularly those of a diffuse character, which Dr. Freud tentatively called unconscious guilt feelings—are of paramount importance in bring about the neurosis. I shall mention only the three most important of these theories: that of the “negative therapeutic reaction,” which contends that the patient prefers to remain ill because of one’s unconscious guilt feelings; that of the super-ego as an inner construction which inflicts punishment upon the self; and that of moral masochism, which explains self-inflicted suffering as the result of a need for punishment. We must apply ourselves diligently to working out or salvation. It is important to display the evidences of salvation in our daily lives through our obedience to God’s commands and through putting on the Godly character traits that are called the fruit of the Spirit. And, the tense of the verb continue to work out indicates “continuous, sustained, strenuous effort.” Here again we see that sanctification is a process, and a process in which we, as believers, are very actively involved. Maintain confidence that God’s spirit is working through us. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

ImageGod is working to enlighten our understanding of His will, to stimulate in our emotions a desire to do His will, and to turn our wills so we actually obey. Most of all, God gives us the enabling power so that we are able to do His will. So progressive sanctification very much involves our activity. However, it is an activity that must be carried out in dependence of the Holy Spirit. It is not a partnership with the Spirit in the sense that we each—the believer and the Holy Spirit—do our respective tasks. Rather, we work as God enables us to work. God’s work is possessed behind all our work and makes our work possible. The Holy Spirit can and does work within us apart from any conscious response on our part. We have seen this in the initial act of sanctification where God created within us a new heart and gives us an entirely new disposition toward Him and His will. God is not dependent on us to do His work. However, we are dependent on God to do our work; we cannot do anything apart from God. In the process of sanctification there are certain things only the Holy Spirit can do, and there are certain things He has given us to do. For example, only God can create in our hearts the desire to obey God, but He does not obey us. We must do that, but we can do so only as God gives us the enabling power to obey. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

ImageWe feel and know we are eternal. To understand all is to forgive all. So we must depend on the Holy Spirit to do within us what only God can do. And we must depend on God just as much to enable us to do what He has given us to do. So whether it is His work or our work, in either case, we are dependent on Him. We are not just dependent on Him; we are desperately dependent on God. Because we so often equate Christlike character with ordinary morality, we fail to realize how impossible it is for us to attain any degree of conformity to Christ by ourselves. However, if we take seriously the long lists of Christlike character traits we are to put on, we see how impossible it is to grow in Christlikeness apart from the sanctifying influence and power of the Spirit in our lives. Christlike character traits are: Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, thankfulness. That is fourteen beneficial character traits we are to put on (and there are others in Scripture), in addition to the many negative traits—pride, envy, jealousy, lust, covetousness, selfish ambition—we are to put off. Surely we must say with Paul, “And who is equal to such a task?” reports 2 Corinthians 2.16. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Image We have all been to the circus or the carnival or the county fair and watched with amazement the juggler tossing and catching his four of five clubs. Think what it would be like to juggle fourteen! Yet that is essentially what we are called to do when we are told to put on fourteen—or more—different character traits, as well as trying to put away some bad one. Only the Holy Spirit is equal to such a task. Only the Holy Spirit can orchestrate such a diverse and well-rounded development of Christian character. And yet we are told to clothe ourselves with these Christlike qualities. We are to do it; we are responsible. However, in Galatians 5.22, Paul called the qualities the “fruit of the Spirit”—the result of the Spirit’s work in our lives. Putting together those two thoughts leads to the conclusion that we are both responsible and dependent. We are responsible to clothe ourselves with Christlike character, but we are dependent on God’s Spirit to produce within us His “fruit.” We cannot make one inch of progress in sanctification apart from the powerful working of the Spirit in us. And God does this, not because we have earned it with our commitment and discipline, but because of His grace. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

ImageGod has blessed us with every spiritual blessing—including the working of the Spirit in our lives—in Christ Jesus, that is, by His grace through the infinite merit of Christ. As we pray for the sanctifying influence and power of the Spirit in our lives, we can do so in confidence that God will answer our prayers because His answers are not dependent on us and our holiness, but on the merit of His Son. We have seen, then, a threefold view of sanctification or holiness. We have seen that our holiness is first of all an objective, perfect holiness, which is ours by virtue of our union with Him who is perfectly holy. Then we have seen that there is an initial act of sanctification in which a person’s basic disposition toward God and His law is changed. This change is experienced by the believer, but is not dependent on the believer. It is solely a work of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, we have seen that this initial act of sanctification is followed by the continuous action of the Holy Spirit throughout our lives as God works in us “to will and to act according to His good purpose,” reports Philippians 2.13. In every one of these views of sanctification we see the grace of God. God in His grace sees us perfectly holy in Christ. God in His grace sends His Holy Spirit to create a new heart within us and to write His law on our hearts, thus changing our basic disposition. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

ImageAnd God in His grace continues to work in us through His Spirit to transform us more and more into the moral and spiritual likeness of His Son. It is important to keep your features perfectly under control. When you are in a public place, it is terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carries with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory is announced, for instance) is itself a punishable offense in the eyes of society. It is called a face crime. Consider that from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equally in the eyes of the law, and that they are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If one cannot measure something, one cannot understand it. If one cannot understand it, one cannot control it. If one cannot control it, one cannot improve it. Trust people and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

ImageThere are risks and costs to a program of action. However, they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of a comfortable inaction. When we become conditioned to perceived truth and closed to new possibilities, the following happens: We see what we expect to see, not what we can see. We hear what we expect to hear, not what we can hear. We think what we expect to think, not what we can think. To place oneself under another’s spiritual tutelage is an act which may be dangerous or may be auspicious. It depends on the other—on whether one’s mind is really irradiated with the divine effulgence or whether it is darkened by its own ego. In The Book of Mormon, in chapter 22 of 1 Nephi, Israel will be scattered upon all the face of the Earth—the Gentiles will nurse and nourish Israel with the gospel in the last days—Israel will be gathered and saved, and the wicked will burn as stubble—the kingdom of the devil will be destroyed, and Satan will be bound. About 588-570 before Christ. “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had read these things which were engrave upon the plates of brass, my brethren came unto me and said unto me: What meaneth these things which ye had read? Behold, are they to be understood accord to thing things which are spiritual, which shall come to pass according to the spirit and not the flesh? #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Image“And I, Nephi, said unto them: Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of humans according to the flesh. Wherefore, the things of which I have read are things pertaining to things both temporal and spiritual; for it appears that the house of Israel, sooner or later, will be scattered upon all the face of the Earth, and also among all nations. And behold, there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been led away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea; and whither they are none of us knoweth, save that we know that they have been led away. And since they have been led away, these things have been prophesied concerning them, and also concerning all those who shall hereafter be scattered and be confounded, because of the Holy One of Israel; for against Him will they harden their hearts; wherefore, they shall be scattered among all nations and shall be hated of all people. Nevertheless, after they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up His hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders, behold these things of which are spoken are temporal; for thus are the covenants of the Lord with our fathers; and it meaneth us in the days to come, and also all our brothers and sisters who are in the house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Image“And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered. And after our seed is scattered the Lord God will proceed to do a marvelous work among the Gentiles, which shall be of great worth unto our seed; wherefore, it is likened unto their being nourished by the Gentiles and being carried in their arms and upon their shoulders. And it shall also be of worth unto the Gentiles; and not only unto the Gentiles but unto al the house of Israel, unto the making known of the covenants of the Father of Heaven unto Abraham, saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the Earth be blessed. And I would, my brethren, that ye should know that all the kindreds of the Earth cannot be blessed unless He shall make bare his arm in the eyes of the nations. Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to make bare His arm in the eyes of all the nations, in bringing about his covenants and his gospel unto those who are of the hose of Israel. Wherefore, He will bring them again out of captivity, and they shall be gathered together to the lands of their inheritance; and they shall be brought out of the obscurity and out of darkness; and they shall know that the Lord is their Saviour and their Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Image“And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the Earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood. And every nation which shall be at war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the put which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Sion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yes, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it. For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of humans; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. For the time soon cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of humans; for they will not suffer that the wicked shall destroy the righteous. Wherefore, He will preserve the righteous by His power, even if it so be that the fulness of His wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Image“Behold, my brethren, I say unto you, that these things must shortly come; yea, even blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke must come; and it must needs be upon the face of this Earth; and it cometh unto people according to the flesh is it so be that they will harden their hearts against the Holy One of Israel. For behold, the righteous shall not perish; for the time surely mist come that all they who fight against Zion shall be cut off. And the Lord will surely prepare a way for His people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people. And now I, Nephi, declare unto you, that this prophet of whom Moses spake was the Holy One of Israel; wherefore, he shall execute judgment in righteousness. And the righteous need not fear, for they are those who shall not be confounded. However, it is the kingdom of the devil, which shall be built up among the children of humans, which kingdom is established among them which are in the flesh—for the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over  the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the World, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the World, and to do all manners of iniquity. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Image“Yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble and quake. Those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory. And he gathereth his children from the four quarters of the Earth; and he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture. And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One of Israel reigneth. And now behold, I, Nephi, say unto you that all these things must come according to the flesh. However, behold, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of Israel if it so be that they will repent. And now I, Nephi, make an end; for I durst not speak further as yet concerning these things. Wherefore, my brothers and sisters, I would that ye should consider that the things which have been written upon the plates of brass are true; and they testify that a being must be obedient to the commandments of God. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Image“Wherefore, ye need not suppose that I am my father are the only ones that have testified, and also taught them. Wherefore, if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day. And thus it is. Amen,” reports 1 Nephi 22.1-31. Spiritual help cannot be given indiscriminately and at the same time given wisely. It should be conditioned by readiness, worthiness, and willingness to receive it. It should be offered only by those who are properly equipped, suitably qualified, and purely motivated. Building up personality is a job for Christ. I should not care to entrust my personality, such as it is to any individual of a lower intellectual and moral standard them that. This critique is also applicable to spiritual teachers, as well as psychotherapists, against whom it was directed. O God of Heavenly powers, Who by the might of Thy command drivest away from people’s bodies all sickness and all infirmity; be present in Thy goodness to this Thy servant, that one’s weakness may be banished and one’s strength recalled, and one’s health being thereupon restored, one may bless Thy holy Name, through our Lord Jesus Christ. O Sovereign Lord, Thou art the creator-Father of all people for Thou hast made and dost support them; Thus art the special Father of those who know, love and honour Thee, who find Thy yoke easy, and Thy burden light, Thy work honourable, Thy commandments glorious. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

ImageHowever, how little Thy undeserved goodness has affected me! how imperfectly have I improved my religious privileges! how negligent have I been in doing good to other! I am before Thee in my trespasses and sins, have mercy on me, and may Thy goodness bring me to repentance. Help me to hate and forsake every false way, to be attentive to my condition and character, to bridle my tongue, to keep my heart with all diligence, to watch and pray against temptation, to mortify sin, to be concerned for the salvation of others. O God, I cannot endure to see the destruction of my kindred. Let those that are untied to me in tender ties be precious in Thy sight and devoted to Thy glory. Sanctify and prosper my domestic devotion, instruction, discipline, example, that my house may be a nursey for Heaven, my church the garden of the Lord, enriched with trees of righteousness of Thy planting, for Thy glory; let not those of my family who are amiable, moral, attractive, fall short of Heaven at last; grant that the promising appearances of tender conscience soft heart, the alarms and delights of Thy word, be not finally blotted out, but bring forth judgment unto victory in all whom I love. There are risks and costs to a program of action. However, they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of a comfortable inaction. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21Image

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Mills Station Residence 3 at Cresleigh Ranch

Feeling cooped up? #MillsStation Residence 3 has the answer! A covered patio right off the kitchen provides ventilation and easy access to your courtyard space! 💙 Interested in seeing more? We have interactive floor plans and photos of this home’s elevations on our website. Link in bio. 👉 https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-3/

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It is Warm Work and this Day May be the Last to Any of Us at a Moment—But I Would Not be Elsewhere for Thousands!

ImageI have found that if you love life, life will love you back. I accept life unconditionally. Life holds so much—so much to be happy about always. And keep in mind, a pint of example is worth a gallon of advice. Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band, if you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or lily in your medieval hand. And everyone will say, as you walk your flowery way, “If he or she is content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me, why, what a most particularly pure young man or young woman this pure young person must be!” The confusion of moral values and artistic design found expression in the Aesthetic Movement, a credo of the late nineteenth century. At its heart was the belief that good design or beauty is elevating and that bad design or ugliness is corrupting. Followers of the Aesthetic Movement believed that Truth and Beauty were intertwined and that Falsehood and Ugliness were one. Aesthetics, then, had a moral implication, and good proportion, honesty, and harmony with natural laws were as much a characteristic of personal morality as of design. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

ImageThis movement began in England and was Championed by the “Goths,” that is, the supporters of the Gothic Revival. In general, they wanted to restore the ritual and mystery of the medieval church and remove the more recent “low church” alterations which bring the congregation and the priest closer together. They came to believe in Gothic as the peculiarly English style (despite the Abbe Suger, Notre-Dame de Paris,Saint-Denis, and Chartres). Aesthetic Movement devotees generally fell into two camps. One camp led by John Ruskin (he celebrated the buildings of medieval Venice and believed that Gothic design was superb because it was the honest work of true crafts-people who worked anonymously and cared more for the glory of God than the glory of artistic fame), the great art critic of his time, felt that art must be inspired by nature to be true good, that no creation of compass and rule with mechanical repetition could ever hope to contain the spark of true art. Gothic Venice stood for an organic, communal way of life, and the beauty of its buildings reflects a wholesome social order. The most famous practitioner in this branch of the Aesthetic Movement was William Morris, whose plant-design wallpapers and carpets became very popular. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

ImageThe Aesthetic Movement, was also known as “art for art’s sake,” and it permeated British culture during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as well as spreading to other countries such as the Untied States of America. The idea that beauty was the most important element in life, lead writers, artists, and designers to create works that were admired simply for their beauty rather than any narrative or moral function. The movement blossomed into a cult devoted to the creation of beauty in all avenues of life from art and literature, to home decorating, to fashion, and embracing a new ornate style. The other camps of aestheticians had a number of famous leaders. They believed that the direct imitation of nature in the applied arts was fakery. They deplored the use of perspective and modeling in wallpapers and carpet and insisted on flat, “conventionalized” forms for flat surfaces. Charles Locke Eastlake was a spokes-person for this camp. He wrote Hints on Household Taste and made the Aesthetic Movement popular in America. Another one of the most famous people in the Aesthetic Movement was Sarah Winchester with her World famous, marvelous, Gothic Queen Anne Victorian mansion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

ImageOwen Jones, the chronicler of ornament and cofounder of the South Kensington School (later part of the Victoria and Albert Museum) was a famous champion. Another, of many, noteworthy people, and later infamous, spokes-person for this group of aesthetes was the writer Oscar Wilde. It is through his persecution as a homosexual that the word “aesthetic” has come to have conflicting implications. As a result, the Aesthetic Movement came to be regarded as both a moral crusade and an “immoral effeminate” circle at the same time. To understand this movement, however, one must look at the World against which they were reacting. The middle of the nineteenth century saw the end of crafted home furnishings in America. Just as the Rococo Revival style became popular, it became possible to make everything by the carload. Curved parlor chairs with naturalistically carved roses at the crest became the rage. Wallpapers with roses and ribbons were printed in so many modulated colours that they seemed three-dimensional. Wall-to-wall, Aubusson, patterned carpets had more roses and arabesque. China was transfer-printed with French shepherdesses and more roses. All of this factory-made prettiness in the French tastes was cloying to English aesthetic tastes. Badly made furniture and lumpy vases with oddly placed roses made them cringe. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

ImagePeople usually worked together to give the exteriors of Victorian houses a bright, elegant look and to highlight the carving and detail on the pillars and panels. Sometimes flowers on the houses might be painted a colour like navy blue on the capital as a lark. An element many Queen Anne’s have is a tower or a turret with a witches cap. Victorians were big on celebrating holidays, which is why one can find many religious and occult symbols and patterns on these estates. When we turn to the great tradition of Western political thought with questions about the justice of the treatment of the genders in mind, it is to little avail. Bold feminists like Mary Astell, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Thompson, Harriet Taylor, and George Bernard Shaw have occasionally challenged the tradition, often using its own premises and arguments to overturn its explicit or implicit justification of the equality of women. However, John Stuart Mills is a rare exception to the rule that those central position in the tradition almost never question the justice of the subordination of women. This phenomenon is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that Aristotle, whose theory of justice has been so influential, relegated women to a sphere of “household justice”—populated by person who are not fundamentally equal to the free men who participate in political justice, but inferiors whose natural function is to serve those who are more fully human. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

ImageThe liberal tradition, despite its supposed foundation of individual rights and human equality, is more Aristotelian in this respect than is generally acknowledged. In one way or another, almost all liberal theorists have assumed that the “individual” who is the basic subject of the theories is the male head of the household. Thus they have not usually considered applying the principle of justice to women or to relations between the genders. When we turn to contemporary theories of justice, however, we expect to find more illuminating and beneficial contributions to the subject of gender and justice. As the mission of the family and the falseness of their gender-neutral language suggest, however, mainstream contemporary theories of justice do not address the subject any better than those of the past. Theories of justice that apply to only half of us simply will not do; the inclusiveness falsely implied by the current use of gender-neutral terms must become real. Theories of justice must apply to all of us, and to all of human life, instead of assuming silently that half of us take care of whole areas of life that are considered outside the scope of social justice. In a just society, the structure and practice of families must afford women the same opportunities as men to develop their capacities, to participate in political power, to influence social choices, and to be economically as well as physically secure. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

ImageUnfortunately, much feminists intellectual energy in 2020 has gone into the claim that “justice” and “right” are masculinist ways of thinking about morality that feminists should eschew or radically revise, advocating a morality of care. The emphasis is misplaced, I think, for several reasons. First, what is by now a vast literature on the subject shows that the evidence for differences in women’s and men’s ways of thinking about moral issues is not (at least yet) very clear; neither is the evidence about the source of whatever differences there might be. It may well turn out that any differences can be readily explained in terms of roles, including female primary parenting, that are socially determined and therefore alterable. There is certainly no evidence—nor could there be, in such a gender-structured society—for concluding that women are somehow naturally more inclined toward contextuality and away from universalism in their moral thinking, a false concept that unfortunately reinforces the old stereotypes that justify separate spheres. The capacity of reactionary forces to capitalize on the “different moralities” strain in feminism is particularly evident in an Apostolic Letter from Pope John Paul II, “On The Dignity of Women,” in which he refers to woman’s special capacity to care for others in arguing for confining them to motherhood or celibacy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

ImageSecond, I think the distinction between an ethic of justice and an ethic of care has been overdrawn. The best theorizing about justice, I argue, has integral to it the notions of care and empathy, of thinking of the interests and well-being of others who may be very different from ourselves. It is, therefore, misleading to draw a dichotomy as though they were two contrasting ethics. The best theorizing about justice is not some abstract “view from nowhere,” but results from the carefully attentive consideration of everyone’s point of view. This means, of course, that the best theorizing about justice is not good enough if it does not, or cannot readily be adapted to, include women and their points of view as fully as men and their points of view. But what are the conditions that change the equilibrium and mobilize aggression? What are the causes of “innate” aggression in animals and humans? If we can figure this out, we can then start to understand why some people feel threated by the equality of women. In reviewing both the neurophysiological and the psychological literature on animals and human aggression, the conclusion seems unavoidable that aggressive behaviour of animals is a response to any king of threat to the survival. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

ImageOr, as I would prefer to say more generally, to the vital interests of the animal—whether as an individual or as a member of its species. This general definition comprises many different situations. The most obvious are a direct threat to the life of the individual or a threat to one’s requirements for sex and food; a more complex form is that of “crowding,” which is a threat to the need for physical space and/or to the social structure of the group. However, what is common to all conditions for the arousal of aggressive behaviour is that they constitute a threat to vital interests. Mobilization of aggression is the corresponding brain areas occurs in the service of life, in response to threats to the survival of the individual or of the species; that is to say, phylogenetically programmed aggression, as it exists in animals and humans, is a biologically adaptive defense reaction. That this should be so is not surprising if we remember the Dr. Darwinian principle in regard to the evolution of the brain. Since it is the function of the brain to take care of survival, it would provide for immediate reactions to any threat to survival. Do men think they will be robbed of their roles as providers and be forced to submit and be subordinate? #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

