Home » stocks (Page 29)
Category Archives: stocks
The Demands of Divine Justice Awaken the Immortal Soul
Pondering takes our thoughts from the trivial things of this World and brings us closer to the gentle, guiding hand of our Maker as we heed the still small voice. We decorate our homes with antiques as a way of capturing soul, and museums are a focal point in our cities because people want to remember vitality. We try to make things and people last forever, but we know that everything has a definite lifespan. That is why opposite tendencies can coexist in us, feelings coexist in us, feelings contradicting each other live together, and what is true and what false can be confused. So much lives in us—wishes and their denials, faith and mistrust, appetites and distastes. They change places so frequently that what is fair becomes foul and what is foul, fair. The more independence we lose, the more torn we become by contradictory urges. Outbursts of anger at family, friends, colleagues, and assistants can take places as some people may resent being rescued as success at ordinary tasks become elusive. However, at the same times they desperately want to be spared their frustrations at not being able to accomplish a project on their own. For many people, to accept help is to miss a chance to prevail, and to go on struggling is taxing and upsetting. We do not want things to die, we do not want life to end, and we are angry if they do—if things no longer function as intended it is an inescapable reminder that everything in the material World is finite. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible. The programming of human concerns as a legitimate scientific endeavor represents the central hope in society. The fundamental principle in care of the soul is that soul needs tending. If we do not tend to things in their erosion of independence, we will take that suffering upon ourselves. Asking for assistance is more complicated than it seems, often evoking a host of conflicted emotions. Some dependent people find the mere act of calling attention to themselves abhorrent. Others can bear this indignity but dislike having to spell out exactly what has to be done on their behalf. Almost all tire of explaining, revealing, and excusing themselves, wish that people would just know what to do and would simply do it without having to be asked or reminded. The best assistance is that which is unobtrusive. Helpers who quietly get things done, rather than announcing their efforts, leave a dependent person’s pride intact. The indebted position is not emphasized, and no mention is made of special accommodations. The fact of vulnerability then recedes into the background, where it can reside without hammering the person’s self-esteem. Thus, we have seen how the emergence of how teaching humans how to once again get in touch with one other is helpful and a necessity. Our Savior knows the heart of each of us. He knows the pains of our hearts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Repeatedly needing to ask for rides, favors, and special adaptations causes many vulnerable people to feel they must ask for nothing on other levels. Some try to compensate by extending themselves in every other way. For example, an attractive housewife had recently moved into a new neighborhood and was desperately anxious to meet her new neighbors because her husband worked all the time. Finally, someone rings the doorbell; it is the next-door neighbor. She thought to herself, “Thank God I just happened to be brewing coffee, because if I were not, the neighbor just might go away and never come back.” For this woman, the coffee helped to fill the void of loneliness, as it was a tool to use to get her neighbors to sit down and chit chat. This woman survives by remaining attuned to what her friends expect in return for their kindness. She carefully maintains the exchanging, watching to see that each of her acquaintances leaves satisfied. She derives pride and security from accurately detecting what each is getting out of helping her and making sure that these rewards continue to satisfy them. Soul is then revealed, as though it had been hidden for years. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Concealment, whether physical or emotional, only produces a lonely form of dignity. The exercise of influence is essential to retaining both vibrancy and self-respect. Unless we exert control over some aspect of our lives, no matter how mundane or seemingly inconsequential, a significant part of our spirit dies. In situations of dependence, power can be reclaimed through many routes. Any strategy that lessens ambiguity restores authority to dependent people. Insisting that people function accord to a schedule is better for their endurance than putting up with long hours of waiting, especially when they are not feeling well. Just as waiting reminds them minute-by-minute of their helplessness, firm plans convey a semblance of their former control over their lives. When dependent people can count on events taking place at a set time, they can anticipate them almost as if autonomy were still in their possession. There is no waiting, no asking, and no infuriating uncertainty. Until they arrive at compromises that allow for both self-assertion and collaboration, dependent people are often drawn back and forth on a confusing pendulum of contradictions. They are never sure how much leaning on others is acceptable and how much effort they should exert in their attempts to overcome obstacles and frustrations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
When they are reduced to their function, things and people suffer. Asking for help has always been difficult for a young woman who has mobility issue. She still feels vivacious, but some mornings can hardly walk across the room—even though she wakes up raring to go. What helps her is, “I remember that I’m a gorgeous dame. This is the price I pay to be alive!” Soul is not about the function, it is about the beauty and form and memory. Care of the World soul, therefore, requires that we see things less for what they can do and more for what they are. If we seek the truth, develop faith in Him, and sincerely repent, we will receive a spiritual change of heart which only comes from our Savior. Our hearts will become new again. If we dwell only on our pain, it will inhibit the healing process. Pondering on things that bring us joy and happiness are very important elements in the healing process for the body and soul. We need to spend our time and energy building our faith by turning to the Lord and asking for strength to overcome the pains and trails of this World and to endure to the end for greater understanding. As we ponder the path of life, we can focus our path on righteousness and feel the spirit direct us. “Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the Earth will honor him,” reports Psalm 67.6-7. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Out of the abundance of the heart and the mouth speak. Today we are keeping careful watch that we think and speak only those things that we wish to broadcast from our minds and returned to us. We desire that everything we think shall be from the hearts as well as from the head. We wish to broadcast kindness and love, and sympathy and understanding, peace and joy. No condemnation, judgment, or fear shall go from us to anyone nor anything. Turning our minds to the divine, we draw into our own souls the essence of everything that is good, true, and beautiful. We draw into our own minds the realization of God and the power of God until our whole beings responds. And this is all we wish to broadcast to the World—something that will help and heal and bless, something that will cause everyone we meet to feel a new strength, a new faith, a new hope. Desiring to receive the divine blessing into our own lives, we wish to broadcast it to the whole Word. Lord, bless and keep us. Make your face to shine up the beautiful World you created. Please be gracious to all of your children. God, lift up your countenance upon the people of this World, and give your faithful peace, both now and forevermore. Resurrection assures us that we will be reunited with our loved ones in the not-too-distant future. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
It is Me Against the World–You Have Been Sentenced to a Life of Pain and Suffering!
