Home » Sleep (Page 16)
Category Archives: Sleep
All that Can be Said is, that Two People Happened to Hit on the Same Thought!
When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists. Under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word. Now, when you think about the power of feeling, one thing quickly becomes clear. No one can succeed in mastering feeling in one’s life who tries to simply take them directly; without hesitation and resist or redirect them by “willpower” in the moment of choice. To adopt that strategy is to radically misunderstand how life and the human will work, or—more likely—it is to have actually decided, deep down, to lose the battle and give in. This is one of the major areas of self-deception in the human heart. The very “giving in” can be among the most exhilarating feelings know to humans, though it can also be one of complete despair and defeat. Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—whether it is anger, fear, pleasures of the flesh, desire for food or “looking god,” the residues of woundedness, or whatever—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting their feelings instead of that of not having them—of simply changing or replacing them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Of course this is just another way of describing the ruined person, the one who makes oneself “god” in one’s World. To such persons, the idea that they should not honour their feelings is an insult. “Their god is their belly,” it will be recalled. They are enslaved to their feelings—hence “human bondage”—and have no place to stand in dealing with them. Jesus was referring to this situation when he said that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin,” reports John 8.34. By contrast, the person who happily let God be God does have a place to stand in dealing with feelings—even in extreme cases such as despair over loved ones or excruciating pain or voluptuous pleasure. They have the resources to do what they do not want to do and do what they want. They know and deeply accept the fact that their feelings, of whatever kind, do not have to be fulfilled. They send little time grieving over non-fulfillment. And with respect to feelings that are inherently injurious and wrong, their strategy is not one of resisting them in the moment of choice but of living in such a way that they do not have such feelings at all, or at least do not have them in a degree that makes it hard to decide against the when appropriate. Those who let God be God get off the conveyer belt of emotion and desire when it starts to move toward the buzz saw of sin. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
As one lets God be God, one does not wait until the conveyer belt is moving so fast toward sin that they cannot get office of it. Their aim is not to avoid sin, but to avoid temptation—the inclination to sin. They plan their path accordingly. In the presence of the facilitative attitude created by staff and by many participants, individuals gradually begin to hear one another, and then slowly to understand and to respect. The atmosphere becomes a working atmosphere, both in the large and the small groups, as people begin to delve into themselves and their relationships. As this working process goes more deeply, it can bring great personal pain and distress. Nearly always, the pain has to do with insights into self, or with the fright caused by a change in the self-concept, or with distress over changing relationships. The same woman who ,at the end of the workshop, was able to write poetically of her growth, wrote this while involved in the process: “Clutching, crawling, frightened crying deeply now, my hurting, bleeding hands, are scaling down the walls of jagged, deadly fear, into some scary put, descending steeper, down in search of someone lost, whose life I value most, and plunging, need to save.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Another passage, taken from a participant’s diary, reflect the gradual, painful discover of an understanding which relieves the tension. “I feel so torn. Part of me is proud for handling the situation this morning with Lillian and Billy in what I think was a good way, yet I am annoyed with myself for allowing it to tear me apart. I am scared, too, because it all seems so unfinished. My whole body aches with unbearable tension as tears stream down my face. I rush down the hall to the room where our group meeting is held. I barge in and tell the group why I am late, of emotional overload that I feel, of the exhaustion. ‘I am not even recuperated from yesterday and already today has been heavy. I can truly appreciate the toll it must take on you who do counseling full time!’ Then Dallas says, ‘You must learn to take care of your own needs, Jessica. A sense of peace floods over me as I hear his words. How gentle and healing. That is all I really need to hear at this time.” So there are, in the group, experiences of frustration, distrust, anger, envy and despair. In the individual there are the personal experiences of suffering though change, of being unable to cope with ambiguity, of fear, of loneliness, of self-depreciation. The pain of leaving those you grow to love is only the prelude to an understanding of yourself and others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
However, both the group and the individual experience these sufferings as part of a process in which they are involved and in which they somehow trust—even if they could, at the moment, give no rational reason for doing so. As the workshop proceeds, there is a shift in the basis of value choices made by participants. Values that are based on authority, that derive from sources external to the person, end to be diminished. Values hat are experiences tend to be enhanced. What the person has experienced tend to be enhanced. What the person has been told is good and valuable, whether by parents, church, state, or political party, tends to be questioned. Those behaviours or ways of being that are experienced as satisfying and meaningful tend to be reinforced. The criteria for making value judgments come more and more to lie in the person, not in a book, a teacher, or a set of dogmas. The locus of evaluation is in the person, not outside. Thus, the individual comes to live increasingly by a set of standards that have an internal, personal basis. Because one is aware that these standards are based on ever changing experience, they are held more tentatively, less rigidly. They are not carved in stone, but written by the human heart. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Life in today’s World can be at times so complicated and the challenges so overwhelming as to be beyond our individual capacity to resolve them. We all need help from the Lord. Yet there are many individuals who do not know how to receive their help. They feel their urgent pleas for help have often gone unattended. How can that be when He Himself has said, “Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”? reports Doctrines and Covenants 4.7. It is evident that the Lord intends that we do our part. However, what specifically, are we to do? No one would expect to receive a result from physical law without obeying it. Spiritual law is the same. As much as we want help, we must expect to follow the spiritual law that controls that help. Spiritual law is not mysterious. It is something that we can understand. The scriptures define it in significant detail. “Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be make know unto you,” reports 1 Nephi 15.11. The Lord has the power to bless us at any time. Yet we see that to count on His help, we must consistently obey His commandments. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Our churches speak of Him day after day, Sunday after Sunday or Saturday after Saturday, some more in terms of the Heavenly king of glory. They call Him Jesus Christ, forgetting, and making us forget, what it means to say: Jesus is the Christ. The most incredible and humanly impossible event—a wandering Jewish Rabbi is the Christ—has become natural to us. Let us at least sometimes remind ourselves and our people that Jesus Christ means Jesus Who is said to be the Christ. Let us ask ourselves and others from time to time whether we can seriously agree with Peter’s ecstatic exclamation, whether we are likewise overwhelmed by the mystery of this Man. And if we cannot answer affirmatively should we not least be silent, in order to preserve the mystery of the words, instead of destroying their meaning by our common talk? And He proceeded to teach them that the Son of Humans must endure much suffering, must be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, must be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke of this quite freely. The moment in which Peter called Him the Christ, Jesus prophesied His suffering and death. He began to reveal the mystery of His Messianic destiny. It was contrary to everything that the people expected, that the visionaries dreamt, and that the disciples hoped for. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
He was to be rejected by the political authorities of the nation, whose king the Christ was supposed to be. He was to be rejected by the religious authorities of selected people whose leader the Christ was supposed to become. He was supposed to be rejected by the cultural authorities of that tradition which was supposed to overcome all pagan tradition through the Christ. He was to suffer—He Who was expected to transform all suffering into blessedness. He was to die—He Who was supposed to appear in divine glory. Jesus did not deny His Messianic vocation. In the symbolic words concerning the “rising after three days,” He indicated that His rejection and His death would not be a defeat, but rather the necessary steps to His becoming the Christ. He was to be the Christ only as a suffering and dying Christ. Only such is He the Christ, or, as He called Himself more mysteriously, the Son of Humans. Peter took Him and began to reprove Him for His words. However, Jesus turned to him, ad looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind me, you Satan. Your outlook is not God’s but human’s.” Nobody in Jesus’ time would have doubted the fact that God sent suffering and martyrdom even to the righteous. The Old Testament proved that on every page. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Therefore, it was not that fact which has made the history of the Passion the most important part of the whole Gospel. It was not the value of suffering and the value of an heroic death, which have given the power to the picture of the Crucified. There have been many pictures of creative suffering and of heroic death in human history. However, none of them can be compared with the picture of Jesus’ death. Something unique happened in His suffering and death. It was, and is, a divine mystery, humanly unintelligible, divinely necessary. Therefore, when Peter, shocked and overwhelmed by sorrow and love, tried to prevent Him from going to Jerusalem, Jesus considered his pleading a satanic temptation. It would have destroyed His Messianic character. As the Christ, He would have to suffer and die. The real Christ was not in power and glory. The Christ had to suffer and die, because whenever the Divine appears in all Its depth, It cannot be endured by humans. It must be pushed away by the political powers, the religious authorities, and the bearers of cultural tradition. In the picture of the Crucified, we look at the rejection of the Divine by humanity. We see that, in this rejection, not the lowest, but the highest representatives of humankind are judged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Whenever the Divine appears, It is a radical attack on everything that is good in humans, and therefore humans must repel It, must push It away, must crucify It. Whenever the Divine manifests Itself as the new reality, It must be rejected by the representatives of the old reality. For the Divine does not complete the human; It revolts against the human. Because of that, the human must defend itself against It, must reject It, and must try to destroy It. Yet the Divine is rejected, It takes the rejection upon Itself. It accepts our crucifixion, our pushing away, the defence of ourselves against It. It accepts our refusal to accept, and thus conquers us. That is the center of the mystery of the Christ Who would not die, and Who would come in glory to impose upon us His power, His wisdom, His morality, and His piety. He would be able to break our resistance by His strength, by His wonderful government, by His infallible wisdom, and by His irresistible perfection. However, He would not be able to win our hearts. He would bring a new law, and would impose it upon us by His all-powerful and all-perfect Personality. His power would break our freedom; His glory would overwhelm us like a burning blinding Sun; our very humanity would be swallowed in His Divinity. One of Luther’s most profound insights was that God made Himself small for us in Christ. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
In becoming the Christ, He left us our freedom and our humanity. He showed us His Heart, so that our heats could be won. When we look at the misery of our World, its evil and its sin, especially in these days which see to mark the end of a World period, we long for divine interference, so that the World and its daemonic rulers might be overcome. We long for a king of peace within history, or for a king of glory above history. We long for a Christ of power. Yet if He were to come and transform us and our World, we should have to pay the one price which we could not pay: we would have to lose our freedom, our humanity, and our spiritual dignity. Perhaps we should be happier; but we should also be lower beings, our present misery, struggle, and despair notwithstanding. We should be more like blessed animals than humans made in the image of God. Those who dream of a better life and try to avoid the Cross as a way, and those who hope for a Christ and attempt to exclude the Crucified, have no knowledge of the mystery of God and of humans. They are the ones who must expect others with a greater power to transform the World, others with a greater wisdom to change our hearts. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
However, even the greatest in power and wisdom could not more fully reveal the Heart of God and the heart of humans than the Crucified has done already. Those things have been revealed once for all. “It is finished.” In the face of the Crucified all the “more” and all the “less,” all progress and all approximation, are meaningless. Therefore, we can say of Him alone: He is the new reality; He is the end; He is the Messiah. To the Crucified alone we can say: “Thou art the Christ.” The Saviour taught: “Remember that without faith you can do nothing; therefore ask in faith. Trifle not with these things; do not ask for that which you ought not,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 8.10. There is another reason why the mind warrants special emphasis. Of all the soul’s faculties, the mind is the one that ponders, contains, and judges truth and falsity. The mind places me in contact with the external World, and when functioning properly it conforms itself to the name of the object of thought itself. The ingrained habits of thought that are formed will conform to the order of the thing being studied. What we study determines what kind of habits are to be formed. That is why Paul urged us to center on things that are true, honourable, just, pure, lovely and gracious. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
To understand this, let us consider two features of the mind: intentionality and internal structure. The intentionality of the mind. Intentionality refers to the “of-ness” or “about-ness” of our mental states. We have a thought of God, a hope for a new Ultimate Driving Machine, a belief about the media. The mind points beyond itself to the objects we use our minds to contemplate Because of intentionality, thought puts us in contact with the external World. For example, if I am in Tokyo, Japan, I can be in direct contact with London by thinking about it. My mind is directed on London, and it makes contact with this object of thought. After all, I am not thinking about the word “London” (unless someone asks me to spell it) or something else; I am thinking about London itself. The internal structure of the mind—when we come to understand something, the mind develops a conceptualization of the thing so understood. If I come to understand the workings of an Ultimate Driving Machine, my mind will possess a conceptualization of those workings. If my understanding is accurate, the conceptualization in my mind will conform to the Ultimate Driving Machine itself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
If my mind develops a conceptualization of morality, then there will be an order in my mind that locates the role of virtue and character in the overall moral life. If accurate, this conception of the role of virtue will conform to the nature of true morality that actually exists outside my mind. If my conceptualizations are false, I will fail to grasp the object as it really is. However, if my mind conforms to the nature of the object itself, I will not only grasp it truly but also gain a certain power that comes from a correct understanding of reality. Just as electricity was real but its power unavailable to us until Ben Franklin’s discovery opened our minds to grasp the true nature of electricity, so the power of the spiritual life is real but unavailable to us if we do not understand the true nature of prayer, fasting, and so forth. This is why truth is so powerful. It allows us to cooperate with reality, whether spiritual or physical, and tap into its power. As we learn to think correctly about God, specific scriptural teachings, the soul, or other important aspects of a Christian Worldview, we are placed in touch with God and those realities. And we thereby gain access to the power available to us to live in the kingdom of God. The blessing resolves those things which are beyond our own capacity to influence either personally or with the help of others. Yet we must do our part for the blessing to be realized. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
We must strive to be worthy and to exercise the requisite faith to do what we are able. Where it is intended that others help, we must use that hep also. It is through the combination of our doing what is within our power to accomplish and the power of the Lord that the blessing is realized. The B-values are not the same as our personal attitudes toward these values, nor our emotional reactions to them. The B-values induce in us a kind of “requiredness feeling” and also a feeling of unworthiness. The B-vales had better be differentiated from our human attitudes toward these B-values, at least to the extent that it is possible for so difficult a task. A listing of such attitudes toward ultimate values (or reality) included: love, awe, adoration, humility, reverence, unworthiness, wonder, amazement, marveling, exaltation, gratitude, fear, joy, et cetera. These are clearly emotional-cognitive reasons within a person witnessing something not the same as oneself, or at least verbally separable. Of course, the more the person fuses with the World in great peak or mystic experiences, the less of these intra-self reactions there would be and the more the self would be lost as a separable entity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Ideas are types existing in the Divine Mind. However, God has the proper types of all things that He knows; and therefore He has ideas of all things known by Him. As ideas are principles of the knowledge of things and of their generation, an idea has this twofold office, as it exists in the mind of God. So far as the idea is the principle of the making of things, it may be called an “exemplar,” and belongs to practical knowledge. However, so far as it is a principle of knowledge, it is properly called a “type,” and may belong to speculative knowledge also. As an exemplar, therefore, it has respect to everything made by God in any period of time; whereas as a principle of knowledge it has respect to all things known by God, even thought they never come to be in time; and to all things that He knowns according to their proper type, in so far as they are known by Him in a speculative manner. Evil is known by God not through its own type, but through a type of good. Evil, therefore, has no idea in God, either in so far as an idea is an “exemplar” nor as a “type.” God has no practical knowledge, except virtually, of things which neither are, nor will be, nor have been. Hence, with respect to these there is no idea in God in so far as idea signifies an “exemplar” but only in so far as it denotes “type.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
We hold matter to be created by God, though not apart from form, matter has its idea in God; but not apart from the idea of the composite; for matter in itself can neither exist nor be known. “And now, my son, I have somewhat more to say unto thee than what to said unto your brother; for behold, have ye not observed the steadiness of thy brother, his faithfulness, and his diligence in keeping the commandments of God? Behold, has he not set a good example for thee? For thou didst not give so much heed unto my words as did thy brother, among the people of Zoramites. Now this is what I have against thee; thou didst go on unto boasting in thy strength and thy wisdom. And this is not all, my son. Thou didst do that which was grievous unto me; for thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel. Yes, she did steal away the hearts of many; but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldest have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted. Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“For behold, if ye deny the Holy Ghost when it once has had place in you, and ye know that ye deny it, behold, this is a sin which is unpardonable; yea, and whosoever murdereth against the light and knowledge of God, it is not easy for one to obtain forgiveness; yea, I say unto you, my son, that it is not easy for one to obtain forgiveness. And now, my son, I would to God that ye had not been guilty of so great a crime. I would not dwell upon your crimes, to harrow up your soul, if it were not for your good. However, behold, ye cannot hide your crimes from God; and expect ye repent they will stand as a testimony against you at the last day. Now my son, I would that ye should repent and forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes, but cross yourself in all these things; for except ye do this ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Oh, remember, and take it upon you, and cross yourself in these things. And I command you to take it upon you to counsel with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold, thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel. Suffer not yourself to be led away by any vain or foolish thing; suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they say your conduct they would not believe in my words. And now the Spirit of the Lord doth say unto me: Command thy children to do good, lest they lead away the hearts of many people to destruction; therefore I command you, my son, in the fear of God, that ye refrain from your iniquities; that ye turn to the Lord with all your mind, might, and strength, that ye lead away the hearts of no more to do wickedly; but rather return unto them, and acknowledge your faults and that wrong which ye have done. Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this World; for behold, you cannot carry them with you. And now, my son, I would say somewhat unto you concerning the coming of Christ. Behold, I say unto you, that it is he that surely shall come to take away the sins of the World; yea, he cometh to declare glad tidings of salvation unto his people. And now, my son, this was the ministry unto which ye were called, to declare these glad tidings unto this people, to prepare their minds; or rather that salvation might come unto them, that they may prepare the minds of their children to hear the word at the time of his coming. And now I will ease your mind somewhat on this subject. Behold, you marvel why these things should be know so long beforehand. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“Behold, I say unto you, is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of this coming? It is not as necessary that the plan of redemption should be made known unto this people as well as unto their children? It is not as easy at this time for the Lord to send his angel to declare these glad tidings unto us as unto our children, or as after the time of his coming,” reports Alma 39.1-19. If the Master had no patience with his disciples, he and they would soon part. If he had no belief in their eventual evolution, he and they would never join. If a human hitched the Ultimate Driving Machine of one’s spiritual effort to the star of a competent and worthy spiritual guide, it is nonsensical to object that one surrenders one’s freedom whenever one surrenders one’s own personal judgment to the guide’s or even whenever one obeys a command from the guide. For who chose the guide? One, oneself. By the exercise of what faculty did one make such a choice? By the exercise of free will. Therefore the initial act was a free choice. It was also the most important one because it was causal, all one’s other acts as a disciple being merely its effects, however long be the chain which extends from it. It is because one respects the larger wisdom of the guide and trusts one’s disinterestedness that the disciple follows one in thought and practice, not because one has become a puppet. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The aspirant who believe that one can come to a master for a few days or works and glean the teaching will glean only a sample of it. It will take one all one’s life not only to receive what a master knows but to be adjured worthy of and ready for it. If one lacks this patience and humility, one will fall into self-deception. It requires long continued communication between pupil and teacher in joint purist of the object they are seeking to understand, and then suddenly, just as light flashes forth when a fire is kindled, this wisdom is born in the mind and henceforth nourishes itself. Two such individuals as Master and student are linked together by ancient ties. Much many remain to be done in the future as it was in the past. If, in a previous incarnation, the student attained a higher phase of development than at present, this must again be achieved before results can appear in consciousness. In such a case one should work especially hard to make progress. God, I speak your name, Emptier of cauldrons, your child calls you: into the past through the mists over the border between our Worlds my words go flying straight to you. God, I speak your name, Maker of borders, your child calls you: out of the past through the mists over the border between our Worlds travel the trackway, straight to me. God, hear my words and receive my gift. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Cresleigh Homes
When your canvas is as beautiful as this one, inspiration isn’t hard to find! 🤩
At #BrightonStation the possibilities are endless. We have Home Sites 47 & 88 available in this Residence 1 floor plan! Head to our website to learn more. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-2/
Lord, God of the Heavens, inhabiting spirit of good will, please bring joy to those who come together there. Please bind us together in the spirit of Godliness. You who fill your devotees with ecstasy pouring yourself unreservedly through their hearts, I ask you for your presence here today that our gathering might be properly blessed. #CresleighHomes
Humans Expect Something Extraordinary: The Coming of the New World Order in the Near Future!