ImageWell, some people also believe that the lessening of women’s dependence on their husbands is what is to blame for the weakening of the family stability. Some people believe that paid work is “men’s” and it is “fathers” who bequeath wealth or poverty on their children. Aggression is by no means the only form of reaction to threats. The animal reacts to threats to one’s existence either with rage and attack or with fear and flight. In fact, flight seems to be the more frequent form of reaction, except when the animal has no chance to flee and therefore fights—as the ultima ratio—the final argument and also the last resort. Dr. Hess was the first to discover that by the electrical stimulation of certain regions of the hypothalamus of a cat, the animal would react either by attack or by flight. As a consequence he subsumed these two kinds of behaviours under the category of “defense reactions,” indicating that both reactions are in defense of the animal’s life. So with the oppression of women, it may be a primitive function in the brains of some people, that is triggered as a response to make sure there will still be homemakers and someone to produce children. This urge to discriminate against women could be a subconscious behaviour that some are not aware of because they have not been made to go to therapy and unearth the issues they are having subconsciously. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

ImageBy ignoring that people need help and not punishing those who are not acting righteously, we are producing and allowing a sick society to flourish. Any animal, regardless of it species, reacts to a life-threatening attack with one of two patterns of behaviour: either with flight, or with aggression and violence—that is, fight. The brain always acts as a unit in directing any behaviour; consequently, the mechanisms in the brain that initiate and limit these two dissimilar patterns of self-preservation are closely linked to one another, as well as to all other parts of the brain; and their proper functioning depends on the synchronization of many complex and delicately balanced subsystems. A further important impediment to criticism and accusation is directly linked up with the basic anxiety. If the outside World is felt to be hostile, if one feels helpless toward it, then taking any risk of annoying people seems sheer recklessness. For the neurotic the danger appears all the greater, and the more one’s feeling of safety is based on the affection of others the more one is afraid of losing that affection. For one annoying another person has an entirely different connotation from what it has for the normal person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

ImageSince one’s own relations to others are thin and fragile one cannot believe that others’ relations toward one are any better. Hence one feels that annoying them involves the danger of a final break; one expects to be dropped altogether, to be definitely spurned or hated. Besides, one assumes consciously or unconsciously that others are as much terrified as one is of being found out and criticized, and therefore one is inclined to treat them with as much delicacy as one would have them use toward one. One’s extreme fear of making or even feeling accusations put one in a special dilemma because, as we have seen, one is filled with pent-up resentment. In fact, as everyone knows who is acquainted with neurotic behaviour, plenty of accusations do find expression, sometimes in veiled, sometimes in open and most aggressive forms. Since I nevertheless asset that there is an essential meekness toward criticism and accusation it is worth while to discuss briefly the conditions under which such accusations will find expression. They may be expressed under the stress of despair, more specifically, when the neurotic feels one has nothing to lose by it, when one feels that one will be rejected in any cause, regardless of one’s behaviour. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

ImageSuch an occasion arises, for example, if one’s special efforts to be kind and considerate are not returned right away or are rejected. Whether one’s accusations are discharged explosively in one scene, or whether they last for some time, depends on the duration of one’s despair. One may in a single crisis thrust upon others all one has ever held against them, or one’s accusations my extend over a longer period. One really means what one says, and expects the others to take it seriously—with the secret hope, however, that they will realize the depth of one’s despair and therefore condone one. Even with no despair a similar condition exists if the accusations concern person whom the neurotic consciously hates and from whom one expects nothing good. In another condition, which we shall discuss presently, the very element of sincerity is missing. If one feels that one is, or is in danger of being, found out and accused, the neurotic can also be accusatory with more or less vehemence. The danger of upsetting others may then appear as the lesser evil compared to the danger of being disapproved of. One feels oneself in an emergency and makes a counter-attack, like an animal which is apprehensive by nature and strikes out when in danger. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

ImagePatients may thrust violent accusations upon the analyst (or wife, husband, child, and so forth) at the time when they are most afraid of something being uncovered, or when they have done something for which they anticipate disapproval. Unlike the accusations made under the stress of despair, attacks of this kind are made blindly. They are expressed without any conviction of being right about them, for they are born out of a sheer feeling of the need to ward off an immediate danger, regardless of what means are used. While they may incidentally contain reproaches which are felt to be real, in the main they are exaggerated and fantastic. Deep down the neurotic does not believe in them oneself, does not expect them to be take seriously and is greatly amazed if the others does so, if the other, for example, enters into a serious argument or shows signs of being hurt. When we realize the fear of accusation that is inherent in the neurotic structure, and when we realize furthermore the ways in which this fear is dealt with, then we can understand why on the surface the picture is often contradictory in this respect. A neurotic person is often unable to express a warranted criticism, even though one is full of intense accusations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

ImageEvery time one loses something one may be convinced that the maid or his wife has stolen it, but be quite unable to accuse her or even to object because she has not served dinner punctually. The accusations which one does express have often somehow a character of unreality, are not to the point, have a false colouring, are unwarranted or entirely fantastic. As a patient one may fling at the analyst wild accusations of ruining him, but be unable to express a sincere objection to the analyst’s taste in coffee. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy is impossible, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it is needed, and the promptly to forget it gain, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that is the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, one again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you have just performed. Even to understand the word “doublethink” involves the use of doublethink. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

ImageThese open expressions of accusations are not usually sufficient to discharge all the pent-up resentment that is present. In order to do that indirect ways are necessary, ways which allow the neurotic to express one’s resentment without being away that one does. Some of it comes out inadvertently, some is shifted from the person one really means to accuse to comparatively indifferent persons—a woman may scold her maid, for example, when she had a grudge against her husband—or to circumstances or fate in general. These are safety valves which in themselves are not specific for neuroses. The specifically neurotic method for expressing accusations indirectly and unconsciously is to use the medium of suffering. By suffering the neurotic may present oneself as a living reproach. A wife wo becomes ill because her husband comes home late expresses her grudge more effectively than by making a scene, and also reaps the advantage of appearing in her own eyes as an innocent martyr. The family is a crucial determinant of our opportunities in life, of what we “become.” It has frequently been acknowledged by those concerned with real equality of opportunity that the family presents a problem. However, though they have discerned a serious problem, these theorists have underestimated it because they have seen only half of it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

ImageThey have seen that the disparity among families in terms of the physical and emotional environment, motivation, and material advantage they can give their children has a tremendous effect upon children’s opportunities in life. We are not born as isolated, equal individuals in our society, but into family situations: some in the social middle, some poor and without homes, and some superaffluent; some to a single soon-to-be-separated parent, some to parents whose marriage is fraught with conflict, some to parents who will stay together in love and happiness. Any claims that equal opportunity exists are therefore completely unfounded. Decades of neglect of the poor, especially of poor African American and Hispanic House-holds, accentuated by the policies of the Reagen years, have brought us farther from the principles of equal opportunity. To come close to hem would require, for example, a high and uniform standard of public education and the provision of equal social services—including health care, employment training, job opportunities, drug rehabilitation, and decent housing—for all who need them. In the Book of Mormon, in 1 Nephi, Chapter 21, the Messiah will be a light to the gentiles and will free the prisoners—Israel will be gathered with power in the last days—Kings will be their nursing fathers—Compare Isaiah 49. About 588-570 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Image“And again: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broke off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people; yea, all ye that are broke off, that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel. Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken ye people from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name. And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; and said unto me: Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain; surely my judgement is with the Lord, and my work with God. And now, saith the Lord—that formed me from the womb that I should be His servant, to bring Jacob again to him—through Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And He said: It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the Earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to Him who humans despiseth, to Him whom the nations abhorreth, to servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship because of the Lord that is faithful. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Image“Thus saith the Lord: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, O isles of the sea, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee, and give thee my servant for a covenant of the people, to establish the Earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; that thou mayest say to the prisoners: Go forth; to them that sit in darkness: Show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high paces. They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the Sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. And then, O house of Israel, behold, these shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim. Sing, O Heavens; and be joyful, O Earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. However, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not. For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

Image“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste against thy destroyers; and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold; all these gather themselves together, and they shall come to thee. And as I live saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on even as a bride. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants; and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children whom thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the first, shall again in thine ears say: The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart: Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where have they been? Thus saith the Lord God: behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall by thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the Earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for thy shall not be ashamed that wait for me. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

Image“For shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives delivered? However, thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be take away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with one that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob,” reports 1 Nephi 21.1-26. With the work of God in our sanctification, transforming work of progressive sanctification is the work of God’s Spirit. He is the One who changes us more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This transformation is much more than merely a change of outward conduct. It is a renovation of our inner beings, or as someone has said, it is a transformation of the essential being. It means our motives as well as our motivations are being constantly changed, so that we can say with the psalmist, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long,” and “I rejoice in the following your statues as one rejoices in great riches,” reports Psalm 119.47 and 14. However, although the verb be transformed is in the passive voice, it is in the imperative mood; that is, it is a command to do something. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

ImageThis indicates that we as believers are not passive in this transforming process. We are not like blocks of marble being transformed into a beautiful sculpture by a master sculptor. God has given us a mind and hearth with which to respond to and cooperate with the Spirit as He does His work in us. That thought leads naturally to the Scripture passage that is considered to be the classic statement of the working together of the believer with the Holy Spirit who is at work within him. “Therefore, my dream friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose,” reports Philippians 2.12-13. O God, Who ever governest Thy creatures with tender affection; incline Thine ear to our supplications, and graciously regard Thy servants, who are suffering from bodily sickness; and visit them with Thy salvation, and bestow the medicine of Heavenly grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed in thy presence, in Thy service, to Thy glory. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

ImageO God, Who hast vouchedsafe to humankind the remedies that bring salvation, and the gifts of eternal life; preserve to Thy servant the gifts of Thy power, and grant that not only in one’s body, but also in one’s soul, one may experience Thy healing; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, assists every hour, that I may not be one moment apart from Thee, but may rely on Thy Spirit to supply every thought, speak in every word, direct every step, prosper every work, build up every mote of faith, and give me a desire to show forth Thy praise; testify Thy love, advance Thy kingdom. I launch my bark on the unknow waters of this year, with Thee, O Father, as my habour, Thee, O Son, at my helm, Thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails. Guide me to Heaven with my loins grit, my lamp burning, my ear open to Thy calls, my heart full of love, my soul free. Give me Thy grace to sanctify me, Thy comforts to cheer, thy wisdom to teach, Thy right hand to guide, Thy counsel to instruct, Thy law to judge, Thy presence to stabilize. May Thy fear by my awe, Thy triumph my joy. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23Image

Cresleigh Homes 

Capture3With a #CresleighRanch home you have room to roam… even during a shelter in place order. 😉 At #BrightonStation Residence 4 enjoy a sliding glass door into your new backyard or toasting marshmallows in this Great Room fireplace. 🙌 Check out the interactive floor plan and virtual tour on our website. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-4/

ImageAnd can I ever bid these joys farewell? Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, where I may find the agonies, the strife of human hearts: for lo! I see afar, O’ersailing the blue cragginess, a car and steeds with streamy manes–the charioteer looks out upon the winds with glorious fear: and now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly along a huge cloud’s ridge; and now with springtly wheel downward come they into freshers skies, tipt round with silver from the Sun’s bright eyes. Still downward with with capacious whirl they glide; and now I see them on the green-hill’s side in breezy rest among the nodding stalks. The charioteer with wond’rous gesture talks to the trees and mountains; and there son appears shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear, passing along before a dusky space made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase some ever-fleeting music on they sweep.

Image “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. However, I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and he parched ground into the springs,” reports Isaiah 41.17.18 Life is not about accomplishment; it is all about doing, participating, progressing, growing, learning. “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name,” reports Isaiah 45.3

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Justice and the Human Good–A Dream Left Uninterpreted is Like a Letter Left Unread!

ImageThe biggest dream in life is the American Dream, which is supposed to represent Heaven. Use the stones that life throws at you to lay the foundations of your future. Worry can drag yesterday’s clouds over today’s Sunshine. Perceptual researchers have given us a lot of information and guidance thus far. In the future, perhaps, they can help us widen our perceptions in more natural, evolutionary ways so that we can see things more clearly, as they are, without the blinders we now use, which lead to racism, sexism, elitism, and all the stereotyping and selective perception we now experience. These loom large as major problem areas to be overcome in the coming years. In it speculative to say, but we also feel that the nettling questions about Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) and other parapsychological phenomena will be answered in ways that more and more of us can accept. Our guess is that our limited view of our perceptions shots out a whole range of perceptual experiences for most of us. There are far too many credible people describing super-ordinary perceptions today to ignore them any longer or to brush them aside as mystical, superstitious, or psychotic. The possibilities of developing nonverbal communications (telepathy or whatever) are mind-boggling, especially if space exploration is to continue beyond the range of our present communications systems. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

ImageLearning is another area into which we have only begun to probe. Knowing what we do, we can amplify this information to try to account for many paradoxical facts in human experience: the presence of intellectual disabilities in people who demonstrate sheer genius in some special area like math or music (called idiot savants); the question of whether or not newborns have any inborn information; what newborns dream about, since almost 80 percent of their sleep Rapid Eye Movement (REM), and during this type of sleep, the eyes move quickly in different directions, and people are known to have intense dreams. Babies can spend up to 50 percent of their sleep in the REM state, compared to only about 20 percent for adults. In addition, in the future we may learn other paradoxical facts such as whether learning can be improved past certain ages; whether “smart pills” can be developed to assist in learning and retention; and dozens of others. It is not inconceivable that hypnosis and altered states of consciousness will get far more attention in academic psychology in the coming decades; indeed, they already are. The difference is that they will lose their labels as “unscientific” or “philosophico-religious” and be shown to be integral parts of complete holistic psychology. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

ImageThe possible contributions to each and every conceptual field in psychology are marvelous to anticipate. A high-ranking executive who is subordinate to only a single director in his firm cite an interesting dream. In his waking life, the executive has convinced himself that he is on very good terms with his boss. He like him; he has no problems with him. Then he had this dream: His hands are tied together with a telephone cord, from which the phone is still dangling. Then he sees his boss, who seems to be asleep, lying next to him on the ground. The executive feels an overpowering rage. He finds a hammer picks it up in both hands, and tries to smash the director’s head with it. He hits the mark, but nothing happens. Then the director opens hos eyes and smiles ironically at his attacker. Though the man may have felt that he was on good terms with his boss, his dream tells us that he really hated his superior. He felt that the director oppressed him and kept him tied up. He felt powerless and at his chief’s mercy. That is the reality that this man experienced in his dream. In his waking life that reality was, it seems, hidden from him. What does the sleeping state give us that being awake cannot? We are free. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

ImageThat may sound like a strange thing to say, but only when we are asleep, in a certain sense, are we free. That is, when we are asleep we are n longer obliged to participate in the struggle for life. We do not have to conquer; we do not have to defend ourselves; we do not have to conform. We are no longer living from the habit of instinct—in the assumption that every sound we make is overheard, and that, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. We do not have to worry about the Thought Police hacking into our dreams. We think and feel what we think and feel. Our thoughts and feelings in sleep are subjective as they can get. In sleep, we do not have to do anything; we can simply be. In sleep we have no goals. We can experience the World as it really seems to us, as we really see it, and not in the way it is supposed to look if we mean to achieve a certain goal. To put it another way, we can say that in sleep the unconscious has it center stage. There is nothing at all mysterious about the unconscious. It means simply that in sleep we have access to what we do not know when we are awake. Or to put it the other way around: In the waking state we do not have access to what we known when we are asleep. We might even say that in the waking state the consciousness of sleep is unconscious, while in sleep the consciousness of waking is unconscious. There are two different types of consciousness involved. The one is operative in waking; the other, in sleeping. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

ImageDoes that mean that we are more irrational in sleep, more subject to our drives? Yes, sometimes, but by no means always and not even in the majority of cases, even through Dr. Freud thought that dreams always pitted the irrational against the rational. However, as I mentioned before, we often achieve greater insight and greater wisdom in our dreams because we are more independent, because we can see and feel without blinders on. Even in sleep we censor our dreams. We do not dare accept the freedom dreams gives us, so we change and hide the real messages of the dream the way we would if we wanted to prevent someone else from understanding what we really meant. In a case like that we are expressing even in sleep, a reluctance to understand ourselves. That is why we often forget dreams, for most of them would not fit neatly into our waking lives. They would only disturb and irritate us. In our dreams our creativity increase. We develop creative capabilities that we do not recognize, indeed, that we have no inkling of, when we are awake. I have in mind here a dream that another successful business executive had. (The dreams I am citing here do not come from patients of mine but from studies made of executive personalities.) This man felt very happy because he was successful. Judging by his income and the power he wielded, he had every right to feel that way, for we usually feel what we are expected to feel. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

ImageSo this man thought he was very happy. Then he had a dream. In the first part of the dream he is at a small lake. The lake is dirty. The atmosphere is dark, gloomy, grim. He recalls later, after the dream, that the lake is just like the one near which his parents had lived. The unpleasant memory is not just of the lake but also of the dreary, poverty-stricken mood of his childhood home. In the second scene of the dream he is in an extremely expensive Ultimate Driving Machine, driving up a mountainside on an ultramodern highway. He is driving fast; he has a feeling of power and success; and he is happy. Then comes a third scene, which takes place after he has reached the top of the mountain. Suddenly he is in a shop that caters to materials dealing with pleasures of the flesh. His wife is with him in the Ultimate Driving Machine, but now he is alone. No one else is there. Everything is dusty and dirty, and he feels totally alone and abandoned. This dream tells us what the man really feels about his life and fate. Put in the simplest terms, the dream translates into something like this: When I was a child, everything around me was dismal and dirty. Now I am a successful man who has driven to the peak of success with incredible speed. However, ultimately, when this whole success game is over, I will be right back in that same filth, that same poverty, that same sadness, that same isolation I experienced as a child. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

ImageEverything will drop away, and I will be right back where I started. The dream does not express a wish. It provides instead, in a creative, artistic language, a profound insight int the emptiness of the man’s life. We might say that many people are capable of that kind of creativity, but in the daytime they are so subject to the pressures of society—what Heidegger has called the “they”—that they lack the courage to be themselves and to create something themselves. That is a sad commentary indeed on our society, which does not permit people to realize the creative capacities they have in them. In our dreams we are telling ourselves something. As the Talmud (Berachot 55a) puts it: “A dream left uninterpreted is like a letter left unread.  The word “interpret” is not really correct in this context. We do not have to interpret dreams. There is nothing to interpret. We do not have to interpret Mandarin Chinese or Italian if we have learned those languages. Dream language is a language that we can learn, that has its own grammar, its own forms, a language that does no describe “fact” but conveys experience. It is easy to learn dream language, and you do not have to become a psychoanalyst to learn it. We could be learning it in school at the same time that we learn foreign language. If we are to understand our dreams, we will understand more about ourselves and others, and I believe it would be a great advantage for us to start learning dream language. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

ImageI have said this could be an advantage to us, but it could also have its disadvantages. As a rule, we really do not want to know too much about ourselves or others. That knowledge can bother us. However, the more we know about ourselves and the fewer illusions we have about others, the richer, stronger, more vital our lives will be. Then, too, if we understand dream language, we are not limited to the one-sided, intellectual perspective that has come to dominate most people’s thinking in our time more than ever before in the past. We are not restricted to thinking exclusively in concepts but develop an eye for emotional differentiation. We integrate intellect and emotion and put unrealistic alternative behind us. I am in no way propounding a dangerous anti-intellectualism here, much less a new sentimentality. However, I do want to suggest that the language of dreams can teach us something that is essential to our own lives, now more than ever: In our dreams we can become poets. I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. I accept life unconditionally. Life holds so much—so much to be happy about always. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you do not set conditions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

ImageIn the past, political theorists often used to distinguish clearly between “private” domestic life and the “public” life of politics and the marketplace, calming explicitly that the two spheres operated in accordance with different principles. They separated out the family from what they deemed the subject matter of politics, and they made closely related, explicit claims about the nature of women and the appropriateness of excluding them from civil and political life. Men, the subjects of the theories of justice, superficial appearances can easily lead to the impression that they are inclusive of women. In fact, they continue the same “separate spheres” tradition, by ignoring the family, its division of labour, and the related economic dependency and restricted opportunities of most women. The judgment that the family is “nonpolitical” is implicit in the fact that it is simply not discussed in most works of political theory today. In one way or another, as will become clear, almost all current theorists continue to assume that the “individual” who is the basic subject of their theories is the male head of a fairly traditional household. Thus the application of principles of justice to relations between the genders, or within the household, is frequently, though tacitly ruled out from the start. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

