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We Have No More Right to Consume Happiness without Producing it than to Consume Wealth without Producing it!
The truth is something you stumble into when you think you are going some place else. Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. The basic principle underlying initiation rituals: “if I had to suffer so much pain and humiliation to get into this club, it must be a wonderful organization. To tame the savageness of humans and make gentle the life of this World is a prayer for our country and for our people. To suggest that we say a prayer for our country and our people is to acknowledge error—the fault that lies within Americans and must not be ascribed to alien, un-American influences. Nearly 50 percent of American between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than 33 percent consider it “not at all important” to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it “very important.” When they were young People used to know more, not less, about geography because classroom lessons were still fresh in their minds. And 90 percent of students have no idea of the locations of four countries intimately linked to American interest. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The United States of America’s education system is not preparing young people for an increasingly global future. Cultural literacy is a desirable trait for a candidate in a presidential election. Many youths used to grow up and dream of being president, so that means we need to do a better job of preparing them. To raise questions about an individual’s intellectual qualifications carries more weight than anything else one can say about a person. One crucial qualification to determine if a person is competent is their intellectual ability to distinguish, in times of crises and on the daily basis, between worthwhile and worthless opinions. One of the major concerns about those who have proven themselves competent is the corruption of intellectuals by power than the potential corruption of government policy by intellectuals whom on one had elected. Many Americans rely on television as their only source of information for whatever they know about influences on government policy. At some point a devourer always overreaches oneself, like the witch or gain in folk tales who tries to drink up the sea and bursts, or like the vacuum monster in Yellow Submarine who ultimately devours himself and disappears. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
As it stands, 66 percent of Americans cannot name three branches of government or come up with the name of a single Supreme Court justice. Americans who get their news primarily from television rather the newspaper know much less about the judicial system than newspaper readers. Furthermore, 66 percent of newspaper readers, but only 40 percent of television news watchers, know hat the primary mission of the Supreme Court is to interpret the United States Constitution. When people are ignorant of the high court’s constitutional mandate, it is much easier to convince them that justices are supposed to reflect public opinion—and that something has gone wrong when a court hands down a decision that contradicts popular wisdom. More than 50 percent of adults do not even know that there are nine Supreme Court justices. About half of adults—but just about 41 percent of teenagers—can name the three branches of government (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial). Only 25 percent of adult—but 20 percent of teenagers—know that there are one hundred U.S. senators. The vast majority of both adults and teens have no idea of when or by whom the Constitution was written (James Madison in 1787). Among teenagers, nearly 98 percent cannot name the Chief Justice of the United States (John G. Roberts). #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
We are still operating under the illusions that all Americans are playing by the same rules. This is our civic present and, if nothing is done to stem the rising tide of ignorance among the young, our even more disturbing civic future is doomed. So long as our society had a common point of moral reference there was a tendency for conflict to be resolved by compromise, and this comprise had a moral as well as practical basis. People no longer learn anything for the mistakes of others, instead they repeat them and expect a good outcome. However, the enemy is too dangerous to give them the benefit of the doubt; their crimes require emergency measures. Change must therefore affect the motivational roots of a society or it is not change at all. When the mind of the country is taught to aim at low objects, it eats upon itself. Despite the steady rise in the formal educational level of the population, so many Americans seems to know less and less. Technology, our servant, has also become our master, as the information highway—potentially the greatest tool for the diffusion of learning ever devised—has, for too many, become a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought. At times like this, people must be willing to consider ideas, and even makes changes in behaviour, that they generally preferred to avoid. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
To seize the moment, Americans must recognize that we are living though an overarching crises and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think. Such a recognition has to come from ordinary citizens as well as their elected representative, from nonintellectuals and intellectuals alike. The first essential step is negative: we must give up the delusion that technology can supply the fix for a condition that, however much it is abetted by our new machines, is essentially nontechnological. That some children from affluent homes can pass undemanding standardized tests does not mean that they are learning what citizens of a functional democracy need to know. The real problem is that we, as a people, have become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions. Our own ignorance is our worst enemy. However, reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe it can do it again. Americans must consider their behaviour from a different perspective. The job of higher education is not to instruct students in popular culture but to expose them to something better. Genuine intellectuals—we need to hear more, not less, from reality-based intellectual about all of the social problems that have been exacerbated by people ignorance—that is, all social problems. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
If we persist in our efforts and finally attack the dysfunction of the system at its motivational roots, we may indeed be successful. In any case, there is n such thing as “compromise”: we are either strong enough to lever the train onto a new track or it stays on the old one or it is derailed. Everything rests on the assumption that the World does not contain the wherewithal to satisfy the needs of its human inhabitants. From this it follows that people must compete with one another for these scarce resources—lie, swindle, steal, and kill, if necessary. These basic assumptions create the danger of a “war of all against all.” I do not believe that our society can long continue on its old premises without destroying itself and everything else. Nor do I believe it can contain or rest the gathering forces of change without committing suicide in the process. The nation’s memory and attention span may already have sustained so much damage that they cannot be revived by the best efforts of America’s best mind. Intellectuals must be willing to step up and bring their knowledge, instead of a lust for power, to the public square; for educators devoted to teaching and learning rather than to the latest fads in pop psychology. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
None of these suggestions address the core problem created by the media—the pacifiers of the mind that permeate our homes, schools, and politics. These is little evidence to indicate that Americans have either the desire or the will to lessen their dependency on the easy satisfaction held out by the video and digital World. The old culture turned the volume down on emotional experience in order to concentrate on its dreams of glory, but the new culture has turned it up again. Too much stimulation makes the carrot hard to see. Good taste is a taste for carrots. Happy babies must learn early that the beautiful things in life are not free. It is unrealistic o expect people simply to turn off their television sets, computers, or smart phones, because infotainment addiction resembles compulsive eating rather than alcoholism or smoking: alcohol and nicotine can be eliminated, but both food and the media supply essential nutrients as well as nonessential junk. If this is truly the new American dream for the upbringing of future generations, it is painful to think about what the cultural landscape will look like a generation from now. If there is not enough resources to go around, then those who have more will use structural inequality to find ways to prolong their advantage, and even legitimate it though various devices. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The law itself, although philosophically committed to equality, is fundamentally a social device for maintaining structured systems of inequality (defining as crimes, for example, only those of theft and violence in which lower class persons engage). However, when White collar criminals steal from people, it is glorified and they usually receive less prison time, and people are less likely to kill them in their process of breaking the law because they have more money and are deemed more valuable by society. It is still considered permissible, for example, to kill someone who is stealing your property under certain conditions. This is especially true if that person is without property oneself—a wealthy kleptomaniac (in contrast to a poor looter) would probably be worth a murder trial if killed while stealing. A more trivial example can be found in the handing of noise controls. Police are called to prevent distraction by the joyous noises of laughter and song, but not to stop the harsh and abrasive roar of power saws, leaf blowers operating at illegal hours, air hammers, power mowers, snow blowers, and other baneful machines. However, do not burn your fireplace on a bad air quality day, even if you cannot afford to run the heater and need to use your fireplace, you will be fined. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
The rich and the poor have always been with us to some degree. However, there is a new culture that has emerged. What is significant about the new culture is that they do not necessarily care about the causes they represent, they do not even care that whatever cause they are taking up is a new trend, they are rejecting the foundation of American culture altogether. They are much given to acing out grandiose fantasies of taking society by storm, through achievement of wealth, power, and fame. Like so many of the more successful nineteenth century utopian communities (Oneida and Amana, for example), the puritans became corrupted by involvement in successful economic enterprise and the communal aspect was eroded away—another example of system being destroyed by what it attempts to ignore. Just as a plane needs to be fixed in space by at least one more pint than the two necessary to a line, so any complementary schism needs an additional referent in order to avert mutual destruction. This has usually been popularly recognized in any situation where civil warfare threatens in either the individual or social dimension. It frequently takes an external enemy to bring the individual together with oneself, to reunite the quarreling family, to being the nation together, to restructure the idea. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