I am an invisible person. No, I am not a spook…nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a human of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Creativity is a yearning for immortality. We have seen that intuitionism raises the question of the extent to which it is possible to give a systematic account of our considered judgments of the just and unjust. In particular, it holds that no constructive answer can be given to the problem of assigning weights to competing principles of justice. Here at least we must rely on our intuitive capacities. Classical utilitarianism tries, of course, to avoid the appeal to intuition altogether. It is a single-principle conception with one ultimate standard; the adjustment of weights is, in theory anyway, settled by reference to the principle of utility. Mill thought that there must be but one such standard, otherwise there would be no umpire between competing criteria, and Sidgwick argues at length that the utilitarian principle is the only one which can assume this role. They maintain that our moral judgments are implicitly utilitarian in the sense that when confronted with a clash of precepts, or with notions which are vague and imprecise, we have no alternative except to adopt utilitarianism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 27
Mills and Sidgwick believe that at some point we must have a single principle to straighten out and to systematize our judgments. Undeniably one of the great attractions of the classical doctrines is the way it faces the priority problem and tries to avoid relying on intuition. As I already remarked, there is nothing necessarily irrational in the appeal to intuition to settle questions of priority. We must recognize the possibility that there is no way to get beyond a plurality of principles. No doubt any conception of justice will have to rely on intuition to some degree. Nevertheless, we should do what we can to reduce the direct appeal to reduce the direct appeal to our considered judgments. For if humans balance final principles differently, as presumably they often do, then their conceptions of justice are different. The assignment of weights is an essential and not a minor part of a conception of justice. If we cannot explain how these weights are to be determined by reasonable ethical criteria, the means of rational discussion have come to an end. An intuitionist conception of justice is, one might say, but had a conception. We should do what we can to formulate explicit principles for the priority of problem, even though the dependence on intuition cannot be eliminated entirely. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27
In justice as fairness the role of intuition is limited in several ways. Since the whole question is rather difficult, I shall only make a few comments here the full sense of which will not be clear until later on. The first point is connected with the fact that the principles of justice are those which would be chosen in the original position. They are the outcome of a certain choice situation. Now being rational, the persons in the original position recognize that they should consider the priority of these principles. For if they wish to establish agreed standards for adjudicating their claims on one another, they will need principles for assigning weights. They cannot assume that their intuitive judgment of priority will in general be the same; given their different positions in society they surely will not. Thus I suppose that in the original positions the parties try to reach some agreement as to how the principles of justice are to be balanced. Now part of the value of the notion of choosing principles is that the reasons which underlie their adoption in the first place may also support giving them certain weights. Since in justice as fairness the principles of justice are not thought of as self-evident, but have their justification in the fact that they would be chosen, we may find in the grounds for their acceptance some guidance or limitation as to how they are to be balanced. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27
Given the situation of the original position, it may be clear that certain priority rules are preferable to others for much the same reasons that principles are initially assented to. By emphasizing the role of justice and the special features of the initial choice situation, the priority problem may prove more tractable. A second possibility is that we may be able to find principles which can be put in what I shall call a serial or lexical order. The term “lexicographical” drives from the fact that most familiar examples of such an ordering is that of words in a dictionary. To see this, substitute numerals for letters, putting “1” for “a” “2” for “b” and so on, and then rank the resulting strings of numerals from left to right, moving to the right only when necessary to break ties. In general, a lexical ordering cannot be represented by a continuous real-valued utility function; such a ranking violates the assumption of continuity. In the history of moral philosophy the conception of a lexical order occasionally appears though it is not explicitly discussed. A clear example may be found in comparing pleasures of the same kind, we use their intensity and duration; in comparing pleasures of different kinds, we must consider their duration and dignity jointly. Pleasure of higher kinds may have a worth greater than those of the lower kinds however great the latter’s intensity and duration. #RandolphHarris 4 of 27
It also is natural to rank moral worth as lexically prior to non-moral values. And of course the primacy of justice, as well as the priority of right are further cases of such an ordering. The theory of utility in economics began with an implicit recognition of the hierarchical structure of wants and the priority of moral consideration. (The correct term of lexical order is “lexicographical,” but it is too cumbersome.) This is an order which requires us to satisfy the first principle in the ordering before we can move on to the second, the second before we consider the third, and so on. A principle does not come into play until those previous to it are either fully met or do not apply. A serial ordering avoids, then, having to balance principles at all; those earlier in the ordering have an absolute weigh, so to speak, with respect to later ones, and hold without exception. We can regard such a ranking as analogous to a sequence of constrained maximum principles. For we can suppose that any principle in order is to be maximized subject to the condition that preceding principles are fully satisfied. As an important special cast I shall, in fact, propose an ordering of this kind by ranking the principle of equal liberty prior to the principle regulating economic and social inequalities. #RandolphHarris 5 of 27
This means, in effect, that the basic structure of society is to arrange the inequalities of wealth and authority in ways consistent with the equal liberties required by the preceding principle. Certainly the concept of a lexical, or serial, order does not offhand seem very promising. Indeed, it appears to offend our sense of moderation ad good judgment. Moreover, it presupposes that the principles in the order be of a rather special kind. For example, unless the earlier principles have but a limited application and establish definite requirements which can be fulfilled, later principles will never come into play. Thus the principle of equal liberty can assume a prior position since it may, let us suppose, be satisfied. Whereas if the principle of utility were first, it would render otiose all subsequent criteria. I shall try to show that at least in certain social circumstances a serial ordering of the principles of justice offers an approximate solution to the priority problem. Finally, the dependence on intuition can be reduced by posing more limited questions and by substituting prudential for moral judgment. Thus someone faced with the principles of an intuitionist conception may rely that without some guidelines for deliberation one does not know what to say. One might maintain, for example, that one could not balance total utility against equality in the distribution of satisfaction. #RandolphHarris 6 of 27
Not only are the notions involved here too abstract and comprehensive for one to have any confidence in one’s judgement, but there are enormous complications in interpreting what they mean. The aggregative-distributive dichotomy is no doubt an attractive idea, but in this instance it seems unmanageable. It does not factor the problem of social justice into small enough parts. In justice as fairness the appeal to intuition is focused in two ways. First we single out a certain position in the social system from which the system is to be judged, and then we ask whether, from the standpoint of a representative human in this position, it would be rational to prefer this arrangement of the basic structure rather than that. Given certain assumptions, economic and social inequalities are to be judged in terms of the long-run expectations of the least advantaged social group. Of course, the specification of this group is not very exact, and certainly our prudential judgments likewise give considerable scope to intuition, since we may not be able to formulate the principle which determines them. Nevertheless, we have asked a much more limited question and have substituted for an ethical judgment a judgment of rational prudence. Often it is quite clear how we should decide. #RandolphHarris 7 of 27
The reliance on intuition is of a different nature and much less than in the aggregative-distributive dichotomy of the intuitionist conception. In addressing the priority problem the task is that of reducing and not of eliminating entirely the reliance on intuitive judgments. There is no reason to suppose that we can avoid all appeals to intuition, of whatever kind, or that we should try to. The practical aim is to reach a reasonable reliable agreement in judgment in order to provide a common conception of justice. If human’s intuitive priority judgments are similar, it does not matter, practically speaking, that they cannot formulate the principles exist. Contrary judgments, however, raise a difficulty, since the basis for adjudicating claims is to that extent obscure. Thus our object should be to formulate a conception of justice which, however much it may call upon intuition, ethical or prudential, tends to make our considered judgments of justice converge. If such a conception does exist, then, from the standpoint of the of the initial situation, the priority problem is not that of how to cope with the complexity of already given moral facts which cannot be altered. Instead, it is the problem of formulating reasonable and generally acceptable proposals for bringing about the desired agreements in judgment. #RandolphHarris 8 of 27
On a contract doctrine the moral facts are determined by the principles which would be chosen in the original position. These principles specify which considerations are relevant from the standpoint of social justice. Since it is up to the persons in the original position to choose these principles, it is for them to decide how simple or complex they want the moral facts to be. The original agreement settles how far they are prepared to compromise and to simplify in order to establish the priority rules necessary for a common conception of justice. I have reviewed two obvious and simple ways of dealing constructively with the priority problem: namely, either by a single overall principle, or by a plurality of principles in lexical order. Other ways no doubt exist, but I shall not consider what they might be. The traditional moral theories are for the most part single-principled or intuitionistic, so that the working out of a serial ordering is novelty enough for a first step. While it seems clear that, in general, a lexical order cannot be strictly correct, it may be an illuminating approximation under certain special though significant conditions. In this way it may indicate the larger structure of conceptions of justice and suggest the directions along which a closer fit can be found. #RandolphHarris 9 of 27
Since the spiritual life is instinctoid, all the techniques of subjective biology apply to its education. The spiritual life (B-values, B-fact, metaneeds, et cetera) can in principle be introspected. It has “impulse voices” or “inner signals” which, though weaker than basic needs, can yet be “heard,” and which therefore comes under the rubric of the “subjective biology” I have described. In principle, therefore, all the principles and exercises which help to develop (or teach) our sensory awareness, our body awarenesses, our sensitivities to the inner signals (given off by our needs, capacities, constitution, temperament, body et cetera)—all these apply also, though less strongly, to our inner metaneeds, id est, to the education of our yearnings for beauty, law, truth, perfection, et cetera. I have used the term “experientially empty” to describe those persons whose inner signals are either absent or remain unperceived. Perhaps we can also invent some such term as “experientially rich” to describe those who are so sensitive to the inner voices of the self that even the metaneeds can be consciously introspected and enjoyed. It is this experiential richness which in principle should be “teachable” or recoverable, I am confident, at least in degree, perhaps with the proper use of psychedelic chemicals, with Esalen-type, non-verbal methods, with prayer and contemplation techniques, with further study of peak-experiences or of B-cognition, et cetera. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27
The Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California, specializes in such methods. The tacit assumption underlying this new kind of education is that both the body and the “spirit” can be loved, and that they are synergic and hierarchically rather than mutually exclusive, id est, one can have both. Not only are humans PART of nature, and it part of them, but also they must be at least minimumly isomorphic (corresponding or similar in form and relations) with nature (similar to it) in order to be viable in it. It has evolved humans. Their communion with what transcends them therefore need not be defined as non-natural or supernatural. It may be seen as a “biological” experience. Perhaps human’s thrilling to nature (perceiving it as true, good, beautiful, et cetera) will one day be understood as a kind of self-recognition or self-experience, a way of being oneself and full functional, a way of being at home, a kind of biological authenticity, of “biological mysticism,” et cetera. Perhaps we can see mystical or peak-fusion not only as communion with that which is most worthy of love, but also as fusion with that which is, because humans belong there, being truly part of what is, and being, so to speak a member of the family: one direction in which we find increasing confidence is the conception that we are basically one with the cosmos instead of strangers to it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27
This biological or evolutionary version of the mystic experience or the peak-experience—here perhaps has no different from the spiritual or religions experience—reminds us again that we must ultimately outgrow the obsolescent usage of “highest” as the opposite of “lowest” or “deepest.” Here the “highest” experience ever descried, the joyful fusion with the ultimate that humans can conceive, can be seen simultaneously as the deepest experience of our ultimate personal animality and specieshood, as the acceptance of our profound biological nature as isomorphic with nature in general. “And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do humans say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they should tell no human of him. And he began to teach them, that the Son of humans must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be skilled, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27
“However, when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of humans,” reports Mark 8.27-33. This story is the center of Mark’s Gospel. And in this story we find the heart of the Christian message. The message is infinitely simple, yet rich and profound, and concentrated in four words: “Thou art the Christ.” Let us think about this message in the light of our story, which is the real beginning of the Passion and Death. Then Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea and Philippi, on a road between some unimportant villages, at a time which seems indefinite—“then.” However, on this road occurred the most important event of human history. It is the most important not only from the point of view of the believer, but also from the of the detached observer of World history. And this indefinite “the” pointed to the most definite and decisive moment in the experience of humankind, the moment in which one human dared to say to another: “Thou art Christ.” On the road, He inquired of Hid disciples, “Who do people say I am?” John the Baptist,” they told him, although some say that you are Elijah, and others, that you are one of the prophets.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 27
Why did they give Him titles that elevated Him above the ordinary human being? It was because they expected something extraordinary: the coming of the new World order in the near future. All generations of humankind had waited in vain for this stage of the World, in which justice and peace would reign. The people believed that their generation would witness its coming. However, before it would come, forerunners would have to appear, to announce its coming and to prepare the people. Elijah would come from Heaven, to which he had been elevated; perhaps Jeremiah would rise from the dead; or some other prophet would appear; even John the Baptist might return from his grave. They felt that behind the figure of this teaching and healing Rabbi some mysterious thing was hidden. They thought that He must be the mask for one of the forerunners, who would come to prepare the new and final period of history. That is what the disciple heard from the people. Although there have been two thousand years of Christianity, there are still such people. Jesus. For them, remains the forerunner. The new World and he who is to bring it in are still to come. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27
Justice and peace have not yet begun to rule. The new World may be near at hand, or it may be still far from us. In any case, it has not appeared. That is the characteristic feeling of the Jewish people, the feeling that prevents them from becoming Christian. It is also the feeling of large groups within present-day Christendom, the feeling that drives them to wait and to work for the World of peace and justice, although they are constantly disappointed, and constantly have to start over again. If Jesus should ask us today, “Who do people say that I am?” we should have to answer exactly as His first disciples did: that He was one of the forerunners, and although perhaps the greatest of them all, probably not the last one; a forerunner and a prophet, but not one who will fulfill all things. The reign of justice and peace, the new World has not yet come. For their use is not more for probation than for affecting and moving. For there are many forms which, though they mean the same, yet affect differently; as the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp and that which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same. Certainly there is no human who will not be more affected by hearing it said, Your enemies will be glad of this” ……than by hearing it said only, “This will be evil for you.” …these points and stings of words are by no means to be neglected. #RandolphHarris 15 of 27
Consider what has been said. In an abstract way, it has been said that an idea may or may not evoke an emotional response, many carry different degrees of emotional response, may call out different kinds of emotion in different persons. In a concrete way, it is being observed that a sharp instrument pierces easier than a dull one, though the force exerted be the same. Consider the economy in phrasing the abstract conception and note that it is instantly illuminated by the image of piercing. The abstraction and the image have been related analogically. Reason has been put to work and so has imagination. Even more interesting, because more subtle, is the pair of statements: This will be evil for you. Your enemies will be glad of this. The base of both statements was probably suggested by the stock, popular generalization: What is good for the virtuous human is evil for the bad human, and what is evil for the virtuous human is good for the bad human. As reason has applied the idea to a specific person or audience, the outcome is flat, literal statement: this will be evil for you. As imaginative reason has applied the idea—your enemies will be glad of this—concreteness of language and indirectness of reference have set up a context of allusiveness that might well lead a respondent to construct a clear, full image for the illusion oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27
The illusion works through the principles of comparison and contrast, and so the intellect is served; the images are intimated, and so the imagination is invited to act. I have by me indeed a great many more Sophisms of the same kind, which I collected in my youth; but without their illustrations and answers, which I have not now the leisure to perfect; and to set forth the naked colours without their illustrations (especially as those above given appear in full dress) does not seem suitable. Ideas must be accessible to sense; that is, they must be images of one kind or another that the recipient can “see.” The imagination was not always directed, restrained, and bound by reason. It could serve a higher power than reason. It is the instrument of faith and divine grace as the faculty through which God communicated directly with humans. In matter of faith and religion our imagination raises itself above reason; not that divine illumination resides in the imagination; its seat being rather in the very citadel of the mind and understanding; but that the divine grace uses the motions of the imagination as an instrument of illumination, just as it uses the motions of the will as an instrument of virtue; which is the reason why religion ever sough access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams. #RandolphHarris 17 of 27
Humans can learn of things divine from two sources: from nature or from God directly. If from nature, there can be two avenues of knowing. One is that which springs from sense, induction, reason, argument, according to the laws of Heaven and Earth. One is that which flashed upon the spirit of humans by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience; which is a spark and relic of one’s primitive original purity. The almost universal belief of our times that when God drove humans from the Garden of Eden he vouchsafed them a vestige of knowledge of truth and goodness, a seed to which they could become sensitive and could learn to nourish. This kind of seed was in the citadel of the mind. However, humans also can learn of God directly. If they did, it would be through faith, a mysterious way that is based on the belief that the spirit is affected by spirit. Imagination is that modulation of spirit that is peculiarly sensitive to images and that is adept at reproducing and making them. So by nature imagination is a sensitive instrument, sensitive to its own mater, spirit, and sensitive to its own kind, similitudes. “And now, my son Helaman, I command you that ye take the records which have been entrusted with me; and I also command you that ye keep a record of this people, according as I have done, upon the plates of Nephi, and keep all these things sacred which I have kept, even as I have kept them; for it is for a wise purpose that they are kept. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27
“And these plates of brass, which contain these engravings, which have the records of the holy scriptures upon them, which have the genealogy of our forefathers, even from the beginning—Behold, it has been prophesied by our fathers, that they should be kept and handed down from one generation to another, and be kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord until they should go forth unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people that they shall know of the mysteries contained thereon. And now behold, if they are kept they must retain their brightness; yea, and they will retain their brightness; yea, and also shall all the plates which do contain that which is holy writ. Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls. And now, it has hitherto been wisdom in God that these things should be preserved; for behold, they have enlarged the memory of this people, yea, and convinced many of the error of their ways, and brought them to the knowledge of their God unto the salvation of their souls. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27
“Yea, I say unto you, were it not for these things that record do contain, which are on these plates, Ammon and his brethren could not have convinced so many thousands of the Lamanites of the incorrect tradition of their fathers; yea, these records and their words brought them unto repentance; that is, they brought them to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their Redeemer. And who knoweth but what they will be the means of bringing many thousands of them, yea, and also many thousands of our stiffnecked brethren, the Nephites, who are now hardening their hearts in sin and iniquities, to the knowledge of their Redeemer? Now these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear. And it may suffice if I only say that are preserved for a wise purpose, which purpose is known unto God; for he doth counsel in wisdom over all his works, and his path are straight, and his course is one eternal round. O remember, remember, my son Helaman, how strict are the commandments of God. And he said: If ye will keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land—but if ye keep not his commandments ye shall be cut off from his presence. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27
“And now remember, my son, that God has entrusted you with these things, which are sacred, which he has kept sacred, and also which e will keep and preserve for a wise purpose in him, that he may show forth his power unto future generations. And now behold, I tell you by the spirit of prophecy, that is ye transgress the commandment of God, behold, these things which are sacred shall be taken away from you by the power of God, and ye shall be delivered up unto Satan, that he may sift you as chaff before the wind. However, if ye keep the commandments of God, and do with these things which are sacred according to that which the Lord doth command you, (for you must appeal unto the Lord for all things whatsoever ye must do with them) behold, no power of Earth or hell can take them from you, for God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words. For he will fulfill al his promises which he shall make unto you for he has fulfilled his promises he had made unto our fathers. For he promised unto them that he would preserve these things for a wise purpose in him, that he might show forth his power unto future generations. And now behold, one purpose hath he fulfilled, even to the restoration of many thousands of the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth; and he hath shown forth his power in them unto future generations; therefore they shall be preserved. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27
“Therefore I command you, my so Helaman, that ye be diligent in fulfilling all my words, and that ye be diligent in keeping the commandments of God as they are written. And now, I will speak unto you concerning those twenty-four plates, that ye keep them, that mysteries and the words of darkness, and their secret works, or the secret works of those people who have been destroyed, may be made manifest unto this people; yea, all their murders, and robbings, and their plunderings, and all their wickedness and abominations, may be made manifest unto this people; yea, and they ye preserve these interpreters. For behold, the Lord saw that his people began to work in darkness, yea, work secret murders and abominations; therefore the Lord said, if they did not repent they should be destroyed from off the face of the Earth. And the Lord said: I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations. And now, my son, these interpreters were prepared that the word of God might be fulfilled, which he spake. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27
“I will bring forth out of darkness unto light all their secret works and their abominations; and except they repent I will destroy them from off the face of the Earth; and I will bring to light all their secrets and abominations, unto every nation that shall hereafter possess the land. And now, my son, we see that they did not repent; therefore they have been destroyed, and thus far the word of God has been fulfilled; yea, their secret abominations have been brought out of darkness and made known unto us. And now, my son, I command you that ye retain all their oaths, and their covenants, and their signs and their wonders ye shall keep from this people, that they know them not lest peradventure they should fall into darkness also and be destroyed. For behold, there is a curse upon all this land, that destruction shall come upon all those workers of darkness, according to the power of God, when they are fully ripe; therefore I desire that his people might not be destroyed. Therefore ye shall keep these secret plans of their oaths and their covenants from this people, and only their wickedness and their murders and the abominations shall ye make known unto them; and ye shall teach the to abhor such wickedness and abominations and murders; and ye shall also teach them that these people were destroyed on account of their wickedness and abominations and their murders. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27
For behold, they murdered all the prophets of the Lord who came among them to declare unto them concerning their iniquities; and the blood of those who they murdered did cry unto the Lord their God for vengeance upon those who were their murderers; and thus the judgments of God did come upon these workers of darkness and secret combinations. Yea, and cursed be the land forever and ever unto those workers of darkness and secret combinations, even unto destruction, except they repent before they are fully ripe. And now, my son, remember the words which I have spoken unto you; trust not those secret plans unto this people, but teach them an everlasting hatred against sin and iniquity. Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. Teach them to never be weary of good works, but to be meek and lowly in heart; for such shall find rest to their souls. O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God. Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27
“Yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day. And now, my son, I have somewhat to say concerning the things which our fathers call a ball or director—or our fathers called it Liahona, which is, being interpreted, a compass; and the Lord prepared it. And behold, there cannot any human work after the manner of so curious a work-personship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our father the course which they should travel in the wilderness. And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day. Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means it did show unto them marvelous works. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27
“They were slothful, and forgo to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey; therefore, they tarried in the wilderness, or did not travel a direct course, and were afflicted with hunger and thirst, because of their transgressions. And now, my son, I would that ye should understand that these things are not without a shadow; for as our father were slothful to give heed to this compass (now these things were temporal) they did not prosper; even so it was with things which are spiritual. For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land. And now I say, is there not a type in this thing? For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise. On my don, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our father; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27
“The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever. And now, my son, see that ye take care of these scared things, yea, see that ye look to God and live. Go unto this people and declare he word, and be sober. My son, farewell,” reports Alma 37.1-47. Wheels turn and the seasons turn and the Earth turns and the stars turn. The Universe turns and I turn with it. King of the tuning, my face turns toward you in wonder. Great Father, please help me. I have studied your ways for many years now, and still you hide yourself from me. I can call to you under a multitude of names, but still you do not come. I can tell you a large number of your stories, but still I do not know who you are. I have many pictures of you, but still I have not seen your face. Though I throw out titles and powers and associations in mad armfuls, still there is nothing there when the whirlwind I create as become still. In that nothing, then, in the quiet after my storm, I will await you. Come to me, if such is your will, or do not come to me, if such is your will. Still I will wait. What else can I do? I bring greetings to God of this place from my people, from my family, from me, and not only greetings but gifts of friendship. I give them to you to establish between us the sacred bond. I who stand before you, I who come into your presence, I who am your worshipper, call out to you, God. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27
Cresleigh Homes

Been eyeing the homes at #MillsStation? You’re in luck! We have multiple home sites ready for move-in, including sites 17 and 77 in the Residence 1 floor plan! Head to our website to take a virtual tour of this home today! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-1/
Lord of the Pathway, to you I call; Lord of the Pathway, I lift my voice to you. Gate Keeper, Waiting One please open the door, that I may pass through to your land, God, there to be refreshed by the power you, Great one. Please do not hide in you cave of clouds, Most High, and deprive our World of your splendor. Please come to the mirror we have prepared, washing it with clear water. See, we are clean to; nothing is here which would defile. We are worthy of your presence ad eager to see you. Please leave your cloud cave and shine for us.
Dear Lord of the shining bow, with hair of flame, with beauty shining, truth’s bright friend and falsehood’s foe, Masters of both lyre and singing: Please be with me, bring art and grace, please be with me, bring light and song, please be with me, bring all that is beautiful, please bring all that is beautiful when you come to me.
#CresleighRanch
#CresleighHomes
As Pure in thought as Angels are, to Know Her was to Love Her!