We must learn to get our own broadcasting station in order. We must tune our own receiving sets. It may take time and effort, but the goal we seek is worth the journey, and the prize that is offered is worthy of our effort. Heaven is lost only because we lack the idea of harmony; it was destined from the foundation of the World that right should finally win and that love should concur all. We all are spiritual and mental broadcasting stations. There is a silent force flowing from us in every direction at all times. How necessary it is that we assume the role of announcer and the broadcaster. How necessary that we write our own program and deliver it ourselves. It is a law, a vibration which reproduces the word of God, the intonation, the inflections are broadcasted. As we pursue the building of this sure foundation, I am fearful that some of us may have lost sight of our divine responsibility to nurture each other in this process. We cannot force love and respect and admiration. We cannot force faith and testimony of truth. Even though we cannot force those things that matter most, there are ways we can help one another. That is, we can prepare hearts to obtain a deep and abiding testimony that God is the Savior of the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
If things have soul, then they can also suffer and become neurotic: such is the nature of the soul. Care of the soul therefore entails looking out for things, noticing where and how they are suffering, seeing their neuroses, and nursing them back to health. We do not usually concern ourselves with the state of things and tolerate much more ugliness and neglect in the things of our society than we should endure. We do not seem to realize how much our own pain reflect the ailments of our things. There is no separation between out soul and the World soul. If the World is neurotic, we will share in that disorder. If we are depressed, it may be because we are living or working in a depressed building. People impeded by either illness or frailty often feel demeaned by the World around them. Rejections come at them from all directions, from random strangers to providers of medical care. To many, the disabled serve as constant visible reminders to the able-bodies that the society they live in is shot through with inequality and suffering, and that they live in a counterfeit paradise. As God tunes the great musical instruments of creation, on the strings of this great World guitar are angels, humans, and things. We all vibrate sympathetically like different octaves of the same time, our human hearts pulsing in the same rhythms as those of the material and spiritual. World#RandolphHarris 2 of 13
We participate in the fate and condition of our objects, just as they participate in ours. Dignity is a solitary attribute. Other people can detract from it, but we have to replenish it on our own. In situations of physical incapacity, self-possession is maintained by literal holding onto oneself in spite of every possible infringement. A man disabled in a car accident claimed that he learned that it was considered bad form for him to behave like a normal person in certain situations. When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up is not easy. Tasks are given priority over feelings, productivity over kindness. Is the cancer that afflicts our human bodies essentially the same as the cancer we see corroding our cities? Is our personal health and the health of the World one and the same? Many people tend to think that the World is their enemy, that it is full of poisons that attack us, seeding us with illness and death. “It’s just me against the World. Nothin’ to lose. Witnessin’ killings, leavin’ dead bodies in abandoned buildings. More bodies being buried, I’m losing my homes in a hurry, they are relocating to the cemetery. Got me worried stressin’, my vision is blurred. The question is will I live? No one in the World loves me. I’m headed from danger, don’t trust strangers,” reports Tupac Shakur in Me Against the World. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Although the late Tupac Shakur was a young man, many senior citizens and children can relate to him. My friend’s son was afraid to go to school today because of all of the mass shootings he has been hearing about on television news. And the elderly fear leaving their houses. A sixty-six-year-old woman with degenerative arthritis decided to give up leaving her house because on the street she feels like a crippled old lady, a nothing because of how people look away from her. And how the drivers behave, constantly almost running her over with their cars like it is some kind of funny joke to see fright in someone’s eyes as a 2,000 -5,000-pound piece of metal comes close to striking them with a force that could end their lives. Some of them even yell curses. And the lady made up her mind that she is safe and secure in her house. She has plenty to read and a lot to think about. She goes on to say, “If I really want to see what is going on out there, I can look out my windas (windows).” If the World soul and our own souls are one, then as we neglect and abuse the things of the World, we are at the same time abusing ourselves. If we are to attempt to develop a sound practice of ecology, we need to tend to our inner pollutions at the same time, and if we are to attempt to clean up our personal lives through therapy or some other method, we will bed at the same time to tend to the neuroses of the World and to the suffer of people and things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Medical contempt hurts as much as any illness. Amidst pressures to hurry, patients who slow things down are regarded as obstacles. Those who cannot hear or see well or may have issues with mobility, or who ask that information be repeated, or who need to discuss their problems thoroughly are especially dreaded by hurried staff in many medical facilities. When it comes to human life, people need good quality treatment. We only get one body and if serious conditions are overlooked or not treated that person could lose their precious life or suffer an irreversible condition that may impair the quality of their life all because an analysis has a vice, or malicious intentions. No one wants to be held captive and helpless. Care of the soul requires that we have listen and see the World’s suffering. In many American cities, streets and open spaces are littered with abandoned refuse—old tires, appliances, furniture, paper, feces, urine and garbage. Houses are boarded up, windows are smashed, wood is rotting, weeds have grown wild, grass is brown, and trees are dying. We behold such a scene and think, the solution is to solve the problem of poverty. However, why not feel for the things and people themselves. We see things and people in a suffering condition—sick, broken, and dying. This disease before us is our failure in relation to the World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
What is it in us that can allow people and the things of the World to become so distressed and to show so many symptoms without a nursing response from us? What are we doing when we treat people and things so badly? After some people have endure hardships and see how much more life they have to live and what can possibly go wrong, they want to let go to avoid feeling decades more of unnecessary pain. After a serious surgery and a “questionable hemorrhage, which was going to causing him to lose so much blood that he was going to die, this is how one young man responded. “Please, please, get these doctors to listen to me. They are going to transfuse blood into me any minute, blood that I do not want. I do not care where I am bleeding. Why doesn’t anyone listen? I am ready to die. I have had a good life. Now I just want to lie here, in peace. Please, can you make them understand? They keep coming in here and patting me on the arm and telling me it will be all right, but they do not cancel the transfusions. Maybe they will listen to you, a nice young lady, if you tell them for me.” When someone is frightened or in pain, speaking up to this extent is not easy. If a physician talks quickly and uses obscure language, the person is doubly silenced. People whose physical powers are constricted cannot live by American values, which presume that one is able-bodied and independent. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Those who are not self-sufficient cannot control the outcomes of ordinary tasks, let alone their larger undertakings. They dare not invest their self-esteem solely in what they are able to accomplish, and they cannot afford to live for a future that may be more difficult than their present or past. Veronika Decide to Die is a movie about a young lady (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the midst of a struggle. She felt powerless, and had to learn a way to react to all the negative messages around her in order to survive. Proving that she was still strong, capable, and attractive was a message she tried to give to a negative World a dozen times a day. Veronika felt she was stuck in a soul sucking financial job, and she was tired of evolving. She has no personal life and was morbidly depressed. Veronika had expected life to be like a strong whiskey, but felt she was being force fed a weak tea. One day, she took a hand full of pills to end her life, but she woke up in a mental hospital and now had a heart condition. Her botched suicide attempt caused an aneurysm in her heart, and she only had a week left to live. Older people who have retained their good health and full physical capacities often find themselves similarly estranged. By virtue of age, most no longer go along with our culture’s preference for the future over the past, and retirement may have hurtled them into days more focused on being than doing. Watching their peers cope with physical problems, they may regard their self-sufficiency as a perishable privilege. It addition to these pressures, everywhere they look aging itself is scorned. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Deflecting disdain on so many levels at once takes considerable stamina. Instead, many people, older and young, absorb the contempt and begin to despise themselves for no longer being capable to fulfill American values. They shrink themselves down to the size of these degrading expectations, taking on an outer demeanor which constrains their self-expression but which is regarded by others as more acceptable for their age, gender, race, culture or status. Older or disabled people who insist on remaining themselves face an exhausting divergence between who they know themselves to be and how others treat them. They feel drained each time strangers respond to them as if they are discounted or worthless members of society. These individuals are regarded as something alien, a foreign species. While our leaders fight for the rights of illegal immigrants and provide them with lawyers and financial assistance. Destructive reactions, such as the tendency to equate old age or disability with mental deficiency, are surprisingly common, and many people have no place to turn. A well-intention young senator, who is an advocate for illegal immigrants, gave a group of older people a tour around the Senate Chamber. He treated them a little like schoolchildren; explaining the legislative process in words of one syllable and shouting, as if they could not speak any English. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Finally, turning to one of the group, the Senator asked, “And what used you to be?” The old man fixed an evil eye on him and replied, “I still am.” Self-preservation can sometimes be accomplished in a sentence. Usually, however, the struggle is more protracted and the feelings that are aroused cannot be handled so succinctly. Repeatedly treated as simple-minded, many people begin to question their intelligence and competence. So little regard reaches older and disabled people from the outside World that their inner stores of confidence may slowly become depleted. Far more is involved than what occurs at the given moment of an encounter when elderly or disabled individuals meet the able-bodied every day. It is a history of learned inferiority. Aged and disabled people must constantly find ways to override other people’s inability to see them. Labels often prevent us from seeing beauty. Much like the trashed-out areas of our cities, the billboards, the thoughtless destruction of buildings that have memory and a long past, and the construction of cheap housing and commercial buildings—these and countless other soulless ways of dealing with things and people indicate anger, a rage at the World itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
When our citizens spray-paint a trolley or subway or a bridge or a sidewalk, or the side of a historical building, clearly they are not just angry at society. They are raging at the things of the Word, we have to find some insight into this anger, because at a certain level those people who are desecrating our public places are doing a job for us. We are implicated in their acting out. Why does our culture seem so angry at things and people? Why do we take out our frustrations upon the very things that could potentially make our World into a satisfying and comforting home? One answer is may be that when we are cut off from soul and its sensitivity to get great spans of time and even timeless elements, we long painfully for an ideal future and for immortality. Things have a different lifespan than humans; they can outlast many generations. Historical buildings remind us of a past we were not part of. Those past times represent our desire for immortality. If our life efforts are directed toward making a new World, toward growth and constant improvement, then the past will be the enemy, a reminder of death. Concentration on growth and change erodes appreciation for the eternal realities, those parts of the self that transcend the limits ignorance. However, the soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it thrives on the stories and vestiges of what has been. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Our history, like many elder and disabled people, youth, and other vulnerable groups, hold fiercely to our remaining capacities. For society, and each and every person, there is a limit to the amount of surrender we are able to countenance without losing ourselves. Acts of self-assertion do not have to be monumental to be vitalizing. One of the powers of soul, is a vision of life that embraces past, presence, and future in a way that transcends ordinary awareness. A soul of sensibility awakens an appreciation for old ways and ancient wisdom, for buildings that hold in their architecture and design the tastes and style of another era. Soul loves the past and does not merely learn from history, it feeds on the stories and vestiges of what was. We are also so angry at things and people that we feel no longer serves us. Abusing things and people is no way to have power over anything, it is actually a way of displaying that you are helpless and weak. Many of the rusting objects and rotting builds decorated with graffiti that pollute our city streets are outmoded or no longer functioning tools. If we define a thing or people only in terms of their function, when they no longer function the way we would like, or refuse to, we have no feeling for them. We discard them without a proper burial. And yet, old things and people who have been through tremendous struggles eventually reveal that they hold a great deal of soul. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Our history and people and bits of evidence of past times seem literally to glow with soul. Do not be afraid to talk to God, as he is the oldest soul maker in the World. Always remember that God speaks a certain kind of language and there is nothing negative in it. We believe in prayerful, affirmative life above anything else. We believe in actually talking to God and then letting God answer. God is unquestionably transcendent. He is wholly other than the World he made. God is the pure and unsullied Mind of the Universe, transcending virtue, transcending knowledge, transcending the good itself. God is the World’s prime mover. God is beyond thought and being. God is an independently existing entity. God will always respond to us. We shall always receive the comfort and consolation we need, the inward sense of security and well-being that everyone must have to be happy and whole. Let us find a new wavelength for our mental instruments, and as surely as we do this we shall begin to broadcast on this wavelength. We shall discover that we are not only helping ourselves, but we are helping everyone around us. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