ImageIn the most influential of all twentieth-century theories of justice, that of John Rawls, family life is not only assumed, but is assumed to be just—and yet the prevalent gendered division of labour within the family is neglected, along with the associated distribution of power, responsibility, and privilege. Moreover, this is typical of contemporary theories of justice. They persist, despite the wealthy of feminist challenges to their assumptions, in their refusal even to discuss the family and its gender structure, much less to recognize the family as a political institution of primary importance. Recent theories that pay even less attention to issues of family justice than Rawls’s include Bruce Ackerman’s Social Justice in Liberal State, Ronald Dworkin’s Taking Rights Seriously, William Galston’s Justice and the Human Good, Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue and Whose Justice? Whose Rationality?, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and Robert Unger’s Knowledge and Politics and The Critical Legal Studies Movement. Philip Green’s Retrieving Democracy is a welcome exception. Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice, too, is exceptional in this regard, but…the conclusion that can be inferred from his discussion of the family—that its gender structure is unjust—does not sit at all easily with this emphasis on the shared understandings of culture as the foundation of Justice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

ImageFor gender is one aspect of social life about which clearly in the Untied States of America in the latter part of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century, there are no shared understandings. What is the basis of my claim that the family, while neglected, is assumed by theorists of justice? One obvious indication is that they take mature, independent human beings as the subjects of their theories without any mention of how they got to be that way. We know, of course, that human beings develop and mature only as a result of a great deal of attention and hard work, by far the greater part of it done by women. However, when theorists of justice talk about “work,” they mean paid work performed in the marketplace. They must be assuming that women, in the gender-structured family, continue to do their unpaid work of nurturing and socializing the young and providing a haven of intimate relations—otherwise there would be no moral subjects for them to theorize about. However, these activities apparently take place outside the scope of their theories. Typically, the family itself is not examined in the light of whatever standard of justice theorist arrives at. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

ImageThe continued neglect of the family by theorists of justice flies in the face of a great deal of persuasive feminist argument…Scholars have clearly revealed the interconnections between the gender structure inside and outside the family and the extent to which the personal is political. They have shown that the assignment of primary parenting to women is crucial, both in forming the gendered identities of men and women and in influencing their respective choices and opportunities in life. Yet, so far, the simultaneous assumption and neglect of the family has allowed the impact of these arguments to go unnoticed in major theories of justice. However, the progressive nature of sanctification is implied throughout the New Testament epistles in all those instances where we are exhorted to grow, to change, to put off the deeds of the old person (the person who lived in sin) and out on the new Godlike character, and so on. It is also clearly implied in Paul’s own testimony that he had no yet been made perfect and his statement that he had learned to be content in all circumstances. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already made perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Jesus Christ has made me his own. Brother and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of upward call of God in Jesus Christ,” reports Philippians 3.12-14. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Image“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have,” reports Philippians 4.11. Then Romans 12.2 and 2 Corinthians 3.18 explicitly teach the progressive nature of sanctification. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will,” reports Romans 12.2. “And We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit,” reports 2 Corinthians 3.18. The common word in both passages is transformed. In both instances the verb transformed is present tense, indicating that the action is continuous. The phrase be transformed in Romans 12.2 means “Continue to let yourselves be transformed.” The term [transformed] used here implies that we are to be constantly in the process of being metamorphosed by renewal of that which is the seat of thought and understanding. Sanctification is a process of revolutionary change in that which is the centre of consciousness. It is the thought of progression and strikes at the stagnation, complacency, pride of achievement so often characterizing Christians. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

ImageAs to the nature of this process, 2 Corinthians 3.18 indicated it is the work of the “Lord, who is the Spirit,” while Romans 12.2 indicates it is through the renewing of our minds. In both passages, however, the transformed is passive, indicating it is a work done in us rather than by us. In Chapter 19 of 1 Nephi, in The Book of Mormon, Nephi makes plates of ore and records the history of his people—the God of Israel will come six hundred years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem—Nephi tells of His sufferings and crucifixion—the Jews will be despised and scattered until the latter days, when they return unto the Lord. About 588-570 Before Christ. “And it came to pass that the Lord commanded me, wherefore I did make plates of ore that I might engraven upon them the record of my people. And upon the plates of which I made I did engrave the record of my father, and also our journeyings in the wilderness, and the prophecies of my father; and also many of mine own prophecies have I engraven upon them. And I knew not t the time when I made them that I should be commanded of the Lord to make these plates; wherefore, the record of my father, and the genealogy of his fathers, and the more part of all our proceedings in the wilderness are engraven upon those first plates of which I have spoken; wherefore, the things which transpired before I made these plates are, of a truth, more particularly made mention upon the first plates. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Image“And after I had made these plates by way of commandment, I, Nephi, received a commandment that the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them, should be written upon these plates; and that the thing which were written should be kept for the instruction of my people, who should possess the land, and also for other wise purposes, which purposes are known unto the Lord. Wherefore, I Nephi, did make a record upon the other plates which gives an account, or which gives a greater account of the wars and contentions and destructions of my people. And this have I done, and commanded my people what they should do after I was gone; and that these plates should be handed down from one generation to another, or from one prophet to another, until further commandments of the Lord. And an account of my making these plates shall be given hereafter; and then, behold, I proceed according to that which I have spoken; and this I do that the more sacred things maybe kept for the knowledge of my people. Nevertheless, I do not write anything upon plates save it be that I think it be sacred. And now, if do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other people, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Image“For the things which some people esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet. Yea, even they very God if Israel do people trample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words—they set him at naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels. And behold he cometh, according to the words of the Angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem. And the World, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of humans. And the God of our Fathers, who were led out of Egypt out of bondage, and also were preserved in the wilderness by him, yea, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yieldeth himself, according to the words of the Angel, as a man, into the hands of the wicked men, to be lifted up, according to the words of Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried in a sepulcher, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Image“For thus spake the prophet: The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by the tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the Earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up. And all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. And the rocks of the Earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the Earth, many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to exclaim: The God of nature suffers. And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet, they shall be scourged by all people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders, and the power and glory of the God of Israel. And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated among all nations. Nevertheless, when that day cometh, saith the prophet, that they no more turn aside their hearts against the Holy One of Israel, then will he remember the covenants which he made to their fathers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Image“Yea, then will he remember the isles of the sea; yea, and all the people who are of the house of Israel, will I gather in, saith the Lord, according to the words of the prophet Zenos, from the four quarters of the Earth. Yea, and all the Earth shall see the salvation of the Lord, saith the prophet; every nation, kindred, tongue and people shall be blessed. And I, Nephi, have written these things unto my people, that perhaps I might persuade them that they would remember the Lord their Redeemer. Wherefore, I speak unto all the house of Israel, if it so be that they should obtain their things. For behold, I have workings in the spirit, which doth weary me even that all my joints are weak, for those who are at Jerusalem; for had not the Lord been merciful, to show unto me concerning them, even as he had prophets of old, I should have perished also. And he surely did show unto the prophets of old all things concerning them for they are written upon the plates of brass. Now it came to pass that I, Nephi, did teach my brethren these things; and it came to pass that I did read may things to them, which were engraven upon the plates of brass, that they might know concerning the doings of the Lord in other lands, among people of old. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Image“And I did read my things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning. Wherefore I spake unto them, saying: Here ye the words of the prophet, ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who have been broken off; hear ye the words of the prophet, which were written unto all the house of Israel, and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope as well as your brethren from whom ye have been broken off; for after this manner has the prophet written,” reports 1 Nephi 19.1-24. O God, Who justifies the ungodly, and willest not the death of a sinner; we humbly beseech Thy Majesty that Thou wouldest graciously protect with Heavenly assistance They children, who rely on Thy mercy, and keep us safe with unceasing protection; that we may continually serve Thee, and not be parted from Thee by any temptation; though our Lord Jesus Christ. O Lord of the Oceans, my little bark sails on a restless sea, please grant that Jesus may sit at the helm and steer me safely; suffer no adverse currents to divert my Heavenward course; let not my faith be wrecked amid storms and shoals; bring me to harbour with flying pennants, hull unbreached, cargo unspoiled. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

ImageI ask great things, expect great things, shall receive great things. I venture on Thee wholly, fully, my wind, Sunshine, anchor, defence. The voyage is long, the waves high, the storms pitiless, but my helm is held steady, Thy word secures safe passage, Thy grace wafts me onward, my haven is guaranteed. This day will bring me nearer home, grant me holy consistency in every transaction, my peace flowing as a running tide, my righteousness as every chasing wave. Help me to live circumspectly, with skill to convert every care into prayer, halo my path with gentleness and love, smooth every asperity of temper; let me not forget how easy it is to occasion grief; may I strive to bind up every wound, and pour oil on all troubled waters. May the World this day be happier and better because I live. Let my mast before me be the Saviour’s cross, and every oncoming wave the fountain in His side. Help me, protect me in the moving side. Help me, protect me in the moving sea until I reach the shore of unceasing praise. One cannot help all the billions of humankind. One can help only the seekers among humankind. Nor can one help all the seekers. One can help only those come into sympathetic and receptive contact with one or with one’s work. The master will teach with love what the student must learn with reverence. It is a wise parent who knows one’s own child. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20Image

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First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of One’s Country People!

Capture5Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace. Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It is not the mountain ahead that wear you out—it is the grain of sand in your shoe. Due to feminism and feminist theory, gender is coming to be recognized as a social factor of major importance. Indeed, the new meaning of the words reflects the fact that so much of what has traditionally been thought of a sexual difference is now considered by many to be largely socially produced. Feminist scholars from many disciplines and with radically different points of view have contributed to the enterprise of making gender fully visible and comprehensible. At one end of the spectrum are those whose explanations of the subordination of women focus primarily on biological differences as casual in the construct of gender, and at the other end are those who argue that biological difference may not even lie at the core of the social construction that is gender; the view of the vast majority of feminists fall between these extremes. The rejection of biological determinism and the corresponding emphasis on gender as a social construction characterize most current feminist scholarship. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageOf particular relevance is work in psychology where scholars have investigated the importance of female primary parenting in the formation of our gendered identities, and in history and anthropology, where emphasis has been placed on the historical and cultural variability of gender. Some feminists have been criticized for developing theories of gender that do not take sufficient account of differences among women, especially race, class, religion, and ethnicity. While such critiques should always inform our research and improve our arguments, it would be a mistake to allow them to detract our attention from gender itself as a factor of significance. Many injustices are experienced by women as women, whatever the differences among them and whatever other injustices they also suffer from. The past and present gendered nature of the family, and the ideology that surrounds it, affects virtually all women, whether or not they live or ever lived in traditional families. Recognizing this is not to deny or de-emphasize the fact that gender may affect different subgroups of women to a different extent and in different ways. The potential significance of feminist discoveries and conclusions about gender for issues of social justice cannot be overemphasized. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageConclusions about gender issues of social justice and potential feminist discoveries undermine centuries of argument that started with the notion that not only the distinct differentiation of women and men but the domination of women by men, being natural, was therefore inevitable and not even to be considered in discussions of justice. Despite the fact that such notions cannot stand up to rational scrutiny, they not only still survive but flourish in influential places. During the same two decades in which feminists have been intensely thinking, researching, analyzing, disagreeing about, and rethinking the subject of gender, our political and legal institutions have been increasingly faced with issues concerning the injustices of gender and their effects. These issues are being decided within a fundamentally patriarchal system, founded in a tradition in which “individuals” were assumed to be male heads of households. Not surprisingly, the system has demonstrated a limited capacity for determining what is just, in many cases involving gender. Sex discrimination, sexual harassment, abortion, pregnancy in the workplace, parental leave, child care, and surrogate mother have all become major and well-publicized issues of public policy, engaging both courts and legislatures. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageIssues of family justice, in particular—from child custody and terms of divorce to physical and sexual abuse of wives and children—have become increasingly visible and pressing, and are commanding increasing attention from the police and court systems. There is clearly a major “justice crisis” in contemporary society arising from issues of gender. There has been a great resurgence of theories of social justice. Political theory, which has been sparse for a period before the late 1960s except as an important branch of intellectual history, has become a flourishing field, with social justice as its central concern. Yet, remarkably, major contemporary theorists of justice have almost without exception ignored the situation I have just described. They have displayed little interest in or knowledge of the findings of feminism. They have largely bypassed the fac that the society to which their theories are supposed to pertain is heavily and deeply affected by gender, and faces difficult issues of justice stemming from its gendered past and present assumptions. Since theories of justice are centrally concerned with whether, how, and why persons should be treated differently from one another, this neglect seems inexplicable. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageThese theories are about which initial or acquired characteristics of positions in society legitimize differential treatment of persons by social institutions, laws, and customs. They are about how and whether and to what obvious subject for such inquires. However, as we shall see, this does not strike most contemporary theorists of justice, and their theories suffer in both coherence and relevance because of it. This is a remarkable case of neglect. We are also attempting to rectify it, to point the way toward a more fully humanist theory of justice by confronting the question, “How just is gender?” Why is that when we turn to contemporary theories of justice, we do not find illuminating and beneficial contributions to this question? How can theories of justice that are ostensibly about people in general neglect women, gender, and all the inequalities between the sexes? One reason is that most theorists assume, though they do not discuss, the traditional, gender-structured family. Another is that they often employ gender-neutral language in a false, hollow way. While the democratic movement is professing to fight for the working classes against capitalism, in reality it is concerned only with establishing and perpetuating their own power. The masses are only there to be used—for their idealism, their class resentments, their willingness to work for cheap—and be sold out, again and again. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageThere has arisen a sort of schizophrenic manner of thinking, in which words like “democracy” can bear two irreconcilable meanings, and such things as concentration camps and mass deportations can be right and wrong simultaneously. For instance, it is deemed acceptable to lock one race or class of people up, but acceptable to allow people to flood into the nation without documentation and do nothing about it. However, the reason is that African Americans and Hispanics are becoming more stable and affluent and influential and are moving away from the democratic party because they no longer government programs to survive and so to stay in power and get a supermajor, the democratic party has to court and seduce a new party of voters, even if they are not citizens. Doublethink is a form of mental discipline whose goal, desirable and necessary to all Party members, is to be able to believe two contradictory truths at the same time. This is nothing new, of course. Most of us do it. It is called compartmentalization. Compartmentalization is a defense mechanism, or a coping strategy, which does not impart a very good connotation. Put simply, it is how our minds deal with conflicting internal standpoints simultaneously. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Image An example of compartmentalization is, while democrats were focused on the President and the Russia Witch hunt, they ignored the Novel Coronavirus outbreak, which is now a pandemic and is threatening the entire World, while President Trump created a thriving economy and high employment. President Trump is a threat to the democrat’s way of life because he puts Americans first and that is not what the media nor democrats want. Every day public opinion is the target of rewritten history, official amnesia and outright lying, all of which is sinisterly and sarcastically termed “news,” as if it were no more harmful than a walk through the park, on a warm Spring day. We know better than what these reporters tell us, yet hope otherwise. We believe and doubt at the same time—it seems a condition of political thought in a modern superstate to be permanently of at least two minds on most issues. Needless to say, this is of inestimable use to those in power who wish to remain there, preferably forever. And as you see, this form of tyranny has the potential for fatal mischief. Well, of course, the TV news media should not be altogether trusted as the main source of information, which is why so many people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send their children to school. Parents want well informed adults, who know how to research and think for themselves. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageIf creative flexibility is the method of education, how can one possibly train people to that way of practicing? When one in training, one should be given a rigid way of being so that one has a model to wean oneself to, so one can wean oneself from the ways of being one learned from mother, father, Sunday school, one’s neighbourhood, and the unreal TV news, and so on. These ways will not necessarily be effective in a daily exchange. However, I think it is good to learn something orthodox to give one a sense of professional identity, a badge. Yet, that is only half training. The other half is provided through supervision. Once a master is persuaded that the pupils have mastered the basic discipline, then one must afford encouragement and challenge to one’s student. When the student is wrestling with a concrete problem presented by a real-life situation, one is, as it were, being tempted to break discipline. If it seems to one and one’s supervisor that something is called for, but that if one does it, one will not be a good Rogerian (one who negotiates using a strategy in which common goals are identified and opposing views are described as objectively as passion in an effort to establish common ground and reach an agreement), then the supervisor must encourage one’s pupil to say, “Away with Rogerianism. Full speed ahead.” However, in a responsible way, because one and one’s supervisor must deal with whatever happens next. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageIn the neurotic’s extraordinary difficulties in criticizing and making accusations there are several determining factors in one’s adult personality. In the first place this incapacity is one of the expressions of one’s lack of spontaneous self-assertion. In order to understand this deficiency it is necessary only to compare one’s attitude with the way the healthy person of our culture feels and behaves in regard to making and expressing accusations, or more generally speaking, in regard to attack and defense. The normal person is able to defend one’s opinion in an argument, to refute an unwarranted accusation, insinuation or imposition, to remonstrate internally or externally against neglect or cheating, to refuse a request or an offer if one does not like it and if the situation allows one to refuse it. One is able to feel and express criticism if necessary, to feel and express accusations, or deliberately to withdraw from or to dismiss a person if one wants to. Furthermore one is able to defend or attack without disproportionate emotional tension and to hold a middle course between exaggerated self-recriminations and an exaggerated aggressiveness which would lead one to unwarranted, violent accusations against the World. To be able thus to take the happy medium is possible only on the basis of conditions which in neuroses are more or less lacking: a comparative freedom from diffuse unconscious hostility and a comparatively secure self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageWhen this spontaneous self-assertion is lacking the inevitable consequence is a feeling of weakness and defenselessness. A person who knows—perhaps without every having thought about it—that if the situation demands it one can attack or can defend oneself, is and feels strong. A person who registers the fact that one probably cannot do this is and feels weak. We register as accurately as an electric clock whether we have suppressed an argument out of fear or out of wisdom, whether we have accepted an accusation out of weakness or out of a sense of justice, even though we may successfully deceive our conscious selves. For the neurotic person this registering of weakness is a constant secret source of irritation. Many a depression starts after a person has been unable to defend one’s arguments or express a critical opinion. However, given the life of faith in the community of the Church, the reception of the sacraments rightly administered and the audition of the Word of God soundly preached, a Christian is defined as one who is saved by grace through one’s faith in Jesus Christ, the Saviour. The Saviour speak to one in the Word and comes to one in the sacraments. Christianity is more than any other faith or community the realm of principle. However, salvation must reach to the depths of the being. The modern World has sounded these depths. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImageGod’s graciousness is beyond and above human merit, and God’s graciousness is afforded us in spite of human’s intellectual doubts. Furthermore, God’s graciousness is even within human’s existential split. In chapter 18 the Ship Nephi was working on is finished—the births of Jacob and Joseph are mentioned—the company embarks for the promised land—the sons of Ishmael and their wives join in revelry and rebellion—Nephi is bound, and the ship is drive back by a terrible tempest—Nephi is freed, and by his prayer the storm ceases—the people arrive in the promised land. About 591-598 Before Christ. “And it came to pass that they did worship the Lord, and did go forth with me; and we did work timers of curious craft. And the Lord did show mw from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. Now, I Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men. And, I Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Image“And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, accord to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine; wherefore, they did humble themselves again before the Lord. And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came unto my father, that we should arise and go down into the ship,” reports 1 Nephi 18.1-5. Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. However, our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God; because the sensible effects of God do not equal the power of God as their cause. Hence from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known; nor therefore can His essence be seen. However, because they are His effects and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to know of God “whether He exists,” and to know of Him what mist necessarily belong to Him, as the first cause of all things, exceeding all things caused by Him. Hence we know that His relationship with creatures so far as to be the cause of them all; also that creatures different from Him, inasmuch as He is not in any way part of what is caused by Him; and that creatures are not removed from Him by reason of any defect on His part, but because He superexceeds them all. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageGod is known by natural knowledge through the images of His effects. As the knowledge of God’s essence is by grace, it belongs only to the good; but the knowledge of Him by natural reason can belong to both good and bad. For it can be answered that many who are not pure can know many truths, id est, by natural reason. “And it came to pass that on the morrow, after we had prepared all things, much fruits and meant from the wilderness, and honey in abundance, and provisions according to that which the Lord had commanded us, we did go down into the ship, with all our loading and our seeds, and whatsoever thing we have brought with us, every one according to one’s age; wherefore, we did all go down into the ship, with our wives and children. And now, my father had begat two sons in the wilderness; the elder was called Jacob and the younger Joseph. And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had take with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land. And after we had been driven forth before the wind for the space of many days, behold, my brethren and the sons of Ishmael and also their wives began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness, yea, even that they did forget by what power they had been brought thither; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Image“And I, Nephi, began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea; wherefore, I, Nephi, began to speak to them with much soberness; but behold they were angry with me, saying: We will not that our younger brother shall be a rule over us. And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness; nevertheless, the Lord did suffer it that he might show forth his power, unto the fulfilling of his word which he had spoken concerning the wicked. And it came to pass that after they had bound me insomuch that I could not move, the compass which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to work. Wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yes, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driving back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Image“And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them, and they should repent of their iniquities; wherefore, they came unto me, and loosed the bands which were upon my wrists, and behold they had swollen exceedingly; and also mine ankles were much swollen, and great was the soreness thereof. Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions. Now my father, Lehi, had said many things unto them, and also unto the sons of Ishmael; but, behold, they did breathe out much threatenings against anyone that should speak for me; and my parents being stricken in years, and having suffered much grief because of their children, they were brought down, yea, even upon their sick-beds. Because of their grief and much sorrow, and the iniquity of my brethren, they were brought near even to be carried out of this time to meet their God; yea, their gray hairs were about to be brought down to lie low in the dust; yea, even they were near to be cast with sorrow into a watery grave. And Jacob and Joseph also, being young, having need of much nourishment, were grieved because of the afflictions of their mother; and also my wife with her tears and prayers, and also my children, did not soften the hearts of my brethren that they would loose me. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Image“And there was nothing save it were the power of God, which threatened them with destruction, could soften their hearts; wherefore, when they saw that they were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea they repented of the things which they had done, insomuch that they loosed me. And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, and I did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land. And it came to pass that after we has sailed for the space of many days we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our tents; and we did call it the promised land. And it came to pass that we did begin to till the Earth, and we began to plant seeds; yea, we did put all our seeds into the Earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem. And it came to pass that they did grow exceedingly; wherefore, we were blessed in abundance. And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the mule and the horse, and the goat, and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of humans. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Image“And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and silver, and of copper,” reports 1 Nephi 18.6-25. As God works miracles in corporeal things, so also He does supernatural wonders above the common order, raising the minds of some living in the flesh beyond the use of sense, even up to the vision of is own essence. He continues to work in our lives to conform us more and more to the likeness of Hid Son. As Paul said, “He who began a good work in your will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christs,” as reported in Philippians 1.6. This continuing work of God is called “progressive sanctification.” It differs from initial sanctification in two respects. Initial sanctification occurs instantly at the moment of salvation when we are delivered from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of Christ (see Colossians 1.13). Progressive sanctification continues over time until we go to be the with Lord. Initial sanctification is entirely the work of God the Holy Spirit who imparts to us the very life of Christ. Progressive sanctification is also the work of the Holy Spirit, but it involves a response on our part so that we as believers are actively involved in the process. O God, of infinite mercy and boundless majesty, Whom no distance of place nor length of time can part from those for whom Thou carest; please be present to Thy servants who everywhere confide in Thee. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