Life experiences become acting experiences, which in turn become life experiences. Today I saw her for the first time at Mrs. Jansen’s. I was introduced to her. Oh! She was good as she was fair. None—none on Earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are, to know her was to love her. She did not seem to make anything of it or pay any attention to me. I kept myself as unobtrusive as possible in order to observe her all the better. She stayed only a moment; she had come only to fetch the daughters, who were to go to the royal kitchen. While the two Jansen girls were putting on their coats, we two were alone in a room, and I, with a cold, almost supercilious apathy, said a few casual words to her, to which she replied with undeserved politeness. Then they went. I could have offered to accompany them, but that already would have sufficed to indicate the gallant suitor, and I have convinced myself that she is not to be won that way. –On the contrary, I chose to leave right after they had gone and to walk faster than they, but along other streets, yet likewise heading toward the royal kitchen so that when they turned onto Store Kongensgade I passed them in the greatest haste without greeting them or anything. It is necessary for me to gain entrance to the house, and for that, as they say in military language, I am prepared. It looks, however, as if that will be a fairly protracted and difficult matter. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
I have never known any family that lived so much apart. It is only she and her aunt—no brothers, no cousins, not a thread to grab onto, no far-removed connection to contact. I walk around continually with one arm available. Not for anything in the World would I walk with someone on each arm at this time. My arm is a grappling hook that must always be kept in readiness; my arm is intended for the potential yield—if far off in the distance a very distant relative or friend should appear whom I from afar could catch hold of, then I make a grab. Moreover, it is not right for a family to live so isolated; the poor young lady is being deprived of the opportunity to learn to know the World, to say nothing of the other possible dangerous consequences it may have. That always has its revenge. It is the same with proposing. To be sure, such isolation does protect one from petty thievery. In a very sociable house, opportunity makes the thief. However, that does not matter greatly, for there is not much to steal from such young women; when they are twenty-eight years old, their hearts are already a filled autograph album, and I never care to write my name where many have already written. It never occurs to me to scratch my name on a window pane or in a tavern, or on a tree or a bench in Frederiksberg gardens. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Beliefs are the rails upon which our lives run. We almost always act according to what we really believe. It does not matter much what we say we believe or what we want others to think we believe. When the rubber meets the road, we act out our actual beliefs most of the time. That is why behaviour is such a good indicator of a person’s beliefs. Let us look, then, at five aspects of belief that are critical to the shape of our minds. The content of a belief. A belief’s impact on behaviour I a function of three of the belief’s traits: its content, strength, and centrality. The content of a belief helps determine how important the belief is for our character behaviour. What we believe matters—the actual content of what we believe about God, morality, politics, life after death, and so on will shape the contours of our lives and actions. In fact, the contents of one’s beliefs are so important that, according to Scripture, our eternal destiny is determined by what we believe about Jesus Christ. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content. As long as we believe something honestly and strongly, we are told, then that is all that matters. Nothing can be further from the truth. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
I can believe with all my might that my Ultimate Driving Machine will fly me to Japan or love is caused solely by the brain, but that fervency does not change a thing. As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act. The strength of a belief. There is, however, more to a belief than its content. There is also strength and centrality for the person who believes it. We are all familiar with the idea of a belief having strength. If you believe something, that does not mean you are certain that it is true. Rather, it means that you are at least more than 50 percent convinced the belief is true. If it were fifty-fifty for you, you would not really have the belief in question. Instead, you would still be in a process of deciding whether or not you should adopt the belief. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you. It may start off as plausible and later become fairly likely, quite likely, beyond reasonable doubt, or complete certain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The more certain you are of a belief, the more it becomes a part of your very soul, and the more you rely on it as a basis for action. The centrality of a belief. You may be less familiar with this concept than with the previous two, but with a little reflection the idea of centrality is easy to grasp. The centrality of a belief is the degree of importance the belief plays in your entire set of beliefs, that is, in your Worldview. The more central a belief is, the greater the impact on one’s Worldview were the belief given up. My belief that prunes are good for me is fairly strong (even thought I do not care for that belief!), but it is not very central for me. I could give it up and not have to abandon or adjust very many other beliefs I hold. However, my beliefs in absolute morality, life after death, or the Christian faith are very central for me—more central now, in fact, than just after my conversion in 2020. If I were to lose these beliefs, my entire set of beliefs would undergo a radical reshuffling—more so now than in 2021. As I grow, some of my beliefs come to play a more central role in the entire way I see life. How do we change beliefs? The content, strength, and centrality of a person’s beliefs plays a powerful role in determining the person’s character and behaviour. However, there is an apparent paradox about one’s beliefs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
On the one hand, Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort. For example, if someone offered you $100,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this in spite of having a good motive to do so! Happily, there is a way out of this paradox: we can change our beliefs indirectly. If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question. More generally, by choosing to undertake a course of study, meditation, and reflection, I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in the content, strength, and centrality of my beliefs. (We will look more at these truths later.) And if these kinds of changes in belief are what caused a change in my character and behaviour, then I will be transformed by these belief changes. That is exactly why Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, because it is precisely activities of the mind that change these three aspects of belief, which, in turn, transform our character and behaviour. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
How beliefs form the plausibility structure of a culture. There is a critical corollary of this insight. If I cannot even entertain the belief needed to bring about that change, I will never be able to change my life. By “entertain a belief” I mean to consider the possibility that the belief might be true. If you are hateful and mean to someone at work, you will have to change what you believe about the person before you will treat one differently. However, if you cannot even entertain the thought that one is a god person worthy of kindness, you will not change. There is a straightforward application here for evangelism. A person’s plausibility structure is set of ideas the person either is or is not willing to entertain as possibly true. For example, no one would come to a lecture defending a flat Earth because this idea is just not part of our plausibility structure. We cannot even entertain the idea. Moreover, a person’s plausibility structure is a function of the beliefs one already has. God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favourable conditions for the receptions of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
We may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the World to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. If a culture reaches the point where Christian claims are not even part of its plausibility structure, fewer and fewer people will be able to entertain the possibility that they might be true. Whatever stragglers do come to faith in such a context would do so on the basis of felt needs alone, and the genuineness of such conversions would be questionable to say the least. This is why apologetics is so crucial to evangelism. It seeks to create a plausibility structure in a person’s mind, favourable conditions, so the gospel can be entertained by a person. To plant a seed in someone’s mind in pre-evangelism is to present a person with an idea that will work on one’s plausibility structure to create a space in which Christianity can be entertained seriously. If this is important to evangelism, it is strategically crucial that local churches think about how hey can address those aspects of the modern Worldview that place Christianity outside the plausibility structure of so many. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Our modern post-Christian society is perilously close to regarding Christian claims as mere figments in the minds of the faithful. Speaking of fundamentalists after the Scopes trial in 1925, historian George Marsden observes that they could not “raise the level of discourse to a plane where any of their arguments would be taken seriously. Whatever they said would be overshadowed by the pejorative associations attached to the movement by the seemingly victorious secular establishment.” Tragically, as we approach the twenty-first century, our current context for proclaiming Christian truth is even worse than it was in the decades following 1925. During those decades, at least argumentation was considered relevant to making or accepting religious claims. However, now religious assertions are regarded as mere expressions of private belief or emotion, far below the level needed for argument itself to be considered at all relevant. The plausibility, content, strength, and centrality of our beliefs play a key role in determining our character and behaviour. And various activities of thought and study affect our beliefs and thereby impact our character and behaviour. Because thoughts and beliefs are contained in the mind, intellectually development and the renewal of the mind transform our lives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
James’ words are consistently surgical. However, none are so penetrating as these: “If anyone considers oneself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on one’s tongue, one deceives oneself and one’s religion is worthless,” reports James 1.26. An exercise in futility! This is a spiritually terrifying statement, to say the least, for it cuts like a hot knife through warm butter, dissecting the cant and piety of the self-satisfied religious. An out-of-control tongue suggests bogus religion, no matter how well one’s devotion is carried out. The true test of a human’s spirituality is not one’s ability to speak, as we are apt to think, but rather one’s ability to bridle one’s tongue. The Lord Jesus Himself explained this in no uncertain terms in a heated exchange with the Pharisees: “Make a tree god and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” reports Matthew 12.33, 34). The tongue will inevitably reveal what is on the inside. This is especially true under stress, when the tongue is compulsively revealing. A preacher with a hammer in hand, doing some work on a church workday, noticed that one of the men seemed to be following him around. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Finally the preacher asked this man why he was following him around. The man answered, “I just want to hear what you say when you hit your thumb.” The curious parishioner understood that would be of the home, where the mouth unfailingly trumpets one’s essence. James does not mean that those who sometimes fall into this sin have a worthless religion, for all are guilty at times. Rather, he is saying that if anyone’s tongue is habitually unbridled, though one’s church attendance be impeccable, one’s Bible knowledge envied, one’s prayers many, one’s tithes exemplary, and though one considers oneself religious…one deceives oneself and one’s religion is worthless. The ever practical James has cut through all the religious decorum, but it is not butter that glistens under one’s knife, but the marrow of our souls. True religion controls the tongue. Humans, how is your religion? How is mine? Do you talk too much? Do you pass along choice morsels for others to gleefully take in? Do you pass along choice morsels for others to gleefully take in? Do you say to people’s faces what you would never say behind their backs? Do you have a “gift” of a sharp tongue? Are people elevated or diminished through your words? #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
From the time when one begins to take instruction from one’s teacher, the disciple also begins a period of probation in one’s inner career and of separation from one’s inner weaknesses. The probation will enable one gradually to show forth all the different aspects of one’s personality and will indicate how receptive one really is to the teacher’s influence. During this process, qualities which are lying latent beneath the surface will arise above it; situations will arrange themselves in such a way as to force one to express them. In short, what is hidden will become open. Thus one will be given the chance to look to one’s moral foundations before one advances to the intensive mystical training which places hidden power and hidden knowledge in one’s hands. Without first getting such a foundation, one who gets possession of these powers may soon fall into overpowering temptations, with disastrous results to oneself and others. The inner conflict which results from the probation will force one to face oneself, to look at the weaknesses which are present within one and to try to conquer them. If there is no other way to get one to do so, then one will have to take the way of suffering their consequences so as to have them brought home to one. Such a phase of the disciple’s career will naturally be filled with strains for oneself and with misunderstandings about oneself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
The term of probation is a period of severe trials and strong temptations. However, the principle of probation is a sound one. Out of the vortex of its tests and stresses and upheavals, one has the chance to emerge a stronger and wiser being. One’s probationary period is concerned with the general purification of character from egoism and animality as well as with its sensitization to intuition and instruction. Without such a basis to work upon, it would be dangerous for one to venture into mystical work or public service. Nor would the teacher permit one to do so, as there are inexorable laws, not of one’s making, which govern the matter. One must be on guard and not mistake psychism for spirituality, pseudo-intuition for the real thing, mix personal motives with altruistic service, nor lose oneself in dreams and fantasies instead of finding oneself in inspired action. These faults are common to most mystical aspirants. The Quest for God is deadly serious and demands so much. It is far easier to go astray from it than to keep on it. A householder is responsible for all who dwell in the house, but especially for guest. Treat anyone who has safely passed the borders of your land with respect, unless they perform some act to offend the spirit of God. Even then, treat them with kindness until you have escorted them off your property. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
It is your responsibility to restore the harmony to your house. This obligation holds for the uninvited as well as the invited guest—the neighbourhood children, the sales person, the evangelist at your door. Greet them pleasantly. Offer them hospitality. If you invite them in, offer them something to ear or drink. Your Cresleigh Home will develop a reputation for hospitality, which will please God no end. Lord who sits at the edge of my land, sits at the edge of all I own. Watchful Jesus Christ guards my space. About my Cresleigh Home, establish your place of warding. Stand watchfully at the corners. Be a shield between our house and all that would work evil. Guard our land and all who claim its protection. Here on the border, you stand your watch. I have come out here to assure you that your attention to duty is appreciated, bringing not only words, but gifts to place before your maker. Watcher on the Borders, the steward of this land offers to you. This grain is for you, and the atmosphere is for you. “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the Earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
“However, behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto humans according to their desires, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto humans, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction. Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all humans; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but one that knoweth good and evil, to one it is given according to one’s desires, whether one desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience. Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called? Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the Earth? For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
“I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me. Yea, and I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I surely do know that the Lord did deliver them out of bondage, and by this did establish his church; yes, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did deliver them out of bondage. Yea, I have always remembered the captivity of my fathers; and that same God who delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians did deliver them out of bondage. Yea, and that same God did establish his church among them; yea, and that same God hath called me by a holy calling, to preach the word unto this people, and hath given me much success, in the which my joy is full. However, I do not joy in m own success alone, but my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren, who have been up to the land of Nephi. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
“Behold, they have laboured exceedingly, and have brought forth much fruit; and how great shall be their reward! Now, when I think of the success of these my brethren my soul is carried away, even to the separation of it from the body, as it were, so great is my joy. And now may God grant unto these, my brethren, that they may sit down in the kingdom of God; yea, and also all those who are the fruit of their labours that they may go no more out, but that they may praise him forever. And may God grant that it maybe done according to my words, even as I have spoken. Amen,” reports Alma 29.1-17. When we understand what humans are, we do not forthwith understand other things which belong to them, but we understand them one by one, according to a certain succession. On this account the things we understand as separated, we must reduce to one by way of composition or division, by forming an enunciation. Now the species of the divine intellect, which is essences of all things, and also whatever can accidental to them. Enunciatory composition signifies some existence of a thing; and thus God by His existence, which His essence, is the similitude of all those things which are signified by enunciation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Seeing that I have no confidence in anything but Thy mercy, do Thou endue my mouth with power to proclaim Thy truth, and sanctify my work with more abundant richness of grace, that Thou mayest both save my unworthy self, and justify in Thy loving-kindness the flock entrusted to me. Whatever Thou seest corrupt in them, do Thou make sound; and whatever Thou discernest vicious in me, do Thou cure; whatever guilt they have contracted or do contract, through my sinful lukewarmness or carelessness, do Thou put away. If in anything they have fallen into sin, whether with or without my knowledge, or have fallen by the stumbling block of my example, pardon them, and render not to my unhappy self the punishment which such a fault deserves. However, let the rebukes which I have administered in censure of others conduce to their salvation; and let the pleading of this prayer recall them from the error they have committed, that they may not endure the torments of hell:–so that Thou mayest vouchsafe pardon to their iniquities, and wash away the offence of which I have become guilty by my own unfitness to bear rule. Incline Thine ear, O God, to our sacrifices, and write me, and those who are committed to me, in Thy books; whereby, together with the flock entrusted to me, I may both be cleansed from all sin, and be enabled to attain to Thee in peace. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes
How to have a lush, green garden that low-maintenance, you ask? These shade-loving perennials featured in this week’s blog just might be the answer you’ve been searching for. Check it out via the link in our bio! https://cresleigh.com/blog/
Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.
#CresleighHomes
Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat—God Moves in a Mysterious Way, Survival of the Fittest!
Half of the reporters in town are looking on you as a Pulitzer Prize waiting to be won. The word norm means an authoritative standard, and correspondingly, normal means abiding by such a standard. It follows that a normal personality is one whose conduct conforms to an authoritative standard, and an abnormal personality is one whose conduct does not do so. However, having said this much we immediately discover that there are two entirely different kinds of standards that may be applied to divide the normal from the abnormal: the one statistical, the other ethical. The one pertains to the average or usual, and the other to the desirable or valuable. These two standards are not only different, but in many ways they stand in flat contradiction to one another. It is, for example, usual for people to have some noxious trends in their natures, some pathology of tissues or organs, some evidences of nervousness and some self-defeating habits; but though usual or avege, such trends are not healthy. Or again, society’s authoritative standard for a wholesome love life may be achieved by only a minority of American males. Here too the usual is not the desirable; what is normal in one sense is not normal in the other sense. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Certainly, unless they are taught what is legal, ethical, moral and Godly, no system of ethics in the civilized World holds up as a model for its children becoming productive members of society. It is not the actualities, but rather the potentialities, of human nature that somehow provide us with a standard for a sound and healthy personality. One hundred years ago this double meaning of norm and normal did not trouble psychology so much as it does today. In those days psychology was deeply involved in discovering average norms for every conceivable type of mental function. Means, modes, and sigmas were in the saddle, and differential psychology was riding high. Intoxicated with the new-found beauty of the normal distribution curve, psychologists were content to declare its slender tails as the one and only sensible measure of “abnormality.” Departures from the means were abnormal and for this reason slightly unsavory. In this era there grew up the concept of mental adjustment, and this concept held sway well into the decade of the 1920s. While not all psychologists adjustment with average behaviour, this implication was pretty generally present. It was, for example, frequently pointed out that an animal who does not adjust to the norm for one’s species usually dies. It was not yet pointed out that a human being who does so adjust is a bore and a mediocrity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Now time have changed. Our concern for the improvement of average human behaviour is deep, for we now seriously doubt that the merely mediocre human can survive. As social anomie spreads, as society itself becomes more and more sick, we doubt that the mediocre human will escape mental disease and delinquency, or that one will keep oneself out of the clutch of dictators or succeed in preventing atomic or biological warfare. The normal distribution curve, we see, holds out no hope of salvation. We need citizens who are in a more beneficial and optimistic sense of normal, healthy and sound. And the World needs them more urgently than it ever did before. It is for this reason, I think, that psychologists are now seeking a fresh definition of what is normal and what is abnormal. They are asking questions concerning the valuable, the right, and the good as they have never asked them before. At the same time psychologists know that in seeking for a criterion of normality in this new sense they are trespassing on the traditional domain of moral philosophy. They also know that, by and large, philosophers have failed to establish authoritative standards for what constitutes the sound life—the life that educators, parents, and therapist should seek to mold. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
And so psychologist, for the most part, wish to pursue the search in a fresh way and if they can, avoid the traditional traps of axiology. During the past few months two proposals have been published that merit serious attention. Both are by social scientists, one a psychologist in the United States of America, the other a sociologist in England. Their aim is to derive a concept of normality (in the value sense) from the condition of humans (in the naturalistic sense). Both seek their ethical imperatives from biology and psychology, not from value-theory directly. In short, they boldly seek the ought (the goal to which teachers, counsellors, therapists should strive) from the is of human nature. Many philosophers tell us that this is an impossible undertaking. However, before we pass judgment let us see what success they have had. Humans are expected to maximize those attributes that are distinctively human. The first is human’s capacity for the use of propositional language (symbolization). From this particular superiority over animals derives several specific guidelines for normality. With the assistance of symbolic language, for example, humans can delay their gratifications, holding in mind a distant goal, a remote reward, an objective to be reached perhaps only at the end of one’s life or perhaps never. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
With the assistance of symbolic language, one can imagine a future for oneself that is far better than the present. One can also develop an intricate system of social concepts that leads one to all manner of possible relations with other human beings, far exceeding the rigid symbiotic rituals of, say, the social insects. A second distinctive human quality is related to the prolonged childhood in the human species. Dependence, basic trust, sympathy and altruism are absolutely essential to human survival, in a sense and to a degree that is maybe not always true for animals. The conception of normality has to do with a model of integrative adjustment. It follows that a sense of personal responsibility marks the normal human, for responsibility is a distinctive capacity derived from holding in mind a symbolic image of the future, delaying gratification, and being able to strive in accordance with one’s conception of the best principles of conduct for oneself. Similarly social responsibility is normal; for all these symbolic capacities can interact with the unique factor of trust or altruism. Closely related is the criterion of democratic social interest which derives from both symbolization and trust. Similarly, the possession of ideals and the necessity for self–control follow from the same naturalistic analysis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
A sense of guilt is an inevitable consequence of human’s failure to live according to the distinctive human pattern, and so in our concept of normality we must include both guilt and devices for expiation. Every psychologist who wishes to make minimum assumptions and who wishes to keep close to empirical evidence, and who inclines toward the naturalism of biological science prefers fact-based evidence that has not been manipulated. Manipulated and prejudice science is worthless junk. It is must like fake news and has no value other than propaganda. Nonetheless, our philosopher friends will arise to confound us with some uncomfortable questions. Is it not a distinctively human capacity, they will ask, for a possessive mother to keep her child permanently tied to her apron strings? Does any lower animal engage in this destructive behaviour? Likewise, is it not distinctively human to develop fierce in-group loyalties that lead to prejudice, contempt, and war? Is it not possible that the burden of symbolization, social responsibility, and guilt may lead a person to depression and suicide? Suicide, along with all the other destructive patterns I have mentioned, is distinctly human. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
A philosopher who raises these questions would conclude, “No, you cannot derive the ought from the is of human nature. What is distinctively human is not necessarily distinctively good.” What are the minimum conditions for survival? When we know these minimum conditions we can declare that any situations falling below this level will lead to abnormality, and tend toward death and destruction, which COVID-19 could be symbolic of—humanity falling below minimum conditions needed to sustain a developing nation like America, and others around the World. This criterion is called the abnorm and we can define it, even if we cannot define normality, because people in general agree more readily on what is bad for humans than on what is good for them. They agree on the bad because all mortals are subject to the basic imperative of survival. The need for survival is connected to our need for growth and the need for social cohesion. These two principles are the universal conditions of all life, not merely of human life. Growth means autonomy and the process of individuation. Cohesion is the basic fact of social interdependence, involving, at least for human beings, initial trust, heteronomy, mating and the founding of family. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
By taking an inventory of conditions deleterious to growth and cohesion we may establish the “abnorm.” As a start, the first and foremost disorders of child training is the continued or repeated interruption of physical proximity between mother and child and emotional rejection of the child by the mother are conditions that harm survival of the individual and the group. In the first criterion of abnormality lies in a rupture in the transmutation of cohesion into love. Most of what is abnormal can be traced to failures in the principle of cohesion, so that the child becomes excessively demanding and compulsive. It is abnormal (inimical to survival) if repetition of conduct occurs irrespective of the situation and unmodified by its consequences; also when one’s accomplishments constantly fall short of one’s potentialities; likewise when one’s psychosexual frustrations prevent both growth and cohesion. Normality requires a balance between individuation and socialization, between autonomy and heteronomy. When an individual identifies oneself to an extreme degree with a group, the effect is that one loses one’s value. On the other hand, a complete inability to identify has the effect that the environment loses its value for the individual. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In both extreme cases the dynamic relationship between individual and environment is distorted. An individual behaving in such a way is called neurotic. In a normal group each member preserves one’s individuality but accepts one’s role as participator also. While there is much agreement that the normal personality must strike a serviceable balance between growth as an individual and cohesion with society, we do not yet have a clear criterion for determining when these factors are in serviceable balance and when they are not. However, Philosophers, I fear, would shake their heads at us and ask us, “How do you know that survival is a good thing?” Further, “Why should all people enjoy equal rights to the benefits of growth and cohesion?” And, “How are we to define the optimum balance between cohesion and growth within the single personality?” We also have to worry about the relationship between abnormality and creativity. It was Nietzsche who declared, “I say unto you: a human must have chaos yet within one to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Have not many meritorious works of music, literature, and even of science draw their inspiration not from balance but from some kind of psychic chaos? In effect that creativity and normality are not identical values. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
On the whole the normal person will be creative, but if valuable creations come likewise from people who are slipping away from the norm of survival, this fact can only be accepted and valued on the scale of creativity, but not properly on the scale of normality. In this day of existentialism I sense that psychologist are becoming less and less content with the concept of adjustment, and correspondingly with the concepts of tension reduction, restoration of equilibrium, and homeostasis. We wonder if a human who enjoys these beatific conditions is truly human. Growth we know is not due to homeostasis but to a kind of “transiistasis.” And cohesion is a matter of keeping our human relationships moving and not in mere stationary equilibrium. Stability cannot be a criterion of normality since stability brings evolution to a standstill, negating both growth and cohesion. Dr. Freud once wrote to Dr. Fliess that he finds “moderate misery necessary for intensive work.” When people have a zero correlation between self and ideal self, it is too low for normality; it leads to such anguish that the sufferer seeks therapy. At the same time normal people are by no means perfectly adjusted to themselves. There is always a wholesome gap between self and ideal self, between present existence and aspiration. On the other hand, too high a satisfaction indicates pathology. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
When individuals reach an extremely high coefficient for self-satisfaction, it is clear that one is pathological. Perfect correlations we might expect only from smug psychotics, particularly paranoid schizophrenics. And whatever our definition of normality turns out to be it must allow for serviceable imbalances within personality, and between person and society. There is an approach dear to the psychologist’s heart. The established criterion of normality or otherwise known as soundness, leads us to identify people who are “sound.” Teachers of graduate students in the University of California nominated a large number of people whom they considered sound, and some of the opposite trend. In testing and experimenting with these two groups, whose identities were unknow to the investigators, certain significant difference appeared. For one thing the sounder human had more realistic perceptions; they were not thrown off by distortions or by surrounding context in the sensory field. Further, on adjective check-lists they stood high on such traits as integrated pursuit of goals, persistence, adaptability, good nature. On the Minnesota Personality Inventory they were high in equanimity, self-confidence, objectivity and virility. Their self-insight was superior, as was their physical health. Finally, they came from homes where there was little or not affective rupture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