First of all, we must be sure that we are right inside, and then learn to trust ourselves because we have faith in God. Let us tune our mental instruments to success and happiness, to the idea of physical wholeness, and above everything else to the comforting thought that there is a love in the Universe which by its very presence dissolves all hate; there is a faith that neutralizes all fear; there is a confidence that brushes aside every doubt. God never deserts us, and we shall never have to convince God to be Good. All we have to do is reverse our whole mental and spiritual outlook on life and then the miracle will take place, because what goes out must return. We live in an intense reality. Somewhere along our journey in the mortal World, we must find a faith greater than all our doubts and fears and uncertainties. Somewhere along the line we must find a love greater than all animosity. And we must find a peace beyond our confusion. This is the pathway that we are all seeking, whether or not we know it, and we are being guided by a loving intelligence which evermore seeks to being us peace and comfort, cheer and good-will, happiness and success, healthy and abundance. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
The Soul Exists Beyond Our Personal Circumstances and Conceptions
The soul exists beyond our personal circumstances and conceptions. There is a dimension to human dialogue that is more subtle and often quite difficult to recognize. For if dialogue can grow, it can also deteriorate, slowly and subtly, to the point where an individual can be trapped in a totally impoverished relationship without even being able to recognize what happened or why. The process is very similar to the way the body grows and ages, on a day-to-day basis, without any visible change. The very fact that a person can tolerate deteriorated dialogue and sometimes even encourage it is something that we would often prefer to deny, for reflecting on the implications is not pleasant. In situations where there is an erosion or dissolution, there is only one kind of success: the ability to draw others to us rather than drive them away. Dependency has its own rules of conduct and its own route to mastery. Under the pressure of this necessity, many people change more deeply than ever before in their lives. Since dialogue involves reciprocal sharing with other human beings, its deterioration must also be reciprocal, and each person must share part of the responsibility. An individual can only receive to the extent that one gives, and, in that sense, dialogue is mirror of this personality. Exposing vulnerability is a reflexive process: the more of ourselves we reveal to others, the more of ourselves we reveal to others, the more others tend to reveal of themselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Some people come off with a very authoritarian style of behavior and that can be so hurtful that it will wear out the good will of one’s associates. Understanding the life-threatening nature of the lack of dialogue makes it easier to comprehend the radical, often aggressive manner in which many people flee from situations of deteriorated dialogue. Sometimes individuals who have been married for years suddenly up and leave without warning, to live with another person. However, our personality styles are not as frozen as we might think. When an individual drops their hard façade after he or she finds out that one has pushed one’s situation to the limit and are left with no other means of fending off abandonment, their worst dread. Treating our friends and family and spouses with courtesy and respect will serve as a lifeline and could later strike an individual as a revelation. Our faults tend to get worse before they can get better. If self-centered people do not change as they get older, the result is an increasing sense of vulnerability that transforms the normal losses and changes of aging into insults, outrages, and terrors. Some people may that being with a self-centered person is a lot like being choked to death in their current environment, that their very existence is being threatened. Dialogue had deteriorated below a certain critical threshold, until one of the partners can no longer tolerate the isolation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Through the ravages of dependency, many emerge transformed because they have no other choice. They reach the point where they are both appalled by themselves and afraid that they will be left alone. There are only two ways in which it is possible to get rid of anger, worry, fear, despair, or the other undesirable affections. One is that an opposite affection should overpoweringly break over us, and the other is by getting so exhausted with the struggle that we have to stop—so we drop down, give up, and do not care any longer. Out of this emptiness, we derive a readiness for the arrival of a new self. The exhaustion of the lower and the entrance of the higher emotions are often simultaneous. Some people may not be doing anything else but pour out all their grievances, endlessly repeated. They may not make confessions about their injustices of which they have been a victim, but of the things for which he or she blames oneself. We may feel overwhelmed. As we listen, an immense tenderness may invade our hearts because we see the person who has been going through turmoil visibly transform. Their crabbed features may gradually unbend, lighting up, becoming beautiful. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Conversations are accelerated by conversations, a combination of speaking and being heard, expression and reception. Humility in the conversation is one’s frank acceptance of all experiences, just as love in the relationship is simply the sense of beauty that reveals to the World its body and its soul. Attending a Roman Catholic Mass, people are often struck by the translation of ancient prayers they know well from the antiquated days, when the Mass was sung in Latin. “Lord, only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” We no longer make a distinction between soul and self. It could be tempting to place the idea of care of the soul in the category of self-improvement. However, the soul has an infinite depth of a person and of a society, compromising all the many mysterious aspects that go together to make up our identity. Sometimes when we listen to an individual and say very little, it allows the other person’s presence and tender response that would not have known what it is to be perceived as beautiful. Whether through prayer or a human-to-human exchange, we turn painful discoveries into new growth when our efforts are witnessed and appreciated, rather than expended in isolation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Our souls, the mystery we glimpse when we look deeply into ourselves, is part of a larger soul, the soul of the World. This World and soul affects each individual thing, whether natural or human-made. You have a soul, the trees in the forest have a soul, and even our cars have a soul. Most unsettled by deterioration or an erosion of independence are those who have spent their adulthood shunning close relationships. Maturation mandates contact with others, often in physically intimate ways and with a frequency that permits little concealment. When such people are forced to depend on others for their survival, they are thrust into the very aspect of life that once brought them their greatest hurt and disappointment. By revisiting early sources of pain, we finally allow for their revision. Overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward other people and life can be corrected only be reconsidering the situation n which the faulty interpretation was made. People generally do not attempt this kind of reexamination without some social pressure or without finding that they have no other options. They may be drained financially; often they are cut off from their own children and their social circle; their careers are placed in jeopardy and sometimes ruined; material possessions that they have slaved for years are quickly cast aside. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
People often wake up to reality when they are sick because the central threat is to the individual’s very existence, their humanity. Life is dialogue, and when the idea of being left alone crashes over the individual like a tidal wave, it is a major threat to life, as is readily verified in health statistics. People hate being so weak. When an individual cannot lift a laundry basket without getting chest pain, they realize they need intimate relationships. They want people to bring them pies and kid around with them. A world of needs exists in addition to our own. Many people cannot give credence to the needs and sufferings of others until they have been helpless themselves. Those who are cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others may nevertheless learn that it is in their best interest to be of assistance to others, if only because they realize that someday they may need such help themselves. The shell of some have built around their emotions melts, and their defenses—a wall built of humor, acerbity, and cynicism—falls before a welling of emotion that is a total departure from one’s usual state of mind. Sharpe edges of themselves become porous and weak. People can reach into their soul more easily, and they, in turn, become more compassionate. After enlightenment, people do not set hard borders around their identity; they are suffused with a kind of peacefulness, almost a sense of joy. It may all seem very strange. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