ImageAnd God, through all the way in which they are to go be pleased to be their Guide and their Companion. May no adversity harm them, no difficulty oppose them; may all things turn out happily and prosperously for them; that by the assistance of Thy right hand, whatsoever they have asked for with a reasonable desire, they may speedily find brought to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Thou Most High, in the way of Thy appointment I am waiting for Thee, my desire is to Thy name, my mind to remembrance of Thee. I am a sinner, but not insensible of my state. My iniquities are great and numberless, but Thou art adequate to my relief, for Thou art rich in mercy; the blood of Thy Son can cleanse from all sin; the agency of Thy Spirit can subdue my most powerful lusts. Give me a teacher, wakeful conscience that can smite and torment me when I sin. May I be consistent in conversation and conduct, the same alone as in company, in prosperity and adversity, accepting all Thy commandments as right, and hating every false way. May I never be satisfied with my present spiritual progress, but to faith add virtue, knowledge, temperance, Godliness, brotherly kindness, charity. May I never neglect what is necessary to constitute Christian character, and needful to complete it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageMay I cultivate the expedient, develop the lovely, adorn the gospel, recommend the religion of Jesus, accommodate myself to Thy providence. Keep me from sinking or sinning in the evil day; help me to carry into ordinary life portions of divine truth and use them on suitable occasions, so that its doctrines may inform, its warnings caution, its rules guide, its promises comfort me. With this in mind, we must always keep on praying. Exodus 17 describes aged Moses standing atop a hill, arms lifted up to Heaven interceding for Israel, which was engaged in a pitched battle with the Amalekites below. As long as his arms were extended upward, Israel prevailed, but when in weariness they began to fall, the Amalekites dominated. Poor Moses was in agony as gravity drew his hands toward destruction. However, then cam Arron and Hur, who placed a stone under Moses and, standing on either side, held his hands up to God until Sunset and Victory came (vv. 10-13). That story graphically emphasizes that there is a mysterious efficacy to persistent prayer. This is not to suggest that God regards prayer as a meritorious work—so that when there are enough prayers, Her answers. Rather, He sovereignly chooses to encourage persistence in prayer and to answer it to His everlasting glory. I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

ImageNOW SELLING! Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.

ImageLocated off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.

ImageFully finished single-story home located in the growing Cresleigh Ranch community! This contemporary farmhouse features an open floor plan with spacious kitchen including white painted cabinetry, warm granite counters, tiled backsplash, and stainless steel appliances. The home is full of natural light and durable LVP flooring throughout with the Great Room opening to the included covered patio! The Master Suite is tucked away at the rear of the home. The Home Hub is a bonus room found at the front of the home. It’s ideal for a home office, play room, or even a crafting studio. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-63/

But of All Plagues, Good Heaven, Thy Wrath Can Send, Save Me, Oh, Save Me, from the Candid Friend!

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With all the changes and challenges you face each day, there is never been a greater need to take the time to determine your priorities, and then with renewed focus, align your daily actions with your purpose or goals. Since you cannot know it all or do it all, it is vital that you learn to take the time to contemplate what it is you need to know and what you need to do. And keep in mind, the art of being wise is to know what to overlook. For what do we give thanks? Are there limits to giving thanks? Our text says—“In everything give thanks!” This does not mean—give thanks for everything, but give thanks in every situation! There are no limits to situations in which to thanks, but there are limits to thing for which thanks can be expressed. This is again a question the answer to which might lead us into a new understanding of the human predicament. In the letter to 1 Timothy 4.4 we read—“For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayers.” In these words, thanksgiving receives a new function. It consecrates everything created by God. Thanksgiving is consecration; it transfers something that belongs to the secular World into the sphere of the holy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

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Thanksgiving is not transformed, as superstition in and outside of Christian beliefs would transform it, but it is elevated to represent the divine. It has become a bearer of grace. Therefore, we say “grace” when we give thanks for our daily food, and thus consecrate it. Every created thing can be a bearer of holiness, an object of thanks, of consecration. There are no limits to thanksgiving in this respect. We can give thanks for our bodily and our mental powers, for the darkness of our unconscious as well as for the light of our consciousness, for the abundance of nature and the creations of history, for everything that is and manifests its power of being. We can give thanks for all these despite their rejection by those who, through World-hating asceticism and fanatical puritanism, blaspheme the God of creation. Everything for which we can give thanks with a good conscience is consecrated by our thanks. This is not merely a profound theological insight; it is also a practical standard in situations where we are uncertain about accepting it, we can give thanks for it, we witness to its goodness as crated. In giving thanks seriously, we consecrate it to the holy source of being from which it comes. And we even take the risk that Protestant Christians must take—that their conscience may fall into error and consecrate something which should be rejected. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

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One reason we have this new attitude toward sin and God’s law is that we “died” to the law. Such a statement may sound strange after we have learned insistently about the importance of God’s law as a moral rule in the believer’s life. However, through the law reveals God’s moral will for us, the law in itself has no power to enable us to obey it. Because the law commands obedience without providing any enabling power, it is in this sense a course of bondage. And because we were hostile to God’s law prior to our salvation (The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so, reports Romans 8.7), it was also a source of provocation to us. Instead of being a means of obedience to God, the law actually provoked us and incited us to sin (What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have know what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law has not said, “Do not covert.” However, sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead, reports Romans 7.7-8). Such a human’s actions, however much they outwardly appear to be like those of other beings, are done under the impulsion of a higher will than the personal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

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“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to one who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. However, now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code,” reports Romans 7.4-6. “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin,” reports Romans 3.20. “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace,” reports Romans 6.14. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law,’” reports Galatians 3.10. From these passages we understand that we died to the observance of the law as a requirement for attaining righteousness before God. We died to the curse and condemnation that resulted from our inability to perfectly keep the law. Then we see in Romans 6.14 that being under the law is opposite of being under grace. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

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Because of our sin against the law, being under law implied the wrath of God, whereas grace implies forgiveness and favour. Law implies a broken relationship with God, whereas grace implies a restored relationship with Him. So when Paul said we died to the law, he meant we died to that entire state of condemnation, curse, and alienation from God. The most important thing for us to see in our death to the law, however, is the purpose of our death. We died to the law in order that we might live in the realm of grace. We died to the law that we might bear fruit to God. And according to Romans 7.6, we died that we might “serve [God] in the new ways of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code [the law].” The new way of the spirit is not a new and less rigorous ethic than the old way of the written code. The difference does not lie in the content of the moral will of God. Since that is a reflection of the holy character of God, it cannot change. Rather, the difference lies in the reason to obey and in the ability with which to obey. Verse 6 gets right to the heart of what it means to live by grace. For serving in the new way of the Spirit is the same as living by grace instead of by works. Although it is clearly God’s design that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, far too many Christians still serve in the old way of the law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

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There are no limits to giving thanks in the whole of creation. However, are there not limits in our life? Can we honestly give thanks for the frustrations, accidents, and infirmaries that strike us? We cannot in the moment when they take hold of us. Here is one of the many situations where piety can degenerate into dishonesty. For we rightly resist such evils. We want to remove them; we are often angry against our destiny and its divine ground. And there are depths of suffering, bodily and mental, in which even the question of thanking or not thanking does not appear. Out of the depths the psalmist cries to God; he does not thank Him. This is honest, realistic—a realism born out of the awareness of the divine presence. And I believe that at some time in our lives all of us have had experiences that were nothing but evil when they happened, but that became a good later and the object of honest thanks. And we also cannot give thanks for our own acts that make us guilty or for those that make us good. We cannot give thanks for that which makes us guilty; and sometimes things for which we have given thanks become evil by our own guilt. Nor should we give tanks for that in us which makes us good. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

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The thanks of the pharisee for one’s good work is an outstanding example of thanks which should not be given. In reality, one does not thank God when one is thankful for one’s own goodness, but thanks oneself. How many of us thank ourselves when we give thanks to God! However, one cannot thank oneself, because the sacrifice of thanking, if given to oneself, ceases to be a sacrifice. Thanks to oneself is not thanks, even when prayers of thanks to God are hidden ways of thanking oneself, as after work well done or success achieved by great toil. It I a surprising experience to read the Bible, and especially the last third of the books of Psalms, with the questions of thanks in one’s mind. One discovers that the praise of God fills page after page in which the misery of all beings, including the writers of those books, is also most drastically described. Reading them, we feel as though we walk in another realm. We cannot reproduce in ourselves what is happening to these beings. (We are not in the mood of praising, hardly in the mood of thanking.) We look into the depth of our predicament and do not see much reason for praise and thanks. And if we think that it is our duty to God to thank Him, of if we participate in church services that include praise and thanks, we do not feel that we have truly expressed our state of mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

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Although this experience of not feeling that we have truly expressed our state of mind is not invariable, it is a predominant trait of our religious situation. It expresses itself in the messages of our best present preachers and theologians. It is a dominating theme of our great poets and philosophers. We are not called to pas judgment on these beings. We have a part in them. They express us as they express themselves. And we should thank those who do it seriously, and often out of deep spiritual suffering. The differences of our situation from that of former periods becomes visible when we read about the passion and intensity with which the members of the early church gave thanks for the gift of the Christian message in a World of pagan glory, disintegration and despair. Is the same passion and intensity in us when we give thanks for the gift of God which is the Christ and His church? Who can honestly answer “yes”? And do we not sense the same difference when we read how the fighters of the Reformation thanked God for the rediscovery of the good news of the divine acceptance of those who are sinners? Is the same infinite concern in us as was in them? Who can honestly answer “yes”? We must therefore be grateful to those who express our present situation honestly. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

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When I am not prized and appreciated, I not only feel very much diminished, but my behaviour is actually affected by my feelings. When I am prized, I blossom and expand, I am an interesting individual. In a hostile or unappreciative group, I am just not much of anything. People wonder, with very good reason, how did he ever get a reputation? I wish I had the strength to be more similar in both kinds of groups, but actually the person I am in a warm and interested group is different from the person I am in a hostile or cold group. Thus, prizing or loving and being prized or loved is experienced as very growth enhancing. A person who is loved appreciatively, not possessively, blooms and develops one’s own unique self. The person who loves nonpossessively is oneself enriched. There is some consolation: We are not separated from the ever active presence of God, and we can become aware of it in every moment. Our hearts can become filled with praise and thanks without the use of words; and sometimes we may also find those words of praise and thanks. However, this is not the first step, and, often, not even the last. Let us not follow those who use what is called the present religious revival to force us back into forms of prayer and thanks that we cannot honestly accept, or that produce joy and thanks through self-suggestion. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

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The repetition of the words that reinforce class consciousness make the mind one coherent conviction. People become so wrapped up in explanations that their social construction of reality becomes deep—so deep that their fictious responses seem natural. These psychological revolutions that are formed create confusion because they are not natural nor heart felt. Therefore, let us keep ourselves open to the power that carries our life in every moment, that is here and now, that comes to us through nature and through the message of Jesus as the Christ. May we keep open to it, so that we may be filled with silent gratefulness for the power of being which is in us. And then perhaps words of thanks, words of sacrifice and consecration, may come to our tongues, so that we again may give thanks in truth and honesty. Almighty God! We raise our hearts to Thee in praise and thanks. For we are not by ourselves and nothing is ours except what Thou hast given us. We are finite; we did not bring anything into our World; we shall not take anything out of our World. Thou hast given us the life which is ours so long as it is Thy will. We thank Thee that we have being, that we share in the inexhaustible riches of life, in the smallest and in the largest part of it. We praise Thee when we feel strength in body and soul. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

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We give thanks to Thee when joy fills our hearts. We are gratefully aware of Thy presence, be it in silence, or in words. Awaken us to such awareness when our daily life hides Thy presence from us, when we forget how near Thou art to us in every place and in every moment, nearer than any other being is to us, nearer than we are to ourselves. Let us not turn aware from Thy giving and creating presence to the things Thou hast given us. Let us not forget the Creator behind the creation. Keep us always ready for the sacrifice of giving thanks to Thee. Thine is what we are and have. We consecrate it to Thee. Receive our thanks when we say grace, consecrating our food and with it all that we receive in our daily life. Prevent us from using empty words and forms when we give thanks to Thee. Save us from routine and mere convention when we dare to speak to Thee. We thank Thee when we look back at our life, be it long or short, for all that we have met in it. And we thank Thee not only for what we have loved and for what gave us pleasure, but also for what brought us disappointment, pain and suffering, because we now know that it helped us to fulfill that for which we were born. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

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And if new disappointments and new sufferings takes hold of us and words of thanks die on our tongues, remind us that a day may come when we will be ready to give thanks for the dark road on which Thou hast led us. Our words of thanks are poor and often we cannot find words at all. There are days and months and years in which we were or are still unable to speak to Thee. Give us the power, at such times, to keep our hearts open to the abundance of life, and in silent gratefulness, to experience Thy unchanging, eternal presence. Take the silent sacrifice of a heart when words of thanks become rare in us. Accept our silent gratefulness and keep our hearts and our minds open to Thee always! We thank Thee for what Thou hast given to this nation far beyond the gifts to any other nation! Let us remain thankful for it, so that we may overcome the dangers of shallowness of life and emptiness of heart that threaten our people. Prevent us from turning Thy gifts into causes of injury and self-destruction. Let a grateful mind protect us against national and personal disintegrations. Turn us to Thee, the source of our being, eternal God! Amen. An Angel tells Nephi of the blessings and cursings to fall upon the Gentiles—there are only two churches: the Church of the Lamb of God and the church of the devil—than Saints of God in al nations are persecuted by the great and abominable church—the Apostle John will write concerning the end of the World. About 600-592 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

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“And it come to pass, that is the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that He shall manifest Himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks—and harden not their hearts against the Lamb of God, they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father’ yea, they shall be numbered among the house of Israel; and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever; they shall be no more brought down into captivity; and the house of Israel shall no more be confounded. And that great pit, which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children, that he might lead away their souls of humans down to hell—yea, that great pit which hath been digged for the destruction of humans shall be filled by those who digged it, unto their utter destruction, saith the Lamb of God; not the destruction of the soul, save it be the casting of it into that hell which hath no end. For behold, this is according to the captivity of the devil, and also according to the justice of God, upon all those who will work wickedness and abomination before him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

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“And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me, Nephi saying: Thou hast beheld that if the Gentiles repent it shall be well with them; and thou also knowest concerning the concering the covenants of the Lord unto the house of Israel; and though also hast heard that whoso repenteth not much perish. Therefore, wo be unto the Gentiles if it so be that they harden their hearts against the Lamb of God. For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of humans; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either to be the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the devil, of which I have spoken. And it came to pass that when the Angel has spoke these words, he said unto me: Rememberest thou covenants of the Father unto the house of Israel? I said unto him, Yea And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look, and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

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“And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belondeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church , which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the Earth. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the Earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the Earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon the face of the Earth; and their dominions upon the face of the Earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. And it came to pass that I beheld that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitude upon the face of all the Earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the Earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

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“And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the Earth. Ans as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the Angel spake unto me, saying: Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold thou seest all these things—and when they day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the Earth, whose founder is the devil, then at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel. And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld a man, and he was dressed in a white robe. And the Angel said unto me: Behold one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Behold, he shall see and write the remainder of these things which have been. And he shall also write concerning the end of the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

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“Wherefore, the things which he shall write are just and true; and behold they are written in the book which proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, or, at the time the book proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, the things which were written were plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all people. And behold, the things which this apostle of the Lamb shall write are many things which thou hast seen; and behold, the remainder shalt thou see. However, the things which thou shalt see hereafter thou shalt not write; for the Lord God hath ordained the apostle of the Lamb of God that he should write them. And also others who have been, to them hat he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel. And I, Nephi, heard and bear record, that the name of the apostle of the Lamb was John, according to the words of the Angel. And behold, I, Nephi, am forbidden that I should write the remainder of the things which I saw and heard; wherefore the things which I have written sufficeth me; and I have written but a small part of the things which I saw. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

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“And I bear record that I saw the things which my father saw, and the Angel of the Lord did make them known unto me. And now I make an end of speaking concerning the things which I saw while I was carried away in the Spirit; and if all the things which I saw are not written, the things which I have written are true. And thus it is. Amen,” reports 1 Nephi 14.1-30. Pray continually, and in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. Is continual prayer possible? Yes and no. It is, of course, impossible to carry on a running dialogue while we are working or at other times, but the prayer called for here is not so much the articulation of words as the posture of the heart. There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we can be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. However, deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings. The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different cuisines, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

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My heart is ever lifted up to God at all times and in all places. In this I am never hindered, much less interrupted, by any person of thing. In retirement or company, in leisure, business, or conversation, my heart is ever with the Lord. Whether I lie down or rise up, God is in all my thoughts; I walk with God continually, having the loving eye of my mind still fixed upon God, and everywhere seeing God that is invisible. Thus, we see that a life of continual prayer is not only possible, but some actually live it out. Understand that this life is not meant just for some, or for a spiritual elite, but for all of us. Continual prayer is God’s will for every Christian, no exceptions. I can do it; you can do it. Business people, students, young parents—all can do it. We are to have a perpetual inner dialogue with God. We must always be looking up, even when driving to work or mowing the lawn. Almighty and everlasting God, be Thou present to our duties, and grant the protection of Thy presence to all that dwell in this house; that Thou mayest be known to be the Defender of Thy family, and the Inhabitant of this dwelling; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and Redeemer, my we be granted entrance into Heaven and always remain at God’s side. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