A healthy person will be able to “love” and to “work.” On the schedule of other qualities a healthy person possesses include among others: efficient perception of reality, philosophical humour, spontaneity, detachment, and acceptance of self and others. A normal person has a strong ego, an abnormal person has a weak ego. Whether one is normal or abnormal depends on the degree to which one can manage one’s relationships successfully. Furthermore, the earlier enthusiasm of psychologist for the normal distribution curve helps to entrench the theory of continuum. Extreme withdrawal and escape constitute psychosis. However, you may ask, do no we all do some escaping? Yes, we do, and what is more, escapism may provide not only recreation but may sometimes have a certain constructive utility, as it has in mild daydreaming. Only if the dominant process is confrontation, the process of escape can still be harmless. Left to itself escapism spells disaster. In the psychotic this process has the upper hand; in the normal person, on the contrary, confrontation has the upper hand. Following this line of reasoning we can list other processes that intrinsically generate abnormality, and those that generate normality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The first list deals with catabolic (energy used to break down) functions. I would mention: Escape or withdrawal (including fantasy), repression or dissociation, other “ego defences,” including rationalization, reaction formation, projection, displacement, impulsivity (uncontrolled), restriction of thinking to concrete level, fixation of personality at a juvenile level, all forms of rigidification. The list is not complete, but the process in question, I submit, are intrinsically catabolic. They are as much so as are the disease mechanisms responsible for diabetes, tuberculosis, hyperthyroidism, or cancer. A person suffering only a small dose of these mechanisms may appear to be normal, but only if anabolic (requires energy to grow and build) mechanisms predominate. Among the latter I would list: Confrontation (or, if you prefer, reality testing) availability of knowledge to consciousness, self-insight, with its attendant humour, integrative action of the nervous system, ability to think abstractly, continuous individuation (without arrested or fixated development), functional autonomy of motives, frustration of tolerance. I realize that what I have called processes, or mechanisms, are not in all cases logically parallel. However, they serve to make my point, that normality depends on the dominance of one set of principles, abnormality upon the dominance of another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The fact that all normal people are occasionally afflicted with catabolic processes does not alter the point. The normal life is marked by a preponderance of the anabolic functions; the abnormal by a preponderance of the catabolic. Investigations have told us much concerning the nature of human needs and motives, both conscious and unconscious. Much is known concerning the pathologies that result from frustration and imbalance of these needs. We know much about childhood conditions that predispose toward delinquency, prejudice, and mental disorder. A moralist might do well to cast one’s imperatives in terms of standards for child training. I can suggest, for example, that the abstract imperative “respect for persons” should be tested and formulated from the point of view for child training. The distinction between the anabolic and catabolic processes in the formation of personality represents a fact of importance. Instead of judging merely the end-product of action, perhaps the moralist would do well to focus one’s attention upon the process by which various ends are achieved. Conceivably, the moral law could be written in terms of strengthening anabolic functions in oneself and in others whilst fighting against catabolic functions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Apriorism, belief in a priori principles or reasoning specifically: the doctrine that knowledge rests upon principles that are self-evident to reason or are presupposed by experience in general, is a legitimate tool of philosophy. Up to now this method as yielded a wide array of moral imperatives, including the following: so act that maxim of thy action can become a universal law; be a respecter of persons; seek to reduce your desires; harmonize your interests with the interest of others; thou art nothing, thy folk is everything; thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…and thy neighbour as thyself. Psychologists who in their teaching and counselling follow the lines now laid down will not go far wrong in guiding personalities toward normality. “Do not speak evil against one another, brethren,” reports James 4.11. God forbids any speech (whether true or false) which runs down another person. Certainly no Christian should ever be a party to slander—making false charges against another’s reputation. Yet some do. However, even more penetrating is the challenge to refrain from any speech intends to run down someone else, even if it is totally true. Personally I can think of few commands that go against commonly accepted conventions more than this, for most people think it is okay to convey negative information if it is true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Some people have had to defend themselves because no one else would. Still, no innocent person should be physically attacked and terrorized by a violent mob and forced to defend themselves. We understand that lying is immoral. However, is passing along damaging truth immoral? It seems almost a moral responsibility! By such reasoning, criticism behind another’s back is thought to be all right as long as it is based on fact. Likewise, denigrating gossip (of course it is never called gossip!) is seen as okay if the information is true. Thus many believers use truth as a license to righteously diminish others’ reputations. Related to this, some reject running down another behind one’s back, but believe it is okay if done face to face. These persons are driven by a “moral” compulsion to make others aware of their shortcomings. Fault-finding is, to them, a spiritual gift – a license to conduct spiritual search-and-destroy missions. What people like this do not know is that most people are painfully aware of their own faults – and would like to overcome them – and are trying very hard to do so. Then someone mercilessly assaults them believing they are doing their spiritual duty – and, oh, the hurt! This destructive speaking down against others can also manifest itself in the subtle art of minimizing another’s virtues, and accomplishments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
After being with such people, your mental abilities, athletic accomplishments, musical skills, and domestic virtues seem not to be quite as good as they were a few minutes earlier. Some of this feeling came perhaps from their words about your Ultimate Driving Machine—“what a nice little BMW”—or from surprised exclamations about what you did not know. It was also the tone of the voice, the cast of the eye, and the surgical silences. There are many sinful reasons why humans in Christ talk down to one another. Revenge over some slight, real or imagined, may be the motivation of “Christian” slander. Others imagine that their spirituality and sensitivity equips them to pull others from their ivory towers and unmask their hypocrisies. Gideon once rightly cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” (Judges 7.20), and we may do the same, but in our case it is too often a sword of self-righteousness. Condescending words and actions may also come from the need to elevate oneself – like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other sinners “or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18.11). We thus enjoy the dubious elevation of walking on the bruised head of others, and coming down on innocent heads. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Sometimes this diminishing of others simply comes from too much empty talk. People do not have much to talk about, so they fuel the fires of conversation with the flesh of others. The abilities and motivations of the Body of Christ to run itself down could fill a library. We are all skillful in rationalizing such talk, but God’s Word still speaks: “Christians do not speak against one another.” Verbal cyanide comes in many forms. Gossip, innuendo, flattery, criticism, diminishment, are only a few of the venoms with which Christians inject each other. And the results are universal: toxic gastric juices a Devil’s feast – the swill of souls. Dear Lord in Heaven, please eat what is offered to you and transform it, as food is transformed, into blessings for me, and for all my household. The fire that burns on my hearth is the very heart of my Cresleigh Home. By feeding the fire with wood and with air, I am feeding my Cresleigh Home with what it needs most. I give you these things, fire on my hearth and more gifts will follow as we live our lives together. I light a fire on my family’s hearth and praise the God of our home. I pray to the Most High and praise the Ancestors. Hear my words, see me as I perform the rites, receive the gifts I offer you. Threshold Spirit, guardian and protector of my Cresleigh Home’s entrance, I honour you as I pass through the beautiful door. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
God of doorways, bless my goings out, bless my comings in. Lord of the threshold, of doors and gates Lord, place where inside and outside meet: God is my threshold. Please Guard my doors, God, keeper of the keys. Watch it with care, please keep my Cresleigh Homes safe. May the blessings of God guard this door. God it is who guards our doors. The Lord commands Ammon to lead the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi to safety—upon meeting Alma, Ammon’s joy exhausts his strength—the Nephites give the Anti-Nephi-Lehies the land of Jershon—they are called the people of Amon. About 90-77 Before Christ. “Now it came to pass that when those Lamanites who had gone to war against the Nephites had found, after their many struggles to destroy them, that it was in vain to seek their destruction, they returned again to the land of Nephi. And it came to pass that the Amalekites, because of their loss, were exceedingly angry. And when they saw that they could not seek revenge from the Nephites, they began to stir up the people in anger against their brethren, the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi; therefore they began again to destroy them. Now this people again refused to take their arms, and they suffered themselves to be slain according to the desires of their enemies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Now when Amon and his brethren saw this work of destruction among those whom they so dearly beloved, and among those who had so dearly beloved them—for hey were treated as though they were angels sent from God to save them from everlasting destruction—therefore, when Amon and his brethren saw this great work of destruction, they were moved with compassion, and they said unto the king: Let us gather together this people of the Lord, and let us go down to the land of Zarahemla to our brethren the Nephites, and flee out of the hands of our enemies, that we be not destroyed. However, the king said unto them: Behold, the Nephites will destroy us, because of the many murders and sins we have committed against them. And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go? And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren. However, the king said unto him: Inquire of the Lord, and if he saith unto us go, we will go; otherwise we will perish in the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And it came to pass that Ammon went and inquired of the Lord and the Lord aid unto him: Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them; therefore get thee out of this land; and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will preserve them. And now it came to pass that Ammon went and told the king all the words which the Lord had said unto him. And they gathered together all their people, yea, all the people of the Lord, and did gather together all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land, and came into the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla, and came over near the borders of the land. And it came to pass that Ammon said unto them: Behold, I and my brethren will go forth into the land of Zarahemla, and ye shall remain here until we return; and we will try the hearts of our brethren, whether they will that ye shall come into their land. And it came to pass that as Ammon was going forth into the land, that he and his brethren met Alma, over in the place of which has been spoken; and behold, this was a joyful meeting. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the Earth. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness. Now the joy of Alma in meeting his brethren was truly great, and also the joy of Aaron, of Omner, and Himni; but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength. And now it came to pass that Alma conducted his brethren back to the land of Zarahemla; even to his own house. And they went and told the chief judge all the things that that happened unto them in the land of Nephi, among their brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the chief judge sent a proclamation throughout all the land, desiring the voice of the people concerning the admitting their brethren, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: Behold, we will give up the land of Jershon, which is on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And behold, we will set our armies between the land Jershon and the land Nephi, that we may protect our brethren in the land of Jershon; and this we do for our brethren lest they should commit sin; and this their great fear came because of their sore repentance which they had, on account of their many murders and their awful wickedness. And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit the land Jershon; and we will guard them from their enemies with our armies, on condition that they will give us a portion of their substance to assist us that we may maintain our armies. Now, it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he returned to the people of Anti0Nephi-Lehi, and also Alma with him, into the wilderness, where they had pitched their tents, and made known unto them all these things. And Alma also related unto them his conversion, with Ammon and Aaron, and his brethren. And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon; and they were called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished by that name ever after. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“And they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards humans; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end. And they did look upon shedding the blood of their brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it. Therefore, they would suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them. And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a highly favoured people of the Lord,” reports Alma 27.1-30. O God, Whose will it runs down the order of all the ages; come to me, please look favorably on your servant’s sake. I try to live up to the order of Godly people and promote the messages in the scripture. You are the one and only God, and I approve of dedicating my service to you, Lord. Thank you for your gifts and take pity of me. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes

We might have found the coziest reading spot in #PlumasRanch. 😍📚
Visit our website to take a virtual tour of our homes at Plumas Ranch. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/
#CresleighHomes
Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.
Love Never Demands—Love is Unconditional Acceptance of One and One’s Feelings!
One that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are. We have built an imaginative account of how the World may come to be represented in the nervous system of the organism. Because of this, it becomes possible to extend the imagination toward an idea of the self as also represented there, in the nervous system of the organism. We can put the self on the map. Some self-imagery is on the map to start with; we are born with it. The cortex carries mapped representations of our bodies, often called homunculi (little persons). One set of nerve-endings, when traced into the brain, maps out the endings of the nerves which activate movement: these nerve-endings sketch out the motor-homunclus. Another set of nerve-endings delineates the nerves which transmit sensations from our skin: the sensory homunculus. The homunculi are ourselves as experienced in our muscles, our bones, our skins, our glands. Their cortical mappings look weird because motor and sensory nerve-endings do not arrive in the cortex in the same proportions as our optical nerve-endings do when we look in the mirror. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
The homunculi is the basis of the concern of the self as a place where things happen. This can be contrasted with the more personal self as an object, which refers to those regions which carry the memories of all the messages that ever reached us about what is happening to us. We are not only recipients of experience, however. Also mapped are records of what we have done, and of the impulses to action which we have experienced. This kind of self-imagery is also built into the map-imagery, of our selves as agents. Our self is on the map. It is usually also represented in the model of the situation in which we find ourselves. The model, it will be remembered, is that active part of the map which at each moment accounts for where we are in relation to our World as it is, and in relation to our World as we expect it to be, and in relation to good placed and bad places, allowing feedback processes to act gyroscopically. Thus our current sense of self (the model) is closely linked with the self on the map, giving a sense of identity and continuity, direction and value. The “model” self stands out in relation to the “map” self: “This is myself now,” “Here I am now” in relation to “This is the sort of person I am in general, with these experiences behind me, and with these hopes and fears about my well-being in general.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Thus self-imagery can have an evaluative, controlling function. Our image of ourselves in the situation, and our favourite self-imagery, influence what we do. I think of myself— “I am a person who gets up early” or “I am a person who runs towards trouble and not away from it.” This is continually confirmed when I behave “like myself.” The more I can do so, the more pleased I am to think of myself in particular ways. Whenever there is incongruity between what I am doing (which is represented in my model f my self in the situation) and the person I imagine myself to be, or the person I would prefer to be (represented on the map), I am under tension to reduce the incongruity. So now we have a map, with imagery about the self as well as about the World. When there is too great an incongruity between the self on the map and the running-ahead anticipating model self, feedback processes bring about a situation in which the model self and the self-imagery on the map may correspond more closely. To put this in everyday language, I steer myself by a sense of what is “me” and I avoid behaviour which is “not me.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
This gives us a picture of a person with all one’s experiences stored, including experiences of the self, meeting new events either by adapting to them or by taking steps to change the environment to suit the self. Here is a self that is active, has a memory, and has direction. Once such a continuous reproduction of the environment is maintained in the highest centers, it becomes the main function of the sensory impulses to keep this apparatus of orientation up to date and capable of determining the responses to particular stimuli in the light of the whole situation. How integrated is the self? One of the tings wrong with this picture, which is quite like the common-sense idea we have of ourselves as human beings, is that it may be too unified. For a description of the process by which linkages will gradually produce a map of the relations between the stimuli acting on the organism, the smile of the map soon becomes inadequate…The classifications with which we are concerned will occur on many successive levels. We have to think of the whole system of connexions as consisting of many superimposed sub-systems which in some respects may operate independently of each other. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Every subsystem of this kind constitutes a partial map of the environment Such partial maps at any level serve for the guidance of a relatively more limited set of information which could be on its way to other and perhaps “higher” centers. These are called “partial selves.” Geography books helps us to a useful analogy. In an atlas there will be a master-map of Europe. However, also filed away are partial maps which show only Britain, or only France – partial selves: myself as a student, myself as an uncle. And each of these partial maps can itself be substructured further: France in Europe, Paris in France, the Louvre in Paris. There are also other kinds of partial maps, whereby partial features are abstracted from the total information on other spatial principles. Instead of abstracting France from Europe, we can abstract annual rainfall from all areas in Europe, or proneness to earthquakes, or density of population or intensity of industrial output. From my map of myself, I can abstract not only partial selves but also the number of towns I have lived in, the illness I am prone to, the sort of people I am attracted to – all kinds of subsystems. It will become important to keep in mind that there may be several subsystems, each to do with a partial view of the self, and each able to give an account of what is going on, from the perspective of that particular partial map. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
If there is little intercommunication between these subsystems, the result would be that a person has several “partial selves,” moods, one might say, or roles. The concept of subsystems is also important when we think of psychical systems as not necessarily hierarchical, but as parts of a system in the making—of parts of the personality with some organization but not (yet) integrated with other parts. We must not think of the personality as more integrated than it is. Nor must we think of the personality as more widely conscious than it is. While the full and detailed classification of sensory impulses, corresponding to the order of sensory qualities which we know from conscious experience, is effected mainly at the highest centers, we must assume a more limited classification on somewhat similar principles to take place already at the lower levels, where certainly no conscious experience is associated with it. When we consider the development of consciousness in the mental order, we must ask ourselves what might be the criteria of consciousness. What are those special attributes of conscious behaviour by which we distinguish it from behaviour which also appears to be co-ordinated and purposive but of which the person is not “aware?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
In conscious behaviour a person will be able to gibe an account of what one is doing, be able to take account in one’s actions of other simultaneous experiences of which one is also conscious, and, be guided to a large extent not only by one’s current perceptions but also by images which might be evoked by the existing situation. This is very attractive and easily understood idea, that we are conscious when we can tell the story of what is happening to us. When we say that a person is able to give an account of one’s mental processes, we mean by this tat one is able to communicate them to other people by means of symbols. Symbols are concepts that can stand for other concepts. The symbols we mostly learn to use to communicate with are words, and most ordinary states of consciousness depend on words for symbol-formation and symbol use, though there are (in my view enviable) people who can also communicate to others in painting or music or dance, and there are also (in my view pitiable) people who can communicate only in these ways. To express in symbol-form what I experience myself to be can be a lifetime’s occupation. However, to sum it up simply, our sense of identity comes from the imagery of ourselves that we have on our maps—selves as objects, selves as agents, selves as seen in the mirror, and so on. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
And we have to be able to say something about ourselves to give an account of ourselves’ to be self-conscious. So the sense of identity, at least the way I shall think of it, requires self-consciousness, an ability to use symbols, and an ability to stand back from phenomena to some extent and see them in some way as separate from one’s own stream of existence. It is, incidentally, with the latter achievement, that most of the present narrative is concerned. We are considering processes which take place long before verbal concepts have evolved. Still, his is the point at which it may be salutary to consider the place of words in the development of the personality. Because considering is a process which is done in words, and for many related reasons, it is easy to have a rather simple unquestioning belief in the validity of the words we use. A reminder is needed that words not only symbolize but also falsify our inner experiences. The use of words drastically affects our capacity to give an account of ourselves, our consciousness, and our self-consciousness. For better, and for worse, it sets the growing child a number of problems to surmount. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Consider, for instance, how a child learns to use sentences in which “I” is used correctly to refer to itself, and “you” to refer to others; and consider the difficulties caused by the fact that the child is addressed by others as “you” and therefore has perhaps at first learnt to think of itself as “you.” Objects, such as tables, chairs, and cars, are much more easily correctly labelled. Words are given by people who mean something to the child; this has a strong effect on the concept to which it will be attaching their verbal label. The concepts the child has constructed from experience now acquire all sorts of additional elements, based on how others use the word-labels. Moreover, once people really start talking to the child in words, concepts ca also be acquired just from what other people say—the child is no longer dependent only on experience, as animals are. The child learns “Drinking all your milk is good” and “Getting your feet wet is bad.” Who know what moral ideas it gathers from this? Someone in a song is “mighty like a rose.” What does that mean to a child? With much useful and accurate information, all kinds of nonsense enters a child’s mind. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
We must keep remembering that the child’s concepts are not always in all respects what we think they are, though we use the same words. There must have been a time, for instance, when the child did not as yet have verbal concepts for “milk” and for “drinking.” In the very early days, messages directly to do with milk may come to be so inevitably associated with messages about comfort, warmth, arms, mouth, and so on, that the concept “milk,” which singles out the liquid bit, may not begin to be attained until the child has experienced of it in bottle or cup. We, the observers, know that the child is “drinking milk,” but the child does not, and is indeed not doing what we unthinkingly imagine it to be doing when we say “the child is drinking milk.” The general culture in which the child is brought up plays an important role in our learning to use the right words for our experiences. This particularly so when what the words refer to is not visible. The culture plays an important part in our learning to label emotional states so that they have meaning for ourselves and for others. For instance, the experience of distress is, at the beginning of life, a very undifferentiated one: not enough has happened yet for differentiation into more refined concepts. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
More experience (including verbal learning) has happen before distress become differentiated into anger, or rage, or fight, or aggression, or assertion, or fear, or flight, or panic, or anxiety, or worry, or embarrassment, or boredom, or hurt, and so on. Using such words correctly is not just a matter of increased skill in identifying feelings and in naming them correctly is not just a matter of increased skill in identifying feelings and in naming them correctly so that others understand us. It is not just the process by which “horsey” differentiates into “horse,” “cow,” and “donkey.” Feelings are private. We cannot point at them, the way we can point to donkeys. If we wish, we can certainly consent to a set of rigorous criteria which we have agreed shall determine the proper use of each disputed word. However, what are we in touch with at the end of that process? The effect which language has on the way we organize our experience is most easily seen when we compare cultures, even cultures as closely similar as the various European ones. This gives a very convincing demonstration of the extent to which our emotional experiences are organized by the words we use, which we have been taught by the grown-ups in the culture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Take a German word like fleissig, very frequently used, and compare it with its nearest English translation “industrious” – hardly ever met. Who ever speaks of an “industrious child?” (There must be some!) In Holland, many people are driftig, a state of mind frequently met and accepted among the Dutch. The nearest English translation, “hot-tempered,” is very rare and seems to me (Dutch by origin) to carry a tinge of disapproval. So early in my argument I would not wish to antagonize any potential reader by turning my eye to such technical words as “psychotic,” “narcissistic,” or “schizoid.” Though there be no such thing as Chance in the World; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion. There is certainly a probability, which arises from a superiority of chances on any side; and according as this superiority increases, ad surpasses the opposite chances, the probability receives a proportionable increase, and begets still a higher degree of belief or assent to that side, in which we discover the superiority. If a die were marked with one figure or number of spots on four sides, and with another figure or number of sports on the two remaining sides, it would be more probable, that the former would turn up than the latter. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Though, if the die had a thousand sides marked in the same manner, and only one side different, the probability would be much higher, and our belief or expectation of the event more steady and secure. This process of the thought or reasoning may seem trivial and obvious; but to those who consider it more narrowly, it may, perhaps, afford matter for curious speculation. It seems evident, that, when the mind looks forward to discover the event, which may result from the throw of such a die, it consider the turning up of each particular side as alike probable; and this is the very nature of chance, to render all the particular events, comprehended in it, entirely equal. However, finding a greater number of sides concur in the one event than in the other, the mind is carried more frequently to that event, and meets it oftener, in revolving the various possibilities or chances, on which the ultimate result depends. This concurrence of several views in one particular event begets immediately, by an inexplicable contrivance of nature, the sentiment of belief, and gives that event the advantage over its antagonist, which is supported by a smaller number of views, and recurs less frequently to the mind. If we allow, that belief is nothing but a firmer and stronger conception of an object than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, this operation may, perhaps, in some measure, be accounted for. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The concurrence of these several views or glimpses imprints the idea more strongly on the imagination; gives it superior force and vigour; renders its influence on the passions and affections more sensible; and in a word, begets that reliance or security, which constitutes the nature of belief and opinion. The case is the same with the probability of cases, as with that of chance. There are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in their operation. Fire has always burned, and water suffocated every human creature: The production motion by impulse and gravity is an universal law, which has hitherto admitted of no exception. However, there are other causes, which has always been found more irregular and uncertain; nor has rhubarb always proved a purge, or opium a soporific to every one, who has taken these medicines. It is true, when any cause fails of producing its usual effect, philosophers ascribe not this to any irregularity in nature; but supposed, that some secret causes, in the particular structure of parts, have prevented the operation. Our reasonings, however, and conclusions concerning the event are the same as if this principle had no place. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Being determined by custom to transfer the past to the future, in all our inferences; whereas the past has been entirely regular and uniform, we expect the event with the greatest assurance, and leave no room for any contrary supposition. However, where different effects have been found to follow from causes, which are to appearance exactly similar, all these various effects must occur to the mind in transferring the past to the future, and enter into our consideration, when we determine the probability of the event. Though we give the preference to that which has been found most usual, and believe that this effect will exist, we must not overlook the other effects, but must assign to each of them a particular weight and authority, in proportion as we have fond it to be more or less frequent. It is more probable, in almost every country of EUROPE, that there will be frost sometime in JANUARY, than that the weather will continue open throughout that whole month; though this probability varies according to the different climates, and approaches to a certainty in the more northern kingdoms. Here then it seems evident, that, when we transfer the past to future, in order to determine the effect, which will result from any cause, we transfer all the different events, in the same proportion as they have appeared in the past, and conceive one to have exited a hundred times, for instance, another ten times, and another once. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