However, it is not necessary that the “third force” be negative and threatening; a common goal can unite the split group or individual. And in fact that is the essential aspect even under negative pressure. The chaos and lack of discipline is what we are most afraid of confronting and that is what we are most anxious and insecure that we have ourselves created. If society remains in a state of internecine warfare, it will bring either the group or the individual to its own destruction long before its time. In our fear of burning the candle at both ends we burn it in the middle and thus fall apart sooner. One would not have neurosis if the things fought against were not sufficiently nourished by one’s environment to enable in the first place. If we were perfect, if we had the exclusive solution, there would be no anxiety, no doubt, no disease. However, in fact, there has always been something else left to be desires and in an expanding Universe one would have to have colossal conceit, superhuman knowledge and experience, to ever not feel that something remains unexplored in this Universe. Every art, every science, every system has at one time or another found itself unnecessarily limited by its own conceit and has admitted its humility or has perished. This is as much a hard fact of experience as any “hard fact” in any field of endeavour. There is little reason to believe that this state of affairs will ever change. #Randolphharris 10 of 25
For a new culture pattern does not emerge out of nothing—the seed must already be there, like the magic tricks of wizards and witches in folklore, who can make an ocean out of a drop of water, a palace out of a stone, a forest out of a blade of grass, but nothing out of nothing. Our homes are furnished as if we intended to spend the rest of our lives in them, instead of moving every few years. This perhaps represents merely a kind of technological neurosis—a yearning for stability expressed in a technological neurosis—a yearning for stability expressed in a technological failure to adapt. Should Americans ever settle down, however, they will find little to do in the ways of readjusting their household furnishing habits. Much of the new culture is implicitly and explicitly “neotenous” in a cultural sense: behaviour, values, and life-styles formerly seen as appropriate only to childhood are being retained into adulthood as a counterforce to the old culture. When the system as it stands is no longer viable, however, the mechanism must be exposed for the swindle that it is; otherwise the needed radical changes will be rendered ineffectual. They key to the mechanism is the powerful human reluctance to admit that an achieved goal was not worth the unpleasant experience required to achieve it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
You tell me it is the institution, you had better free your mind instead. However, what is all the freed minds are in jail? I am afraid there are no quick solutions to the problem of the empty self, and we cannot simplify its impact on the Christian mind. The battle here will be won or lost in the area of habits. Admit the problem. First, we must admit that this is a problem and we need to inform others about it. We do ourselves or our God no good if we hide from the fact that the empty self threatens all of us. Any movement that brings about lasting changes begins with conscious raising. Start talking to your Christian friends about the value of the Christian mind. Mention the empty self in your Saturday or Sunday school class, your home Bible study, and so on. Talk to your children about developing their intellectual abilities for the service of Christ and His people. Before a problem can be solved, it must be carefully defined and clearly acknowledged. Choose to be different. Second, at some point we need to make a fundamental decision that we will be different no matter what the cost. We Christians simply must admit that we have allowed our culture to squeeze us into its mold. We must stand against the culture (including inappropriate tendencies in the evangelical subculture), resist the empty self, and eschew the intellectual flabbiness that goes along with it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Motivation is key here. I am no expert on motivation, but I do have one piece of advice, derived from several decades of ministry: Expose yourself to ideas with which you disagree and let yourself be motivated to excel intellectually by the exposure. Listen to talk shows, read the editorial page, and walk around a local university and look at bulletin boards or read the student newspaper. Get into discussion with people at work with whom you differ. The point is to spend time around those who do not simply reinforce your own ways of looking at things. There are two advantages to this. For one thing, we can learn from our critics. For another, such exposure can move us to realize just how serious the war of ideas really is and how inadequately prepared we are to engage in that contest. Change your routine. Third, for one week, note two things on a sheet of paper. First, observe your energy rhythms. When is your energy at a low point during that day and when is it vigorous? Second, note what you tend to do when you tend to do when you get home from work or just after you have finished eating dinner. Often, when our energy is low or when we get home from work or finish dinner, we go into a passive mode and turn on the television. If a person learns to limit television watching and spends more time getting physical exercise, I believe that an intellectual life is easier to develop. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
I do not think I have to defend limiting television watching in this regard, but what about exercise? If you are in good shape, your mind becomes more alert and you have more energy to be proactive. I tell my graduate students that if they want to get the most out of the intellectual opportunities of graduate school, then they must learn to use low-energy times, or moments like after work or diner, as occasions to engage in physical exercise. Try something. After dinner go for a walk instead of turning on the TV. When you get back, sit down for thirty minutes to an hour and read an intellectually challenging book. The important thing here is to get out of passive ruts, especially those passive couch hamburger moments, and replace old habits with the new ones that create energy to read, reflect, and be more proactive. Develop patience and endurance. Fourth, learn how to duffer and develop patient endurance. A life of intellectual cultivation takes effort. And it can be painful. The mind is like a muscle: it needs to be stretched beyond itself. I often read books that are a little over my head so I can develop my intellectual strength. Also, it often takes time to work through an important topic with sufficient care and attention. One needs to take a long-term perspective toward reading and study. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
However, such a perspective will require endurance in staying put in a chair, with pen in hand, long enough to read deeply and widely. This requires a spirit of quietness and an absence of distraction. If you are fidgety and have to get up every fifteen minutes, you must get control of yourself. And gaining such control will require self-denial, suffering, and endurance. The intellectual life is both a means to and a result of a life of discipline, self-control, and endurance. The best way to develop these traits is to practice the spiritual disciplines, especially solitude and fasting. Through solitude, I am learning to be quiet, alone, and focused. Through fasting, I am learning to say no to immediate gratification and bodily distraction and control of myself. The spiritual disciplines can facilitate endurance, patience, discipline, and self-control—virtue that constitute the soil in which the cultivation of the Christian mind takes place. Develop a good vocabulary. Fifth, keep a dictionary handy and get in the habit of looking up words that you do not understand. The development of a good vocabulary is an important tool in the cultivation of the Christian mind. The ubiquitous and egregious (look them up!) avoidance of the dictionary today is no help to the person who wishes to love God with one’s mind. Set some intellectual goals. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
It is important for you to set some study goals on a yearly basis. I suggest you team up with another person in your church who has similar study interest and commit yourselves to mutually accountable reading program, like Reese’s Book Club, for example. For six years now, I have met every Friday morning for breakfast with a study partner. My friend and I read books in philosophy, psychology, contemporary culture, spiritual formation, and so on. We meet to discuss our reading. Also, we subscribe to important Christian periodicals (for example, Christian Today) and regularly browse in secular and Christian bookstores. We come together and share our discoveries each week, and our times together are rich! Find a plan that works for you and just do it! Sometimes one of our friends or loved ones have become a spiritual paralytic. The affliction or trial one has undergone has virtually immobilized the person spiritually. One is unable to help oneself. Not only that, but the spiritual “mat” one is lying on—that is, faith in God and trust in His promises—is no more than the equivalent of a thin, straw-filled mattress. If you try to encourage one through Scripture, one will look at you blankly and tell you Scripture just does not mean anything to one anymore. One has tried to claim God’s promises, but nothing “works.” God just is not there. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
This person has become an awkward, heavy spiritual burden. You cannot pray with one, you can only pray for one. However, just as the paralytic’s friends persisted until they brought him to Jesus, so we too must persist in bringing this person to the throne of grace until God heals one spiritually. Of course, the spiritual paralytic is an extreme case. More often than not, the person to whom we are called to be a minister of grace can still go to the throne of grace oneself. However, we are still called to really around that person in prayer. God can, and often does, answer our individual prayers, but the general tenor of Scripture is that God desires we support each other in prayer. Beyond prayer, we must in some way receive permission to be a minister of grace to the person in need. One of the best ways we can do this is to demonstrate that we care. The first thing the person requiring grace needs from you is the assurance and demonstration that you care. We want to help that person come to the place where one can cast that hurt on God, truly believing God does care. So often, though, our perception of other people’s care. If we see care demonstrated in our friends, it is easier for us to believe God cares. If should not be this way; we should not gauge the care of God by the care of fallible, sinful human beings. However, we do. And often, God wants us to be the tangible evidence of His care. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