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Hear us, holy Lord, Father Almighty, everlasting God, and be pleased to send Thy holy Angel from Heaven, to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this habitation; through Jesus Christ our Lord may all of us be blessed and receive eternal life. O Spirit of God, help my infirmities; when I am pressed down with a load of sorrow, perplexed and knowing not what to do, slandered and persecuted, made to feel the weight of the cross, help me, I pray Thee. If Thou seest in me any wrong thing encouraged, any evil desire cherished, any delight that is not Thy delight, any habit that grieves Thee, any nest of sin in my heart, then grant me the kiss of Thy forgiveness, and teach my feet to talk the way of Thy commandments. Deliver me from carking care, and make me a happy, holy person; help me to walk the separated life with firm and brave step, and to wrestle successfully against weakness; teach me to laud, adore, and magnify Thee, with the music of Heaven, and make me a perfume of praiseful gratitude to Thee. I do not crouch at Thy feet as a slave before a tyrant, but exult before Thee as a child with a father. Give me power to live as Thy child in all my actions, and to exercise family-ship by conquering self. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

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Preserve me from the intoxication that comes of prosperity; sober me when I am glad with a joy that comes not from Thee. Lead me safely on to the eternal kingdom, not asking whether the road be rough or smooth. I request only to see the face of Him I love, to be very content with bread to eat, with raiment to put on, if I can be brought to Thy house in peace. Then the events of this wide World I would seize like a strong giant, and my spirit teaze till at its shoulders it should proudly see wings to find out an immortality. Stop and consider! Life is but a day; a fragile dew-drop on its perilous way from a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep while his boat hastens to the monstrous steep of Montmorenci. Why so sad a moan? Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown; the reading of an ever-changing tale; the light uplifting of a maiden’s veil; a pigeon tumbling in clear Summer air; a laughing school-boy, without grift or care, riding the springy branches of an elm. O for ten years, that I may overwhelm myself in posey; so I may do the deed that my own soul has to itself decreed. Then will I pass the countries that I see in long perspective, and continually taste their pure fountains. The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one; yet the light of the bright World dies with the dying Sun. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

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First the realm I will pass of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass, feed upon apples red, and strawberries, and choose each pleasure that my fancy sees; catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places, to woo sweet kisses from averted faces—play with their finger, touch their shoulders white into a pretty shrinking with a bite as hard as lips can make it: till agreed, a lovely tale of human life we will read. And one will teach a tame dove how it best may fan the cool air gently over my rest; another, bending over her nimble tread, will set a green robe floating round her head, and still will dance with ever varied ease, smiling upon the flowers and the trees: another will entice me on, and on through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon; till in the bosom of a leafy World we rest in silence, like two gems up curled in the recesses of a pearly shell. We beseech Thee, O Lord, make Thy servants always to join together in seeking Thee with their whole heart, to serve Thee with submissive mind, humbly to implore Thy mercy, and perpetually to rejoice in Thy blessings; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Stretch forth, O Lord, Thy mercy over Thy servants, even the right hand of Heavenly help; that they may seek Thee with their whole heart, and obtain what they rightly ask for; thought Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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MILLS STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

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2,317 square feet – $475,743
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Fully finished two-story home located in the growing Cresleigh Ranch community! This sleek and modern home features a contemporary kitchen with painted white cabinetry, quartz counters, tiled back splash and stainless steel appliances! The open floor plan is full of natural light and durable Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) flooring throughout the main floor. The Master Suite is located on the first floor and has direct access to the covered patio and rear yard. The high ceilings is a must see in this home! Secondary bedrooms and loft are located upstairs. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-61/Image

Watch the Walkthrough of Residence #2

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The Universe is Not Hostile, Nor Yet is it Friendly—it is Simply Indifferent!

ImageI still believe that Joseph Barbera and William Hanna made the best cartoons ever when they formed Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. Charlotte’s Web, The Flintstones, The Snorks, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, Casper’s First Christmas, Richie Rich, Jonny Quest, and many more wonderful cartoons I enjoyed as a kid. One has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, worked hard, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent beings and the love of all kinds of people; who has filled one’s niche and accomplished one’s task; who leaves the World better than one found it, whether by an improved garden, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave them the best one had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction. But we ask—how can we possess such wisdom? In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom says—“I was…rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited World and delighting in the sons of men…and now, my sons, listen to me…one who finds me, find life…but all who hate me love death.” To aspire to wisdom, or to despise it, is a matter of life and death. This could never be said of knowledge in the ordinary sense of the word. Those who know much and do not have life because of their knowledge, and those who know little; and do not try to learn much, do not prove that they love death. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

ImageWisdom is a matter of life and death because it is more than knowledge. It can be united with knowledge, but it can also stand alone. It belongs to a dimension which cannot be reached by scholarly endeavour. Wisdom is insight into the meaning of one’s life, into its conflicts and dangers, into its creative and destructive powers, and into the ground out of which it comes and to which it must return. Therefore, the preachers of wisdom tell us that the first step in acquiring it is the fear of God and the awareness of the holy. Such words can easily be misunderstood. They do not command subjection to a god who arouses fear. Nor do they advise us to accept doctrines about him. Suh a command and such advice would lead us straight away from wisdom and not towards it. However, our text says that there cannot be wisdom without an encounter with the holy, with that which creates awe, and shake the ordinary way of life and thought. Without the experience of awe in face of the mystery of life, there is no wisdom. Most removed from wisdom are not those who are driven by desire for pleasure or power, but those brilliant minds who have never encountered the holy, who are without awe and know nothing sacred, but who are able to conceal their ultimate emptiness by the brilliant performances of their intellect. No wisdom shines through knowledge of many people who play a great role in our academic and non-academic society. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

ImageThe wisdom at which God looks in the creation of the World, the eternal wisdom, calls them fools. There is a distortion of the 1 Corinthians 1-2. Two frequently cited but misunderstood texts relevant to the Christian mind are 1 Corinthians 1-2 and Colossians 2.8.  In 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, Paul argues against the wisdom of the World and reminds his readers that he did not visit them with persuasive words of wisdom. Some conclude from this that human reasoning and argument are futile, especially when applied to evangelism. There are several problems with this understanding of the passage. For one thing, if it is in fact an indictment against argumentation and reasoning, then it contradicts Paul’s own practice in Acts and his explicit appeal to the argument and evidence on behalf of the Resurrection in the very same epistle (1 Corinthians 15). Second, this passage is more accurately seen as a condemnation of the false, prideful use of reason, not of reason itself. It is hubris (pride) that is in view, not nous (mind). God chose foolish (moria) things that were offensive to human pride, not to reason properly used. For example, the idea of God being crucified was so offensive that the Greek spirit would have judged it to be morally disgusting. The passage may also be a condemnation of Greek rhetoric. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

ImageGreek orators prided themselves in possessing persuasive words of wisdom, and it was their practice to persuade a crowd of any side of an issue for the right price. They did not base their persuasion on rational considerations but on speaking ability, thus bypassing issues of substance. Paul is most likely contrasting himself with Greek rhetoricians. If so, then Paul is arguing against evangelists who spend all of their time working on their speaking techniques yet fail to address the minds of unbelievers in their gospel presentations! Paul could also be making the claim that the content of the gospel cannot be deduced by pure reason from some set of first principles. No one could start off with an abstract concept of a first mover and deduce that a crucifixion would happen from this information alone. Thus, the gospel could never have been discovered by pure deductive reason from self-evident first principles, but had to be revealed by the biblical God who acts in history. Paul was insistent that the intellect could assess whether nor not there was sufficient evidence to judge that God had so acted (1 Corinthians 15). So we cannot conclude from this passage that using reason is futile. The distortion of Colossians 2.8—in this passage, Paul says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this World rather than on Christ.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

ImageSome take the distortion of Colossians 2.8 to be a command to avoid secular studies, especially philosophy. However, upon close inspection of the structure of the verse, it become clear that philosophy in general was not the focus. Rather, it is a certain sort of philosophy—hollow and deceptive philosophy. In the context of Colossians, Paul was warning the church not to form and base doctrinal views according to a philosophical system hostile to orthodoxy. His remarks were a simple waring not to embrace heresy; in context, they were not meant to represent his views of philosophy as a discipline of study. In fact, one of the best ways to avoid hollow and deceptive philosophy is to study philosophy itself, so you can learn to recognize truth from error, using Scripture and right reason as a guide. His is exactly what Paul himself did. Colossians reveals an apostle who was entirely familiar with the type of proto-Gnostic philosophy threatening Colossians believers, who possessed a thorough knowledge of that philosophical system and an ability to point out its inadequacy. And remember, Paul himself cited pagan philosophers approvingly in Acts 17.28. “’For in him we live and move and have our own being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring,’” reports Acts 17.28. Neither of these texts should dampen our enthusiasm to cultivate a Christian mind or use reason in our Christian walk. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

ImageOne who has encountered the mystery of life has reached the source of wisdom. In encountering it with awe and longing, one experiences the infinite distance of one’s being from that which is the ground of one’s being. One experiences the limits of one’s being, one’s finitude in the face of the infinite. One learns that acceptance of one’s limits is the decisive step towards wisdom. The fool rebels against the limits set by one’s finitude. One wants to be unlimited in power and knowledge. One who is wise accepts one’s finitude. One knows that one is not God. There is an area of my learning in interpersonal relationships—one that has been slow and painful for me. When I can let in the fac, or permit myself to feel that someone cares for, accepts, admires, or prizes me, I feel warmed and fulfilled. Because of elements in my past history, I suppose, it has been very difficult for me to do this. For a long time I tended almost automatically to brush aside any optimistic feelings aimed in my direction. My reaction was, “Who, me? You could not possibly care for me. You might like what I have done, or my achievements, but not me.” This is one respect in which my own therapy helped me very much. I am not always able even not to let in such warm and loving feelings from others, but I find it very releasing when I can do so. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

ImageI know that some people flatter me in order to gain something for themselves; some people praise me because they are afraid to be hostile. However, I have come to recognize the fact that some people genuinely appreciate me, like me, love me, and I want to sense that fact and let it in. I think I have become less aloof as I have been able to take in and soak up those loving feelings. I feel enriched when I can truly prize or care for or love another person and when I can let that feeling flow out to the person. Like many others, I used to fear being trapped by letting my feelings show. “If I care for him, he can control me.” “If I love her, I am trying to control her.” I think that I have moved a long way toward being less fearful in this respect. Like my clients, I too have slowly learned that tender, beneficial feelings are not dangerous either to give or to receive. To illustrate what I mean, I would like again to draw an example from a recent basic encounter group. A woman who described herself as “an out spoken, sensitive, hyperactive individual” whose marriage was on the rocks, and who felt that life was just not worth living said, “I had really buried under a layer of concrete many feelings I was afraid people were going to laugh at or stomp on which, needless to say, was working all kinds of hell on my family and me. I had been looking forward to the workshops with my last few crumbs of hope—it was really a needle of trust in a huge haystack of despair.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

ImageShe spoke of some of her experiences in the group and added, “The real turning point for me was a simple gesture on your part of putting your arm around my shoulder, one afternoon when I had made some crack about you not really being a member of the group—that no one could cry on your shoulder. In my notes I had written, the night before, “My God, there is no man in the World who love me.” You seemed so genuinely concerned the day I fell apart, I was overwhelmed…I received the gesture as one of the first feelings of acceptance—of me, just the unenlightened way I am, sensitivities and all—that I had ever experienced. I have felt needed, loving, competent, furious, frantic, anything and everything but just plain loved. You can imagine the flood of gratitude, humility, almost release, that swept over me. I wrote, with considerable joy, “I actually felt love. I doubt that I should soon forget it.” This woman, of course, was speaking to me, and yet in some deep sense she was also speaking for me. I too have had similar feelings. Those of one’s followers who expect one to behave with impeccable propriety and are ready to leave and follow someone else if one does not will either be victims of, or gainers by their own judgment. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

ImageIf the teacher is really unified with God, any judging of one done by external standards will be only partly applicable. There is a point where neither one’s character nor one’s motives can be correctly measured by such standards, and beyond which they may be quite misleading. The mystical and cultist circles which talk much about these matters use the name “Master” to trail such an accumulation behind it of falsified facts, superstitious ntions, and nonsensical thinking, that it is needful to be on guard for semantic definitions whenever this term is heard. The mistake that some followers make is to fail to see that their demigod is recognizably human. The mistake that most non-followers make is to fail to see that one is, in one’s best moments, superhuman. The excessively critical attitude which seeks to find a flaw in a holy being and soon succeeds is as foolish as the excessively devout attitude which pronounces one perfect and continuously faultless. This hostility of the one leads to imbalance; the naivete of the other leads to expectancy. The holy being is still a human subject to limitations of one’s species. In order to minimize the risks, experiential confrontation must be done carefully, artfully, and with deep sensitivity to its effects. Use of the first person singular, for example, can minimize unwarranted overtones of accusation or punishment. The statements “I believe you can do more,” or “I do not but what you are saying” serve to illustrate this contention. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

ImagePosing confrontations in the form of questions or descriptions can also enhance their impact. “You are scared out of your wits,” may reflect how a “hail-fellow-well-met” client felt! Alternatively, I often challenge clients to differentiate between cannot and will not at given junctures. “You mean you will not respond to that job offer,” I suggested to a client invested in her inadequacy; “You mean you will not make time in your day for a lunch break,” I remarked to another client invested in his invincibility. It is sometime useful, finally, to appraise clients of the difficulty of confronting their resistances, especially when those resistance are threatened with extinction. “A part of you is doing everything it can to keep you where you were,” I tell clients in such circumstances. “The most you can do is realize this and look at what is suggests.” To this, all humankind’s literature about wisdom is a witness. Wisdom is the acknowledgment of limits; it is the awareness of the right measure in all relations of life. However, in saying this, one must protect wisdom against a dangerous distortion of its meaning—the confusion of wisdom with philistine avoidance of radical decisions, with clever compromises and shrewd calculations of usefulness, all of which is far removed from the wisdom that comes upon us in the awe-inspiring encounter with the holy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

ImageWe need only look at the great figures in whom people of all periods and cultures recognized wisdom, the people who gave new laws to their nations, the teachers of new ways of life for continents, the people who withdrew to the deserts of nature and the deserts of the soul to return with abundance. None of them kept to the middle of the road; they had to find new roads in the wilderness. You cannot find wisdom in those who always avoid radical decisions and adjust themselves to the given situation, the conformists who have decided to accept the accepted opinion of society. Wisdom love the children of men, but she prefers those whom come through foolishness to wisdom, and dislike those who keep themselves equally distant from foolishness and from wisdom. They are the real fools, she would say, because they were never shaken by an encounter with the mystery of life, and therefore never able to see the unity of creation and destruction in the working of the divine wisdom. In those, however, who have recognized this working of wisdom, and become wise by it, artificial limits are broken down, often with great pain, and the real limits, the true measures, are found. When wisdom comes to humans, that is what happens. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

ImageTherefore, wisdom comes to all humans, and not only to those who are learned. You can find quiet and often great wisdom among very simple people. There may be wise ones among those with who you live, and those with whom you work, and those whom you encounter as strangers in crowded streets. There is wisdom in mothers and lonely women, in children and adolescents, in shepherds and cabdrivers; and sometimes there is wisdom all in those who can have much learning. They all prove their wisdom by creatively accepting their limits and their finitude. However, who can accept one’s finitude? Who can accept that one is threatened by the vicissitudes of life, by infirmary, by death? Who can take into oneself the deep anxiety of being alive without covering it up with pleasure and activity? In the book of Job, which powerfully expresses the mystery of life, the question is asked and an answer given that is not an answer in the ordinary sense of the word. Only in the confrontation with eternal wisdom in all its darkness and inexhaustible death can humans accept the misery of one’s finitude, even if it is as extreme as Job’s. In our encounter with the holy, facing with awe the ultimate mystery of life, we experience a dimension of life that gives us the courage and the strength to accept our limits and to become wise through this acceptance. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

ImageThe created light is necessary to see the essence of God, not in order to make the essence of God inteligible, which is off itself intelligible, but in order to enable the intellect to understand in the same way as a habit makes a power abler to act. Even so corporeal light is necessary as regards external sight, inasmuch as it makes the medium actually transparent, and susceptible of colour. Nephi sees the Spirit of the Lord and is shown in vision the tree of life—he sees the mother of the Son of God and learn the condescension of God—he sees the baptism, ministry, and crucifixion of the Lamb of God—he sees also the call and ministry of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb About 600-592 Before Christ. “For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I have never before set foot. And the Spirit said unto me: Behold, what desirest thou? And I said; I desire to behold the things which my father saw. And the spirit said unto me: Believest thou that thy father saw the tree of which he hath spoken? And I said: Yea, thou knowest that I believe all the words of my father,” reports Nephi 11.1-5. This light is required to see the divine essence, not as a similitude in which God is seen, but as a perfection of the intellect, strengthening to see God. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

ImageTherefore it may be said that this light is to be described not as a medium in which God is seen, but as one by which He is seen; and such a medium does not take away the immediate vision of God. “And when I have spoken these words, the Spirit cried with a loud voice, saying: Hosanna to the Lord, the most high God; for he is God over all the Earth, yea, even above all. And blessed thou believest in the Son of the most high God; wherefore, thou shalt behold the things which thou hast desired. And behold this thing shall be given unto three for a sign, that after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which they father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of Heaven, and him shall ye witness; and after ye have witnessed him ye shall bear record that it is the Son of God. And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow. And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown up me the three which is precious above all. And he said unto me: What desirest thou?” reports 1 Nephi 11.6-10. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

ImageThe disposition to the form of fire can be natural only to the subject of that from. Hence the light of glory cannot be natural to a creature unless the creature has a divine nature; which is imposible. However, by this light the rational creature is made deiform. “And I said unto him: To know the interpretation thereof—for I spake unto him as a man speaketh; for I beheld that he was in the form of a man; yet nevertheless, I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord; and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another. And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look! And I looked as if to look upon him, and I saw him not; for he had gone from before my presence. And it came to pass that I saw the Heavens open; and an Angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou? And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh. And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of time the Angel spake unto me saying: Look! #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Image“And I looked and behold the virgin again bearing a child in her arms. And the Angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of this tree which thy father saw? And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore it is the most desirable above all things. And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul, reports 1 Nephi 11.11-23. “In Thy light we shall see light,” reports Psalms 35.10. Everything which is raised up to what exceeds its nature, must be prepared by some disposition above its nature. However, when any created intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself become the intelligible form of the intellect. Hence it is necessary that some supernatural disposition should be added to the intellect in order that it may be raised up to such a great and sublime height. It is necessary that the power of understanding should be added by divine grace. Now this increase of the intellectual powers is called the illumination of the intellect, as we also call the intelligible object itself by the name of light of illumination. And this is the light spoken of in the Apocalypse (Apoc. 21.23): “The glory of God hath enlightened it; the society of the blessed who see God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