As a great number of views do here concur in one event, they fortify and confirm it to the imagination, beget that sentiment which we call belief, and give its object the preference above the contrary event, which is not supported by an equal number of experiments, and recurs not so frequently to the thought in transferring the past to the future. Let any one try to account for this operation of the mind upon any of the received systems of philosophy, and one will be sensible of the difficulty. For my part, I shall think it sufficient, if the present hints excite the curiosity of philosophers, and make them sensible how defective all common theories are in treating of such curious and such sublime subjects. A sensation is a state of awareness or sentience, a mode of consciousness, for example, a conscious awareness of sound, colour, or pain. A visual sensation, like an experience of a tree, is a state of the soul, not a state of the eyeballs. The eyes do not see. I (my soul) see with or by means of the eyes. The eyes, and the body in general, are instruments, tools the soul uses to experience the external World. Some sensations are experiences of things outside me like a tree or a table. Others are awarenesses of other states within me like pains or itches. Emotions are a subclass of sensations and, as such, forms of awareness of things. I can be aware of something angrily or lovingly or fearful. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
A thought is a mental content that can be expressed in an entire sentence and that only exists while it is being thought. Some thoughts logically imply other thoughts. For example, “All dogs are mammals” entails “This dog is a mammal.” If the former is true, the latter must be true. Some thoughts do not entail but merely provide evidence for other thoughts. For example, certain thoughts about evidence in a court case provide evidence for the thought that a person is guilty. A belief is a person’s view, accepted to varying degrees of strength, of how things really are. If a person has a belief (for example, that it is raining), then that belief serves as the basis for the person’s tendency or readiness to act as if the thing believed were really so (for example, the person gets an umbrella). At any given time, one can have many beliefs that are not currently being contemplated. A desire is a certain felt inclination to do, have, or experience certain things. Desires are either conscious or such that they can be made conscious through certain activities, for example, through therapy. An act of will is a volition or choice, an exercise of power, and endeavouring to do a certain thing. Remember that you pray with deeds as well as words. God likes to be remembered, even when we are not in conscious prayer. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Light softly glowing in the heart of my home, God of the hearth, life of my dwelling, keep my family free from discord, free from want, free from fear, free from all that would disturb us and that would disturb your perfect peace. The light from the water is here. The light from the land is here. The light from the sky is here. From below, from about, from above, light has come here to my hearth: shine there, God of Clear Sight. A celestial light you are, God. A center point are you, God. A place of warmth are you, God. The heart of our home are you, God. To you, God, I dedicated my soul in your honour. The home’s central point is a glowing light, the heart of our home is shining brightly. God, created of the Universe, please bless all of your people, all who dwell in this house. Almighty and merciful God, we beseech Thy boundless loving-kindness, that at Thy humble servants’ entrance Thou wouldest be pleased to visit with Thy salvation this Thy servants on Earth who are laying, worn with uneasiness, on this Earth. “And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the and of Zarahemla that God would have granted into us such great blessings? And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell? #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instrument in the hands of God t bring about this great work. Behold, thousands of them do rejoice, and have been brought into the fold of God. Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labour; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners, that they are not wasted. Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them. However, behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his; and he will raise them up at the last day. Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice? Yes, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell. Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work. Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of human? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful as to have snatched us from our awful, sinful, and polluted state? Behold, we went for the even in wrath, with mighty threatenings to destroy his church. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Oh then, why did he not consign us to an awful destruction, yea, why did he not let the sword of his justice fall upon us, and doom us to eternal despair? Oh, my soul, almost as it were, fleeth at the thought. Behold, he did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls. Nd now behold, my brethren, what natural human is there that knoweth these things? I say unto you, there is none that knowth these things, save it be the penitent. Yea, one that repeneth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given t know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance. Now do ye remember, my brethren, that we said unto our brethren in the land of Zarahemla, we go up to the land of Nephi, to preach unto our brethren, the Lamanites, and they laughed us to scorn? For they said unto us: Do ye suppose that ye can bring the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth? #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites of the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers, as stiffnecked a people as they are; whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood; whose days have been spent in the grossest iniquity; whose ways have been the ways of a transgressor from the beginning? Now my brethren, ye remember that this was their language. And moreover they did say: Let us take up arms against them, that we destroy them and their iniquity out of the land, lest they overrun us and destroy us. However, behold, my beloved brethren, we came into the wilderness with the intent to destroy our brethren, but with the intent that perhaps we might save come few of their souls. Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. And now behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the World—not upon the mercies of the World alone but upon the mercies of God. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets; yea, and we have taught them upon their hills; and we have also entered into their temples and their synagogues and taught them; and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been stoned and taken and bound with strong cords, and cast into prison; and through the power and wisdom of God we have been delivered again. And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some. Now behold, we can look forth and see the fruits of our labours; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea, and we can witness of their sincerity, because of their love towards their brethren and also towards us. For behold, they had rather sacrifice their lives than even to take the life of their enemy; and they have buried their weapons of war deep in the Earth, because of their love towards their brethren. And now behold I say unto you, has there been so great love in all the land? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, there has not, even among the Nephites. For behold, they would take up arms against their brethren; they would not suffer themselves to be slain. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“However, behold how many of these have laid down their lives; and we know that they have gone to their God, because of their love and of their hatred to sin. Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were humans that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the World began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all the understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption for everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the three of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land. Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the Earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen,” reports Alma 26.1-37. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes
We are opting to call this #BrightonStation Residence 3 island an ‘ice cap’ after the hot weekend we Have had. 🥵 Do not worry, it still comes equipped with the undermount sink and quartz countertops you know and love. 😉
Watch a video walkthrough of this and other #CresleighRanch homes on our website. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-3/
May the Father bless thee, Who created all things in the beginning; May the Son of God heal thee; May the Holy Ghost enlighten thee, guard thy body, save thy soul, direct thy thoughts, and bring thee safe to the Heavenly country; Who liveth and reigneth God, in a perfect Trinity, throughout all ages. #CresleighHomes
Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates in the Memory—If Music be the Food of Love, Play on!
There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is very hungry for information…It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment. As a whole, the Democratic Republic of the Congo contains 615,942 square miles of forest. and it is known for its high levels of biodiversity, including more than 600 tree species and 10,000 animal species. Some of its most famous residents include forest elephant, gorillas, chimpanzees, okapi, leopards, hippos, and lions. Researchers has found that Central African forests generally have taller trees but lower density of small tress than forest in the Amazon or Borneo. That is because Elephants, gorillas, and large herbivores keep the density of small trees very low through predation, reducing competition for large trees. However, in areas where these animals have been depleted by hunting, forests tend to be shorter and denser with small trees. However, between 2000 and 2010, the country lost 14,331 square miles of forest. It risks being left in a fragmented and severely degraded state due to the growing threat of deforestation carried out to clear the illegal logging. If the current trend continues, the entire forest will be gone by the end of this century, 2100 A.D. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Understanding tropical deforestation is important because forests store vast amounts of carbon. Deforestation releases carbon to the atmosphere and prevents the forest from taking up more carbon, and this increases global temperatures and poor air quality. Deforestation also leads to the death of animals and makes it hard for the native to find much needed food. Also, the natives are not allowed to cut down trees because every tree that cut down costs them a fine that is ten times the minimum wages, and a jail sentence. However, since this country is poor, big corporations cannot be stopped from logging trees, and cut them down to plunder. The first inhabitants of these lands, the indigenous, are left forgotten in a corner, while the looters grow and become stronger. The natives have their history and try to defend themselves and their homes so they will not die. The threat to the rainforest seems like a joke because it is a single county, the country of money, put itself above all flags. When they utter, “Globalization,” many think it is absurd because it is an order in which money is the only country served and the borders are erased, not our of fraternity but because of the bleeding that fattens the powerful without nationality. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The lie of globalization became a universal coin, and for a few in the Congo, it wove a dream of prosperity above everyone else’s nightmare. Corruption and falsehoods are used to deceive the masses. Being poor, the people are dressed in the wealth of their scarcities, and because the lie is so deep and so broad, they end up mistaking it for truth. The people prepared for the great international forums and, by the will of the government, poverty was declared an illusion that faded before the development proclaimed by economic statistics. The people of the land became even more forgotten, and their history was not enough to keep the from dying, forgotten and humiliated. However, death did not hurt them as much as being forgotten did. They discovered that they no longer existed, and those who govern had forgotten about them in their euphoria of statistics and growth. A similar phenomenon is happening in the City of Sacramento with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on sports complexes and theater expansions, which cannot even be used, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but nothing being done to make sure people have affordable housing. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
A country that forgets itself is a sad country. A country that forgets its past cannot have a future. I have said that the original position is the appropriate initial status quo which ensures that the fundamental agreements reached in it are fair. This fact yields that name “justice as fairness.” It is clear, then, that I want to say that one conception of justice is more reasonable than another, or justifiable with respect to it, if rational persons in the initial situation would choose its principles over those of the other for the role of justice. Conceptions of justice are to be ranked by their acceptability to persons so circumstanced. Understood in this way the question of justification is settled by working out a problem of deliberation: we have to ascertain which principles it would be rational to adopt given the contractual situation. This connects the theory of justice with the theory of rational choice. If this view of the problem of justification is to succeed, we must, of course, describe in some detail the nature of this choice problem. A problem of rational decision has a definite answer only if we know the beliefs and interests of the parties, their relations with respect to one another, the alternatives between which they are to choose, the procedure whereby they make up their minds, and so on. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
As the circumstances are presented in different ways, correspondingly different principles are accepted. The concept of the original position, as I shall refer to it, is that of the most philosophically favoured interpretation of this initial choice situation for the purposes of a theory of justice. However, how are we to decide what is the most favoured interpretation? I assume, for one thing, that there is a broad measure of agreement that principles of justice should be chosen under certain conditions. To justify a particular description of the initial situation one shows that is incorporates these commonly shared presumptions. One argues from widely accepted but weak premises to more specific conclusions. Each of the presumptions should by itself be natural and plausible; some of them may seem innocuous or even trivial. The aim of the contract approach is to establish that taken together they impose significant bounds on acceptable principles of justice. The ideal outcome would be that these conditions determine a unique set of principles; but I shall be satisfied if they suffice to rank the main traditional conceptions of social justice. One should not be misled, then, by the somewhat unusual conditions which characterize the original position. The idea here is simply to make vivid to ourselves the restrictions that it seems reasonable to impose on arguments for principles of justice, and therefore on these principles themselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Thus it seems reasonable and generally acceptable that no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice of principles. It also seems widely agreed that it should be impossible to tailor principles to the circumstances of one’s own case. We should ensure further that particular inclinations and aspirations, and persons’ conceptions of their good do not affect the principles adopted. The aim is to rule out those principles that it would be rational to propose for acceptance, however little the chance of success, only if one knew certain things that are irrelevant from the standpoint of justice. For example, if a one knew that one was wealthy, one might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust; if one knew that one was poor, one would most likely propose the contrary principle. To represent the desired restrictions one imagines a situation in which everyone is deprived of this sort of information. One excludes the knowledge of those contingencies which sets humans at odds and allows the to be guided by their prejudices. In this manner the veil of ignorance is arrived at in a natural way. If we keep in mind the constraints on arguments that it is meant to express, this concept should cause no difficulty. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
At any time we can enter the original position, so to speak, simply by following a certain procedure, namely, by arguing for principles of justice in accordance with these restrictions. It seems reasonable to suppose that the parties in the original positions are equal. That is, all have the same rights in the procedure for choosing principles; each can make proposals, submit reasons for their acceptance, and so on. Obviously the purpose of these conditions is to represent equality between human beings as moral persons, as creatures having a conception of their good and capable of a sense of justice. The basis of equality is taken to be similarity in these two respects. Systems of ends are not ranked in value; and each human is presumed to have the requisite ability to understand and to act upon whatever principles are adopted. Together with the veil of ignorance, these conditions define the principles of justice as those which rational persons concerned to advance their interests would consent to as equals when none are known to be advantaged or disadvantage by social and natural contingencies. There is, however, another side to justifying a particular description of the original position. This is to see if the principles which would be chosen match our considered convictions of justice or extend them in an acceptable way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
We can note whether applying these principles would lead us to make the same judgments about the basic structure of society which we now make intuitively and in which we have the greatest confidence; or whether, in cases where our present judgements are in doubt and given with hesitation, these principles offer a resolution which we can affirm on reflection. There are questions which we feel sure must be answered in a certain way. For example, we are confident that religious intolerance and racial discrimination are unjust. We think that we have examined these things with care and have reached what we believe is an impartial judgment not likely to be distorted by an excessive attention to our own interests. These convictions are provisional fixed points which we presume any conception of justice must fit. However, we have much less assurance as to what is the correct distribution of wealth and authority. Here we may be looking for a way to remove our doubts. We can check an interpretation of the initial situation, then, by the capacity of its principles to accommodate our firmest convictions and to provide guidance where guided is needed. In searching for the most favoured description of this situation we work from both ends. We begin by describing it so that it represents generally shared and preferably weak conditions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
We then see if these conditions are strong enough to yield a significant set of principles. If not, we look for further premises equally reasonable. However, if so, and these principles match our considered convictions of justice, then so far well and good. However, presumably there will be discrepancies. In this case we have a choice. We can either modify the account of the initial situation or we can revise our existing judgments, for even the judgments we take provisionally as fixed points are liable to revision. By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances, at others withdrawing our judgments and conforming them to principle, I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted. This state of affairs I refer to as reflective equilibrium. It is an equilibrium because at last our principles and judgments coincide; and it is reflective since we known to what principles our judgments conform and the premises of their derivation. At the moment everything is in order. However, this equilibrium is not necessarily stable. It is liable to be upset by further examination of the conditions which should be imposed on the contractual situation and by particular cases which may lead us to revise our judgments. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Yet for the time being we have done what we can to render coherent and to justify our convictions of social justice. We have reached a conception of the original position. I shall not, of course, actually work through this process. Still, we may think of the interpretation of the original position that I shall present as the result of such a hypothetical course of reflection. It represents the attempt to accommodate within one scheme both reasonable philosophical conditions on principles as well as our considered judgments of justice. In arriving at the favoured interpretation of the initial situation there is no point at which an appeal is made to self-evidence in the traditional sense either or general conceptions or particular convictions. I do not claim for the principles of justice proposed that they are necessary truths or derivable from such truths. A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self-evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into one coherent view. We shall want to say that certain principles of justice are justified because they would be agreed to in an initial situation of equality. I have emphasized that this original position is purely hypothetical. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
It is natural to ask why, if this agreement is never actually entered into, we should take any interest in these principles, moral or otherwise. The conditions embodied in the description of the original position are ones that we do in fact accept. Or if we do not, then perhaps we can be persuaded to do so by philosophical reflection. Each aspect of the contractual situation can be given supporting grounds. Thus what we shall do is to collect together into one conception a number of conditions on principles that we are ready upon due consideration to recognize as reasonable. These constraints express what we are prepared to regard as limits on fair terms of social cooperation. One way to look at the idea of the original position, therefore, is to see it as an expository device which sums up the meaning of these conditions and helps us to extract their consequences. On the other hand, this conception is also an intuitive notion that suggests its own elaboration, so that led on by it we are drawn to define more clearly the standpoint from which we can best interpret moral relationship We need a conception that enables us to envision our objective from afar: the intuitive notion of the original position is to do this for us. When I am your president, I hope you will come see me. Please do not leave me up there in the White House all by myself. I grew up watching PBS, and still watch it. For enlightened news coverage, tune in to PBS. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Love must be aggressively translated into simple justice. “Each one should use whatever gift one has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms,” reports 1 Peter 4.10. Peter and Paul are saying the same thing. The spiritual gifts we have, and the ministries we perform are gifts of God’s grace. None of us deserves the gifts one has been given. They are given to us by God’s undeserved favour to us through Christ. This means the most “worthy” and the most “unworthy” of all Christians both receive their gifts and their ministries on the same basis. The “unworthy” person surely does not deserve one’s gift, but neither does the most “worthy.” They both receive them as unmerited favours from God. There are quotations marks around worthy and unworthy in above because in reality there is no such distinction in God’s sight. In His sight, we are all totally and permanently bankrupt spiritually. Paul’s statement, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.22-23), is just as true for believers as for unbelievers. We never earn our privileges of ministry because of our heard work or faithfulness in previous service to God. I taught adult Saturday school for many years in a small church before God launched me into a much wider sphere of ministry. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
However, I did not earn an enlarged ministry through my “faithful” teaching; rather, it was a gift of God’s grace. We are so accustomed to thinking of spiritual gifts in terms of abilities to minister that we lose sight of the ordinary meaning of the word. A gift is something given to us; something we do not earn. However, even our ordinary meaning fails to adequately convey the biblical sense. We tend to give gifts to people who, even though they have not earned them, in some sense deserve them because of their relationship to us or because they have done us a favour of some kind. However, God gives spiritual gifts to people who do not deserve them. None of us deserves to be in God’s service on some far away mission field. It is an awesome thing to attempt to speak on behalf of God. Yet that is exactly what we do when we teach, or preach, or write. It matters not whether our audience is one person or fifty thousand, whether they are kindergarten pupils or graduate theological students. Any time we say or write something that we hold out to be biblical truth, we are putting ourselves in the position of being God’s spokes-person. Peter said, “If anyone speaks, one should do it as one peaking the very words of God,” reports 1 Peter 4.11. I suspect that most people who these essays do teach the Scriptures occasionally if not regularly. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Do we appreciate the awesomeness of our responsibility, to be speaking on behalf of God? Do we consider the accountability that comes with being entrusted with the divine message? Paul himself was keenly conscious of his immense responsibility when he said, “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like humans sent from God,” reports 2 Corinthians 2.17. He said he spoke like a human sent from God, but he also said he spoke before God, or in the sight of God. That is, God not only sent him, but observed him. One Saturday as I stood up to teach my adult Saturday school class, to my dismay, I realized the president of our denominational seminary was sitting in the class. To make matters more intense, he also happened to be the professor of homiletics (the art of preaching). I was sure he was critiquing everything I said, both in content and delivery. Now if the presence of a seminary president in my class was an awesome experience, how much more awed should I be when I realize I speak, or write, in the very presence of God and on His behalf. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
What, then, will gives us the courage to undertake or continue to teach the Scriptures or, for that matter, to exercise any other spiritual gift? The heartfelt conviction that we have our ministry by God’s grace. Again, as Paul said, “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.1. It was a sense of God’s mercy that gave Paul courage or, as he expressed it, caused him not to lose heart. Mercy is God’s grace expressed specifically toward people who are viewed by Him as guilty, condemned, and helpless. It is generally expressed in terms of relieving the misery due to their sin. However, God not only relieved Paul’s misery, He elevated him to the office of apostle and gave him the ministry of proclaiming the richest of Christ. However, Paul never lost sight of his own unworthiness, even when exercising his office of apostleship. He never forgot he held that office by God’s mercy. Here we see the biblical relationship between a sense of one’s utter unworthiness on the one hand, and the courage to undertake a ministry for God on the other. To lose sight of our unworthiness is to risk exercising our gifts and fulfilling our ministries in a spirit of presumptuous pride, as if God were fortunate to have us on His team. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
However, to focus too much on our unworthiness, to the neglect of God’s grace, will effectively immobilize us for His service. That attitude is also an expression of pride because we are still focusing on ourselves and our worthiness or unworthiness, as if God were dependent on some innate quality within us to equip us for His service. Remember we did not declare temporary spiritual bankruptcy. Our bankruptcy is total and permanent. The only worthiness we have with which to come before God is in Christ. And the only worthiness we have to qualify us for ministry is in Christ. If we are to progress in any aspect of the Christian life, we must look outside ourselves and only to Christ. It is in Him that the grace of God is so abundantly poured out on us. God may be generous enough to accept us as we are, with our weaknesses and mistakes, but the law of Karma is above all human emotions, whether they be generous or ingenerous. It demands full payment and distributes to them the consequences of their actions. There is a strong similarity between this and law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated. We believe we are born where we should be, but that a just and loving Father in Heaven has decided where we can best perform in this mortal sphere of activity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
We believe we reap the rewards of our actions, but we also believe in the atonement of Jesus. Were it not for this merciful provision, we would be left with nearly the same doctrine as others who believe that karma cannot change. That is, we would be left to eternally pay the price of our sins. Christians are taught to be involved in the actions of others through doing good deeds and teaching the gospel. This is the doctrine of loving your neighbour as yourself. Spiritual insights surpass our mere powers of reason. We realize, however, that these moments of enlightenment are given to us by God through the power of the Holy Ghost and that we must study some things out for ourselves and then seek a spiritual confirmation. The gospel also teaches us to follow a wise, God-revealed health law. Physical care and conditioning have been taught since the early days of the Church. “Behold, now it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation among all this people, that they should not lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Mmner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God, in whatsoever place they should be, in any part of their land. Yea, he sent a decree among them, that they should not lay their hands on them to bind them, or to cast them into prison. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“Neither should they spit upon them, nor smite them, nor cast them out of their synagogues, nor scourge them; neither should they cast stones at them, but that they should have free access to their houses, and also their temples, and their sanctuaries. And thus they might go forth and preach the word according to their desires, for the king as been converted unto the Lord, and all his household; therefore he sent his proclamation throughout the land unto his people, that the word of God might have no obstruction, but that it might go forth throughout the land unto his people, that the word of God might have no obstruction, but that it might go forth throughout all the land, that his people might be convinced concerning the wicked traditions of their fathers, and that they might be convinced that they might be convinced that they were all brethren and that they ought not to murder, nor to plunder, nor to steal, nor to commit adultery, nor commit any manner of wickedness. And now it came to pass that when the kind had sent forth this proclamation, that Aaron and his brethren went forth from city to city, and from one house of worship to another, establishing churches, and consecrating priests and teachers throughout the land among the Lamanites, to preach and to teach the word of God among them; and thus they began to have great success. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“And thousands were brought to the knowledge of the Lord, yea, thousands were brought to believe in the traditions of the Nephites; and they were taught the records and prophecies which were handed down even to the present time. And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power of God working miracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away. For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren. Now, these are they who were converted unto the Lord: The people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Ishmael; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Middoni; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the city of Nephi; and also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Shemlon, and in the city of Lemuel, and in the city of Shimnilom. And these are the names of cities of the Lamanites which were converted unto the Lord; and these are they that laid down the weapons of their rebellion, yea, all their weapons of war; and they were all Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“And the Amalekites were not converted, save only one; neither were any of the Amulonites; but they did harden their heart, and also the hearts of the Lamanites in that part of the land wheresoever they dwelt, yea and all their villages and all their cities. Therefore, we have named all the cities of the Lamanites in which they did repent and come to the knowledge of truth, and were converted. And now it came to pass that the king and those who were converted were desirous that they might be distinguished from their brethren; therefore the king consulted with Aaron and many of their priests, concerning the name that they should take upon them, that they might be distinguished. And it came to pass that they called their names Anti-Nephi-Lehies; and they were called by this name and were no more called Lamanites. And they began to be a very industrious people; yea, and they were friendly with the Nephite; therefore, they did open a correspondence with them, and the curse of God did no more follow them,” Alma 23.1-18. Our Lord Jesus Christ be near thee to defend thee, within thee to refresh thee, around thee to preserve thee, before three to guide thee, behind thee to justify thee, above thee to bless thee; Who liveth and reigneth, thank you for bestowing us with your grace. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Today’s blog features some inspiring houseplant ideas from plant and interior stylist @hiltoncarter! We are loving the unique decor hacks he has been featuring on his profile lately. Check it out at the link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/blog/
Bless us, O Lord, we welcome you in our house, and may you bless all that dwell in it, as we are graciously pleased to bless the house of Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; we dwell in the walls of an angel of light. As people enter our atmosphere, they feel the abundance of Jesus Christ residing. God gives us the dew of heaven, and the richness of Earth. Be glad for the peacemakers, and through the indulgence of grace bless the Earth with your presence.