To the modern person who may think of the psyche as a chemical apparatus, the body as a machine, and the manufactured World as a marvel of human brainpower and technology, the idea of the soul might seem strange indeed. The best some forms of psychology can do with our occasional intuitive sensation that all things are alive is to explain the phenomenon as projections, the unconscious endowment of human fantasy onto an inanimate object. After losing both of his parents at a young age, a young man suppressed his own needs in order to devote himself to caring for his younger siblings. He then maintained this self-containment long into his adult life. It was not until he had a vulnerable moment so many years later he allowed other people to take care of himself and see into him. It is quite a different approach for individuals who are used to being strong and independent to allow things themselves to have vitality and personality. In this sense, care of the soul is a step outside the paradigm of modernism, into something entirely different. Our own position changes when we grant the World its soul. Then, as the things of the World present themselves vividly, we watch and listen. We respect them because we are not their creator and controller. They have as much personality and independence as we do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
After we spend our lives focusing on externals, and regard anything else as idle daydreaming our perspectives change as we mature. When externals are applied to the stretch of life that lays ahead of us when we are aging, in old age, facing serious ailments which we may not recover from, the possibility of dying and the possible World beyond leaves us absolutely nothing. The inner landscape, once it is really discovered and lived in, is aglow. When we discuss concerns that we never have verbalized during our active business careers: feelings of vulnerability and fear, and questions about the value of what we have done with our lives it offers hope. Gradually, we can become dedicated to helping others make the shift from external to internal reverence. The thing that happens when we pray aright is simple. We create an attitude of complete acceptance in our own minds. When we do this, the Law of God, which is all powerful, begins to operate on this acceptance and begins to rearrange all the facts and activities of our lives in such a way that we have accepted will actually transpire in our experience. How wonderful to realize that at last we have located the divine presence at the only place we could recognize it—within ourselves, within everything. And how wonderful it is to know that at least we have reached our goal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
The Kingdom of God is in the Human Atom
When we allow the great possibilities of life to enter into us, and when we embrace them, then we are most individual. The parts of ourselves that we neglect lie in wait for us, like an accusation. More than any other influence, ailments foster our recognition of unlived life. We become detached from the life we had been living and see its presumptions. However, sometimes the only thing to do is to be where we are at this moment, looking about in the full light of consciousness, other times standing comfortably in the deep shadows of mystery and the unknown. The transformations achieved by people facing serious medical conditions or advanced age tend to be far more dramatic than those attained by people still caught up in the business of living a full life. Weakness in itself is an intense experience and brings with it new life. The very constraints that challenges impose compel us to confront what is incomplete in ourselves. However, in many cases, it is not beneficial to think about how we used to be and the thing we used to be able to do, as that might cause unnecessary stress and make an individual sad. The fact is, the people with medical issues and some who are of advanced age cannot do what we once were able to. Therefore, we have to learn to accept ourselves as we are as we continue on life’s journey. How we live now, what our attitudes are toward living, growing, and aging, will be the most influential factors in determining how we progress in life. Peace of conscience relates to our inner self and is controlled by what we personally do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
When our life changes, we have time and the impulsion to face ourselves. Peace of conscience is the essential ingredient to your peace of mind. Taking about a half and hour a day in complete solitude, with no outside interruption, can be essential for a new beginning. The soul path is marked by neurotic tendencies as well as by high ideals, by ignorance as well as by knowledge, and by daily incarnated life as well as by high levels of consciousness. Therefore, when we call up a friend to talk about the latest mess that has come into our lives, we are tending another turn in our personal frustrations. The soul becomes greater and deeper through the living out of the messes and the frustrations, as we rediscover our faith. It is okay to sometimes let go of the pursuit of perfection. It is also important to realize that we cannot exhort others into our level of awareness, sometimes it is impossible to induce them away from the concerns to which they are attached. Words alone cannot instigate such breakthroughs. In many cases, dire events are what most people have to experience because these events hasten the process of discovery more than all the reasoning and analysis any of us can gather. Realizations that take years to achieve in psychotherapy can happen in hours in a hospital bed. When people go through emptiness, it precedes significant change. The individual hard at work in the process of soul-making is becoming a microcosm, a human World. Peace of conscience can come only from God through a righteous, obedient life. It cannot exist otherwise. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Over a lifetime, however long or short, cosmic humanity and the spiritual ideal are revealed in human flesh, in various degrees of imperfection. Until an aliment persuades us that time is running out, we may employ a variety of justifications for putting off what we really want to accomplish. Remaining for years in a stifling job or hiding in bitterness from intimate relationships are versions of oblivion as potent as many addictions. Gradually, our expended years become so numerous that we can no longer excuse them as a prelude to the real content of our lives. Physical limitations finally compel us to confront the difference between the life we had hoped to live and the way we are actually living. We can no longer reassure ourselves that someday we will accomplish what we have been deferring. And it is not a good idea to call your aspirations a bucket list. Still look at them as goals and dreams, and know that they can still be within reach, and that you still have a chance for a recovery and to live beyond your projected age. No one can give us back the days we spend stressing and being distressed. No one wants to look back and regret wasted years. Be grateful for every clear-headed day that God blesses us with. A tranquil conscience invites freedom and provides a foundation for happiness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. In times of increasing uncertainty, instead of ruminating over lost opportunities, our task is to recognize what we can still attain and which parts of ourselves can still be recovered. As we become transparent, revealed for exactly who we are and not who we wish to be, then the mystery of human life as a whole, glistens momentarily in a flash of incarnation. Everything we once took for granted might become precious. Spirituality emanates from the ordinariness of this human life made transparent by lifelong tending to its nature and fate. The path of the soul will not allow concealment of the shadow without unfortunate consequences. We do not achieve the goal of enlightenment, at the core of our hearts, without letting all of human passion into the fray. It takes a lot of material, alchemically, to produce the refinement of our goals. However, if we can tolerate the full weight of human possibility as the raw material for an alchemical, soulful life, then at the end of the path we may have a vision within ourselves standing nobly in our soul, which marks the eons of time in our own lifespan. Then our soul, care for in courage, will be solid, so weathered and mysterious, and that divinity will emanate from our very being. We will have the spiritual radiance of one who has had a rapid change in life perspective and a realignment of life’s priorities. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Spiritual life does not truly advance by being separated either from the soul or from its intimacy with life. The ultimate married of spirit and soul is the wedding of Heaven and Earth, our highest ideals and ambitions united with our symptoms and complaints. Healing of the body also calls for an adjustment of mental and emotional statues, along with introducing spiritual values. Today most physicians recognize the power of thought in relations to the body. All realize the dynamic energy of the emotions. There is also an added comfort in the mind of an individual when one knows that he or she is having proper physical care, proper diet, exercise, and right medical and surgical attention when necessary. The person’s mind is in a more composed state, and this enables the person to heal and live a higher quality life. If a person must undergo a serious physical operation, what is more important than that one’s mind be at peace? This alone would reduce the element of risk. Let us do all that we can to remove superstition, intolerance, and bigotry, which are the result of ignorance. All should unite not only to alleviate physical suffering, but insofar as possible to remove it cause. If much of this cause lies hidden in the realm of mind, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of the mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
God is a God of love and intelligence. As conversation matures and is sustained through the workings of the Holy Ghost, peace and healing come to the soul. There is but one final power and presence in the Universe, which is good; and there is but one final impulsion in the Universe, which is love. It is only through love that we find the presence in its greatness and can use the power in its fullness. The next thing we discover is that, having come to realize that love alone opens the doorway to the secret chamber, we should realize that this power must be used affirmatively. We cannot use it while we deny it. We cannot use it while our minds are filled with doubts and uncertainties about it. Love is a feeling. Faith tis the key to use this feeling. Love has nothing in it that could hurt anything; faith has nothing in it that can deny any good. This is the starting point; a love that cannot hurt and a faith that will not be denied. Total peace and healing come only through full conversion of the soul. As our souls become healed, we will find peace within ourselves. Some have even experienced the miracle of the Atonement to the degree that they can neither remember the pains from their sins nor feel guilt because the healing of their souls is so complete. It is a cleansing experience both to the mind and the heart. The creative power of the Kingdom of God is in the human atom, in your life, and in mine. Joy replaces bitterness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
It is the use of this power that we are interested in because there is a possibility here beyond our fondest dreams and our highest hopes—the possibility of knowing the truth that can set us free from fear and want and limitation. And, the Bible tells us, finally from death itself. Isaiah 25.8 reports, “God will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and he will remove the reproach of his people from all the Earth; for the Lord has spoken.” We must realize that the Power exists and that it operates from the center of our own being, in our own minds; we must approach it in love. We should take certain definite times every day to recognize the divine presence within us and around us. God is the only power and only presence there is, and God is right where we are. We live and move and have our being in God. God’s being moves through us and manifests itself in what we are doing. “And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days,” reports Mosiah 5.2,5. It is through this total conversion experience that we truly come to personally know and feel the character and greatness of God. It is the means whereby we become not only servants of the Lord, but his friends as well. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
We Are All Children of God
We all have life events that, when we recall them years later, acquire new and important meaning. The words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart. I remember my father stretched out by the fireplace, reading the scriptures and other good books, and I would stretch out by his side. I would remember the quotes of the scriptures and from Shakespeare that he and I would memorize. “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. Let never day nor night unhallowed pass, but still remember what the Lord hath done,” says William Shakespeare. Faith comes not only from the spiritual life and from high revelations, it also comes as an emanation from the depths, a starkly personal reality from the most sacred place. In the midst of everyday struggle, we hope for enlightenment and some kind of release. In our prayer, we hope for a fulfilling ordinary life. A mystical wedding, a divine union. For the marriage to take place, each has to learn to appreciate the other and to be affected by the other—spirit’s lofty aims tempered by the soul’s limitations, soul’s unconsciousness stirred by ideas and imagination. The movement toward this union is something to be attempted, worked, and traveled. That is the very idea of soul-making. Soul-making is a journey that takes time, effort, skill, knowledge, intuition, and courage. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
As we reflect on this process, it is helpful to know that all work with soul is process—alchemy, pilgrimage, and adventure—so that we do not expect instant success or even any kind of finality. All goals and all endings are heuristic, important in their being imagined, but never literally fulfilled. In spiritual literature the path to God or to perfection is often depicted as an ascent. It may be done in stages, but the goal is apparent, the direction fixed, and the way direct. Images of the soul’s path, as we have seen, are quite different. Textures, places, and personalities are important on the soul path, which feels more like an initiation into multiplicity of life than a single-minded focus upon enlightenment. As the soul makes its unsteady way, delayed by obstacles and distracted by all kinds of charms, aimlessness is not overcome. This is the goal of the soul path—to feel existence; not to overcome life’s struggles and anxieties, but to know first hand, to exist fully in context. We can proceed with the assurance that God will never leave us alone. God never gives us a responsibility without offering divine assistance. May we in our divine role as parents, and in partnership with God, become the prime gospel teachers and examples for our children. How we love you and pray constantly for the genius to help you. Your lives are filled with difficult decisions and with dreams and hopes and longings to find that which will bring you peace and happiness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