ImageBy this light the blessed are made “deiform”—id est like to God, according to saying: “When He shall appear we shall be like to Him, and because we shall see Him as He is,” reports 1 Jon 3.2. “And fater he had said these words, he said unto me: Look! And I looked, and I beheld the Son of God going forth among the children of men; and I saw many fall down at his feet and worship him. And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God. And the Angel said unto me again; Look and behold the condescension of God! And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the Redeemer of the World, of whom my father had spoken; and I also beheld the prophet who should prepare the way before him. And the Lamb of God went forth and was baptized of him; and after he was baptized, I beheld the Heavens open, and the Holy Ghost come down out of Heaven and abide upon him in the form of a dove. And I beheld that he went forth ministering unto the people, in power and great glory; and the multitudes were gathered together to hear him; and I beheld that they cast him out from among them. And I also beheld twelve others following him. And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Image“And I looked, and I beheld the Heavens open again, and I saw Angels descending upon the children of men; and they did minister unto them. And he spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked, and I beheld the Lamb of God going forth among the children of men. And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; and the Angel spake and showed all these things unto me. And they were healed by the power of the Lamb f God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out. And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the World; and I saw and bear record. And I, Nephi, saw that he was lifted upon the cross and slain for the sins of the World. And after he was slain I saw the multitudes of the Earth, that they were gathered together to fight against the apostles of the Lamb; for thus were the twelve called by the Angel of the Lord. And the multitude of the Earth was gathered together; and I behold that they were in a large and spacious building, like unto the building which my father saw. And the Angel of the Lord sapke unto me again, saying: Behold the World and the wisdom thereof; yea, behold the house of Israel hath gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Image“And it came to pass that I saw and bear record, that the great and spacious building was the pride of the World; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great. And the Angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb,” reports 1 Nephi 11.23-36. We beseech Thee, O Lord, to guide Thy Church with Thy perpetual governance; that it may walk warily in times of quiet, and boldly in times of trouble; through our Lord. O Lord, Thou knowest my great unfitness for service, my present deadness, my inability to do anything for Thy glory, my distressing coldness of heart. I am weak, ignorant, unprofitable, and loathe and abhor myself. I am at a loss to know what thou wouldest have me do, for I feel amazingly deserted by thee, and sense thy presence so little; Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth, and the dreadful sin of my nature, so that I feel all sin, I cannot think or act but every motion is sin. Return again with showers of converting grace to a poor gospel-abusing sinner. Help my soul to breathe after holiness, after a constant devotedness to Thee, after growth in grace more abundantly every day. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one.  #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Image O Lord, I am lost in the pursuit of this blessedness, and am ready to sink because I fall short of my desire; help me to hold out a little longer, until the happy hour of deliverance comes, for I cannot lift my soul to Thee if Thou of Thy goodness bring me not nigh. Help me to be diffident, watchful, tender, lest I offend my blessed Friend in thought and behaviour; I confide in Thee and lean upon Thee, and need Thee at all times to assist and lead me. O that all my distresses and apprehensions might prove but Christ’s school to make me fit for greater service by teaching me the great lesson of humility. May Thy Word, O Lord, Which endureth for ever in Heaven, abide continually in the Temple of Thy Church; that the presence of the Inhabitant may be an unfailing glory to the habitation; through Thy mercy and love. Remember Thy congregation, O Lord, which Thou hast created from the beginning; forget not the Church of old time Thou hast predestinated in Christ; be mindful of Thy mercy, look upon Thy covenant, and bless us continually with the promised freedom. The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for. There is no greater grief than to recall a time of happiness when in misery. However, the marines have landed, and the situation is well in hand. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20Image

 

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It’s the details that make the difference. Barn doors are just one of many features you’ll find in #BrightonStation at #CresleighRanch. Look at floor plans and check out virtual tours over on our website. 🤩 (Click the link in our bio!) https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-4/virtual-tour/

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I am in Earnest—I Will Not Equivocate—I Will Not Excuse—I Will Not Retreat a Single Inch—And I Will Be Heard!

cropped-en5misfu0aivjuk.jpgOne who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide one through the maze of the most busy life. However, where no plain is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign. Learn to value your time alone—when you value something you are keener to protect it. Inside of each one of us is a place where we live all alone and that is where one renews one’s springs that never dry up. We hardly have a compete catalogue of culturally codified heroics, but it is a god representation of the ideologies that have taken such a toll of life; in many examples of masses of human lives there have been piled up order of the cultural transcendence to be achieved. And there is noting “perverse” about it because it represents the expression of the fullest expansive life of the heroic being. We can talk for a century about what causes human aggression; we can try to find the spring in animal instincts, or we can try to find them in bottled-up hatreds due to frustration or in some kind of miscarried experiences of early years, of poor child handling and training. All these would be true, but still trivial because people kill out of joy, in the experience of expansive transcendence over evil. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

ImageThis poses an immense problem for social theory, a problem that we have utterly failed to be clear about. If people end the lives of others out of a heroic joy, in what direction do we program for improvements in human nature? If humans work evil out of the impulse to righteousness and goodness, what are we going to improve? If people are aggressive in order to expand life, if aggression in the service of life is human’s highest creative act, what kind of child-rearing programs are we going to promote? If we were to be logical, these childhood programs would have to be something that eliminates joy and heroic self-expansion in order to be effective for peace. And how could we ever get controlled child-rearing programs without the most oppressive social regulations? The cataloguing of maddening dilemmas such as these are, for utopian thought, could probably be continued to fill a whole book let me ass mere a few more. We know that to be human is to be neurotic in some ways and to some degree; there is no way to become an adult without serious twisting of one’s perceptions of the World. Even more, it is not the especially twisted people who are most dangerous: coprophiliacs are harmless, people who physically force others into pleasures of the flesh do not do the damage to life that idealistic leaders do. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

ImageAlso, leaders are a function of the “normal” urges of masses to some large extent; this means that even psychically disabled leaders are an expression of the widespread urge to heroic transcendence. Dr. Strangelove was surely a psychic cripple, but he was not an evil genius who moved everyone around him to his will; he was simply one cleaver computer in a vast idealistic program to guarantee the survival of the “free World.” Today we are living the grotesque spectacle of the poisoning of the Earth by the nineteenth-century hero system of unrestrained material production. This is perhaps the greatest and most pervasive evil to have emerged in all of history, and it may even eventually defeat all of humankind. Still there are no “twisted” people whom we can hold responsible for this. I know all this is more or less obvious, but it puts our discussion on the proper plane; it teaches us one great lesson—a pill that for modern humans may be the bitterest of all to swallow—namely, that we seem to be unable to approach the problem of human evil from the side of psychology. Dr. Freud, who gave us the ideal of the psychological liberation of humans, also gave us many glimpses of its limitations. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

ImageI am not referring here to Dr. Freud’s cynicism about what people may accomplish because of the perversity of their natures, but rather his admission that there is no dependable line between normal and abnormal in affairs of the human World. In the mist characteristic human activity—love—we see the most distorted reality. Talking about the distortions of transference-love, Dr. Freud says: “It is to a high degree lacking in regard for reality, is less sensible, less concerned about consequences, more blind in its estimation of the person loved, then we are willing to admit of normal love.” And then he is forced to take most of this back, honest thinker that he is, by concluding that: “We should not forget, however, that it is precisely these departures from the morn that make up the essential element in the condition of being in love.” In other words, transference is the only ideality that humans have. It was no news to Dr. Freud that the ability to love and to believe is a matter of susceptibility to illusion. He prided himself on being a stoical scientist who had transcended the props of illusion, yet he retained his faith in science—in psychoanalysis—as his particular hero system. This is the same as saying that all hero systems are based on illusion except one’s own, which is somehow in a special, privileged place, as if given in nature herself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

ImageRank got right at the heart of Dr. Freud’s dilemma: “Just as he himself could so easily confess his agnosticism while he had created for himself a private religion, it seems that, even in his intellectual and rational achievements, he still has to express and assert his irrational needs by at least fighting for and about his rational ideas.” This it perfect. It means that Dr. Freud, too, was not exempt from the need to fit himself into a scheme of cosmic heroism, an immortality ideology that had to be taken on faith. This is why Rank saw the need to go “beyond psychology:” it cannot by itself substitute for a hero system unless it is—as it was for Dr. Freud—the hero system that guaranteed him immortality. This is the meaning of Rank’s critique of psychology as “self-deception.” It cannot contain the immortality urge characteristic of life. It is just another ideology, which is gradually trying to supplant religious and moral ideology, but is only partially qualified to do this, because it is a preponderantly negative and disintegrating ideology. In other words, all that psychology has really accomplished is to make the inner life the subject matter of sciences, and in ding this it dissipated the idea of the soul. However, it was the soul which once linked human’s inner life to a transcendent scheme of cosmic heroism. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

ImageNow the individual is stuck with oneself and with an inner life that one can only analyze away as a product of social conditioning. Psychological introspection took cosmic heroics and made them self-reflective and isolated. At best it gives the person a new self-acceptance—but this is not what humans want or need: one cannot generate a self-created hero system unless one is mad. Only pure narcissistic megalomania can banish guilt. It was on the point of guilt, as Rank saw, that Dr. Freud’s system of heroism fell down. He admonishes Dr. Freud with the didactic mocking of one who possesses a clearly superior conceptualization: “It is with his therapeutic attempt to remove the guilt by tracing it back ‘causally’ to the individual’s childhood that Dr. Freud steps in. How presumptuous, and at the same time, naïve, is this idea of simply removing human guilt by explaining it casually as ‘neurotic!’” Exactly. Guilt is a reflection of the problem of acting in the Universe; only partly is it connected to the accidents of one’s birth and early experience. Guilt, as the existentialists put it, is the guilt of being itself. It reflects the self-conscious animal’s bafflement at having emerged from nature, at sticking out too much without know what for, at not being able to securely place oneself in an eternal meaning system. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

ImageHow presumptuous of psychology to claim to be able to handle a problem of these dimensions. It all culminates once again in a recognition of the magnitude of the problem of cosmic heroism. All neurosis is vanity. Neurosis, in other words, reflects the incapacity of the individual to heroically transcend oneself; when one tried in one way or another, it is plainly vain. We are back again to a famous fruit of Rank’s work too, one insight that neurosis “is at the bottom always only incapacity for illusion.” However, we are back to it with a vengeance and with the broadest possible contemporary understanding. Transference represents not only the necessary and inevitable, but the most creative distortion of reality. Reality for humans is something one must imagine, search out in the eyes of one’s fellows, with their gleam of passionate dedication. This is also what Karl Jung intimates about the vitality of transference when he calls it “kinship libido.” This means that people join together their individual pulsations in a gamble toward something transcendent. Life imagines its own significance and strains to justify its beliefs. It is as though the life force itself needed illusion in other to further itself. Logically, then, the ideal creativity for humans would strain toward the grandest illusion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

ImageOne of the greatest difficulties for people lays in dealing with their negative feelings. We are voluntarily submitting ourselves to emotions of which we cannot really approve of, and we sometimes write down fantasies which often strike us as nonsense, and towards which we have strong resistances. For as long as we do not understand their meaning, such fantasies are a diabolical mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. It costs some of us a great deal to undergo them, but we have been challenged by fate. Only by extreme effort are we finally able to escape from the labyrinth. In order to grasp the fantasies which are stirring in us “underground,” we may know that we have to let ourselves plummet down into them, as it is. We could not only feel a violent resistance to this, but a distinct fear. For many are afraid of losing command of oneself and becoming a prey to the fantasies—and as a psychiatrist I realized only too well what that meant. After prolonged hesitation, however, I saw that there was no other way out. We have to take the chance, have to try to gain power over them; for if we do not, they run the risk of gaining power over us. A cogent motive for making the attempt is the conviction that I could not expect of my patients something I did not dare to do myself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

ImageThe excuse that a helper stood at their side would not pass muster, for I was well aware that the so-called helper—that is, myself—could not help them unless he knew their fantasy material from his own direct experience, and that at present all he possessed were a few theoretical prejudices of dubious value. This idea—that I was committing myself to a dangerous enterprise not for myself alone, but also for the sake of my patients—helped me over several critical phases. Now I would like to cite the example of a sadist who did much worse things than just control others: Heinrich Himmler. I am going to read you a short letter that he wrote to a high-ranking SS officer, Count Adalbert Kottulinsky. “Dear Kottulinsky, You have been very ill with a serious heart ailment. In the interests of your health, I am hereby ordering you to stop smoking completely for the nest two years. After these two years are up you may submit to me a physician’s report on the state of your health. On the basis of that report I will decide whether you may resume smoking or not. Heil Hitler!” That is not only exerting control over another person but humiliating him as well. Himmler treats this adult like a stupid schoolboy. He writes in a way deliberately designed to humiliate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

Image Himmler assumes control over Kottulinsky. He does not even let the doctor do the controlling and make the decision on whether Kottulinsky may or may not smoke again. Himmler arrogates this decision to himself. Another trait of the bureaucrat as sadist is that one treats people like things. They become objects. One does not relate them as human beings. Another characteristic is that only helpless individuals waken one’s sadistic interest, not ones who can defend themselves. Also, many sadists are people who themselves suffered abuse, still talk about it like it is still happening, and want to inflict that pain onto others, which is why some are still talking about historic events as if they are current. A sadist up against a superior is usually cowardly, but someone who is helpless or can be made helpless—a child, a sick person, or, in certain political circumstances, a political opponent—those are the people who incite the sadist. One does not feel pity, as any normal person does, nor does one share the normal person’s revulsion at the very idea of hitting someone who is defenseless. On the contrary, helplessness is the quality that stimulates the sadist, because it puts the possibility of absolute control within one’s reach. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

ImageAnother trait of the sadist in bureaucrat’s clothes is an excessive preoccupation with order. Order is everything. Order is the only sure thing in life, the only thing over which we can exert complete control. People with an excessive need for order are usually people who are afraid of life, because life is not orderly. It brings surprises; spontaneity is crucial to it. The only thing we can be sure of is death, but what life brings is always something new. The sadistic individual, though, who cannot relate to others and who sees everyone and everything in life as mere objects, that kind of person hates anything living, because it poses a threat to one. However, one love order. It was therefore characteristic for Himmler to keep a diary—for ten years starting with his fourteenth year—filled with the most banal of entries. He notes how many rolls he ate, whether his train arrived on time or not. Every last little thing he did had to be recorded. Even as a young man he kept records of his correspondence in which he noted every letter he wrote or received. That is order. And we should add that it is the orderliness of a certain type, the orderliness of the old-fashioned bureaucrat for whom life means nothing but order and rules mean everything. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

ImageIt is interesting to note in this context that when Eichmann was asked in Jerusalem whether he felt any guilt—he was interrogated by a very humane psychiatrist, and he apparently felt he could speak quite freely—he said yes, he did have some guilt feelings. And when asked what it was he felt guilty about, he replied; For having played hooky from school twice when he was a boy. That was not very clever of him as a defendant in the situation he was in. If he had wanted to be clever he could have said he felt guilty because he had ended the life of so many people. However, he was perfectly honest, and it was quite natural for him to think of an indigence when he had broken the rules. For the bureaucrat, there is only one sin, and that is to violate the established order, to break the established rules. It would seem that the soul is human. For it is written in 2 Corinthians 4.16, “Though our outward person is corrupted, yet the inward person is renewed day by day.” However, that which is within humans is the soul. Therefore the soul is the inward person. Further, the human soul is a substance. However, it is not a universal substance. Therefore it is a particular substance. Therefore it is a “hypostasis” or a person; and it can only be a human person. Therefore the soul is a human; for a human person is a man. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

ImageHowever, when we reflect deeper, it is clear to see that humans are not a mere soul, nor a mere body; but both soul and body. First, that human is a soul; though this particular human, Sokrates, for instance, is not a soul, but composed of soul and body. I say this, forasmuch as some held that the form alone belongs to the species; while matter is part of the individual, and not the species. This cannot be true; for to the nature of the species belongs what the definition signifies; and in natural things the definition does not signify the form only, but the form and the mater. Hence in natural things the matter is part of the species; not indeed, signate matter, which is the principle of individuality; but the common matter. For as it belongs to the notion of this particular human to be composed of this soul, of this flesh, and of these bones; so it belongs to the notion of humans to be composed of soul, flesh, and bones; for whatever belongs in common to the substance of all the individuals contained under a given species, must belong to the substance of the species. It may also be understood in this sense, that this soul is the man; and this could be held if it were supposed that the operation of the sensitive soul were proper to it, apart from the body; because in that case all the operations which are attributed to man would belong to the soul only; and whatever performs the operations proper to a thing, is that thing; wherefore that which performs the operations of a human is a human. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

ImageHowever, we have shown that sensation is not the operation of the soul only. Since, then, sensation is an operation of man, but not proper to him, it is clear that man is not a soul only, but something composed of a soul and body. Plato, through supposing that sensation was proper to the soul, could maintain humans to be a soul making use of the body. A thing seems to be chiefly what is principal in it; thus what the governor of a states does, the state is said to do. In this way sometimes what is principal in man is said to be man; sometimes, indeed, the intellectual part which, in accordance with truth, is called “inward” man; and sometimes the sensitive part with the body is called man in the opinion of those who observation does not go beyond these senses. And this is called the “outward” man. Not every particular substance is a hypostasis or a person, but that which has the complete nature of its species. Hence a hand, or a foot, is not called hypostasis, or a person; nor, likewise, is the soul alone so called, since it is part of the human species. O God of love and peace, Who for the salvation of humankind did endure to be hanged on a Cross, and did pour forth Thy Blood for our redemption; favourably and benignantly receive my prayers, and bestow on my Thy mercy; that when Thou shalt command me to depart from the body, the enemy may have no power over me, but the Angel of peace may place me among Thy Saints and elect, where light abides and life reigns, World without end. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

Image Nephi writes of the things of God—Nephi’s purpose is to persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham and be saved. About 600-592 Before Christ (BC). “And now I, Nephi, do not give the genealogy of my fathers in this part of my record; neither at any time shall I give it after upon these plates which I am writing; for it is given in the record which has been kept by my father; wherefore, I do not write it in this work. For it sufficeth me to say that we are descendants of Joseph. And it mattereth not to me that I am particular to give a full account of all the things of my father, for they cannot be written upon these plates, for I desire the room that I may write of the things of God. For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade people to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved. Wherefore, the thing which are pleasing unto the World I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the World. Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worthy unto the children of humans,” reports 1 Nephi 6.1-6. The height of devotion is reached when reverence and contemplation produce passionate worship, which in turn breaks forth in thanksgiving and praise in word and song. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

ImageI had vehement longings of soul after God and Christ, and after more holiness, wherewith my heart seemed to be full, and ready to break. I spent most of my time in thinking of divine things, year after year; often walking alone in the woods, and solitary places, for deep prayers, soliloquy, and prayer, and converse with God; and it was always my manner, at such times, to sing forth my contemplations. Prayer seemed to be natural to me, as the breath by which the inward burnings of my heart vents. Bach’s music is universally regarded as Christian mediation transposed into musical form. The hymns and spiritual songs of the Church are the richest sources of poetic praise set to music, with words by the likes of Bernard of Clairvaux, Paul Gerhardt, Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, George Herbert, and Jon Donne.  “A palace to every song you have ever heard and been unable to endure without tear? The marble shines in the Sun. Such richness as this cannot be made by human hands. This is the temple of Heaven,” (page 58 of Violin by Anne Rice). Lord, I love You, and I thank You for this World. Lord, glorify Your name through me. May the mind of Christ my Saviour live in me from day to day, by His love and power controlling all I do and say. We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, and long to feast upon Thee still, we bring of Thee, the Fountainhead, and thirst our souls from Thee to fill. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Image“Mozart was always my happy guardian, the Little Genius, I called him, Master of His Choir of Angels, that is Mozart; but Beethoven is the Master of my Dark Heart, the captain of my broken life and all my failures. This is relentless music. This person is not going to give up. Onward, upward, forward, it does not matter now—woods, trees, it does not matter. All that matters is that you walk…and when there comes just a little bit of happiness again—the sweet exultant happiness of the plateau—it is caught up this time in the advancing steps. Because there is no stopping. Magnificent assurances the Beethoven tried to make, it seemed, to all of us, that everything would someday be understood and this life was worth. It even seemed all right for the Little Genius, Mozart perhaps, the bright safe glow of Angels chattering and laughing and doing back flips in celestial light. Death is not death as I once thought, when fear was trampled underfoot. Broken hearts do best forever beating upon the wintry windowpane. It struck me—a great formless thought, unable to take shape in this atmosphere of slow lovely embracing music—that that was the power of the violin, that it sounded human in a way that we humans could not! It spoke for us in a way that we ourselves could not. Ah, yes, and that is what all the pondering and poetry has always been about. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Image“It seemed the rain and this music would kill me. I would die quiet without a protest. But I only dreamed, sliding down down into a fullblown illusion as if it had been waiting for me. For surely I was dreaming. I had to be. But I was here, imprisoned in this, as if transported body and soul into it, and something in me sang, do not let it be a dream. I thought again very specifically of him, the ghost, refurbishing in my imagination his slender tall figure and the violin which he had held, and trying as best as my unmusical mind could do to recall the melodies he had played. A ghost, a ghost, you have seen a ghost I thought. The crows was magnetized by him; they were so totally in his thrall that I went unnoticed. I only want you, you of all people, you who worship these names as if they were household saints—Mozart, Beethoven—I want you to know I knew them! These higher notes were to thin and pure, so bright yet sad. I lifted the violin, and brought the bow down in a searing cry over the E string, the high string, the metal sting, maybe all song is a form of crying out, and organized scream; a violin as it reached for a magic pitch is as sharp as a siren,” (Pages: 6, 7, 11, 25, 51, 55, 56, 75, 113, 122, 151, 155 of Violin by Anne Rice). So holiness or sanctification is more than just our standing before God in Christ. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