God of the hearth, beat strong and pure in the heart of my home. Lord of the threshold, keep vigilant guard over the entrance of my home. Spirits of the land, keep watch throughout the yard of my home. God of the borders, stand ready to repulse all disorder from my home. #CresleighHomes
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord!
When bad people combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. People who live for the next miracle cream do not realize that beauty comes from a secret happiness and equilibrium within themselves. Today I learned something about the house into which she disappeared. It belongs to a widow with three lovely daughters. Information in abundance is to be had there—that is, provided they have any. The only difficulty is to understand these details raised to the third power, for they are three speak at once. Her name is Cordelia Wahl, and she is the daughter of an officer in the Royal Navy. He has been dead for some years—the mother, too. He was a very severe and strict man. She now lives with her aunt, her father’s sister, who is supposed to be like her brother but otherwise is a very respectable woman. Now that is all very fine, but in other respects they know nothing about this household; they never visit there, but Cordelia visits them frequently. She and the two other young ladies take a course in the royal kitchen. Therefore, she generally visits there early in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning, never in the evening. They keep very much to themselves. So this is the end of the story; it is appear that there is no bridge over which I can steal into Cordelia’s house. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Consequently, she does have a conception of the pains in life, of the dark side. Who would have said this to her. Yet these recollections probably belong to an earlier period; this is a horizon under which she has lived without really being aware of it. That is fine—it has saved her femininity; she is not warped. On the other hand, it will also have significance in elevating her, if one really knows how to call it forth. All such things usually teach pride, provided they do not break one, and she is far from being broken. She lives near the embankment; they locality is not the best, no neighbours whose acquaintance one could make, no public places where one can make observations unnoticed. The embankment itself is not very suitable; one is too visible. If one walk below on the street, one cannot very well walk on the side next to the embankment, because no one walks there, and it would be too conspicuous, or one would have to walk close to the houses, and then one can see nothing. It is a corner house. Since the house has no neighbouring house, the widows to the courtyard are also visible from the street. Presumably her bedroom is there. No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. What therefore God hath joined together, let not humans put asunder. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
When people are working out, they tend to get lost in the own thoughts. More than once, I have waited for a circuit machine to free up, only to watch Mr. Oblivious finish with a set and just sit there, hogging he machine. He could easily have alternated sets with me—but he simply was not aware of what was happening around him or he just did not care. In either case, he failed to realize the reality that in a public setting like a fitness center, you are not alone. You are in a group setting that requires being aware at all times of how your actions affect others. Here are some of the most common fitness club flubs that men make: Leaving a pool of sweat. Mr. Buff is really pushing his physical limits on an exercise bike. Finally the session ends, and he steps off the bike, still totally focused on his effort, and walk away. Behind him, the handles glisten with his manly perspiration, and the seat has a small pool of sweat on it, waiting for the next lucky exerciser to climb on—maybe even that certain someone he has been trying to impress. It is not that Mr. Buff refused to clean the machine on purpose—he just did not think of it. His mind was far, far, away, in an endorphin haze. Which brings us back to the central premise of the fitness center etiquette: Be conscious of the people around you. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Imagine this scenario instead: When Mr. Buffy steps off, he turns to the next person and says cheerfully, “Just a second—let me clean this off for you.” A handy bottle of cleanser and a towel are nearby. He squirts the towel and then wipes the bike down. This is called being considerate. It is also a great way to make the right kind of impression on your fellow fitness center member. So gross! “They do not wipe down their machines and weights when they are done. So gross!” Over and over women spoke loudly and clearly about the failure of men to wipe down the equipment after using it. It takes just a minute. Fitness centers keep pray bottles and wipe-down rags nearby. A quick spray and wipe will do more to ingratiate you with your fellow fitness buffs than any other thing you can do at the gym. By the way, it is not just women who are frustrated by this gross behaviour. Twenty-nine percent of the respondents who brought up this issue were men and, by a wide margin, this was the biggest complaint about the fitness center in a 2019 survey. The unwanted stare. This one is a toughie. Those close-fitting sports bras and shorts do not always leave much to the imagination. And then there is all that uncovered skin—sometimes lots of it—not to mention the occasional tattoo. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Somehow I have always thought of a tattoo as an invitation to look: After all, why else is it there but to be noticed? The other day, for example, a woman on the tennis court next to mine took off her jacket to reveal what looked like a tiny fairy tattoo of one of the fairies from William Blake’s painting Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, circa 1786, one of the great works of modern art, on her back. I had to consciously work at not staring at her. I would have loved to really study that tattoo, but I limited myself to a few discreet looks when her back was turned toward me. The point is there is a difference between a look and a stare. Here is the distinction: When you look around you are you work out, your gaze falls naturally on another person but your focus is on what you are doing. When you stare, you focus on the object of your staring rather than on what you are doing. The bottom line: Women know when you are staring at them, especially when you are staring at their chest (“and I have a normal-sized bustline,” fumed one respondent). They do not like it. Do you want to impress a woman? Then look, do not stare. And look in her eyes, not at her assets. You will impress her most by showing that you are a man who knows how to respect a woman, tattooed, voluptuous, or otherwise. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Grunting—“In through the nose, out through the mouth. Exhale!” Dana, my trainer, exhorts me. And then I realize I can hear myself. I wonder if other people are hearing me, too. Now, there is a difference between an exhale—whooooosh—and a decibel shattering grunt. When your woosh becomes a grunt you have crossed a line, and when you do, men and women are equally irritated. You do not have to grunt to exhale and when you do grunt, as one respondent put it so eloquently, “You are just showing off.” Now it is time to pretend we are on an episode of Family Feud with Steve Harvey. Survey says: What Women Really Think About Macho Men. Here is what the women in our surveys had to say about men who are fitness center show-offs: Acts like Homey D. Clown trying to impress attractive women. Acts like The Rock when he is really In Living Color’s— Men On Films II, and deserves the new and improved, “Two snaps and a twist and a kiss. Pilot to Co-Pilot, we goin’ down in flames!” Admires himself excessively in the surrounding mirrors. Flexes constantly. Grunts and groans excessively. Lifts more weight than he can handle. Shows off his form in a spandex suit when he is overweight and his belly is popping out the shirt. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Nonetheless, in the realm of human destiny, the depth of a human’s questioning is more important than one’s answers. Our society is set up so that most women lose their identities when their husbands die…It is wrenching enough to lose the man who is your beloved, your companion, your best friend, the father of your children, without losing yourself as well. This is why some are bothered by the, “I am more important than you are” syndrome. I was on a Love Boat cruise ship recently where the line of jogging machines all face out the top deck windows, providing a fabulous view of the ocean as you work out. The sign-up system for these machines was pretty strict, I was told, for a good reason: It seems a woman had overstayed her time limit on one of the machines a while back, and the guy, who looked like Tattoo, waiting took a swing at her when she did not get off. Of course, she did not help matters by refusing to get off the machine when her time was up. Both individuals had fitness goals and needed to find a compromise. Otherwise it may seem they maybe guilty of the all-too-prevalent “I am more important than you are” syndrome, which seems to be a hazard of working out. The best way to deal with difficult people, and to avoid getting labeled as one yourself, is to respect the fitness center’s rules: Follow the schedules for all machines—start on time and end on time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Do not monopolize the machines. Do not use the as spare seats, and do not stand around them whole talking with your buddies. If a conflict does arise, do not take it upon yourself to be the “twelve” or SWAT of the club. Instead, kindly point out the issue to the staff, and let them take care of it. In the event that you are the culprit, admit your mistake forthrightly and make a conscious effort to change your habits. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there. Flirting with women in midworkout may not be a good idea. Do you ever read those relationship advice columns in Men’s Health? They are full of guidance on how to meet women, and one of the places they often recommend is the fitness center. You have got to wonder if any of these writers has ever actually been to a fitness center. However, I do love the trend they started with the bright neon shoes of any color with matching shorts. I admit, the idea of meeting the love of your life at the fitness center sound great in theory: After all, it is a place where a lot of fit, attractive people are gathered to pursue a common interest. So what exactly is the appropriate application for getting a woman’s attention that you are interested in doing a Richard Simmons Sweatin’ to the 80s on the Stairmaster, or straining to complete the Suzanne Somers thighmaster with? #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Well, since the days of the Jane Fonda workout tapes, there has not been one. Most women like to look like Farrah Fawcett, Aaliyah, or Viola Davis at the gym, but they do not want some beef cake like Brad Pitt, or hunk David Hasselhoff, or a tall cup of hot chocolate like Billy D. Williams in their face, breaking their concentration while they are trying to get their body like Beyonce. What they want is to be left alone so they can do their routine. The bottom line: Even if you look like Davey Fisher, back off. Do your workout and let her finish hers. On your way out of the club, after you have showered and dressed (and are looking and smelling great), you can try striking up a conversation by treating her to The Donna, a soy, caramel latte with a double shot and whipped cream, and a homemade, semi-sweet chocolate chip cookie, with a dollop of butterscotch, and pistachios at your local coffee shop, where you can strike up a conversation. At that point she may be as interested in talking to you as Rachel Zane was at getting into Harvard Law. Life is an unanswered question, but let us believe in the dignity and importance of the question. Also, when at the fitness center, remember your personal trainer is a person. My brother called me the other day. “Where are you?” he asked. “You were not at your workout with Dana, and she was surprised because she said you always call or text her if you are going to miss an appointment.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
I thought I had arranged with my wife that she would take my appointment and I would take hers, but we got our signals crossed and neither of us showed up. In five years of working with Dana, our personal trainer, I have heard over and over from her how frustrating it is to have an appointment not show up. She loses with the person who is skipped and she has a vacancy in her schedule someone else could have used, so from Dana’s point of view she loses twice. Personal trainers are like your best friend and confident like officer Poncherello and officer Jonathan from CHiPs. So it is natural to assume that when you happen to see him or her at the gym you can stop by for a chat. Unfortunately for your trainer and the client he or she is working with, your interruption takes away from the client’s time with the trainer. These sessions are as serious as doctor’s appointments. While a quick “Hello” is totally acceptable, it is better to save longer conversations for breaks between clients. Conversing with your trainer is a fun part of your workout (sometime the only fun part), but be careful about gossiping. Sure, your trainer is like a confidant, but do not say anything to one you would not want posted on a bulletin board for anyone to read. Even if your trainer is the most discreet person in the World, others working out nearby can overhear your conversation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Also, class courtesy is very important. You can get a great workout from taking one of the many classes fitness centers offer members. Just be careful not to overdo it, and respect the other class participants as well. Cleanliness matters—weight training class had started when Mike Ross waltzed in and set up right next to me. Unfortunately, I almost had to leave class. He brought his Betty Crocker Tuna Salad Sandwiches with him. I felt awkward moving to another location so I had to bear it. Just because you are in a hurry to the gym does not mean you should bring your lunch with you. Hygiene and personal habits matter. Maybe consider buying lunch at the café. Therefore, leave your lunch at home. And always do your fellow fitness buffs a courtesy: Wash your clothes, wash your body, brush your teeth, and use a deodorant. Even more so, know your limitations. Do not try to poses or push yourself beyond your body’s limits. I have seen to many people exit a class and not be able to come back for weeks just because they pushed the limits and ended up straining their backs or a muscle. If you do want to try a new position or exercise, do not rock the boat, talk with the instructor ahead of time and get his or her help in making sure you can do so safely. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
If you are at a more advanced level than the class, it is respectful to ask if you can execute a more advanced move, say, a handstand instead of a headstand, before just going ahead and doing it. If you have preexisting conditions take that into consideration. Before you start a class, give the instructor a heads up about any injuries you may currently be dealing with. That was he or she knows the limitations you have and will not inadvertently push you beyond your current capabilities. In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of wisdom from one person, rather than unsolicited advice from thousands of people. Success means never having to admit you are unhappy. If you cannot make a class, call. Weight training and tennis classes are very popular at my fitness center, and there are often more people who want to attend them than there are open slots. When someone blows off a class without calling, these folks get very upset and with good reason. There are plenty of people on the waiting list who would have enthusiastically taken the spot, and even at four in the morning they would have showed up religiously. The final thoughts: If you cannot make a class you have signed up for, be like Harvey or Jessica and call the center well in advance and let them know you will not be there. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The soul is a very complicated thing with an intricate internal structure that we need to understand if we are to appreciate the mind’s role in spiritual transformation. In order to understand that structure, we need to grasp two important issues: the different types of states within the soul and the notion of a faculty of the sou. The soul is a substantial, unified reality that informs its body. The soul is to the body what God is to space—it is fully “present” at each point within the body. Further, the soul and the body relate to each other in a cause-effect way. For example, if I worry in my soul, my brain chemistry will change; if I exercise my will to raise my arm in my soul, the arm goes up. If I experience brain cell damage, this can cause me to lose the ability to remember certain things in my soul. And so forth. The soul also contains various mental states within it—for example, sensations, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and acts of will. This is not as complicated as it sounds. Water can be in a cold or a hot state. Likewise, the soul can be in a feeling or thinking state. The soul contains several states. There is a belief that sounds have this kind of power. The awareness of God and your soul may percolate in your unconscious for some time; then, all of the sudden, you have an epiphany and a flash of insight comes to you, seemingly from out of nowhere. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
O God, the Protector of the faithful, and constant Visitor of souls obedient unto Thee; may it please Thee to be present, with Thy favour, to Thy servants who dwell in this house; that while we visit them with human solicitude, Thou mayest guard them with Divine favour; through our Lord. “Now, as Ammon was thus teaching the people of Lamoni continually, we will return to the account of Aaron and his brethren; for after he departed from the land of Middoni he was led by the Spirit to the land of Nephi, even to the house of the king which was over all the land save it were the land of Ishmael; and he was the father of Lamoni. And it came to pass that he went in unto him into the king’s palace, with his brethren, and bowed himself before the king, and said unto him: Behold, O king, we are the brethren of Ammon, whom thou hast delivered out of prison. And now, O king, if thou wilt spare our lives, we will be thy servants. And the king said unto them: Arise, for I will grant unto you your lives, and I will not suffer that ye shall be my servants; but I will insist that ye shall administer unto me; for I have been somewhat troubled in mind because of the generosity and the greatness of the words of thy brother Ammon; and I desire to know the cause why he has not come up out of Middoni with thee. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
“And Aaron said unto the king: Behold, the Spirit of the Lord has called him another way; he has called him another way; he has gone to the land of Ishmael, to teach the people of Lamoni. Now the king said unto them: What is this that ye have said concerning the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, this is the thing which doth trouble me. And also, what is this that Ammon said—if ye will not repent, ye shall be cast off at the last day? And Aaron answered him and said unto them: Believest thou that there is a God? And the king said: I know that the Amalekites say that there is a God, and I have granted unto them that they may assemble themselves together to worship him. And if now thou sayest there is a God, behold I will believe. And now when Aaron heard this, his heart began to rejoice, and he said: Behold, assuredly as thou livest, O king, there is a God. And the kind said: Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem? And Aaron said unto him: Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things both in Heaven and in Earth. Believest thou this? And he said: Yea, I believe that the Great Spirit created all things, and I desire that ye should tell me concerning all these things, and I will believe thy words. And it came to pass that when Aaron saw that the king would believe his words, he began from the creation of Adam, reading the scriptures unto the king—how God created humans after his own image, and that God gave him commandments, and that because of transgression, humans had fallen. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
“And Aaron did expound unto him the scriptures from the creation of Adam, laying the fall of human before him, and their carnal state and also the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the World, through Christ, for all whosoever would believe on his name. And since the human had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grace shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory; and Aaron did expound all these things unto the king. And it came to pass that after Aaron had expounded these things unto him, the king said: What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my heart, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy. However, Aaron said unto him: If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive he hope which thou desirest. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“And it came to pass that when Aaron has said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the Earth, and cried mightily, saying: O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead. And it came to pass that his servants ran and told the queen all that had happened unto the king. And she same in unto the king; and when she saw him lay as if he were dead, and also Aaron and his brethren standing as though they had been the cause of his fall, she was angry with them, and commanded that her servants, or the servants of the king, should take them and lay them. Now the servants had seen the cause of the king’s fall, therefore they durst not lay their hands on Aaron and his brethren; and they pled with the queen saying: Why commandest thou that we should slay these men, when behold one of them is mightier than us all? Therefore we shall fall before them. Now when the queen saw the fear of the servants she also began to fear exceedingly, lest there should some evil some upon her. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“And she commanded her servants that they should go and call the people, that hey might slay Aaron and his brethren. And when Aaron saw the determination of the queen, he, also knowing the hardness of their hearts of the people, feared lest that a multitude should assemble themselves together, and should be a great contention and a disturbance among them; therefore he put forth his hand and raised the king from the Earth, and said unto him: Stand. And he stood upon his feet, receiving his strength. Now this was done in the presence of the queen and many of the servants. And when they saw it they greatly marveled, and began to fear. And the king stood forth, and began to minister unto them. And he did minister unto them, insomuch that his whole household were converted unto the Lord. Now there was a multitude gathered together because of the commandment of the queen, and there began to be great murmurings among them because of Aaron and his brethren. However, the king stood forth among them and administered unto them. And they were pacified towards Aaron and those who were with him. And it came to pass that when the king saw that the people were pacified, he caused that Aaron and his brethren should stand forth in the midst of the multitude, and that they should preach the word unto them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“And it came to pass that the kind sent a proclamation throughout all the land, amongst all his people who were in all his land, who were in all the regions round about, which was bordering even o the sea, on the east and on the west, and which was divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and round about on the borders of the seashore, and the borders of the wilderness which was on the north by the land of Zarahemla, through the borders of Manti, by the head of the river Sidon, running from the east towards the west—and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites divided. Now, the more idle part of the Lamanites lived in the wilderness, and dwelt in tents; and they were spread through the wilderness on the west, in the land of Nephi; yea, and also on the west of the land of Zarahemla, in the borders by the seashore, and on the west in the land of Nephi, in the place of their fathers’ first inheritance, and thus bordering along by the seashore. And also there were many Lamanites on the east by the seashores, whither the Nephites had driven them. And thus the Nephites were nearly surrounded by the Lamanites; nevertheless the Nephites had taken possession of all the northern parts of the land bordering on the wilderness, at the head of the west, round about on the wilderness side; on the north, even until they came to then land which they called Bountiful. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“And it bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing. And they came from there up into the south wilderness. Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful, it being the wilderness which is filled with all manner of wild animals of every kind, a part of which had come from the land northward for food. And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, for the east to the west sea; and thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward. And it came to pass that the Nephites had inhabited the land Bountiful, even from the east unto the west sea, and thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward. Therefore the Lamanites could have no more possessions only the land of Nephi, and the wilderness round about. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
“Now this was wisdom in the Nephites—as the Lamanites were an enemy to them, they would not suffer their afflictions on every hand, and also that they might have a country whither they might flee, according to their desires. And now I, after having said this, return again to the account of Ammon and Aaron, Omner and Himni, and their brethren,” reports Alma 22.1-35. Bless, O Lord, this house and all who dwell in it, as Thou wast pleased to bless the house of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that within these walls may dwell an Angel of light, and that those who dwell together in it may receive the abundant dew of Heavenly blessing, and though Thy tenderness rejoice in peace and quiet; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Although the supreme cause is necessary, the effect may be contingent by reason of the proximate contingent cause; just as the germination of a plant is contingent by reason of the proximate contingent cause, although the movement of the Sun which is the first cause, is necessary. So likewise things known by God are contingent on account of their proximate cases, while the knowledge of God, which is the first cause is necessary. “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome,” reports Mrs. Rosa Parks. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Blue as the color of the sky! @HUBApts is a colorful community just minutes from @Intel in the heart of Folsom. Visit their account to learn more!
At 1,103 sq ft, the two bedroom, two bathroom unit is the size of a modest home and comes with its own washer and dryer, a chef inspired kitchen with quartz countertops, dishwasher, and garbage disposal, and it is a roommate style apartment with bedrooms on opposite sides of the apartment. There is also plenty of storage.