How can we demonstrate that we care? Obviously the first thing we must do is to make contact. If you live in the same city, invite the person to lunch or coffee, or in some way establish personal contact. Based on my own experience after the death of my first wife, and confirmed by several friends who have lost loved ones, this is where we so often fail each other. Apparently because we feel awkward and do not know what to say, we do not say anything. In fact, we may even avoid the hurting person. One friend, whose wife died some months after mine, said to me, “William, where are my friends?” Another told me of someone, who was one of his best friends, avoiding him after the death of a child. If you have failed to make contact back you did not know what to day, allow me to offer a suggestion. Just tell the person, “I know you must be hurting badly, and I do not know what to say, but I just want you to know I care.” Then, if appropriate you could add, “If it would help, I would like to have lunch [or whatever] with you, and just listen to you. I would like to know how you are really doing.” Above all, do not ask the person merely in passing at church or somewhere else “How are you doing?” Though you may not intend this, it communicates to the hurting person that you are expecting the typical cultural response, “Oh, just fine!” Speaking as one who has “been there,” this is taken as more of an indication that you do not care than that you do. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
When you have demonstrated to the other person that you do care—be sensitive to determine when the other person believes this—you can begin to ask gently probing questions, such as, “How are you and God getting alone during this time?” “Are you able to get any comfort from the Scriptures, or are they just dead to you right now?” Ask questions in a way that communicates you will not be shocked by negative answers. “And now it came to pass in the forty and third year of the reign of the judges, there was no contention among the people of Nephi save it were a little pride which was in the church, which did cause some little dissensions among the people, which affairs were settled in the ending of the forty and third year. And there was no contention among the people in the forty and fourth year; neither was there much contention in the forty and fifth year. And it came to pass in the forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land. And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. Yea, and even the did spread forth int all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land. And now no part of the land wad desolate, save it were for timbers; but because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate. And there being but little timber upon the face of the land, nevertheless the people who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement, in the which they did dwell. And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole Earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east. And the people who were in the land northward did dwell in tents, and in houses of cement, and they did suffer whatsoever tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in time they might have timber to build their houses, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“And it came to pass as timber was exceedingly scarce in the land northward, they did send forth much by the way of shipping. And thus they did enable the people in the land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement. And it came to pass that there were many of the people of Ammon, who were Lamanites by birth, did also go forth into this land. And now there are many records kept of the proceedings of this people, by many of this people, which are particular and very large, concerning them. However, behold, a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work. However, behold, there are many books and many records of every kind, and they have kept chiefly by the Nephites. And they have been handed down from one generation to another by the Nephites, even until they have fallen into transgression and have been murdered, plundered, and hunted, and driven forth, and slain, and scattered upon the face of the Earth, and mixed with the Lamanites until they are no more called the Nephites, becoming wicked, and wild, and ferocious, yea, even becoming Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“And now I return again to mine account; therefore, what I have spoken had passed after there had been great contentions, and disturbances, and wars, and dissensions, among the people of Nephi. The forty and sixth year of the reign of the judges ended; and it came to pass that there was still great contention in the land, yea, even in the forty and seventh year, and also in the forty and eighth year. Nevertheless Helaman did fill the judgment-seat with justice and equity; yea, he did observe to keep the statues, and the judgments, and the commandments of God; and he did do that which was right in the sight of God continually; and he did walk after the ways of his father, insomuch that he did prosper in the land. And it came to pass that he had two sons. He gave unto the eldest the name of Nephi, and unto the youngest, the name of Lehi. And they began to grow up unto the Lord. And it came to pass that the wars and contentions began to cease, in small degree, among the people of the Nephites, in latter end of the forty and eighth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And it came to pass in the forty and ninth year of the reign of the judges, there was continual peace established in the land, all save it were the secret combinations which Gadianton the robber had established in the more settled parts of the land, which at the time were not known unto those who were at the head of government; therefore they were not destroyed out of the land. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And it came to pass that in this same yea there was exceedingly great prosperity in the church, insomuch that there were thousands who did join themselves unto the church and were baptized unto repentance. And so great was the prosperity of the church, and so many the blessings which were poured out upon the people, that even the high priests and the teachers were themselves astonished beyond measure. And it came to pass that the work of the Lord did prosper unto the baptizing and uniting to the church of God, any souls, yea, even tends of thousands. Thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will, in the sincerity of their hearts, call upon his hoy name. Yea, this we see that the gate of Heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God. Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the humans of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—and land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of Heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“And in this year there was continual rejoicing in the and of Zarahemla, and in all the regions round about, even in the land which was possessed by the Nephites. And it came to pass that there was peace and exceedingly great joy in the remainder of the forty and ninth year; yea, and also there was continual peace and great joy in the fiftieth year of the reign of the judges. And in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also, save it were the pride which began t enter into the church—not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God—and they were lifted up in pride, even to the persecution of many of their brethren. Now his was a great evil, which did cause the more humble part of the people to suffer great persecutions, and to wade through much affliction. Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification of their hearts unto God. And it came to pass that the fifty and second year ended in peace also, save it were the exceedingly great pride which had gotten into the hearts of the people; and it was because of their prosperity in the land; and it did grow upon them from day to day. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
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Memory is More Incredible than Ink for it is a Wise Father who Knows His Own Child!
The generation gap is just another way of saying that the younger generation makes overt what is covert in the older generation; the child expresses openly what the parents represses. The mass media with the use of television ( “The Most Effective Devil in America,” is telling you a vision) has flooded out local boundaries and forced the total society into a dim awareness of what it is like to live in fear. It is not so much the increase in violence that upsets middle-class Americans as the democratization of violence: the less affluent and underrepresented have become less willing to serve as specialized victims of violence from a political agenda (“legally”) and each other (illegally). The same point can be made about crimes against property, given the well-known class bias in our legal system. Since the ways in which the affluent steal from the less affluent are rarely defined as crimes (when executives of a major corporation were jailed for a few days some years ago for stealing millions of dollars from the public through antitrust violations many people were shocked that respectable humans could be treated in such a rude fashion) rising property crimes rates may only reflect an increase in the democratization of larceny, a result attributable in part to the success of the mass media in convincing the less affluent that only the possession of various products can satisfy their various social, pleasures of the flesh, and moral requirements. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Leaving aside these more likely to be considered violent when they have political overtones. Our nation has never known a time without serious urban riots—usually about some kind of economic or social injustice—but it was only when they began to have a political thrust and to attack business districts that the concerns about the rioting began to grow. The same relationship holds true for the college campus. It is not violence as such but its political aims that arouse concern. The same people who assail the violence of campus radicals are quite happy to regale listeners with tales of their own (apolitical) childhood pranks—pranks that would bring a jail sentence if committed today. College students on many campuses have rioted annually for generations, and the injuries and vandalism resulting from such riots have often far exceeded that produced by protests. Yet these apolitical riots have always been considered venial. The difference is that student pranks and riots in the past attacked authority but accepted it. The protests of today confront authority and question it. Thus although no violence at all may occur, those toward whom the protest is directed may feel that violence has been done to them. The disruption of ordinary daily patterns and assumptions are experienced as a kind of psychological violence. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Consider what happens when a defective traffic light fails to change from red to green. The line of cars grows and restlessness increases. At some point someone decides that the symbol of order is in fact in disorder and either goes through the red light or begins to honk one’s hor. As soon as one goes through, the others all follow suit. The initiator in this situation is engaging in a kind of civil disobedience. One is challenging the specific rule about red lights in terms of a broader understanding which says that the purpose of traffic laws is to regulate traffic not to disrupt it. Yet because the situation has no real political significance the incidence carries no threat or violent connotation. We live in a society in which cruelties inflicted upon humanity can be exposed in every living room through mass media or on Facebook and Twitter. We discuss and debate constantly the appearance of any instance anywhere in the World of inhumane treatment of one person by another, but we still do not always get the full story. Nonetheless, we stress that every human life, even corporations, are beings of value. We live, in short, in modern, secure, civilized World, in which a single isolated act of violence is a calamity, an outrage. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Yet, innocent people still have their characters and beings terminated by the most barbarous means possible and shows no qualms about it. These techniques are a bit reminiscent of the dunking stool used in earlier centuries to test potential witches: if the person was not a witch the individual would drown—if one did not drown thus proved one was a witch and one was burned to death. The energy required to avoid even the most obvious forms of exploitation by commercial enterprises in our society would not permit the individual to lead a normal active life. Like Looking-glass Country, it takes all the running one can do to stay in the same place. Powerlessness has always been the common lot of most of humankind. However, the more we attempt to solve problems through increased autonomy the more we find ourselves at the mercy of these mysterious, impersonal, and remote mechanisms that we have ourselves created. Their indifference is a reflection of our own. All societies, optimally, must allow for both change and stability since: effective adaptation to the environment requires both modification and consolidation of existing reposes; social integration depends both upon the preservation and upon the periodic dissolution of existing structural differentiation; and personal happiness rest upon both familiarity and novelty in everyday life. Every society evolves patterns for attempting to realize these mutually incompatible needs. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
We talk of technology as the servant of humans, but it is a servant that now dominates the households, too powerful to fire, upon whom everyone is helplessly dependent. We tiptoe about and speculate upon his mood. What will be the effects of such-and-such an invention? How will it change our daily lives? We never ask, do we want this, is it worth it? (We did not ask ourselves, for example, if the major conveniences offered by social media could really offset the calamitous disruption and depersonalization of our lives that it brought about.) We simply say, “You cannot stop progress,” and shuffle back inside. We pride ourselves on being a “democracy” but we are in fact slaves. We submit to an absolute ruler who governs our state or city whose edicts and whims we never question. We watch that individual carefully, hang on to one’s every word; for technology is a harsh and capricious king, demanding prompt and absolute obedience. We laugh at the old lady who holds off the highway bulldozers with a Winchester Rifle, but we laugh because we are Uncle Toms. We try to outdo each other in singing the praises of the oppressor, although in fact the value of technology in terms of human satisfaction remains at best undemonstrated. For when evaluating its effects we always adopt the basic assumptions and perspective of technology itself, and never examine it in terms of the totality of human experience. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
We say this or that invention is valuable because it generates other inventions—because it is a means to some other means—not because it achieves an ultimate end. We play down the “side effects” that so often become the main effects and completely negate any alleged benefits. The much-vaunted “freedom” of American life is thus an illusion, one which underlies the sense of spuriousness so many Americans feel about their basic institutions. We are free to do only what we are told, and we are “told” not by a human master but by a mechanical construction. However, how can we be the salves of technology—is not technology merely an extension of, a creation of, ourselves? This is only metaphorically true. The forces to which we submit so abjectly were not generated by ourselves but by our ancestors—what we create will in turn rule our progeny. It takes a certain amount of time for the social effects of technological change to make their appearance, by which time a generation has usually passed. Science-fiction writers have long been fascinated with the notion of being able to create material objects just by imagining them, and have built novels, stories, and films around the idea. Actually, it is merely an exaggeration of what normally takes place. Technology is materialized fantasy. We are ruled today by the material manifestations of the fantasies of previous generations. #RanolphHarris 6 of 25
We treat technology as if it were a fierce patriarch—we are deferential, submissive, and alert to its demands. Perhaps, that is why men dominate the Silicon Valley in San Jose, California USA, and in Shenzhen, a city in south China’s Guangdong province known as the “Silicon Valley of China.” (The Silicon Valley of China has gradually become a global hardware center and hub for scientific and technological advances, where skyscrapers appear commonplace and the population has surged past 13 million.) We feel spasms of hatred toward technology, and continually make fun of it but we do little to challenge the rule. People who develop technology, like Wolfgang Egger who is a World-famous Germany car designer, reports, “to have this opportunity to create something like this [an electric car] from nothing is a big challenge that I need.” That is the main reason why he joined the Chinese car manufacturer BYD three years ago. Technology has inherited the fantasy of the authoritarian father. Furthermore, since the technological environment that rules, frustrates, and manipulates us is a materialization of the wished of our forefathers, it is quite reasonable to say that technology is the authoritarian father in our society. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The American father can be a good-natured humble man in the home precisely because he is so ruthless toward the nonhuman environment, leveling, uprooting, filling in, building up, tearing down, blowing up, tunneling under. This ruthlessness affects his children only indirectly, as the deranged environment afflicts the eyes, ears, nose, and nervous system of the next generation. However, it affects them nonetheless. Through this impersonal intermediary we inflict our will upon our children, and punish them for our generous indulgence—our child-oriented, self-sacrificing behaviour. It I small wonder that the myth of the punitive patriarch stays alive. From this viewpoint, then, delegating to technology the role of punitive patriarch is another example of the first process we described: the tendency to avoid interpersonal conflict by compartmentalization and a false illusion of autonomy—to place impersonal mechanisms between and around people and imagine that we have created a self-governing paradise. It is a kind of savage joke in its parental form. We say: “Look, I am an easy-going, good-natured, affectionate father. I behave in a democratic manner and treat you like a person, never pulling rank. As to all those roads and wires and social media and clones and machines and bombs and complex bureaucratic institutions out there, do not concern yourself about them—this is my department.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
However, when the child grows up one discovers the fraud. One learns that one is a slave to his father’s unconscious and unplanned whims—that the area of withheld power was crucial. The child becomes angry and rebels, saying, “You were not what you pretended, and I cannot be what you encouraged me to be.” The child attacks “the system” and authority everywhere, trying to find the source of the deception, and using techniques that reflect one’s commitment to what one’s father deceived one into thinking one was—a person. However, by this time one has also learned the system of avoiding conflict through impersonal mechanism and is ready to inflict the same deception on one’s own children. We love and indulge our children, and would never dream of hurting them. If they are poisoned, bombed, gassed, burned, or whatever, it is surely not our fault, since we do not even know how to manipulate those objects. The danger comes from outside. Perhaps long ago we did something to deliver them into these impersonal hands, but we have forgotten, and in any case it is not our responsibility. Technology, in other words, is our plains sorcerer. Because Americans have submitted so passively to the havoc wreaked by technological change, they have had to convince themselves that their obsequiousness is right and good and appropriate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Any challenge to the technological-over-social priority threatens to expose the fact that Americans has lost their adulthood and their capacity to control their environment. So long as the priority is unchallenged and unmentioned, the human surrender involved need not be confronted. However, youth is increasingly saying: “What about the people? Why have you abdicated your birthright to hardware?” It is a humiliating question, and humiliating questions tend to be answered with blows. Furthermore, the social changes wrought by technological change are so vast and shattering and we are kept so off-balance by them that the desire for independent social change (that is, change produced by human needs rather than technology) appears not as a solution and the assumption of control, but as still another disruptive force. It is like the inhabitants of an occupied country, who say to their militants, “do not fight the enemy, it will just bring more massive retaliation down upon us. Attack your own family.” The predominant feeling is that there is more change than anybody can tolerate already, so how can anyone ever consider a radical reevaluation of the whole system. I felt sure that it was just a public-relations problem that only needed a public-relations solution. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