ImageIt is an actual conformity within us to the likeness of Christ begun at the time of our salvation and completed when we are made perfect in His presence. This process of gradually conforming us to the likeness of Christ begins at the very moment of our salvation when they Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us and to actually give us a new life in Christ. We call this gradual process progressive sanctification, or growing in holiness, because it truly is a growth process. The holiness we have in Christ is purely objective, outside of ourselves. It is the perfect holiness of Christ imputed to us because of our union with Him, and it affects our standing before God. God is pleased with us because He is pleased with Christ. Progressive sanctification is subjective or experiential and is the work of the Holy Spirit within us imparting to us the life and power of Christ, enabling us to respond in obedience to Him. Bot aspects of sanctification, however, are gifts of God’s grace. We do not deserve our holy standing before God, and we do not deserve the Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives. Both come to us by His grace because of the merit of Christ. Progressive sanctification begins in us with an instantaneous act of God at the time of salvation. God always gives justification and this initial imparting of sanctification at the same time. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

ImageTh author of Hebrews described this truth in this way: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he added, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more,” reports Hebrews 10.16-17. God promises to put his laws in our hearts and write them on our minds. That is sanctification in principle or, as I like to express it, sanctification begun. Then he promises to remember our sins no more. That is justification. Note that sanctification and justification are both gifts from God and expressions of His grace. Though they are each distinct aspects of salvation, they can never be separated. God never grants justification without also giving sanctification at the same time. I think of justification and sanctification as being like the jacket and pants of a suit. They always come together. A friend once wanted to give me a suit. He took me to a clothing store, and I walked out with a jacket and matching pants—a complete suit. Neither the jacket nor the pants alone would have been sufficient. I needed both to have the suit that my friend wanted to give me. Sometimes we think of salvation as more like a sports coat and a pair of slacks. We think God gives us the sports coat of justification by His grace, but we must “buy” the slacks of sanctification by our own efforts. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

ImageHowever, salvation is like a suit. It always comes with the jacket of justification and the pants of sanctification. God never gives one without the other because both are necessary to have the complete suit of salvation. The personal traits of the spiritual guide may repel the seeker. Yet if no one else is available who has the same knowledge, it is the seeker’s duty to repress one’s repulsions and enter into the relationship of a pupil. If one does not, then one pays a heavy price for one’s surrender to personal emotion and sensual superficiality. If walking in secret, a master would not necessarily be recognized as such, not even by those who are looking for one and have real all the books about one. That a person wearing quite ordinary clothes whose face was clean shaven, whose hair was quite average length, could be an adept is much less likely to be thought by most persons, then one who was theatrical-looking and conspicuously dressed. In the Worldly life a successful person usually seeks to give others the impression of one’s success but in the spiritual life an unassuming person may be a great master. The aspirant is not ordinarily in a position to judge what illumination really is, and who is a full illuminate being. One can only form theories about the one and use one’s imagination about the other. We feel and know that we are all eternal. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

ImageWere the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Thou art worthy, Thou art worthy, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, glory, and honour, glory and honour and power; for Thou hast created, hast all things created, Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are created: for Thou art worthy, O Lord. I love you, Lord and I lift my voice to worship you, oh my soul rejoice. Take joy, my king in what you hear may it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear. Oh Lord, I am a shell full of dust, but animated with an invisible rational soul and made anew by an unseen power of grace; yet I am no rare object of valuable price, but one that has nothing and is nothing, although chosen of Thee from eternity, given to Christ, and born again; I am deeply convinced of the evil and misery of a sinful state, of the vanity of creatures, but also of the sufficiency of Christ. When Thou would guide me I control myself. When Thou would be sovereign I rule myself. When Thou would take care of me I suffice myself. When I should depend on Thy providings I supply myself, when I should submit to Thy providence I follow my will, when I should study, love, honour, trust Thee, I serve myself; I fault and correct Ty laws to suit myself; instead of the I look to a human’s approbation, and am by nature an idolater. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

ImageLord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee. Convince me that I cannot be my own God, or make myself happy, nor my own Christ to restore my joy, nor my own Spirit to teach, guide, rule me. Help me to see that grace does this by providential affliction, for when my credit is good Thou does cast me lower, when riches are my idol Thou does turn it into bitterness. Take away my roving eye, curious ear, greedy appetite, lustful heart; show me that none of these things can heal a wounded conscience, or support a tottering frame, or uphold a departing spirit. Then take me to the cross and leave me there. God’s ultimate goal for us, however, is that we truly be conformed to the likeness of His Son in our person as well as in our standing. This goal is expressed in Romans 8.29: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the first born among many brothers.” All though the New Testament we see this ultimate end in view as the writers speak of salvation. For example, Paul said that Jesus “gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good,” reports Titus 2.14. Jesus did not die just to save us from the penalty of sin, nor even just to make us holy in our standing before God. He died to purify for Himself a people eager to obey Him, a people eager to be transformed into His likeness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23Image

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Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Heart, Humans Never are, but Always to Be Blessed!

ImageWe live in constant tension between the urgent and the important. The problem is that the important tasks rarely must be done today, or even this week. However, urgent tasks call for instant action—endless demands pressures every hour of the day. The momentary appeal of these urgent tasks seems irresistible and important, and they devour our energy. Nonetheless, in the light of time’s perspective their deceptive prominence fades; with a sense of loss we recall the important tasks pushed aside. We realize we have become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent. One of the characteristics of effective leaders is that they continually find joy in their jobs. This gives them the energy to energize others. They maintain an optimistic outlook and avoid burnout by focusing on what is right rather than what is wrong, constantly learning and growing on the job, making friends with what would normally be issues, picking the right dance partners (associating with winners), keeping their sense of humour and getting a life outside of their work. There is more to life than increasing its speed. The self-actualized will not be primarily concerned with one’s own personal welfare, but then one will also not be primarily concerned with humankind’s welfare. Both these duties find a place in one’s outlook, but they do not find a primary place. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

ImageThe primary place is always filled by a single motive: to do the will, to express the inspiration of that greater self of which one is sublimely aware and to which one has utterly surrendered oneself. This is a point whereon many students get confused or go astray. The self-actualized does not stress altruism as the supreme value of life, nor does one reject egoism as the lowest value of life. One will act with the strength God gives one in each case, and will always act for the sake of what is in the best interest, as one is guided by the light of God. When the veil falls and the inner meaning of universal life is read, it is not enough for the illuminate. For one does not consider one’s own salvation complete while others remain unsaved. Consequently, one dedicated oneself to the task of trying to save them. However, in order to do this one has to reincarnate on Earth innumerable times. For people can attain the goal here alone and nowhere else. This changes the whole concept of salvation. It is no longer a merely personal matter but a collective one. It also alters the concept of survival. This is no longer a prolonged enjoyment of post-death Heavenly spheres but a prolonged labour through countless Earthly lives for the service of one’s fellow-creatures. And yet, even this somber path bears its own peculiar rewards. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

ImageThis path of righteousness has peculiar rewards, for one shall receive the fraternal love of those who have been healed, the encouraging thought of those who are beginning to find a foothold in life, the pledged loyalty of those who want to share, with their lesser strength, the heavy burden through the untold incarnations. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,” reports John 3.3. This much evolution and some million years of prehistory may have given us; but to talk about satisfying one’s appetites for purity and heroism with a certain relish and style is not to say that this relish is itself the motive for the appetite. Dr. Freud thought it was human’s appetite that undid him, but actually it is his human limitations as we now understand it. The tragedy of evolution is that it created a limited being with unlimited horizons. Humans are the only being that is not armed with the natural instinctive mechanisms or programing for shrinking one’s World down to the size that one can automatically act on. This means that humans have to artificially and arbitrarily restrict their intake of experience and focus their output of decisive action. Humans have to keep from going made by biting small pieces of reality which they can get some command over and some organismic satisfaction from. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

ImageThis means that their noblest passions are played out in the most narrow and unreflective ways, and this is what undoes them. From this point of view the main problematic for the future of humans has to be expressed in the following paradox: Humans are beings who must fetishize in order to survive and to have normal mental health. However, this shrinkage of vision permits one to survive also at the same time prevents one from having the overall understanding one needs to plan for and control the effects of one’s shrinkage of experience. A paradox this bitter sends a chill through all reflective people. If dr. Freud’s famous fateful question for the human species was not exactly the right one, the paradox is no less fateful. It seems that the experiment of humans may well prove to be an evolutionary dead end, and impossible being—one who, individually, needs for healthy actions they very conduct that, on a general level, is destructive to one. It is maddeningly perverse. And even if we bring Dr. Freud’s views on evil into lines with Dr. Hegel’s, there is no way of denying that Dr. Freud’s pessimism about the future is just as securely based as if humans did not actually have evil motives. However, it does influence the whole perspective on history which I am sketching here. History and its incredible tragedy and drivenness then become a record of folly. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

ImageHistory is a career of a frightened beings who must lie in order to live—or, better, in order to live the distinctive style that one’s nature fits for one. The thing that feeds the great destructiveness of history is that people give their entire allegiance to their own group; and each group is a codified hero system. Which is another way of saying that societies are standardized systems of death denial; they give structure to the formulas for heroic transcendence. History can then be looked at as a succession of immortality ideologies, or a mixture at any time of several of these ideologies. We can ask about any epoch, What are the social forms of heroism available? And we can take a sweep over history and see how these forms vary and how they animate each epoch. For primitive humans, who practiced the ritual renewal, each person could be a cosmic hero of a quite definite kind: one could contribute with one’s powers and observances to the replenishment of cosmic life. Gradually, as societies became more complex and differentiated into classes, cosmic heroism became the property of special classes like divine kings and the military, who were charged with the renewal of nature and the protection of groups by means of their own special powers. And so the situation developed where people could be heroic only by flowing orders. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

ImagePeople had given the mandate of power and expiation to their leader-heroes, and so salvation had to be mediated to them by these figures. In a primitive hunting band or a tribe the leader cannot compel anyone to go to war; in the kingship and state the subjects have no choice. They now serve in warfare heroism for the divine king who provides one’s own power in victory and bathes the survivors in it. With the rise of money coinage one could be a money hero and privately protect oneself and one’s offspring by the accumulation of visible gold-power. With Christianity something new came into the World: the heroism of renunciation of this World and the satisfactions of this life, which is they the pagans thought Christianity was crazy. It was a sort of antiheroism by a being who denied life in order to deny evil. Buddhism did the same thing even more extremely, denying all possible Worlds. In modern times, with the Enlightenment, began again a new paganism of the exploitation and enjoyment of Earthly life, partly as a reaction against the Christian renunciation of the World. Now a new type of productive and scientific hero came into prominence, and we are still living this today. More cars produced by Detroit, record high stock market prices, more profits, more goods moving—all this equals more heroism. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

ImageAnd with the French Revolution another type of modern hero was codified: the revolutionary hero who will bring an end to injustice and evil once and for all, by bringing into being a new utopian society perfect in its purity. Humans and animals share the biologically programmed, reactive-aggressiveness that serves the defense of their vital interests. In humans, however, there are kinds of aggressiveness that are not biologically given and do not serve the end of self-defense but are rooted in their character. The reasons why an individual develops that kind of aggressive character are complicated, and I cannot go into them here. However, aggressive characters of this sort are a reality and one that occurs only among human beings. What I want to focus on next is the phenomenon itself, the sadistic character of such. When we speak of sadism we often have only perversions of pleasures of the flesh in mind, cases in which, say, a human experiences arousal from pleasure of the fresh if one can beat or abuse a vulnerable person in some way. Sadism can also mean the passion or wish to do bodily harm to another person. The essence of sadism is, however, wanting to have control over another living being, complete and absolute control. The other creature can be an animal, youth, or another adult, but in every case the sadistic individual makes the other living creature one’s property, a thing, an object of domination. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

ImageIf someone can make another person defenseless and force one to bear pain, that is an extreme form of control, but it is not the only one. That form of sadism occurs sometimes in teachers, sometimes in prison guard, sometimes in misfits, and so on. It is clear that this kind of sadism, though not involved in pleasures of the flesh, in a narrow sense of the word, is nonetheless what we might call a heated, sensual form of sadism. However, it is not the only form. Far more common is a cold sadism that is not at all sensual and has nothing whatever to do with pleasures of the flesh but still displays the same essential quality that sensual and pleasures of the flesh sadism do: Its goal is domination, complete control over another person, being able to mold and shape one as the potter does one’s clay. There are even benign forms of sadism with which you are all familiar. Such sadism can turn up in all sorts of people, but mothers and bosses are particularly prone to it. One person controls another not to one’s harm or disadvantage but to one’s advantage. One tells the other individual what one should do. Everything the subordinate should do is spelled out for one, and it is all good for one. It may indeed be good for one—or perhaps we should say profitable—but the problem with it is that one loses one’s freedom and autonomy. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

ImageThe relationship of mothers to their sons or fathers to their sons are often coloured by that kind of sadism, and the sadistic individual is, of course, totally unaware of any sadistic intent, because one “means so well.” Even the victim of such sadism is unaware of it, because all one sees is how one is profiting from one’s situation. The one thing one does not see is that one’s soul is being damaged, that one is becoming a submissive, dependent, unfree human being. Now I would like to give you an example of an extreme form of sadism, a person possessed by a passion for absolute omnipotence, a person who wanted to be God. We find just such a portrait in the Camus’s play of Caligula. Caligula, the Roman emperor, was a tyrant with unlimited power. He may not have been so different from other people at first, but then he found himself in a situation where he felt we not subject to the normal conditions of human existence, for there were no limits put on his power. His friends do not just find this out—he himself lets them know it in no uncertain terms. However, they have to flatter him and pay him homage. Unless they want to be terminated, they must not ever let their anger or indignation show. Otherwise he will end their lives, first one, then another, whenever the mood strikes him. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

ImageCaligula will end their lives not because he cannot stand them any more but because being able to control the fate of whomever he wants is a sign of his power, his omnipotence. However, even that power does not satisfy his longing for omnipotence, for the ability to control the fate of others is ultimately limited, too. As a result, his desire for omnipotence takes the form of what we might call a symbolic wish, one that Camus presents very skillfully in the play. Caligula wants the Moon. If he were to say that today, we might find the expression rather odd. However, a few decades ago the expression meant something like: “I want the impossible. I want the kind of power than no human being can have. I am the only person who matters. I am God. I have power over everyone and everything. What I want I can have.” A person with the passion for absolute control will try to circumvent, to overstep the limits inherent in human existence, for it is part of the human condition that we are not omnipotent. And if a person should gain much too much power, death will show one how powerless one is in the face of nature, much like the Coronavirus is currently doing. Camus shows us very convincingly how Caligula is really not so different from other people until he becomes mad. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

ImageBecause Caligula attempts to overstep the boundaries of human existence he does mad, as anyone will who makes such an attempt and cannot find his way back to human territory. We see from this example that madness is not really a disease in the sense that we normally think of disease but a certain way of solving the problem of human existence. The mad person denies the powerlessness inherent in us that torments us because, in his fantasies, he does not recognize any limits. He behaves as if no limits existed. However, because powerlessness is a reality one will necessarily lose one’s mind if one insists on pursuing one’s goal. If we wanted to put in this way, we could speak not of an illness but of a philosophy or—to be more precise still—a form of religion. Madness is an attempt to negate and deny human powerlessness by pretending to oneself, with the assistance of some very specific tactic, that one is not ultimately powerless. One hundred years ago we may still have believed that Caligulas existed only in Roman history. The twenty-first century since then has presented us with a whole new crop of Caligulas—in Europe, in American, in Africa, everywhere. And all those Caligulas are cut after the same pattern. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

ImagePeople get a taste of unlimited power, and they then remain irrevocably and passionately committed to solving their power. We can see that very clearly both in Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. The limitations of human existence are denied, and that opens the way for a certain kind of madness. Fortunately, most people with the sadistic longing for complete control over others have to be satisfied with indulging their cold sadism in more modest forms, though obviously in forms that still provide them with satisfaction. We know that parents can behave sadistically toward their children, trying to exert absolute control over them. That is not as common today as it used to be, because children are not as ready to put up with it any more. However, it was quite common seventy, eighty, ninety years ago. Doctors see many cases of children being brought to hospitals with serious injuries and missing teeth resulting from parental blows and abuse. The umber of cases of sadistic child abuse that come to light is only a very small percentage of the cases that actually occur. For both by law and by custom parents can do just about anything they want with their children as long as they can claim that it was done for the child’s good and as long as the evidence of physical abuse is not too horrendous. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

ImageMotive power is of two kinds. One, the appetitive power, commands motion. The operation of this power in the sensitive soul is not apart from the body; for anger, joy, and passions of alike nature are accompanied by a change in the body. The other motive power is that which executes motion in adapting the members for obeying the appetite; and the act of this power does nor consist in moving, but being moved. Whence it is clear that to move is not an act of the sensitive soul without the body. In religious teachings there is a paradox that we are holy and blameless in God’s sight. It seems betwixing  to state that we are holy in God’s sight. How can we who are not only guilt but morally filthy possibly be holy in the sight of One whose gaze penetrates our very hearts, who knows our every motive and thought as well as our words and actions? The answer is that because of our union with Christ, God sees His holiness as our holiness. In the person of Christ God beholds a holiness which abides His closet scrutiny, yea, which rejoices and satisfies His heart; and whatever Christ is before God, He is for His people. Many Christians grew up in homes where parental acceptance was based, too a large degree, on academic, athletic, musical, or perhaps some other standard of achievement. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

ImageOften, in that kind of performance environment, they youth never felt as if they measured up to expectations, regardless of how successful they were. Then they transfer that sense of inadequacy to their relationship with God. They continually wonder, Is God please with me? Is He smiling on me with Fatherly favour. The answer to that question is an unqualified yes. God is smiling on you with Fatherly favour. He is pleased with you because He sees you as holy and without blemish in Christ. Do you want to talk about performance? Then consider that Jesus could say matter-of-factly and without any pretentiousness, “I always do what pleases Him [the Father],” reports John 8.29. When our Father looks at us, He does not see our miserable performance. Instead, He sees the perfect performance of Jesus. And because of the perfect holiness of Jesus, He see us as holy and without blemish. “To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved,” reports Ephesians 1.6. Or to be more direct, God has made us acceptable to Himself through our union with Christ. You will never be accepted in yourself. You can never, to use a figure of speech, “scrub yourself clean.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

ImageI always seek the Lord’s enabling and anointing on my messages, and I want my motive to be strictly to glorify God and build up His people. However, I know it never is, because deep down inside, I also want to succeed as a teacher. As hard as I try to dismiss that base motive, I know full well I never will completely. I can never “scrub clean” that motive. However, God in His grace has provided a perfect holiness in the person of His Son. Through our union with Him we have been made holy. Grant Thy servants, O God, to be set on fire with Thy Spirit strengthened by Thy power, illuminated by Thy splendour, filled with Thy grace, and to go forward by Thine assistance. Give them, O Lord, a right faith, perfect love, true humility. Grant, O Lord, that there may be in us simple affection, brave patience, persevering obedience, perpetual peace, a pure mind, a right and clean heart, a good will, a holy conscience, spiritual compunction, ghostly strength, a life unspotted and unblameable; and after having manfully finished our course, may we be enabled happily to enter into Thy Kingdom. “And now I, Nephi, being a man large in stature, and also having received much strength of the Lord, therefore I did seize upon the servant of Laban, and held him, that he should not flee. And it came to pass that I spake with him, that if he would hearken unto my words, as the Lord liveth, and as I live, even so that if he would hearken unto our words, we would spare his life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Image“And I spake unto him, even with an oath, that he need not fear; that he should be a free man like unto us if he would go down in the wilderness with us. And I also spake unto him, saying: Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord? Therefore, if thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with us. And it came to pass that Zoram did take courage at the words which I spake. Now Zoram was the same of the servant; and he promised that he would go down into the wilderness unto our father. Yes, and he also made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth. Now we were desirous that he should tarry with us for this cause, that the Jews might not know concerning our flight into the wilderness, let they should pursue us and destroy. And it came to pass that when Zorman had made an oath unto us, our fears did cease concerning him. And it came to pass that we took the plates of brass and the servant of Laban, and departed into the wilderness, and journeyed unto the tent of our father,” reports 1 Nephi 4.31-38. We beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that the relief from anxiety which Thy mercy has bestowed upon us may not make us negligent, but rather cause us to become more acceptable worshippers of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

ImageO Lord of grace, I have been hasty and short in private prayer, O quicken my conscious to feel this folly, to bewail this ingratitude; my first sin of the day leads into others, and it is just that Thou shouldst withdraw Thy presence from one who waited carelessly on Thee. Keep me at all times from robbing Thee, and from depriving my soul of Thy due worship; let me never forget that I have an eternal duty to love, honour and obey thee, that Thou art infinitely worthy of such; that is I fail to glorify Thee I am guilty of infinite evil that merits infinite punishment, for sin is the violation of an infinite obligation. O forgive me if I have dishonoured Thee, melt my heart, heal my backslidings, and open an intercourse of love. When the fire of Thy compassion warms my inward being, and the outpourings of Thy Spirit fill my soul, then I feelingly wonder at my own depravity, and deeply abhor myself; then Thy grace is a powerful incentive to repentance, and an irresistible motive to inward holiness. May I never forget that Thou hast my heart in Thy hands. Apply to it the merits of Christ’s atoning blood wherever I sin. Let Thy mercies draw me to Thyself. Wean me from all evil, mortify me to the World, and make me ready for my departure hence, animated by the humiliations of penitential love. #RandolpHarris 17 of 18

Image My soul is often a chariot without wheels, clogged and hindered in sin’s miry clay; mount it on eagle’s wings and cause it to soar upward to Thyself. We Christians have a desire deep within us to be like God and to bring honour to His name. However, what are we to look like if we are to fulfill these desires? Clearly, the picture implies that a growing, vibrant disciple will be someone who values one’s intellectual life and works at developing one’s mind carefully. Do not neglect your critical faculties. Remember that God is a rational God, who has made us in His own image. God invites and expects us to explore His double revelation, in nature and Scripture, with the minds He has given us, and to go on in the development of a Christian mind to apply His marvelous revealed truth to every aspect of the modern and post-modern World. Leaders set aside a portion of each day (even if it is only a matter of minutes) for quiet time devoted to prayer, meditation, imagining, or just daydreaming. Quietude is an elixir that every leader needs. How simple it is to see that all the worry in the World cannot control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now. And that there will never be a time when it is not now. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18Image

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When He Had Opened the Seventh Seal, there Was Silence in Heaven About the Space of Half an Hour!