All people are born with a predetermined desire to life, to come to self-fulfillment through love and accomplishment, and to live creatively. A healthy happy baby is the joy of any parent. We are told from birth, and prenatally, the infant should be surrounded by an atmosphere of love and attention. Whether it is a baby boy or a baby girl, the fun and happiness of having a little one cannot be matched with anything else. Babies bring a lot of love and laughter into your life, together with a sense of purpose and meaning. There is an unexplainable happiness that can never be equaled by anything in the World. Of course, the infant does not reason these things out; it merely feels them. This feeling is born with the infant; it is put there by nature. However, this experience also comes with a responsibility which some may find overwhelming. The infant born into a home where it is unwanted feels an unconscious repulsion, a place void of spirit and dominated by utter hopelessness; everything in its life becomes conditioned by this feeling. Often such infants shrink from the very touch of the hand. This is why many hospitals now place the babe beside the mother where she may reach and cuddle it, which allows the baby and mother to discover a new brand of spirituality, and an uncovered profound peace. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The whole atmosphere of the home should be one of wanting and needing and loving the infant. Otherwise the emotional reaction of the infant is that it is not wanted, needed, or loved. The baby has an emotional craving for finding a love object, and this is early conditioning which is a great influence throughout life, because these are the first impressions the infant receives. This law of our emotional being. The infant should be welcomed at the time of birth as though it were a gift from Heaven, a gift of God, an offering of love to humanity, the greatest treasure on Earth, and the hope for the future. The infant should be held not only by its mother, but also in its father’s arms. There is no danger of spoiling the child through love. Quite the reverse. The future life of the infant may be wounded without love. Therefore, it is better to have no children than to have those who are unwanted and unloved. Parents assume a tremendous obligation when they permit themselves to have children. From the earliest point of conception there should be preparation in the patents’ minds, an atmosphere of thinking, feeling, and longing for the new birth. There should be definite, daily prayers centered around the idea that the child is conceived in love and welcomes with joy. Such prayer will relieve tensions and assist nature in making the birth normal, natural, and easy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
There must be no confusion nor stress. Everything should flow along with a calm and delightful expectation of wonderful things that are going to happen. The mother should feel that she is carrying a divine treasure, the highest gift of life. She should daily sense that the formation of this pearl into a perfect being, and always with a great tenderness in her heart and mind. The father should have the same mental attitude, for he is a part of the mental and emotional family life and without him the child could not be born. Some part of the father enters into this birth since he is an instrument of nature in its accomplishment. The child must feel itself to be a part of the family life. That means we cannot harshly reject out children as if they were of no importance. The counsel of children should be sought by parents, that they may feel a community of interest and spirit, for they are working out the family life together. They all are now some part of it. When another child is born, the older one or ones should feel that they too are playing an important part in the birth. The new babe has not come to take their place in the affections of the parents, but rather that they all may enjoy it together. This is of vital importance. Too often this process is reversed and the older ones feel something is taking their place. With this inward feeling comes the unconscious sense of antagonism toward the newcomer. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
We need to remind ourselves about the value of our heritage so we do not underestimate its worth. All of this, too, must be take up in quiet prayer, in spiritual unification of the family life. If these two fundamental needs are fulfilled the child will be conditioned early in life to meet anything that may come up in its experience. This is why people who speak with authority on the subject maintain that these early formative years are of vital importance. To show how this is, there are cases on record in which an unconscious resentment of the wife to the husband centers in the child, babes have been known to suffer with continual diarrhea when this unconscious treatment exists. It is known too that in early life children often have attacks of asthma in order to gain the notice, affection, and care of the parents. This is why we must introduce the idea of spiritual values, the deep inward feeling that the family is a household of God, a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth in which the parents are seeking to play the role of Heavenly Father. Everyone is in a partnership with life, with love, with God, with truth, with beauty. We are all rooted in the divine spirit, in perfect life. We are all children of God. If we walk in his paths with the guidance of his commandments, God will not forsake us. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Trust God and Feel Secure in His Loving Care
One feels a threat to the soul in a runaway spirit, but real harm can be done by a fearful hanging on to a soaring spirit and weighing it down too much with a heavy sense of Earthly responsibility. Part of preparing spirit for marriage with soul is to let spirit fly and find its airborne pleasures. As along as we desire to fulfill the will of God and have any hankering after eternity and God, we have to let the spirit find its own level. What does it mean to stand as a witness of God? It means we will not bow down or give in or be persuaded to do anything contrary to God’s will. It means we will speak up when our knees are shaking. It means we will listen and follow their still, small but powerful voice of the Holy Ghost. Everything should flow along with a calm and delightful expectation of wonderful things that are going to happen. When we know him, we can be a witness for God and trust him and feel secure in his loving care. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
There are no new nor easy ways we earn a relationship. It is the antiquated, the tried-and-true-always works ways: scripture study, prayer, and living those things we learn through our study and prayers. As we read the scriptures, we become acquainted with what our Father in Heaven wants for his children and how God continually reaches out to sustain and bless and forgive us. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord, your God is giving you (Exodus 20.12).” Acceptance of our parents tends to culminate when we mature, when our circumstances are most humbling and our view of ourselves encompasses the full import of our past. For many people, as their physical powers decline, many of their adaptions and concessions are not visible to others. One by one, they exchange their standards of dignity for necessary security, but those who assist them may have no idea of their inner sacrifices the compromises they make entail. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
On the surface, their actions may appear to be foolish or obstinate, especially as we they resist sensible offers of help and hold back as long as they can from each successive loss of autonomy. Much of what seemed unreasonable at the time that we took care of our parents may suddenly make sense when they get closer to the end of their lives. The spirit is so charged with the desire to flee the complexity of the labyrinth of material life that our parents pass away twice: first while they are overcome by their ailment and we know they have a limited amount of time on Earth, and again when the moment comes that they actually pass away into Heaven. During and after this process, we lie in bed alone, and the past rises like a white squall, rocking and socking our ship, over and over, drenching us with memories we cannot handle. As we watch our parent pas away, we recount detailed memories of their last days. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Specific scenes and conversations come back to us with extraordinary vividness, triggered by our own experience of helplessness that there was nothing we can do to prolong their lives. We may recall favors we were too tired to perform, favourite foods we may have enjoyed together, and the kind moments we shared with them. Many have no idea what loneliness really is, until they experience this. Once their power slips, we understand how raw life can get. We realize how deeply even our misdirected efforts must have been appreciated, and what a large difference our small acts of kindness must have made. People who are passing away say they feel like their body could self-destruct at any second and there is nothing they can do about it. They feel helpless, cheated, and terrified, even if they have made peace with life. As hard as it is on the dying parent, it can also be hard on the children who had no idea their parent was silently suffering and near passing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