I do not give a damn how it is done; do whatever has to be done to stop these leaks and prevent further lies and unauthorized disclosures. I do not want excuses. I want results…whatever the cost. It became necessary for Americans to express themselves on a middle plane between vaporous idealism and self-interested practicality. The association of highbrow culture with vaporous idealism and lowbrow culture with self-interested practicality exemplified the widespread acceptance, by intellectuals as well as noneintellectuals, of the idea that devotion to the life of the mind must somehow be opposed to a decent regard for the exigencies of everyday life. The distinctive feature of American middlebrow culture was its embodiment of the old civic credo that anyone willing to invest time and energy in self-education might better oneself. Many uneducated people cherished middlebrow values: the millions of sets of encyclopedias sold door to door from the 1920s well into the 1980s were often purchased through an installment plan by parents who had never owned a book but were willing to sacrifice to provide their children with information about the World that had been absent from their own upbringing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Remnants of earnest middlebrows striving today among various communities, but the larger edifice of middlebrow culture, which once encompassed Americans of many social classes as well as ethnic and racial backgrounds, has collapsed. The disintegration and denigration of the middlebrow are closely linked to the political and class polarization that distinguishes the current wave of anti-intellectualism from the popular suspicion of highbrows and eggheads that have always, to a greater or lesser degree, been a part of the American psyche. What has been lost is an alterative to mass popular culture, imbibed unconsciously and effortlessly through the audio and video portals that surround us all. What has been lost is the culture of effort. Middlebrow culture was, above all, a reading culture. In the 1950s, to be raised in a middlebrow family meant that there were books, magazines, newspapers in the house and that everyone old enough to read had a library card. Some schools in Sacramento, California would even pause for fifteen minutes a day for reading time, where students could read whatever they wanted, as long as it was a book, it was appropriate, and educational. If much of the reading material was scorned by highbrow intellectuals, the books certainly provided ample room for growth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
People had books clubs, much like Reese Witherspoon has popularized, where people select a book each month, read it and talk about. And people who live in segregated communities were taught to learn to appreciate masterpieces like The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and many more, and to make sure that no one could segregate one’s mind. Still, 25 percent of American high school biology teachers still believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. American ideal of self-education is a distinct era of self-help, and people placed far more emphasis on improving personality and public image and the mind like never before. However, “civilized” is still defined by the gatekeeps of greatness on the installment plan. Many people want to make it into the “Fat Man’s” class which was dubbed that for the size of their pocketbooks. We want everything to be cheap and high quality, but do not look at the value and utility it provides, and then complain about how little we get paid. Our parents, grandparents, and maybe for some of you, great grandparents had it a lot harder than we do today. We hear about how inexpensive everything used to be, but do not take inflation into account. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
In 1952, a great book cost $249.95, in 2020 dollars that is $2,470.21. Imagine what a luxury a book was back then. In fact, reading books was a status symbol because the proved to the World that one was the sort of person who did read and who could afford the price of a book. People like Reese Witherspoon is doing an excellent job trying to get Americans back into reading books. When a celebrity is seen doing anything, it becomes a trend and what could be a more productive trend than getting people to expand their minds. The possession of certain kinds of knowledge, and the ability to recalls facts before an audience of millions, could provide both fame and fortune. When being smart become a trend, imagine how much better off our society will be, how much productive our children will be. They will learn the root of what it takes to have fun and know they have to study and work hard to earn the money it takes to have fun. Because, as one gets older, fun gets more expensive. Getting a day off from school and watching TV is no longer fun, but having the ability to legally buy new cars and houses and take vacations and decorate your own private home is fun. Having privacy and dignity in your own environment is fun. Being able to relocate or explore the World when you want to is fun. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
An aspect of the Christian work ethic is enthusiasm. “Whatever you do,” Paul told the Colossians, “work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for humans,” reports Colossians 3.23. To the Romans Pail admonished, “Never be lacking in seal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord,” reports Romans 12.11. It is natural—actually quite easy—to be enthusiastic if your work is prominent, but less natural the more hidden it is, as the conductor of a great symphony orchestra once reveled when asked which was the most difficult instrument to play. “Second violin,” he answered. “We can get plenty of first violinists. However, to get someone who will play second violin with enthusiasm—that is a problem!” And so it is. However, actually, doing one’s work with enthusiasm, even if hidden, plays for an audience far greater than that of the most famous symphony orchestras or World champion sports teams! If we could be really see this, our enthusiasm would never flag. However, it can still be hard to reason with some people. Their very mind has been taken over by one or more feelings and is made to defend and serve those feelings at all costs. It is a fearful condition from which some people never escape. We have noted how thoughts generate feelings. If we allow certain negative thoughts to obsess us, then their associated feelings can enslave and blind us—that is, take over our ability to think and perceive. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
As humans, we can unknowingly become slaves to technology, or feelings and so man other things. Here, for example, is a woman (it could have just as well have been a man) who has taken in the thought that she has been treated unfairly for years in her marriage and her job. Rather than sensibly addressing the circumstances or just turning her mind away from this thought, she receives it and broods over it—for years—developing a tremendous sense of injustice and outrage, which she also welcomes and cultivates with the assistance of sympathetic friends. The “root of bitterness” (Hebrews 12.15) gradually spreads over her whole personality, seeping deeply into her body and soul. It becomes something you can see in her bodily motions and actions and hear oozing through the language she uses. It affects her capacity to see what is actually going on around her, to realize what she is actually doing, and to think thoroughly and consistently. She is in the prison of resentment, though she thinks she is perhaps for the first time acting freely. Beyond the individual level, poisonous emotions and sensations often take over entire social groups, blinding them and impelling them on terrible courses of destruction. This is nearly always what has happened in cases where repression of ethnic groups or genocide occurs. Thus, to the onlooker the participants (the tyrants) seem to be deaf, blind, and insane—which, in a sense, they are. They, too, are imprisoned. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Feelings can be successfully reasoned with, can be corrected by reality, only in those (whether oneself or others) who have the habit and are given the grace of listening to reason even when they are expressing violent feelings or are in the grip of them. A feeling of sufficient strength may blot out all else and will invariably do so in one who has not trained oneself, or been trained, to identify, to be critical of, and to have some distance from one’s own feelings. Combined with a sense of righteousness, strong feeling becomes impervious to fact and reason. I beseech ye brethren, by the bowels of Christ, believe ye may be wrong! One’s feelings of righteousness does not mean one is right and actually should alert one to be very cautious and humble. Those who are wise will, accordingly, never allow themselves, if they can help it, to get in a position where they feel too deeply about any human matter. They will never willingly choose to allow feeling to govern them. They will carefully keep the pathway open to the house of reason and go there regularly to listen. If we are to appropriate God’s grace, we must humble ourselves, we must submit to His providential working in our lives. To do this we must first see His mighty hand behind all the immediate causes of our adversities and heartaches. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
We must believe the biblical teaching that God is in sovereign control of all our circumstances, and whatever or whoever is the immediate cause of our circumstances, God is behind them all. “And it came to pass that he wrote again to the governor of the land, who was Pahoran, and these are the words which he wrote saying: Behold, I direct mine epistle to Pahoran, in the city of Zarahemla, who is the chief judge and the governor over the land, and also to all those who have been chosen by this people to govern and manage the affairs of this war. For behold, I have somewhat to say unto them by the way of condemnation; for behold, ye yourselves know that we have been appointed to gather together humans, and arm them with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war of every kind, and send forth against the Lamanites, in whatsoever part they should come into out land. And now behold, I say unto you that myself, and also my men, and also Helaman and his men, have suffered exceedingly great sufferings; yea, even hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and all manner of afflictions of every kind. However, behold, were this all we had suffered we would not murmur nor complain. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“However, behold, great has been the slaughter among our people; yea, thousands have fallen by the sword, while it might have otherwise been if ye had rendered unto our armies sufficient strength and succor for them. Yea, great has been your neglect towards us. And now behold, we desire to know the cause of this exceedingly great neglect; yea, we desire to know the cause of your thoughtless state. Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you? Yea, while they are murdering thousands of your brethren—yea, even they who have looked up to you for protection, yea, have placed you in a situation that ye might have sent armies unto them, to have strengthened them, and have saved thousands of them from falling by the sword. However, behold, this is not all—ye have withheld your provisions from them, insomuch that many have fought and bled out their lives because of their great desires which they had for the welfare of this people; yea, and this they have done when they were abut to perish with hunger, because of your exceedingly great neglect towards them. And now, my beloved brethren—for ye ought to have stirred yourselves more diligently for the welfare and the freedom of this people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“However, behold, ye have neglected them insomuch that the blood of thousands shall come upon your heads for vengeance; yea, for known unto God were all their cries, and all their sufferings—behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain. Do ye suppose this ye have supposed in vain. Do ye suppose that, because so many of your brethren have been killed it is because of their wickedness? I say unto you, if ye have supposed in vain; for I say unto you, there are many who have fallen by the sword; and behold it is to your condemnation; for the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God. And now behold, I say unto you, I fear exceedingly that the judgments of God will come upon this people, because of their exceeding slothfulness, yea, even the slothfulness of our government, and their exceedingly great neglect towards their brethren, yea, towards those who have been slain. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“For were it not for the wickedness which first commenced at our hear, we could have withstood our enemies that they could have withstood our enemies that they could have gained no power over us. Yea, had it not been for the war which broken out among ourselves; yea, were it not for these king-men, who caused so much bloodshed among ourselves; yea, at the time we were contending among ourselves, if we had united our strength as we hitherto have done; yea, had it not been for the desire of power and authority which those king-men had over us; had they been true to the cause of our freedom, and untied with us, and gone forth against our enemies, instead of taking up their swords against us, which was the cause of so much bloodshed among ourselves; yea, if we had gone forth against them in the strength of the Lord, we should have dispersed our enemies, for it would have been done, according to the fulfilling of his word. However, behold, now the Lamanites are coming upon us, taking possession of our lands, and they are murdering our people with the sword, yea, our women and our children, and also carrying them away captive, causing them that they should suffer all manner of afflictions, and this because of the great wickedness of those who are seeking for power and authority, yea, even those king-men. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
However, why should I say much concerning this matter? For we know not but what ye yourselves are seeking for authority. We know not but what ye are also traitors to your country. Or is it that ye have neglected us because ye are in the heart of our country and ye are surrounded by security, that ye do not cause food to be sent unto us, and also humans to strengthen our armies? Have ye forgotten in the commandments of the Lord your God? Yea, have ye forgotten the captivity of our fathers? Have ye forgotten the many times we have been delivered out of the hands of our enemies? Or do ye supposed that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make us of the means which the Lord has provided for us? Yea, will ye sit in idleness while ye are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands, who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword, yea, wounded and bleeding? Do ye supposed that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay. Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“And now, expect ye do repent of that which ye have done, and begin to be up and doing, and send forth food and humans unto us, and also unto Helaman, that he may support those parts of our country which he had regained, and that we may also recover the remainder of our possession in these parts, behold it will be expedient that we contend no more with the Lamanites until we have first cleansed our inward vessel, yea, even the great head of our government. And expect ye grant mine epistle, and come out and show unto me a true spirit of freedom, and stive to strengthen and fortify our armies, and great unto them food a part of my freemen to maintain this part of our land, and I will leave the strength and the blessings of God upon them, that none other power can operate against them—and this because of their exceeding faith, and their patience in their tribulation—and I will come unto you, and if there be any among you that has a desire for freedom, yes, if there be even a spark of freedom remaining, behold I will stir up insurrections among you, even until those who have desires to usurp power and authority shall become extinct. Yea, behold I do not fear your power nor your authority, but it is my God whom I fear; and it is according to his commandments that I do take my sword to defend the cause of my country, and it is because of your iniquity that we have suffered much loss. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“Behold, I wait for assistance from your; and except ye do administer unto our relief, behold, I come unto you, even in the land of Zarahemla, and smite you with the sword, insomuch that ye can have no more power to impede the progress of this people in the cause of our freedom. For behold, the Lord will not suffer that ye shall live and wax strong in your iniquities to destroy his righteous people. Behold, can you suppose that the Lord will spare you and come out in judgment against the Lamanites, when it is the tradition of their fathers that has caused their hatred, yea, and it has been redoubled by those who have dissented from us, while your iniquity is for the cause of your love of glory and the vain things of the World? Ye know that ye do transgress the laws of God, and ye do know that ye do trample them under your feet. Behold, the Lord saith unto me: If those whom ye have appointed your governors do not repent of their sins and iniquities, ye shall go up to battle against them. And now behold, I, Moroni, am constrained, according to the covenant which I have made to keep the commandments of my God; therefore I would that ye should adhere to the word of God, and send speedily unto me of your provisions and of your men, and also to Helaman. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“And behold, if ye will not do this I come unto you speedily; for behold, God will not suffer that we should perish with hunger; therefore he will give unto us of your food, even if it must be by the sword. Now see that ye fulfill the word of God. Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honour of the World, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country. And thus I close mine epistle,” reports Alma 60.1-36. A lion protecting His young, you rage when aroused. Nothing stands before You, no troubles can resist You, no enemies defeat You. A roaring in the distance announces your arrival, scattering the dealers of cares. You shake the Earth beneath their feet, upsetting all the plans. “Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontless between your eyes. And ye shall teach them to your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the doorpost of thy house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land which the Lord promised unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the Heavens above the Earth,” reports Deuteronomy 11.16-21. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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God is in His Heaven—All is Right with the World! Grow Old with Me Because the Best if Yet to Be!
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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.
I Felt the Power of the ‘Life Force’ that Infuses Each of Us—Whatever this is!
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. What part does our awareness have in the formative function of the consciousness in human beings? I believer that consciousness has a small but very important part. The ability to focus consciousness attention seems to be one of the latest evolutionary developments in our species. This ability can be described as a tiny peak of awareness, of symbolizing capacity, topping a vast pyramid of nonconscious organismic functioning. Perhaps a better analogy, more indicative of the continual change going on, is to think of the pyramid as a large fountain of the same shape. The very tip of the fountain is intermittently illuminated with the flickering light of consciousness, but the constant flow of life goes on in the darkness as well, in nonconscious as well as conscious ways. It seems that the human organism has been moving toward the more complete development of awareness. It is at this level hat new forms are invented, perhaps even new directions for the human species. It is here that the reciprocal relationship between cause and effect is most demonstrably evident. It is here that choices are made, spontaneous forms created. We here see perhaps the highest of the human functions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
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Love is Full of as Many Mysteries as the Winchester Mansion, it Can be Beautiful and Bizarre!
Just because 2020 had other plans, does not mean you have to! Check out today’s blog post for socially distant outdoor activities to pass the time with this summer. ☀️ Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/blog/
Winchester Mystery House
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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If there was More Rest for Souls in Our World, this Temple be as in the Hearts of the People for whom Saved the Union!
This image is “My Lady Soul,” as Spitteler called her. I have suggested instead of the term “anima,” as indicating something specific, for which the expression “soul” is too general and too vague. The empirical reality summed up under the concept of the anima forms and extremely dramatic content of the unconscious. It is possible to describe this content in rational, scientific language, but in this way one entirely fails to express its living character. Therefore, in describing the living processes of the psyche, I deliberately and consciously give preference to a dramatic, mythological way of thinking and speaking, because this is not only more expressive but also more exact than an abstract scientific terminology, which is wont to toy with the notion that its theoretic formulations may one fine day be resolved into algebraic equations. The projection-making factor is the anima, or rather the unconscious as represented by the anima. Whenever she appears, in dreams, visions, and fantasies, she takes on personified form, thus demonstrating that the factor she embodies possesses all the outstanding characteristics of a feminine being. She is not an invention of the conscious, but a spontaneous product of the unconscious. Nor is she a substitute figure for the mother. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
Working is easy in the super comfortable chairs at @HUBApts’ Business Center. 🙌 The complimentary WiFi is an added bonus. 😍 https://sites.google.com/fpimgt.com/hubvirtualtours/home
Winchester Mystery House
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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An Ocean Dim, Sprinkled with Many an Isle, Spreads Awfully Before Me!
The best part of living in a Cresleigh home is the freedom of your #FlexSpace. Make it an office, a playroom, a gym—if you can dream it, you can make it a reality! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-4/
So We Have Asked the Wrong Question: Satan Said to Eve, “You Will be Like God, Knowing Good and Evil!”
The ground floor bedroom in #BrightonStation Residence 4 is the perfect place to recharge. It has its own ensuite bathroom for added privacy! Watch the video walkthrough on our website for more info! 😍 Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/
But of All Plagues, Good Heaven, Thy Wrath Can Send, Save Me, Oh, Save Me, from the Candid Friend!