There is also access to your private garage from your apartment. In addition, community also with other amenities such as a business center, club house, pet wash station, fitness center,,pool with barbeque grill, and recreational areas. This luxury apartment complex has plenty of parking for residents and guest, and is close Intel and Folsom Lake. https://sites.google.com/fpimgt.com/hubvirtualtours/home
God is the protector of the faithful, the God of, all and in subjection to them in your mind reminding you to celebrate, be merciful to the inhabitants of Thy servants. Thou wouldst live in this house; so that those whom enter, the human visitors form care, and promise to protect you, as you are the power of the divine.
There are inexorable laws, not of one’s making, which govern the opening of spiritual relation between a self-actualized teacher and a would-be pupil, however, much of one’s devotion and loyalty are appreciated. The chance remains open to one on a probation only, which is necessarily of a limited number of years. If during that period, (and we all are on mortal probation and if we pass, we will live in Heaven with God) they are able to make personal contact, it will be helpful for the pupil’s progress in understanding the teaching, and one can profit by it to clear up misconceptions and filter out faults.
#HUBApts
#CresleighHomes
God is in His Heaven—All is Right with the World! Grow Old with Me Because the Best if Yet to Be!
The Christian life is not a way “out” but a way “through” life. Paul freely acknowledged that he received his apostleship purely as a result of God’s undeserved favour. God then used Paul’s testimony to encourage me at a time when I most keenly felt my complete unworthiness to write on the subject of personal holiness. The question, however, is this: To what extent can we use Paul’s very personal testimony and my own experience to establish a scriptural principle regarding Christian ministry? Is all ministry, where it be teaching a children’s Sunday school class, or witnessing individual to students at the local private school or preaching to thousands of people each Sunday, performed by the grace of God by people who are unworthy to be doing it? Harry Blamires had an incisive answer to that question: In the upshot there is only one answer for the preacher who wonders whether one is worthy to preach the sermon one has composed or for the writer who wonders whether one is worthy to write the religious book one is working on. The answer is: Of course not. To ask yourself: Am I worthy to perform this Christian task? is really the peak of pride and presumption. For the very question carries the implication that we spend most of our time doing things we are worthy to do. We simply do not have that kind of worth. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Of course, it matters little what Harry Blamires or Jerry Bridges think unless our thinking accords with Scripture. So what does the Bible say to this question? In Romans 12.6 Paul said, “We have different gifts according to the grace given us.” Paul was referring to spiritual gifts given to every believer enables us to fulfill the ministry or service God has appointed for us in the Body of Christ. However, not that Paul said these spiritual gifts are give accord to the grace of God, not according to what we deserve. The Greek word for a spiritual gift is charisma, which means “a gift of God’s grace,” whether it is the gift of eternal life as in Romans 6.23 or the gift of a spiritual ability for use in the Body. Here are somethings to consider on the connection of grace and gifts. “I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus,” reports 1 Corinthians 1.4. The specific basis of Paul’s thanksgiving in their case is God’s “grace given you in Christ Jesus.” Commonly this is viewed as a thanksgiving for grace as such, id est, the gracious outpouring of God’s mercy in Christ toward the undeserving. However, for Paul charis (“grace”) very often is closely associated with charisma/charismata (“gift/gifts”) and in such instance refers to concrete expressions of God’s gracious activity in his people. Indeed, the word “grace” itself sometimes denoted these concrete manifestations, the “graces” (gifts), of God’s grace. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
In our Systematic Theology, the main concern is, precisely, to build a “system,” this is, to work out the implications of our central perception of the Protestant principle along the mainlines of theological thought. Yet even though we are primarily concerned with the symbols of faith and their transcendent meaning, or with the historical relevance of the Christ, we unavoidably run into traditional Christian doctrines. These we reinterpret in order to assume them into our system. Whether our reinterpretations are orthodox or not is obviously an important question, but it is not the question to which we primarily address because we do not exclusively maintain a theology of revelation (as the neo-orthodox theologians have done). The terms “dogma” and “dogmatic,” are not terms we like to use because they came to be used at a time when the Church was engaged in self-defence. The Creeds were adopted as a protective formulation against heresies. Their acceptance became a matter of life and death for Christianity. This was a necessary step in the development of the Church, for heresies were demonic attempts to distort the Christian message. In this sense, a theology is always dogmatic: the word “dogmatics” emphasizes the importance of the formulated and officially acknowledged dogma for work of the systematic theologian. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Yet we shun the word as much as possible, for we believe that the significance of dogmas became distorted after the first centuries. Instead of reaming protective formulations of the core of the Christian message, dogma is identified with the laws of the Christian state. Heresy became a social crime. State and Churches that condone this confusion have become themselves demonic. There arose a demonic use of dogma, a reversal of values, by which dogmas were used, by Catholic as well as Protestant, against theological honesty and scientific autonomy. This unfortunate situation has discredited the words “dogmas” and “dogmatics” to such a degree that it is hardly possible to re-establish their genuine meaning. Our reluctance to use a vocabulary to which large sections of the intellectual World are allergic makes sense, for our purpose is precisely to build a bridge between the Christian faith and the secularized intellect. No antagonism to any specific dogma is implied. This does not reduce the significance of the formulated dogmata…but it makes the use of the term “dogmatics” impossible. The Christian is ultimately concerned about Christology, not only as symbol and as history, but also as dogma. The ultimate source of Christian belief can only be the revelatory situation in which Jesus is perceived as the Christ. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
There are no “revealed dogmas” properly speaking, no depositum that was communicated to the Apostles and handed down through the life of the Church, to be infallibly taught to the faithful. Our attitude is well epitomized as there are no revealed doctrines, but there are revelatory events and situations which can be describe in doctrinal terms. “Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found on an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the World and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with human’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of humans for to dwell on all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of humans for to dwell on all the face of the Earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the God-head is like unto gold, or sliver, or stone, graven by art and human’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all humans everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the World in righteousness by that human who one hath ordained; whereof one hat given assurance unto all humans, in that one hath raised one from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter,” reports Acts 17.22-32. The first time I spoke of our existence as theologians, I indicated that the foundation of this existence lay in the power of the Divine Spirit and in the reality of the Church. It was the believing theologian—believing in spite of all one’s doubts and despairs—that I tried to describe. The second time that we considered our existence as theologians, we looked at the self-surrendering theologians who, though the power of love, becomes “all things to all humans,” that theologian who seems to lose oneself through the understanding of everything and everyone. This time let us think about the answering theologian who, in spite of one’s participation in the weakness and error of all humans, is able to answer their questions through the power of one’s foundation, the New Being in Christ. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
The famous scene in which Paul speaks from the central place of Greek wisdom shows us a man who is the prototype of the answering theologian. Paul has been asked about his message, partly because they knew that they did not know the truth, and seriously desired to know it. There are three stages in Paul’s answer, which reveal the three tasks of answering theologian. The first stage of Paul’s answer consists in the assertion that those who ask him the ultimate question are not unconscious of the answer: these humans adore an unknown God and thus witness to their religious knowledge in spite of their religious ignorance. That knowledge is not astounding, because God is close to each one of us; it is in Him that we live and move and exist; these also belong to His race. The first answer, then, that we must give to those who ask us about such a question is that they themselves are already aware of the answer We must show to them that neither they nor we are outside of God, that even the atheists stand in God-namely, that power out of which they live, the truth for which they grope, and the ultimate meaning of life in which they believe. It is bad theology and religious cowardice ever to think that there may be a place where we could look at God, as though He were something outside of us to be argued for or against. Genuine atheism is not humanly possible, for God is nearer to a human than humans are to themselves. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
A God can only be denied in the name of name of another God; and God appearing in one form can be denied only by God appearing in another form. That is the first answer that we must give to ourselves and to those who question us, not as an abstract statement, but rather as a continuous interpretation of our human existence, in all its hidden motions and abuses and certainties. God is nearer to us than we ourselves. We cannot find a place outside of Him; but we can try to find such a place. The second part of Paul’s answer is that we can be in the condition of continuous flight from God. We can imagine one way of escape after another; we can replace God by the products of our imagination; and we do. Although humankind is never without God, it perverts the picture of God. Although humankind is never without knowledge of God, it is ignorant of God. Humankind is separated from its origin; it lives under a law of wrath and frustration, of tragedy and self-destruction, because it produces one distorted image of God after another, and adores those images. The answering theologian must discover the false gods in the individual souls and in society. One must probe into their most secret hiding-places. One must challenge them through the power of the Divine Logos, which makes one a theologian. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Theological polemic is not merely a theoretical discussion, but rather a spiritual judgement against the gods which are not God, against those structures of evil, those distortions of God in thought and action. No compromise or adaptation or theological self-surrender is permitted on this level. For the first Commandment is the rock upon which theology stands. There is no synthesis possible between God and the idols. In spite of the dangers inherent in so judging, the theologian must become an instrument of the Divine Judgement against a distorted World. So far as they can grasp it in the light of their own questions, Paul’s listeners are willing to accept two-fold answer. However, Paul then speaks of a third thing which they are not able to bear. They either reject it immediately, or they postpone the decision to reject or accept it. He speaks of a Man Whom God has destined to the Judgement and Life of the World. That is the third and final part of the theological answer. For we are real theologians when we state that Jesus is the Christ, and that it is in Him that the Logos of theology is manifest. However, we are only theologians when we interpret this paradox, this stumbling-block for idealism and realism, for the weak and the strong, for both pagans and Jews. As theologians, we must interpret that paradox, and not throw paradoxical phrases at the minds of the people. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
We must not preserve or produce artificial stumbling-blocks, miracle-stories, legends, myths, and other sophisticated paradoxical talk. We must not distort, by ecclesiastical and theological arrogance, that great cosmic paradox that there is victory over death within the World of death itself. We must not impose the heavy burden of wrong stumbling-blocks upon those who ask us questions. However, neither must we empty the true paradox of its power. For true theological existence is the witnessing to Him Whose yoke is easy and Whose burden is light, to Him Who is the true paradox. There is also a question regarding the distribution of educational opportunities. Before humans can contribute according to their abilities, their abilities must be developed. However, in whom should society develop which abilities? It is clear that all humans require some early training to make them viable social beings; further, all humans require certain general skills necessary for performing work. We all have the right to receive the goods and resources necessary for preserving ourselves. Human beings have the right, rather, not to be killed, attacked, and deprived of their property—by persons in or outside of government. No human is good enough to govern another human, without that other’s consent. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
However, there are some very rare instances in which some citizens could find themselves in circumstances which require disregarding rights altogether. This would be in situations that cannot be characterizes to be “where peace is possible.” Nonetheless, under normal conditions, the enforceable right of every person not to be coerced by other persons. Humans have a right to life, a right not to be killed unjustly and a right to property, a right to acquire goods and resources either by initial acquisition or voluntary agreement. However, these rights do not entitle one to receive from others the goods and resources necessary for preserving one’s life. To possess any basic right to receive the goods and resources necessary for preserving one’s life conflict with possessing the right not to be killed, assaulted, or stolen from. The latter rights are considered to be held by all individual human beings. Rights are the link between the moral code of a human and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. Nonetheless, in a system that legally protects and preserves property right there will be cases where a rich person prevents a poor person from taking what belongs to her (the rich person)—for example, a chicken that the poor person might use to feed herself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
When people defend their property, what are they doing? They are protecting themselves against the intrusive acts of some other person, acts that would normally deprive them of something to which they have a right, and the other has no right. As such, these acts of protectiveness make it possible for men and women in society to retain their own sphere of jurisdiction intact, protect their own moral space. They want to be sovereigns and govern their own lives, including their own productive decisions and actions. Those who mount the attack, in turn, fail or refuse to refrain from encroaching upon the moral space of their victims. They are treating the victim’s life and its productive results as though these were unowned resources for them to do with as they choose. This system is developed for a human community in which peace is possible. It is a system that is developed for individual rights, which guide men and women in such an adequately hospitable environment to act without thwarting the flourishing of others, are thus suitable bases for the legal foundations of a human society. It is possible for people in the World to pursue their proper goals without thwarting a similar pursuit by others. The typical conflict situation in society involves people who wish to take shortcuts to earning their living (and a lot more) by attacking others, not those who lack any other alternative to attacking others so as to reach that same goal. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
If the government entered areas that required it to make very particular judgments and depart from serving the interest of public as such, the integrity of law would be seriously endangered. We have already noted that the idea of satisfying basic needs can involve the difficulty of distinguishing those whose actions are properly to be so characterized. Rich persons are indeed satisfying their basic needs as they protect and preserve their property rights. Private property rights are necessary for a morally decent society. Normally persons do not lack the opportunities and resources to satisfy their own basic needs. Even if we grant that some helpless, physically disabled, those with intellectual disabilities, or destitute persons could offer nothing to anyone that would merit wages enabling the to carry on their loves and perhaps even flourish, there is still the other possibility for most actual, known hard cases, namely seeking help. I am not speaking here of the cases we know: people who drop out of school, get a skilled job, marry and have kids, only to find that their need more adequate preparation to survive life in these expensive communities all across American. Some have even considered migrating to Mexico, but prices for real estate there are also quite high. In fact, you may get more for your money in America. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
We have no justification for assuming that the rich are all callous, though this caricature is regularly painted by communists and in folklore. Supporting and gaining advantage from the institution of private property by no means implies that one lacks the virtue of generosity. The rich are no more immure to virtue than the poor are to vice. The contrary view is probably a legacy of the idea that only those concerned with spiritual or intellectual matters can be trusted to know virtue—those concerned with seeking material prosperity are too base. The destitute typically have options other than to violate the rights of the well-off. “’Ought’ implies ‘can”’ is satisfiable by the moral imperative that the poor ought to seek help, not loot. There is then no injustice in the rich preventing the poor from seeking such loot by violating the right to private property “”Ought implies ‘can”’ is fully satisfied if the poor can take the kind of action that could gain them the satisfaction of their basic needs, and this action could well be asking for help. There are people who are helplessly poor, who through no fault of their own, nor again through any rights violation by others, are destitute. However, those cases are by no means typical. They are extremely rare. And even rarer are those cases in which all avenues regarded as legitimate from the American point of view have been exhausted, including appealing for help. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The bulk of poverty in the World is not the result of natural disaster or illness. Rather it is political oppression, whereby people throughout many of the World’s countries are not legally permitted to look out for themselves in the production of trade. Of course, it would be immoral if people failed to help out when this was clearly no sacrifice for them. However, charity or generosity is not a categorical imperative, even for the rich. There are more basic moral principles that might require the rich to refuse to be charitable—for example, if they are using most of their wealth for the protection of freedom or a just society. Courage can be more important than charity or benevolence or compassion. Human behaviour is taken to be determined by a person’s economic circumstances, so one is bound by one’s situation and cannot make choices that would overcome them. More generally, in modern political philosophy there as been a strong tendency to view human beings as passive, unable to initiate their own conduct and moved by innate drives or environmental stimuli. Thus, those who are well-off could not have achieved this through only their own initiative, nor could those who are badly off have failed in significant ways. Accordingly, all the poor or badly off, be they victims of others’ oppression, casualties of misfortune, or products of their own misconduct are regarded alike. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The right to free association, freedom of trade, freedom of wealth accumulation, freedom of contact, freedom of entrepreneurship, freedom of speech, freedom of thought—that provides the most hospitable social climate for the creation of wealth. Socialism can do no more than to socialize poverty, exempli gratia, make everyone poor through socialized medicine, free higher education and so forth. As to the historical evidence, it is hard to argue that other tan substantially capitalist economic systems, which tend in the direction of libertarianism (as least as far as the legal respect for and protection of private property or the right to it are concerned) have fared much better in reducing poverty than have others, without also causing massive political and other social failures (such as dysfunction of civil liberties, institutions of forced labour and involuntary servitude, regimentation of the bulk of social relations, arresting scientific and technological progress, or censorship of the arts and other intellectual endeavours). Thus, America is still the freest of societies, with many of its legal principles giving expression to classical liberal, near-libertarian ideas, and it is, at the same tie, the most generally productive (creative and culturally rich) of all societies, with its wealth assisting in the support of hundreds of other societies across the globe. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
There is another point to be stressed. This is that there can be people in the American society—indeed, in any society—for whom a lack of wealth, even extreme poverty relative to the mean, may not be a great liability. Not everyone wants to, or even ought to, live prosperously. For some individuals a life of ostensible poverty could be of substantial benefit. Some people elect not to seek economic prosperity. There are some who are poor but who are not, therefore, worse off than the rich, provided we do not confine ourselves to counting economic prosperity as the prime source of well-being. Furthermore, some artist whoa re poor are happier than some merchants who are rich. There is no justification for feeling compassion for such artists, despite their poverty. In short, being poor in and of itself does not justify special consideration. Being in need of what it takes to attain one’s well-being warrants, if the need is a matter of natural misfortune or injury for others, feelings and conduct amounting to care, generosity, and charity. Poverty does not always constitute such neediness. Nonetheless, all humans have the right to live in a community of other human individual with equal protection under the law. Justice requires only an equal liberty. Players in the game do not protest to their being other positions such as batter, pitcher, catcher and the like just because they cannot win. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Hear us, holy Lord, Father Almighty, everlasting God, and join the grace of Thine own visitation to our humble services; that Thou mayest makes Thyself a mansion in the hearts of those whose dewing we approach; through Jesus Christ our Lord, we know that all things are possible. “Now when Ammon and his brethren separated themselves in the borders of the land of the Lamanites, behold Aaron took his journey towards the and which was called by the Lamanites, Jerusalem, calling it after the land of their fathers’ nativity; and it was away joining the borders of Mormon. Now the Lamanites and the Amalekites and the people of Amulon had built a great city, which was called Jerusalem. Now the Lamanites of themselves were sufficiently hardened, but the Amalekites and the Amulonites were still harder; therefore they did cause the Lamanites that they should harden their hearts, that they should wax strong in wickedness and their abominations. And it came to pass that Aaron came to the city of Jerusalem, and first began to preach to the Amalekites. And he began to preach to them in their synagogues, for they had built synagogues, for they had built synagogues after the order of the Nehors; for many of the Amalekites and the Amulonities were after the order of the Nehors. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“Therefore, as Aaron entered into one of their synagogues to preach unto the people, and as he was speaking unto them, behold there arose an Amalekite and began to contend with him, saying: What is that thou hast testified? Hast thou seen an angel? Why do not angels appear unto us? Behold are not this people as good as thy people? Thou also sayest, expect we repent we shall perish. How knowest thou the thought and intent of our heart? How knowest thou that we have cause to repent? How knowest thou that we are not a righteous people? Behold, we have built sanctuaries, and we do assemble ourselves together to worship God. We do believe that God will save all humans. Now Aaron said unto him: Believest thou that the Son of God shall come to redeem humankind from their sins? And the man said unto him: We do not believe that thou knowest any such thing. We do not believe in these foolish traditions. We do not believe that thou knowest of things to come, neither do we believe that thy fathers and also that our fathers did know concerning the things which they spake, of that which is to come. Now Aaron began to open the scriptures unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and also concerning the resurrection of the dead, and that there could be no redemption for humankind save it were through the death and sufferings of Christ, and the atonement of his blood. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“And it came to pass as he began to expound these things unto them they were angry with him, and began to mock him; and they would not hear the words which he spake. Therefore, when he saw that they would not hear his words, he departed out of their synagogue, and came over to a village which was called Ani-Anti and there he found Muloki preaching the word unto them; and also Ammah and his brethren. And they contended with many about the word. And it came to pass that the people would harden their hearts, therefore they departed and came over into the land of Middoni. And they did preach the word unto many, and few believed on the words which they taught. Nevertheless, Aaron and a certain number of his brethren were taken and cast into prison, and the remainder of them fled out of the land of Middoni unto the regions round about. And those who were cast into prison suffered many things, and they were delivered by the hand of Lamoni and Ammon, and they were fed and clothed. And they went forth again to declare the word, and thus they were delivered for the first time out of prison; and thus they had suffered. And they went forth whitersoever they were led by the Spirit of the Lord, preaching the word of God in every synagogue of the Amalekites, or in every assembly of the Lamanites where they could be admitted. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
“And it came to pass that the Lord began to bless them, insomuch that they brought many to the knowledge of the truth; yea, they did convince many of their sins, and of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct. And it came to pass that Ammon and Lamoni returned from the land of Middoni to the land of Ishmael, which was the land of their inheritance. And king Lamoni would not suffer that Ammon should serve him, or be his servant. However, he caused that there should be synagogues built in the land of Ishmael; and he caused that his people, or the people who were under his reign, should assemble themselves together. And he did rejoice over them, and he did teach them many things. And he did also declare unto them that they were a people who were a free people, that they were free from the oppressions of the king, his father; for that his father had granted unto him that he might reign over the people who were in the land of Ishmael, and in all the land round about. And he also declared unto them that they might have the liberty of worshipping the Lord their God according to their desires, in whatsoever place they were in, if it were in the land which was under the reign of King Lamoni. And Ammon did preach unto the people of king Lamoni; and it came to pass that he did teach them all things concerning things pertaining to righteousness. And he did exhort them in daily, with all diligence; and they gave heed unto his word, and they were zealous for keeping the commandments of God,” reports Alma 21.1-23. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Pro-tip 💡: Your #MillsStation Residence 4 dining room is the perfect spot for some succulents to call home. 🤩
In early 1948, Emanuel D’amico rented a brownstone storefront at number 309 Court Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens. Emanuel, a sea merchant from Palermo, Sicily, left his home some twenty years prior — one of the over 4 million Italians who immigrated to America seeking their fortune in the New World. He’d lost all he had in a failed Pasta Company endeavor and New York seemed his last chance to make things right. For a number of years he worked odd jobs and began a number of side ventures, but none were too successful. A number of years later, after sending for his wife under a U.S. sponsored amnesty program, the two reunited in Brooklyn and shortly after opened the doors to D’amico Foods.
D’amico Foods originally set their sights on coffee. In 1948, there were few cafes and most coffee consumed was mass produced, undrinkable swill. With an AJ Deer Royal Roaster, Emanuel became one of the first small batch, roast to order Brooklyn roasters. The max capacity of the machine was a mere 10 pounds, ensuring that all coffee which left D’amico Foods was fresh. He was revolutionary in his approach and developed quite a following amongst the Italian immigrant population in Carroll Gardens. With each batch Emanuel pulled, the rich aroma of fresh roasted coffee spilled out into the neighborhood.
Three generations and over 60 years later, D’Amico is still a staple of the Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The storefront has become a Brooklyn legacy. That’s why we established D’amico Coffee in an effort to share this longstanding tradition of delicious Brooklyn roasted coffee with the nation. We’ve expanded our facilities and now offer wholesale but continue to use the same techniques and approach to roasting Emanuel did back in 1948. Because at the end of the day, we’re a family owned business and we’re your neighborhood roaster. For the best coffee in the World: https://damicocoffee.com/
Without Love Intelligence is Dangerous; Without Intelligence Love is Not Enough!