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Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of balances that are liable to change suddenly, when a false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act. People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. One can listen like a brick wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer. The greatest git one can give another is the purity of one’s attention. It would seem that the soul is a body. For the soul is the moving principle of the body. Nor does it move unless it is moved. First, because seemingly nothing can move unless it is itself moved, since nothing gives what it has not; for instance, what is not hot does not give heat. Secondly, because if there by anything that moves and is not moved, it must be the cause of eternal, unchanging movement; and this does not appear to be the case in the movement of an animal, which is caused by the soul. Therefore the soul is a mover moved. However, every mover moved is a body. Therefore the soul is a body. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

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Further, all knowledge is caused by means of a likeness. However, there can be no likeness of a body to an incorporeal thing. If, therefore, the soul were not a body, it could not have knowledge of corporeal things. Further, between the mover and the moved there must be contact. However, contact is only between bodies. Since, therefore, the soul moves the body, it seems that the soul must be a body. On the contrary, the soul is simple in comparison with the body, in as much as it does not occupy space by its bulk. To seek the nature of the soul, we must premise that the soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live: for we call living things “animate,” [is est having a soul] and those things which have no life, “inanimate.” Now life is shown principally by two actions, knowledge and movement. The philosophers of old, not being able to rise above their imagination, supposed that the principle of these actions was something corporeal: for they asserted that only bodies were real things; and that what is not corporeal is nothing: hence they maintained that the soul is something corporeal. This opinion can be proved to be false in many ways; but we shall make use of only one proof, based on universal and certain principles, which shows clearly that the soul is not a body. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

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It is manifest that not every principle of vital action is a soul, for then the eye would be a soul, as it is a principle of vision; and the same might be applied to the other instruments of the soul; but it is the first principle of life, which we call the soul. Now, though a body maybe a principle of life, as the heart is a principle of life in an animal, yet nothing corporeal can be the first principle of life. For it is clear that to be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, does not belong to a body as such; since, if that were the case, every body would be a living thing, or a principle of life. Therefore a body is competent to be a living thing or even a principle of life, as “such” a body. Now that it is actually such a body, it owes to some principle which is called its act. Therefore the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; thus heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body. As everything which is in motion must be moved by something else, a process which cannot be prolonged indefinitely, we must allow that not every mover is moved. For, since to be moved is to pass from potentiality to actuality, the mover gives what it has to the thing moved, inasmuch as it cases it to be in act. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

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However, there is such a mover which is altogether immovable, and not moved either essentially, or accidentally; and such a mover can cause an invariable movement. There is, however, another kind of mover, which, though not moved essentially, is moved accidentally; and for this reason it does not cause invariable movement; such a mover, is the soul. There is, again, another mover, which is moved essentially—namely, the body. And because the philosophers of the old believed that nothing existed but bodies, they maintained that every mover is moved; and that the soul is moved directly, and is a body. The likeness of a thing known is not necessity actually in nature of the knower; but given a thing which knows potentially, and afterwards knows actually, the likeness of the thing known must be in the nature of the knower, not actually, but only potentially; thus colour is not actually in the pupil of the eye, but only potentially. Hence it is necessary, not that the likeness of corporeal things should be actually in the nature of the soul, but that there be a potentiality in the soul for such a likeness. However, the ancient philosophers omitted to distinguish between actuality and potentiality; and so they held that the soul must be a body in order to have knowledge of a body; and that it must be composed of the principles of which all bodies are formed in order to know all bodies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

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There are two kinds of contact; of “quantity,” and of “power.” By the former a body can be touched only by a body; by the latter a body can be touched by an incorporeal thing, which moves that body. Scripture repeatedly acknowledges the existence of natural moral law: true moral principles rooted in the way God made things, addressed to humans as humans (instead of to humans as a believing member of the kingdom of God) and knowable by all people independently of Bible (Job 31.13-15, Romans 1-2). Among other things, what this means is that believers need not appeal to Scripture in arguing for certain ethical positions, say, in legal debates. Indeed, in my own view, the church is to work for a just state, not a Christian state of theocracy. We are not to place the state under Scripture. However, if this is true, where is the source of moral guidance for the state to be just and to punish wrongdoers as Romans 13.1-7 teachers? The answer is the natural moral law. God has revealed enough of His moral law in the creation for the state to do its job. The church preach to unbelievers what Scriptures says about some topic, but when believer argue for their views in the public square of defend them against those who do not accept the Scripture, they should use general principles of moral argument and reasoning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

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This is precisely what the prophet Amos did. In chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Amos, he denounced the moral behaviour of several people-groups outside of Israel, and he never once appealed to Scripture. Instead, he was content to rest his case with an appeal to self-evident moral principles in the natural law, which he assumed were known by those without Scripture. However, when he turned to rebuke the people f Israel, for the first time he said that they had violated the “law of the LORD” as reported in Amos 2.4, knowing that they had a familiarity with Holy Scripture. Amos appeared to common ground in all these cases, just as Jesus did in reasoning with he Sadducees, as reported in Matthew 22.23-33 and Paul in evangelizing the Greeks, as reported in Acts 17.16-31. The second aspect of scriptural teaching about extrabiblical knowledge is, Scripture shows people qualified to minister in God’s name in situations that required them to have intellectual skills in extrabiblical knowledge. In Daniel 1.3-4, 2.12-13, 5.7, we see Danial and his friends in a position to influence Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, only because they showed “intelligence in every branch of wisdom.” These men had studied and learned Babylonian science, geometry, and literature. And because of this, they were prepared to serve when the occasion presented itself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

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I remembering being in a meeting with Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, shortly after Ronald Reagan had been elected president. Dr. Bright came into the meeting late because President Reagan had called to ask him to confer with other evangelical leaders in order to suggest a list of qualified evangelicals to serve in his presidential cabinet. With sadness in his heart, Dr. Bright said that after numerous phone conversations with other evangelical leaders, they had concluded that there simply were not many evangelicals with the intellectual and professional excellence for such a high post. C. Everett Koop was all they could think of and, as we know, Mr. Koop got the position of surgeon general. Had evangelicals valued the study of extrabiblical knowledge the way Daniel and his friends did, things may have turned out quite differently. How, then, should this attitude toward extrabiblical intellectual training inform parents and youth groups when they prepare Christian teenagers to go to college and tell teens why college is important? According to various studies, increasing numbers of college freshmen, on the advice of parents, say their primary goal in going to college is to get a good job and ensure a secure financial future for themselves. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

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The goal of higher education for career advancement and a successful future, this parallels a trend in the same students toward valuing a good job more than developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Given this view of a college education, it is clear why the humanities have fallen on hard times. It is equally clear why the level of our public discourse on topics central to the culture wars is so shallow, since it is precisely the humanities that train people to thin carefully about these topics. What is not so clear is why Christians, with a confidence in the providential care and provision of God, would follow the secular culture in adopting this approach to college. How different this approach is compared to the value of a college education embraced by earlier generations of Christians: A Christian goes to college to discover one’s vocation—the area of service to which God has called one—and to develop the skills necessary to occupy a section of the cultural, intellectual domain in a manner worthy of the kingdom of God. A believer also goes to college to gain general information and the habits of thought necessary for developing a well-structured soul suitable for a well-informed, good citizen of both Earthly and Heavenly kingdoms. If the public square is naked, it may be because Christians have abandoned the humanities due to a sub-biblical appreciation for extrabiblical knowledge. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

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Some people pledge themselves to the spiritual service of ignorant unawakened humankind. For this ideal one sacrifices oneself to the point of stopping one’s own liberation just when it is about to be realized. One who is delivered from sin and free from illusion, who is emancipated from suffering for all time because the flesh can catch one no more, has earned the right to infinite rest in the eternal life. However, one has also the power to choose otherwise. One may stop at its very threshold and renounce the reward it offers. Since the phenomenal World has nothing to offer one, the only reason for such a choice can be compassionate thought for the benighted creatures one is about to leave behind. If one refrains from the final mergence into the kingdom of Heaven, it is not only because one wants to be available for the enlightenment of one’s more hapless fellows, but also because one knows that one has been in a Heavenly state from the beginning and has never left it. Among those who have attained this higher life, who feel its power and sense its peace, there are some who wish that others shall attain it too. We say some for the very powerful reason that not all are able to find it in their hearts to return to this bleak Earth of ours, with its unwellness and morbidity, its sins and sufferings, its evil and ignorance, when there stretches invitingly before them the portals of a diviner World, with its sublime harmony and beauty, its burden-free peace and goodness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

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The greatest sacrifice a being can offer is that of wisdom, which means simply that the enlightened person should give oneself and use one’s wisdom for the benefit of others. This is also why the greatest charity is to give the truth to humankind. Therefore, the noblest self-actualized beings give themselves secretly and concentratively to a few or openly and widely to the many to enlighten, guide, and inspire them. They know that this twofold way is the one in which to help humankind, that public work is not enough, that those who wish to do not only the most widespread good in the time open to them but also the most enduring good, must work deeply and secretly amongst a few who have dedicated themselves to immediate or eventual service in their own turn. Thus, compassion is rendered more effective through being guided by intelligence. To the few in the inner circle, the self-actualized transmits one’s best thought, one’s hidden knowledge, one’s special grace, one’s most mystical power. How grand is the service such a sage can render all those who accept the light of one’s knowledge! Then indeed is one, in Shakespeare’s phrase, “The star to every wandering barque.” Do not fall into the error of believing that, if one speaks openly these doctrines to others, or writes of them publicly, one is seeking to make proselytes. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

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The religious missionary eagerly seeks to proselytize, but the philosophic expounder cannot. This is because one is not governed by the emotional desire to witness a large number of conversations but by the clear understanding of evolutionary operations—an understanding which enables one to see what is and is not possible, what is and is not suitable, at each stage of those operations. One is not, like the missionary, seeking any personal satisfaction by making an emotional or intellectual conquest. The illuminate has a cosmic outlook. One thinks and feels for all creatures no less than for oneself. So you think that these ancient illuminati, full of high intimations and carrying great lights in their hands, appeared before the World out of their silence and solitude to suffer its ridicule and contempt because they wished to brag about themselves or to amaze them? They came because they dared not disobey compassion’s call save at the pain of being false to all that they knew to be true. The self-actualized makes the highest conceivable sacrifice in willing to return to Earthly life for times without end solely for the benefit of all creatures. People sometimes ask why anyone should give up even a part of one’s time to unpaid service. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

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However, the truth is that the self-actualized is always paid by the friendship and gratitude, the trust and affection, which those one has helped return one. And if it be further said that these are mere intangibles which do not pay for the time and energy one gives, the answer is that they often are convertible into the most tangible of things. For if one is in real need of a home, a machine, a piece of domestic furniture, or a form of personal service, one has only to express that need and those whom one has helped will provide it. Nay, there are times when one need not even express it, when the silent magic of thought will prompt someone to offer the provision quite spontaneously and voluntarily. Anyway, the self-actualized does not give one’s service with any thought about the getting or non-getting of rewards. One gives it because one thinks it right to do so and because one enjoys the satisfaction of giving a helping hand to the spiritually needy. One is doing what one likes. Now we have to take a closer look at what we mean by specifically human aggression. The first is, biologically programmed type, the same defensive mechanism that in animals. The latter type takes the form of human cruelty on the one hand and, on the other, of that passionate enmity toward life, that hatred of life what we call necrophilia. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

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The biologically programmed human aggressiveness, which is identical to animal aggression is relatable because the animal’s neurophysiological organization, which is the same in humans, makes it react aggressively if its vital interests are threatened. A human being responds the same way. However, in humans the reaction, this reactive or defensive aggressiveness, is much more extensive. There are three reasons. One is that the animal experiences only present threats. All it knows is: “At this moment I am threatened.” The human being, with their mental powers, can imagine the future. Consequently, one can experience a threat that may not exist now but may well exist in the future. One therefore reacts aggressively not only to threats existing at the moment but also to one’s future. That provides the reactive aggression with a much larger field in which to function, for the number of human beings is very large, as is the number of situations in which a threat to them may exist in the future. Another reason why reactive aggression has a larger playground in humans is that humans are subject to suggestion while animals are not. You can convince a human being that one’s life or one’s freedom is threatened. You use words and symbols to do that. An animal cannot have its “brain washed,” because it lacks the symbols, the words, essential to brainwashing. It makes no difference to one’s reactions that one only believes oneself threated. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

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I do not have to speak at any length about the many cases in which wars were made possible because people had been made to believe they were threatened. The power of suggestion had created the aggressiveness needed to drive people into battle. Then there is still a third and final reason. A human being has special interests that are closely linked to the values, ideals, and institutions which one identifies. An attack on the ideals or persons central to one’s life, on the institutions that are scared to one, can be as threatening to one as an attack on one’s life or on one’s source of food. Any number of things can be so precious to one: the idea of freedom, the idea of honour, one’s parents, one’s father, one’s mother, in some cultures one’s ancestors, the state, the flag, the government, religion, God. Any of those values, institutions, or ideals may be as important to one as one’s own physical existence. If they are threatened, one reacts with hostility. If we put all three factors together, we can understand why defensive hostility in humans is so much more extensive than it is in animals, even through the mechanism in which it is based is identical in human and animal. Humans experience many more threats, or experiences more things as threats, than the animal possibly can. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

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If we have put off admitting our sins to God, confession may need to come first in our devotional time. There is also the probability that during Scriptural meditation, or even during adoration, further hidden sins will come to light. So our moments of devotion may be filled with repeated confession. It is instructive to notice that Psalm 139, which systematically contemplate God’s omnipotence and omniscience, ends with a prayer for divine investigation of the Psalmist’s soul: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” reports Psalm 139.23, 24. Likewise, as Isaiah was worshipped he cried out in confession, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live along a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty,” reports Isaiah 6.5. If you are concerned about our own spiritual formation of that of others, this vision of the kingdom is the place we must start. Remember, it is the place where Jesus started. It was the gospel he preached. He came announcing, manifesting, and teaching the availability and nature of the kingdom of the Heavens. “For I was sent for this purpose,” reported in Luke 4.43. That is simply a fact, and if we are faithful to it, do justice to it in full devotion, we will find our feet firmly planted on the path of Christian spiritual formation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

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Scripture speaks both of holiness we already possess in Christ before God and a holiness in which we are to grow more and more. The first is the result of the work of Christ for us; the second is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The first is perfect and complete and is ours the moment we trust Christ; the second is progressive and incomplete as long as we are in this life. The objective holiness we have in Christ and the subjective holiness produced by the Holy Spirit are both gifts of God’s grace and are both appropriated by faith. However, the perfect holiness we have in Christ is the answer to our dilemma of how we can appear daily before a perfectly holy God, when even our best deeds are stained and polluted. Our lack of understanding of the distinction between the holiness we do have in Christ and the holiness we want to find in ourselves caused some to say that we mistakenly hope to find in ourselves something that can be found in Christ alone. The kingdom of God is the range of God Himself, from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 103.17; see also Psalm 93.1-2; Daniel 4,3; 7.14; and so on). The planet Earth and its immediate surroundings seem to be the only place in creation where God permits His will to be not done. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

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Therefore we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven,” and hope for the time when that kingdom will be completely fulfilled even on Earth (Luke 21.31; 22.18)—where in fact it is already present (Luke 17.21; John 18.36-37) and available to those who seek it with all their hearts (Matthew 6.13; 11.12; Luke 16.16). For those who do so seek it, it is true even now that “all thing work together for their good,” reports Romans 8.28, and that nothing can cut them off from God’s inseparable love and effective care (Romans 8.35-39). That is the nature of a life in the kingdom of the Heavens now. “And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; and also that we may preserve unto them the word which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God, since the World began, even down unto this present time. And it came to pass that after this manner of language did I persuade my brethren, that they might be faithful in keeping the commandments of God. And it came to pass that we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our gold, and our silver, and our precious things. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

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“And after we had gathered these things together, we went up again unto the house of Laban. And it came to pass that we went into Laban, and desired him that he would give unto us the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, for which we would give him our gold, and our sliver, and all our precious things. And it came to pass that when Laban saw our property, and that it was exceedingly great, de did lust after it, insomuch that he thrust us out, and sent his servants to slay us, that he might obtain our property. And it came to pass that we did flee before the servants of Laban, and were obliged to leave behind our property, and it fell into the hands of Laban. And it came to pass that we fled into the wilderness, and the servants of Laban did not overtake us, and we hid ourselves in the cavity of a rock,” reports 1 Nephi 3.19-28. O God, Who in Thy loving-kindness dost both begin and finish all good things; grant that as we glory in the beginnings of Thy grace, so we may rejoice in its completion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, when the World’s unbelievers reject thee, and are so forsaken by thee that thou calls them no more, it is to Thine own Thou does turn, for in such seasons of general apostasy they in some measure backslide with the World. O how free is Thy grace that reminds them of the danger that confronts them and urges them to persevere in adherence to Thyself! #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

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I bless thee that those who turn aside may return to thee immediately, and be welcomed without anything to commend them, notwithstanding all their former backslidings. I confess that this is suited to my case, for of late I have found great want, and lack of apprehension of divine grace; I have been greatly distressed of soul because I did not suitably come to the fountain that purges away all sin; I have labored too much for spiritual life, peace of conscience, progressive holiness, in my own strength. I beg thee, show me the arm of all might; give me to believe that Thou can do for me more than I ask or think, and that, though I backslide, Thy love will never let me go, but will draw me back to Thee with everlasting cords; that Thou does provide grace in the wilderness, and can bring me out, leaning on the arm of my Beloved; that Thou can cause me to talk with Him by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein I shall not stumble. Keep me solemn, devout, faithful, resting of free grace for assistance, acceptance, and peace of conscience. Almighty and everlasting God, Whose paths are always mercy and truth, grant, we beseech Thee, that we who are fostered by Thy tenderness may also grow up with an increase of piety; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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