With all the changes and challenges you face each day, there is never been a greater need to take the time to determine your priorities, and then with renewed focus, align your daily actions with your purpose or goals. Since you cannot know it all or do it all, it is vital that you learn to take the time to contemplate what it is you need to know and what you need to do. And keep in mind, the art of being wise is to know what to overlook. For what do we give thanks? Are there limits to giving thanks? Our text says—“In everything give thanks!” This does not mean—give thanks for everything, but give thanks in every situation! There are no limits to situations in which to thanks, but there are limits to thing for which thanks can be expressed. This is again a question the answer to which might lead us into a new understanding of the human predicament. In the letter to 1 Timothy 4.4 we read—“For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayers.” In these words, thanksgiving receives a new function. It consecrates everything created by God. Thanksgiving is consecration; it transfers something that belongs to the secular World into the sphere of the holy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Thanksgiving is not transformed, as superstition in and outside of Christian beliefs would transform it, but it is elevated to represent the divine. It has become a bearer of grace. Therefore, we say “grace” when we give thanks for our daily food, and thus consecrate it. Every created thing can be a bearer of holiness, an object of thanks, of consecration. There are no limits to thanksgiving in this respect. We can give thanks for our bodily and our mental powers, for the darkness of our unconscious as well as for the light of our consciousness, for the abundance of nature and the creations of history, for everything that is and manifests its power of being. We can give thanks for all these despite their rejection by those who, through World-hating asceticism and fanatical puritanism, blaspheme the God of creation. Everything for which we can give thanks with a good conscience is consecrated by our thanks. This is not merely a profound theological insight; it is also a practical standard in situations where we are uncertain about accepting it, we can give thanks for it, we witness to its goodness as crated. In giving thanks seriously, we consecrate it to the holy source of being from which it comes. And we even take the risk that Protestant Christians must take—that their conscience may fall into error and consecrate something which should be rejected. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
One reason we have this new attitude toward sin and God’s law is that we “died” to the law. Such a statement may sound strange after we have learned insistently about the importance of God’s law as a moral rule in the believer’s life. However, through the law reveals God’s moral will for us, the law in itself has no power to enable us to obey it. Because the law commands obedience without providing any enabling power, it is in this sense a course of bondage. And because we were hostile to God’s law prior to our salvation (The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so, reports Romans 8.7), it was also a source of provocation to us. Instead of being a means of obedience to God, the law actually provoked us and incited us to sin (What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have know what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law has not said, “Do not covert.” However, sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead, reports Romans 7.7-8). Such a human’s actions, however much they outwardly appear to be like those of other beings, are done under the impulsion of a higher will than the personal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to one who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. However, now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code,” reports Romans 7.4-6. “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin,” reports Romans 3.20. “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace,” reports Romans 6.14. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law,’” reports Galatians 3.10. From these passages we understand that we died to the observance of the law as a requirement for attaining righteousness before God. We died to the curse and condemnation that resulted from our inability to perfectly keep the law. Then we see in Romans 6.14 that being under the law is opposite of being under grace. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Because of our sin against the law, being under law implied the wrath of God, whereas grace implies forgiveness and favour. Law implies a broken relationship with God, whereas grace implies a restored relationship with Him. So when Paul said we died to the law, he meant we died to that entire state of condemnation, curse, and alienation from God. The most important thing for us to see in our death to the law, however, is the purpose of our death. We died to the law in order that we might live in the realm of grace. We died to the law that we might bear fruit to God. And according to Romans 7.6, we died that we might “serve [God] in the new ways of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code [the law].” The new way of the spirit is not a new and less rigorous ethic than the old way of the written code. The difference does not lie in the content of the moral will of God. Since that is a reflection of the holy character of God, it cannot change. Rather, the difference lies in the reason to obey and in the ability with which to obey. Verse 6 gets right to the heart of what it means to live by grace. For serving in the new way of the Spirit is the same as living by grace instead of by works. Although it is clearly God’s design that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, far too many Christians still serve in the old way of the law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
There are no limits to giving thanks in the whole of creation. However, are there not limits in our life? Can we honestly give thanks for the frustrations, accidents, and infirmaries that strike us? We cannot in the moment when they take hold of us. Here is one of the many situations where piety can degenerate into dishonesty. For we rightly resist such evils. We want to remove them; we are often angry against our destiny and its divine ground. And there are depths of suffering, bodily and mental, in which even the question of thanking or not thanking does not appear. Out of the depths the psalmist cries to God; he does not thank Him. This is honest, realistic—a realism born out of the awareness of the divine presence. And I believe that at some time in our lives all of us have had experiences that were nothing but evil when they happened, but that became a good later and the object of honest thanks. And we also cannot give thanks for our own acts that make us guilty or for those that make us good. We cannot give thanks for that which makes us guilty; and sometimes things for which we have given thanks become evil by our own guilt. Nor should we give tanks for that in us which makes us good. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
The thanks of the pharisee for one’s good work is an outstanding example of thanks which should not be given. In reality, one does not thank God when one is thankful for one’s own goodness, but thanks oneself. How many of us thank ourselves when we give thanks to God! However, one cannot thank oneself, because the sacrifice of thanking, if given to oneself, ceases to be a sacrifice. Thanks to oneself is not thanks, even when prayers of thanks to God are hidden ways of thanking oneself, as after work well done or success achieved by great toil. It I a surprising experience to read the Bible, and especially the last third of the books of Psalms, with the questions of thanks in one’s mind. One discovers that the praise of God fills page after page in which the misery of all beings, including the writers of those books, is also most drastically described. Reading them, we feel as though we walk in another realm. We cannot reproduce in ourselves what is happening to these beings. (We are not in the mood of praising, hardly in the mood of thanking.) We look into the depth of our predicament and do not see much reason for praise and thanks. And if we think that it is our duty to God to thank Him, of if we participate in church services that include praise and thanks, we do not feel that we have truly expressed our state of mind. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Although this experience of not feeling that we have truly expressed our state of mind is not invariable, it is a predominant trait of our religious situation. It expresses itself in the messages of our best present preachers and theologians. It is a dominating theme of our great poets and philosophers. We are not called to pas judgment on these beings. We have a part in them. They express us as they express themselves. And we should thank those who do it seriously, and often out of deep spiritual suffering. The differences of our situation from that of former periods becomes visible when we read about the passion and intensity with which the members of the early church gave thanks for the gift of the Christian message in a World of pagan glory, disintegration and despair. Is the same passion and intensity in us when we give thanks for the gift of God which is the Christ and His church? Who can honestly answer “yes”? And do we not sense the same difference when we read how the fighters of the Reformation thanked God for the rediscovery of the good news of the divine acceptance of those who are sinners? Is the same infinite concern in us as was in them? Who can honestly answer “yes”? We must therefore be grateful to those who express our present situation honestly. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
When I am not prized and appreciated, I not only feel very much diminished, but my behaviour is actually affected by my feelings. When I am prized, I blossom and expand, I am an interesting individual. In a hostile or unappreciative group, I am just not much of anything. People wonder, with very good reason, how did he ever get a reputation? I wish I had the strength to be more similar in both kinds of groups, but actually the person I am in a warm and interested group is different from the person I am in a hostile or cold group. Thus, prizing or loving and being prized or loved is experienced as very growth enhancing. A person who is loved appreciatively, not possessively, blooms and develops one’s own unique self. The person who loves nonpossessively is oneself enriched. There is some consolation: We are not separated from the ever active presence of God, and we can become aware of it in every moment. Our hearts can become filled with praise and thanks without the use of words; and sometimes we may also find those words of praise and thanks. However, this is not the first step, and, often, not even the last. Let us not follow those who use what is called the present religious revival to force us back into forms of prayer and thanks that we cannot honestly accept, or that produce joy and thanks through self-suggestion. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
The repetition of the words that reinforce class consciousness make the mind one coherent conviction. People become so wrapped up in explanations that their social construction of reality becomes deep—so deep that their fictious responses seem natural. These psychological revolutions that are formed create confusion because they are not natural nor heart felt. Therefore, let us keep ourselves open to the power that carries our life in every moment, that is here and now, that comes to us through nature and through the message of Jesus as the Christ. May we keep open to it, so that we may be filled with silent gratefulness for the power of being which is in us. And then perhaps words of thanks, words of sacrifice and consecration, may come to our tongues, so that we again may give thanks in truth and honesty. Almighty God! We raise our hearts to Thee in praise and thanks. For we are not by ourselves and nothing is ours except what Thou hast given us. We are finite; we did not bring anything into our World; we shall not take anything out of our World. Thou hast given us the life which is ours so long as it is Thy will. We thank Thee that we have being, that we share in the inexhaustible riches of life, in the smallest and in the largest part of it. We praise Thee when we feel strength in body and soul. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
We give thanks to Thee when joy fills our hearts. We are gratefully aware of Thy presence, be it in silence, or in words. Awaken us to such awareness when our daily life hides Thy presence from us, when we forget how near Thou art to us in every place and in every moment, nearer than any other being is to us, nearer than we are to ourselves. Let us not turn aware from Thy giving and creating presence to the things Thou hast given us. Let us not forget the Creator behind the creation. Keep us always ready for the sacrifice of giving thanks to Thee. Thine is what we are and have. We consecrate it to Thee. Receive our thanks when we say grace, consecrating our food and with it all that we receive in our daily life. Prevent us from using empty words and forms when we give thanks to Thee. Save us from routine and mere convention when we dare to speak to Thee. We thank Thee when we look back at our life, be it long or short, for all that we have met in it. And we thank Thee not only for what we have loved and for what gave us pleasure, but also for what brought us disappointment, pain and suffering, because we now know that it helped us to fulfill that for which we were born. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