Science cannot bear the thought that there is an important natural phenomenon which it cannot hope to explain even with unlimited time and money. “For though I be free from all human, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain the, that are under the under the law; to them that are without law, as without law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all humans, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you,” reports 1 Corinthians 9.19-23. We have all seen in the first sermon that the foundation of our theological existence is that the Divine Spirit keeps us in its power, and makes it impossible for us ever to escape the theological question, the question of our ultimate concern, the question of God. We considered the theologian as a believer in spite of his doubt and despair, and as a member of the Church, in whose power all theological work is done, in spite of one’s lack of certainty. Now, some words of Paul about his ministry shall lead us to the understanding of another side of our theological existence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
An apostle is certainly more than a theologian; and a minister exercises more functions than a theological scholar. However, an apostle is also a theologian; and a minister cannot work without theology. Therefore, the words that Paul says about his ministry as a whole are also true of theological part of his ministry: “To all humans I have become all things.” Theological existence demands the same attitude. The theologian, in his theology, must become all things to all humans. We must consider the meaning of those words. “To those under the Law I have become as one of themselves, to win those under the Law, although I am not under the Law myself.” Let us replace the word “Law” by “idealism,” not only because idealists are usually legalistic, but also because idealism is a noble attitude, which elevates us above the lower strata of our existence, and produces faith and devotion, just as the Law does. “To the idealists I have become as one of themselves, to win those who are idealists, although I am not an idealist myself.” How is such an act possible? How can the theologian, not being an idealist, become an idealist to the idealists? One can become an idealist in exactly the same way as the apostle of Christ can become a Jew to the Jews. Paul says that the Law is good, and that it is not abolished, but rather fulfilled, in Christ. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Likewise, the theologian who is not an idealist (and who could never be an idealist) does not destroy idealism. One utilizes it and states that it contains some truth which creates a continuous temptation for the theologian to become an idealist oneself, and to deny the Cross which is the judgment over idealism. The theologian uses idealism, its concepts and methods. One becomes a Platonist to the Platonists, a Stoic to the Stoics, an Hegelian to the Hegelians, a progressivist to the progressivists. However, one cannot confuse any of these forms of idealism with the Christian message. One adheres more to some than to others. However, one never imposes one’s preferred form upon others in the name of Christianity. One is aware of the despair that idealism, as well as the Law, can bring upon us. And one knows that in Christ there is a new Being in which all ideals are embodied and have become visible, no longer as ideals, but as realities. “To those outside the Law I have become as one of them (although I am under Christ’s law, and not outside God’s Law), in order to triumph over those outside the Law.” Let us replace the phrase “outside the Law” by “realism,” not because the realists have no Law (for neither they nor the pagans are without some Law), but because they have no abstract principles to impose upon reality. Their greatness lies in their humble acceptance of things as they are. “The piety of realism is humility.” “To the realists I have become as one of themselves, in order to win them, although I am not a realist myself.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
The theologian who is not a realist (and who could never become a realist) does not destroy realism. He recognizes the truth of realism, and is continually tempted to become a realist himself, and thus to deny the eternal life which is the judgment over realism. The theologian uses realism and becomes a positivist to the positivists, a pragmatist to the pragmatists, and a tragic interpreter of life to the tragic interpreters of life. However, one does not say that realism is the Christian message. One does not fight for it in the name of Christianity. He knows the despair of mere realism, and he knows that there is a new Being which overcomes the self-destruction of reality. “To the weak I have become weak myself in order to gain the weak.” This is the most profound of the three statements that Paul makes about himself, and the most important one for our existence as theologians. We must become as though weak, although, grasped by the Divine Spirit, the basis of all theology, we are not weak. How can we become weak by having the strength to acknowledge our weakness, by restraining ourselves from all fanaticism and theological self-certainty, and by participating—not from the outside, but from the inside—in the weakness of all those to whom we speak as theologians. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Our strength is our weakness; our strength is not our strength. We are strong, therefore, only in so far as we point, for our own sake and for the sake of others, to the truth which possesses us, but which we do not possess. Nothing is more disastrous for the theologian himself and more despicable to those whom one wants to convince than a theology of self-certainty. The real theologian is one who has the strength to perceive and to confess one’s weakness, and who, therefore, has the strength to become as weak to the weak, so that one’s is the victory. We are concerned with what is now, since Bultmann popularized the term, called demythologization. As we understand it, to demythologize is not a negative process by which the truth of a myth is negated. Let us remember that myth is, for us, a system of symbols derive their truth from the fact that they share the power and meaning of what they point to. In this sense, mythical does not mean untrue; it means “symbolical of the eternal.” To demythologize, therefore, is not to debunk a myth, but to grasp its relation to the eternal. On the one hand, literalism distorts myths by viewing them in their material elements and not in their transcendent meaning. On the other, philosophy may distort religion by myths: The myth, if interpreted as the symbolic expression of ultimate concern, is the fundamental creation of every religious community. It cannot be replaced by philosophy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
In the picture of Jesus contained in the New Testament, one should distinguish faith (the faith that the Christ has appeared), myth (symbolic creations of the religious concern of the first Christians, whereby they expressed their faith in imaginative form), and history (if at least we can separate probable historical facts from mythical creations). Thus there are two successive steps in demythologizing: first, separation, if possible, of myth from the substance of faith and from facts; second, interpretation of the symbolic purport of myth. When this is done, the myth is “broken.” This is the only way to deal intelligently with a myth. Without abandoning or denying the myth, this method seeks to understand its meaning. In this perspective, Christianity has all the characteristics of a myth couched in historical language: “If the Christ—a transcendent, divine being—appears in the fullness of times, lives, dies and is resurrected, this is an historical myth. Christianity speaks the mythological language like every other religion. It is a broken myth, but it is a myth; otherwise Christianity would not be an expression of ultimate concern. The task of theology is always to proceed to a racial criticism of myth. For there is a recurring tendency to unbreak the myth and to read it literally again. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Our scepticism concerning our historical knowledge of Jesus must be seen against this background. We are afraid lest the attempts of historians to reconstruct the historical Jesus should actually replace the meaningful myths of Christian tradition with flimsy constructions, which would themselves, eventually, acquire symbolic status, if only through their association with the name “Jesus.” The new myths would not be a true Christology but a devalued Jesusology. They would not point to the New Being in Christ, simply because symbols and myths of the New Being must grow out of a revelatory experience and cannot be invented in a laboratory. Demythologization is a necessary theological process. In particular, it protects faith against historians. Demythologization, however, cannot taken seriously unless it takes historians seriously. It leaves all necessary elbow-room to the higher critics. If these establish that a certain biblical report is untrue to facts, this report may still be treated as a symbol but should no longer be asserted as a fact. We have been chary of asserting anything concerning Jesus as a fact. Yet we maintain the religious value of the New Testament as a historical myth. The negative conclusions of historians cannot harm the symbolic meaning of a myth. We are just sceptical of the historians’ efforts to re-write the story of Jesus. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Historians cannot re-write the story because it is already written: the historical value of the New Testament is plain enough. Historians have not been able to make its reliability improbable. Historians who doubt the value of the records have failed to establish their point. This leads us to the New Being; but through what apotheoses or catastrophes we do not know. Our age has not yet unfolded its secret message. Many different kinds of things are said to be just and unjust: not only laws, institutions, and social systems, but also particular actions of many kinds, including decisions, judgments, and imputations. We also call the attitudes and dispositions of persons, and persons themselves, just and unjust. Our topic, however, is that of social justice. For us the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation. By major institutions I understand the political constitution and the principal economic and social arrangements. Thus the legal protection of freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, competitive markets, private property in the means of production, and the monogamous family are examples of major social institutions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Taken together as one scheme, the major institutions define human’s rights and duties and influence their life-prospects, what they can expect to be and how well they can hope to do. The basic structure is the primary subject of justice because its effects are so profound and present from the start. The intuitive notion here is that this structure contains various social positions and that humans born into different positions have different expectations of life determined, in part, by the political system as well as by economic and social circumstances. In this way the institutions of society favour certain starting places over others. These are especially deep inequalities. Not only are they pervasive, but they affect men’s initial chances in life; yet they cannot possibly be justified by an appeal to the notions of merit or desert. It is these inequalities, presumably inevitable in the basic structure of any society, to which the principles, then, regulate the choice of a political constitution and the main elements of the economic and social system. The justice of a social scheme depends essentially on how fundamental rights and duties are assigned and on the economic opportunities and social conditions in the various sectors of society. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
The scope of our inquiry is limited in two ways. First of all, I am concerned with a special case of the problem of justice. I shall not consider the justice of institutions and social practices generally, nor except in passing the justice of the law of nation and of relations between states. Therefore, if one supposed that concept of justice applies whenever there is an allotment of something rationally regarded as advantageous or disadvantageous, then we are interested in only one instance of its application. There is no reason to suppose ahead of time that the principles satisfactory for the basic structure hold for all cases. These principles may not work for the rules and practices of private associations or for those of less comprehensive social groups. They may be irrelevant for the various informal conventions and customs of everyday life; they may not elucidate the justice, or perhaps better, the fairness of voluntary cooperative arrangements or procedures for making contractual agreements. The conditions for the law of nations may require different principles arrived at in a somewhat different way. I shall be satisfied if it is possible to formulate a reasonable conception of justice for the basic structure of society conceived for the time being as a closed system isolated from other societies. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The significance of this special case is obvious and needs to explanation. It is natural to conjecture that once we have a sound theory for this case, the remaining problems of justice will prove more tractable in the light of it. With suitable modifications such a theory should provide the key for some of these other questions. The other limitation on our discussion is that for the most part I examine the principles of justice that would regulate a well-ordered society. Everyone is presumed to act justly and to do one’s part in upholding just institutions. Though justice maybe the cautious, jealous virtue, we can still ask what a perfectly just society would be like. Thus I consider primarily what I call strict compliance as opposed to partial compliance theory. The latter studies the principles that govern how we are to deal with injustice. It comprises such topics as the theory of punishment, the doctrine of just war, and the justification of the various ways of opposing unjust regimes, ranging from civil disobedience and militant resistance to revolution and rebellion. Also included here are questions of compensatory justice and of weighing one form of institutional injustice against another. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Obviously the problems of partial compliance theory are the pressing and urgent matters. These are the things that we are faced with in everyday life. The reason for beginning with ideal theory is that it provides, I believe, the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing problems. The discussion of civil disobedience, for example, depends upon it. At least, I shall assume that a deeper understanding can be gained in no other way, and that the nature and aims of a perfectly just society is the fundamental part of the theory of justice. Now admittedly the concept of the basic structure is somewhat vague. It is not always clear which institutions or features thereof should be included. However, it would be premature to worry about this matter here. I shall proceed by discussing principles which do apply to what is certainly a part of the basic structure as intuitively understood; I shall then try to extend the application of these principles so that they cover what would appear to be the main elements of this structure. Perhaps these principles will turn out to be perfectly general, although this is unlikely. It is sufficient that they apply to the most important cases of social justice. The point to keep in mind is that a conception of justice for the basic structure is worthy having for its own sake. It should not be dismissed because its principles are not everywhere satisfactory. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
A conception of social justice, then, is to be regarded as providing in the first instance a standard whereby the distributive aspects of the basic structure of society are to be assessed. This standard, however, is not to be confused with the principles defining the other virtues, for the basic structure, and social arrangements generally, may be efficient or inefficient, liberal or illiberal, and many other things, as well as just or unjust. A complete conception defining principles for all the virtues of basic structure together with their respective weighs when they conflict, is more than a conception of justice; it is a social ideal. The principles of justice are but a part, although perhaps the most important part, of such a conception. A social ideal in turn is connected with a conception of society, a vision of the way in which the aims and purposes of social cooperation are to be understood. The various conceptions of justice are the outgrowth of different notions of society against the background of opposing views of the natural necessities and opportunities of human life. Fully to understand a conception of justice we must make explicit the conception of social cooperation from which it derives. However, in doing this we should not lose sight of the special role of the principles of justice or of the primary subject to which they apply. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
In these preliminary remarks I have distinguished the concept of justice as meaning a proper balance between competing claims from a conception of justice as a set of related principles for identifying the relevant considerations which determine this balance. I have also characterized justice as but one part of a social ideal, although the theory I shall propose no doubt extends its everyday sense. This theory is not offered as a description of ordinary meanings but as an account of certain distributive principles for the basic structure of society. I assume that any reasonably complete ethical theory must include principles for this fundamental problem and that these principles, whatever they are, constitute its doctrine of justice. The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role. Now this approach may not seem to tally with tradition. I believe, though, that it does. The more specific sense that Aristotle gives to justice, and from which the most familiar formulations derive, is that of refraining from pleonexia, that is, from gaining some advantage for oneself by seizing what belongs to another, one’s property, one’s reward, one’s office, and the like, by denying a person that which is due to one, the fulfillment of a promise, the repayment of a debt, the showing of proper respect, and so on. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Aristotle’s definition clearly presupposes, however, an account of what properly belongs to a person and of what is due to one. Now such entitlements are, I believe, very often derived from social institutions and the legitimate expectations to which they give rise. There is no reason to think that Aristotle would disagree with this, and certainly he has a conception of social justice to account for these claims. The definition I adopt is designed to apply directly to the most important case, the justice of the basic structure. There is no conflict with the tradition notion. We need to be in the presence of images, both visual and auditory (good sayings, poetry, and songs). These can constantly direct and redirect our minds toward God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and the church (people of God). “Icons” have a millennia-long track record with the people of God and can be a powerful way of keeping entire stories and teachings effortlessly before the mind. We might arrange to have them tastefully present in each of our living and work spaces, so that they are always present in our visual field. We can thoughtfully use them to dispel destructive imagery and thoughts and to see ourselves as before God in all levels of our being. Not long ago, people in the Untied States of America commonly had edifying sayings on their walls. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
I recall from my childhood one that said, “Only one life. It will soon be past. Only what is done for Christ will last.” This and other good sayings were constantly before the minds of all who lived in the house. They were powerfully effective because they became, through mere habit, an enduring presence and influence within the minds of those who constantly saw them. What is now constantly before the minds of those who live where we do? Today we as a culture are schizophrenic on such matters. We want to say it does not make any difference what we look to hear. This, no doubt, is because we want to be “free” to show anything and to see anything—no matter how evil and revolting. However, business still pays millions of dollars to show us something for thirty seconds on television. They do that because they know what we repeatedly see and hear affects what we do. Otherwise they would go out of business. This may be a hint at what you are about to ask for; perhaps there is some obstruction in your life that you would like removed. If you are praying to praise God, it becomes something for which He should be honoured. If you are praying out of gratitude, it expresses in a metaphor the kind of thing you are thanking Him for. Lamoni receives the light of everlasting life and sees the Redeemer—his household falls into a trance, and many see angels—Ammon is preserved miraculously—he baptizes many and establishes a church among them. About 90 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
“And it came to pass that after two days and two nights they were about to take his body and lay it in a sepulcher, which they had made for the purpose of burying their dead. Now the queen having heard of the fame of Ammon, therefore she sent and desired that he should come in unto her. And it came to pass that Ammon did as he was commanded, and went in unto the queen, and desired to know what she would that he should do. And she said unto him: The servants of my husband have made it known uno me that thou art a prophet of a holy God, and that thou hast power to do many might works in his name; therefore, if this is the case, I would that ye should go in and see my husband, for he had been laid upon his bed for the space of two days and two nights; and some say that he is not dead, but others say that he is dead and that he stinketh, and that he ought to be placed in the sepulcher; but as for myself, to me he doth not stink. Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that king Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“Therefore, what the queen desired of him was his only desire. Therefore, he went in to see the king according as the queen had desired him; and he saw the king, and he knew that he was not dead. And he said unto the queen: He is not dead, but he sleepth in God, and on the morrow he shall rise again; therefore bury him not. And Ammon said unto her: Believest thou this? And she said unto him: I have had no witness save thy word, and the word of our servants; nevertheless I believe that it shall be according as thou hast said. And Ammon said unto her: Blessed art thou because of thy exceeding faith; I say unto thee, woman, there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites. And it came to pass that she watched over the bed of her husband, from that time even until that time on the morrow which Ammon had appointed that he should rise. And it came to pass that he arose, according to the words of Ammon; and as he arose, he stretched forth his hand unto the woman, and said: Blessed be the name of God, and blessed art thou. For as sure as thou livest, behold, I have seen my Redeemer; and he shall come forth, and be born of woman, and he shall redeem all humankind who believe on his name. Now, when he had said these words, his heart was swollen within him, and he sun again with joy; and the queen also sunk down, being overpowered by the Spirit. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“Now Ammon seeing the Spirit of the Lord poured out according to his prayers upon the Lamanites, his brethren, who had been the cause of so much mourning among the Nephites, or among all the people of God because of their iniquities and their traditions, he fell upon his knees, and began to pour out his soul in prayer and thanksgiving to God for what he had done for his brethren; and he was also overpowered with joy; and this they all three had sunk to the Earth. Now, when the servants of the king had seen that they had fallen, they also began to cry unto God, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them also, for it was they who had stood before the king and testified unto him concerning the great power of Ammon. And it came to pass that they did call on the name of the Lord, in their might, even until they had all fallen to Earth, save it were one of the Lamanitish women, whose name was Abish, she having been converted unto the Lord for many year, on account of a remarkable vision of her father—thus, having been converted to the Lord, and never having made it known, therefore, when she saw that all the servants of Lamoni had fallen to the Earth, ad also her mistress, the queen, and the king, and Ammon lay prostrate upon the Earth, she knew that it was the power of God. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“And supposing that this opportunity, by making known unto the people what had happened among them, that by beholding this scene it would cause them to believe in the power of God, therefore she ran forth from house to house, making it known unto the people. And they began to assemble themselves together unto the house of the king. And there came a multitude, and to their astonishment, they beheld the king, and the queen, and their servants prostrate upon the Earth, and they all lay there as though they were dead; and they also saw Ammon, and behold, he was Nephite. And now the people began to murmur among themselves; some saying that it was a great evil that had come upon them, or upon the king and his house, because he had suffered that the Nephite should remain in the land. However, others rebuked them, saying: The king hath brought this evil upon his house, because he slew his servants who had their flocks scattered at the waters of Sebus. And they were also rebuked by those men who had stood at the waters of Sebus and scattered the flocks which belonged to the king, for they were angry with Ammon because of the number which he hath slain of their brethren at the waters of Sebus, while defending the flocks of the king. Now, one of them, whose brother had been slain with the sword of Ammon, being exceedingly angry with Ammon, drew his sword and went forth that he might let it fall upon Ammon, to slay him; and as he lifted the sword to smite him, behold, he fell dead. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Now we see that Ammon could no be slain, for the Lord had said unto Mosiah, his father: I will spare him, and it shall be unto him according to thy faith—therefore, Mosiah trusted him unto the Lord. And it came to pass that when the multitude beheld that the man had fallen dead, who lifted the sword to slay Ammon, fear came upon them all, and they durst not put forth their hands to touch him or any of those who had fallen; and they began to marvel again among themselves what could be the cause of this great power, or what all these things could mean. And it came to pass that there were many among them who said that Ammon was the Great Spirit, and others said he was sent by the Great Spirit; but others rebuked them all, saying that he was a monster, who had been sent from the Nephites to torment them. And there were some who said that Ammon was sent by the Great Spirit to afflict them because of their iniquities; and that it was the Great Spirit that had always attended the Nephites, who has ever delivered them out of their hands; and they said that it was this Great Spirit that had always attended the Nephites, who had ever delivered them out of their hands; and they said that it was this Great Spirit who had destroyed so many of their brethren, the Lamanites. And thus the contention began to be exceedingly sharp among them. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“And while they were thus contending, the woman servant who had caused the multitude to be gathered together came, and when she saw the contention which was among the multitude she was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto tears. And it came to pass that she went and took the queen by the hand, that perhaps she might raise her from the ground; and as soon as she touched her hand she arose and stood upon her feet, and cried with a loud voice, saying: O blessed Jesus, who has saved me from an awful hell! O blessed God, have mercy on this people! And when she had said this, she clasped her hands, being filled with joy, speaking many words which were not understood; and when she had done this, she took the king, Lamoni, by the hand, and behold he arose and stood upon his feet. And he, immediately, seeing the contention among his people, went forth and began to rebuke them, and to teach them the words which he had heard from the mouth of Ammon; and as many as heard his words believed, and were converted unto the Lord. However, there were many among them who would not hear his word; and therefore they went their way. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“And it came to pass that when Ammon arose he also administered unto them, and also did all the servants of Lamoni; and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil. And behold, many did declare unto the people that they had seen angels and had conversed with them; and thus they had told them things of God, and of his righteousness. And it came to pass that there were many that did believe in their words; and as many as did believe were baptized; and they became a righteous people, and they did establish a church among them. And thus the work of the Lord did commence among the Lamanites; thus the Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his arm extended to all people who will repent and believe on his name,” reports Alma 19.1-36. Please be present, O Lord, to our supplications; and graciously hearken unto me, who am the first to need Thy mercy; and as Thou hast made me the minister of this work, not by choosing me on account of merit, but by the gift of Thy grace, please give me confidence to perform Thine office, and do Thou Thyself by our ministration carry out the act of Thine own loving-kindness; through our Lord, God in Heaven, with your grace, make this blessing come true. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Residence Three at Brighton Station boasts 2,757 square feet in this expansive two story home. There are four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and a three car garage! The Owner’s Suite in your #BrightonStation Residence 3 home is the perfect escape. Use all that space to set up a TV lounge, reading nook, or a coffee bar!
The kitchen comes fully equipped with a large eat-in island, stainless steel appliances, quartz counters, and large walk in pantry. The openness in the design allows the Great Room and kitchen to interact with each other seamlessly. This home comes with an en suite bedroom on the first floor making it ideal for guests, or multi-generational living.
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/residence-3/
From Heaven, our Lord is so merciful, so much so that He is bestowing us with blessings on Earth. #CresleighHomes
It is very peaceful to be able to live for your work alone. The self-denial, the sacrifices that our work demands are all compensated for by that lovely serenity of giving yourself up to dance. People also need to understand their existential freedom and their responsibility in exercising that freedom. One must develop the chance to experience one’s self as an entity separate from one’s environment, with the capacity to respond to one’s own initiative rather than merely reacting. Does emotion have a presence r identity independent of the person it is “in”? We talk as if it did. We commonly speak of expression, storing, getting in touch with, or even spreading and emotion. We speak of guilt as something that haunts us, or fear as something the grips, strikes, betrays, paralyzes, or overwhelms us. Fear, as we talk about is, is something that can lurk, hide, creep, look up, or attack. Love is something we fall into or out of. Anger is something that overtakes or overwhelms us. In this way of talking we use the fiction of some independent, outside agency in order to describe a contrasting inner state. It is important for a person to understand the sociohistorical precedence for the present attitudes one felt victim to. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22