And if new disappointments and new sufferings takes hold of us and words of thanks die on our tongues, remind us that a day may come when we will be ready to give thanks for the dark road on which Thou hast led us. Our words of thanks are poor and often we cannot find words at all. There are days and months and years in which we were or are still unable to speak to Thee. Give us the power, at such times, to keep our hearts open to the abundance of life, and in silent gratefulness, to experience Thy unchanging, eternal presence. Take the silent sacrifice of a heart when words of thanks become rare in us. Accept our silent gratefulness and keep our hearts and our minds open to Thee always! We thank Thee for what Thou hast given to this nation far beyond the gifts to any other nation! Let us remain thankful for it, so that we may overcome the dangers of shallowness of life and emptiness of heart that threaten our people. Prevent us from turning Thy gifts into causes of injury and self-destruction. Let a grateful mind protect us against national and personal disintegrations. Turn us to Thee, the source of our being, eternal God! Amen. An Angel tells Nephi of the blessings and cursings to fall upon the Gentiles—there are only two churches: the Church of the Lamb of God and the church of the devil—than Saints of God in al nations are persecuted by the great and abominable church—the Apostle John will write concerning the end of the World. About 600-592 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
“And it come to pass, that is the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that He shall manifest Himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks—and harden not their hearts against the Lamb of God, they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father’ yea, they shall be numbered among the house of Israel; and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever; they shall be no more brought down into captivity; and the house of Israel shall no more be confounded. And that great pit, which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children, that he might lead away their souls of humans down to hell—yea, that great pit which hath been digged for the destruction of humans shall be filled by those who digged it, unto their utter destruction, saith the Lamb of God; not the destruction of the soul, save it be the casting of it into that hell which hath no end. For behold, this is according to the captivity of the devil, and also according to the justice of God, upon all those who will work wickedness and abomination before him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
“And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me, Nephi saying: Thou hast beheld that if the Gentiles repent it shall be well with them; and thou also knowest concerning the concering the covenants of the Lord unto the house of Israel; and though also hast heard that whoso repenteth not much perish. Therefore, wo be unto the Gentiles if it so be that they harden their hearts against the Lamb of God. For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of humans; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either to be the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the devil, of which I have spoken. And it came to pass that when the Angel has spoke these words, he said unto me: Rememberest thou covenants of the Father unto the house of Israel? I said unto him, Yea And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look, and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
“And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belondeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church , which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the Earth. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the Earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the Earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon the face of the Earth; and their dominions upon the face of the Earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. And it came to pass that I beheld that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitude upon the face of all the Earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the Earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
“And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the Earth. Ans as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the Angel spake unto me, saying: Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold thou seest all these things—and when they day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the Earth, whose founder is the devil, then at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel. And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld a man, and he was dressed in a white robe. And the Angel said unto me: Behold one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Behold, he shall see and write the remainder of these things which have been. And he shall also write concerning the end of the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
“Wherefore, the things which he shall write are just and true; and behold they are written in the book which proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, or, at the time the book proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew, the things which were written were plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all people. And behold, the things which this apostle of the Lamb shall write are many things which thou hast seen; and behold, the remainder shalt thou see. However, the things which thou shalt see hereafter thou shalt not write; for the Lord God hath ordained the apostle of the Lamb of God that he should write them. And also others who have been, to them hat he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel. And I, Nephi, heard and bear record, that the name of the apostle of the Lamb was John, according to the words of the Angel. And behold, I, Nephi, am forbidden that I should write the remainder of the things which I saw and heard; wherefore the things which I have written sufficeth me; and I have written but a small part of the things which I saw. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“And I bear record that I saw the things which my father saw, and the Angel of the Lord did make them known unto me. And now I make an end of speaking concerning the things which I saw while I was carried away in the Spirit; and if all the things which I saw are not written, the things which I have written are true. And thus it is. Amen,” reports 1 Nephi 14.1-30. Pray continually, and in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. Is continual prayer possible? Yes and no. It is, of course, impossible to carry on a running dialogue while we are working or at other times, but the prayer called for here is not so much the articulation of words as the posture of the heart. There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we can be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. However, deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings. The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different cuisines, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
My heart is ever lifted up to God at all times and in all places. In this I am never hindered, much less interrupted, by any person of thing. In retirement or company, in leisure, business, or conversation, my heart is ever with the Lord. Whether I lie down or rise up, God is in all my thoughts; I walk with God continually, having the loving eye of my mind still fixed upon God, and everywhere seeing God that is invisible. Thus, we see that a life of continual prayer is not only possible, but some actually live it out. Understand that this life is not meant just for some, or for a spiritual elite, but for all of us. Continual prayer is God’s will for every Christian, no exceptions. I can do it; you can do it. Business people, students, young parents—all can do it. We are to have a perpetual inner dialogue with God. We must always be looking up, even when driving to work or mowing the lawn. Almighty and everlasting God, be Thou present to our duties, and grant the protection of Thy presence to all that dwell in this house; that Thou mayest be known to be the Defender of Thy family, and the Inhabitant of this dwelling; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and Redeemer, my we be granted entrance into Heaven and always remain at God’s side. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Hear us, holy Lord, Father Almighty, everlasting God, and be pleased to send Thy holy Angel from Heaven, to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all who dwell in this habitation; through Jesus Christ our Lord may all of us be blessed and receive eternal life. O Spirit of God, help my infirmities; when I am pressed down with a load of sorrow, perplexed and knowing not what to do, slandered and persecuted, made to feel the weight of the cross, help me, I pray Thee. If Thou seest in me any wrong thing encouraged, any evil desire cherished, any delight that is not Thy delight, any habit that grieves Thee, any nest of sin in my heart, then grant me the kiss of Thy forgiveness, and teach my feet to talk the way of Thy commandments. Deliver me from carking care, and make me a happy, holy person; help me to walk the separated life with firm and brave step, and to wrestle successfully against weakness; teach me to laud, adore, and magnify Thee, with the music of Heaven, and make me a perfume of praiseful gratitude to Thee. I do not crouch at Thy feet as a slave before a tyrant, but exult before Thee as a child with a father. Give me power to live as Thy child in all my actions, and to exercise family-ship by conquering self. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Preserve me from the intoxication that comes of prosperity; sober me when I am glad with a joy that comes not from Thee. Lead me safely on to the eternal kingdom, not asking whether the road be rough or smooth. I request only to see the face of Him I love, to be very content with bread to eat, with raiment to put on, if I can be brought to Thy house in peace. Then the events of this wide World I would seize like a strong giant, and my spirit teaze till at its shoulders it should proudly see wings to find out an immortality. Stop and consider! Life is but a day; a fragile dew-drop on its perilous way from a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep while his boat hastens to the monstrous steep of Montmorenci. Why so sad a moan? Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown; the reading of an ever-changing tale; the light uplifting of a maiden’s veil; a pigeon tumbling in clear Summer air; a laughing school-boy, without grift or care, riding the springy branches of an elm. O for ten years, that I may overwhelm myself in posey; so I may do the deed that my own soul has to itself decreed. Then will I pass the countries that I see in long perspective, and continually taste their pure fountains. The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one; yet the light of the bright World dies with the dying Sun. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
First the realm I will pass of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass, feed upon apples red, and strawberries, and choose each pleasure that my fancy sees; catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places, to woo sweet kisses from averted faces—play with their finger, touch their shoulders white into a pretty shrinking with a bite as hard as lips can make it: till agreed, a lovely tale of human life we will read. And one will teach a tame dove how it best may fan the cool air gently over my rest; another, bending over her nimble tread, will set a green robe floating round her head, and still will dance with ever varied ease, smiling upon the flowers and the trees: another will entice me on, and on through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon; till in the bosom of a leafy World we rest in silence, like two gems up curled in the recesses of a pearly shell. We beseech Thee, O Lord, make Thy servants always to join together in seeking Thee with their whole heart, to serve Thee with submissive mind, humbly to implore Thy mercy, and perpetually to rejoice in Thy blessings; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Stretch forth, O Lord, Thy mercy over Thy servants, even the right hand of Heavenly help; that they may seek Thee with their whole heart, and obtain what they rightly ask for; thought Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
MILLS STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
2,317 square feet – $475,743
Fully finished two-story home located in the growing Cresleigh Ranch community! This sleek and modern home features a contemporary kitchen with painted white cabinetry, quartz counters, tiled back splash and stainless steel appliances! The open floor plan is full of natural light and durable Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) flooring throughout the main floor. The Master Suite is located on the first floor and has direct access to the covered patio and rear yard. The high ceilings is a must see in this home! Secondary bedrooms and loft are located upstairs. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/move-in-ready-home-site-61/
Watch the Walkthrough of Residence #2
Upon Some Mountain-Top Until I Feel a Glowing Splendour Round About Me Hung!
Cresleigh Homes
Philosophy views the various departments of World-activity from their standpoint as a whole. This rare synthetic outlook, this magnificent breadth of vision, this unique coordination of the entire panorama of life, enables the self-actualized to suggest the wisest courses of action to one’s fellow beings. https://www.hub-folsomapts.com/amenities.aspx
Randolph Harris II International Institute 