And when we get sick, we relive the period during which our parents were in the same position, but the difference is we know we will recover and this is probably what helps us heal and inspires us to recover. When one attains an acceptance of one’s own and only life cycle and a new differ lobe of one’s parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, full spiritual health arises. We also realize how our parents must have been yearning to participate in our young lives. Anyone can turn to religion or spiritual practices as a way out of the twists and turns of ordinary living. We feel the confinement, the humdrum of the everyday, and we hope for a way to transcend it all. We want some of that open sky for ourselves, some relief from trials and tribulations on Earth. The vertical movement of the spiritual life is not only freeing, it is also inspiring and, of course, inflating. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
The feeling of superiority it gives seems worth most of the Worldly deprivations required. We might get a glimpse of wondrous sights hidden to ordinary vision, but we will also be changed by good fortune. Faith is a gift of spirit that allows the soul to remain attached to its own unfolding. When faith is soulful, it is always planted in the soil of wonder and questioning. It is not a defensive and anxious holding on to certain objects of belief, because doubt, as its shadow, can be brought into a faith that is fully mature. Imagine a trust in yourself, or in another person, or in life itself, that does not need to be proved and demonstrated, that is able to contain uncertainty. People sometimes put their trust in a spiritual leader and are terribly betrayed if that person then fails to live up to ideals. However, a real trust of faith would be to decide whether to trust someone, knowing that betrayal is inevitable because life and personality are never without shadow. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The vulnerability that faith demands could then be marched by an equal trust in oneself, the feeling that one can survive the pain of betrayal. When we pray for personal guidance, our Father in Heaven knows what it in our heart, but he wants us to tell him of our hopes and dreams and needs. Only when we speak with certainty that, indeed, we do want to be a witness will we know what we are going to about it. We have to let God speak to us and let the sacrament take on deeper meaning. Here these familiar words: “And witness unto thee, God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them (D&C 20.77).” We can verbalize our faith for a lifetime, but it is incomplete without a response. (The word response, by the way, is related to a Greek word that means “to pout a liberation to God.”) To respond trustingly to the challenges of life and to the stirring of the soul’s waters is to bring faith to completion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Standing as a witness means that we know with certainty that we want to do what is right and to let the consequence follow. To stand means we remain firm and immovable, even when (or especially when) we are the smallest or the youngest or the last one standing. We may be the means for holding up others. We have to be strong! Witnessing is showing by our behavior what we believe, and that can start in our own families. We can be confident and powerful as a witness of God. Do not compromise. We cannot compromise. Pay attention to those around you who give you courage and strength. Everyone is in partnership with life, with love, with God, with truth, and with beauty. To rear a family without some spiritual concept that is adequate, whatever religious form it may take, is going to contrary to the first Law of our being, which is that we are all rooted in the divine spirit, in perfect life. We are all children of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
God is Looking for People Who Have Faith that is Demonstrated
No one lives without accumulating stories. Many things in life offer useful guidance toward finding spiritual values in the World. The spirituality of a place might be marked with a well or drawing on the ground, or a monument, like a castle or mansion. When we place markers on historical battlefields or on houses where our ancestors were born, or where significant historical figures lives, we are performing a genuine spiritual act. We are honoring the special spirit that is attached to a particular place. Family is also a source and focus of spirituality. In many traditions a home shrine and special photographs honor family members. Rites of family gatherings, visits, storytelling, photographs albums, keepsakes, and even tapes of elderly relatives recording their recollections can be spiritual acts that nourish the soul. “The final state of the soul is to dwell with God or be cast out (1 Nephi 15.35).” The opportunity to voice memories to a person who both cares and understands is the most satisfying kind of completion. Story-telling is therefore far more valuable than it may seem. Realizing that such stories allow us to make an ending and find worth in the past elevates remembering and listening to their actual stature. We widen our solitudes by esteeming our memories and making use of them, instead of guarding them in a secret chess, disregarding them, or keeping them to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Action and speech are indeed the two activities whose end result will always be a story with enough coherence to be told. The most important and challenging way to honor our ancestors is to fulfill our personal and potential life’s purpose here on Earth. It can take a lifetime to know our parents in their full humanness. As we get older, our respect for our parents’ achievements increases, as does our sympathy for their disappointments and letdowns. The more our own lives twist in unexpected and humbling directions, the more we realize that our parents had been similarly buffeted. We become our parents’ retrospective peers, seeing more of them as we attain each decade. To be fully understood, vulnerability has to be lived rather than merely witnessed. It is not easy to imagine that one’s own body, which is so fresh and often so full of pleasant feelings could slow down, become tired, and may not be as agile as it once was. One cannot imagine it and, in the end, one does not want to. Many of the realizations that rush upon us as we mature are simply not attainable earlier in life. When our parents need our help prior to passing into Heaven, the period after they pass away, and the time of life when we ourselves are weak and near passing, changes our perspective on life and what we scrutinize. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Indeed, it is this period of the relationship that is perhaps the most difficult and, at the same time, the most significant. However, knowing that there is a God who strongly protects against intrusion and violation might help nurture that spirit in our own lives and honor it in others. We may discover that there are ways to be spiritual that do not counter the soul’s needs for body, individuality, imagination, and exploration. Eventually, we might find that all emotions, all human activities, and all spheres of life have deep roots in the mysteries of the soul, and therefore are holy. As children, the chief illusion we project upon our parents are that they know what they are doing and that they have control over what happens. It does not occur to us that what appears to be inflexibility may actually be a cover for confusion, or what comes out of anger may stem from stress, or what seems to be neglect and a lack of concern may be the consequence of depression. If we allow them to account for themselves and to acknowledge the extent to which their actions stemmed from their own weaknesses, all of this can make sense later. The more hurtfully our parents treated us as children, the more crucial it is for us to try to ascertain the wounds of their upbringing. Otherwise, their weaknesses become holes into which we pointlessly pour or resentment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Everyone of their failures has a story behind it, a history which has been carried forward and re-expressed rising out of a collective need for stronger union between the human and the divine. Exploring the implications of the soul allows us to learn our parents’ history and to see them as people, rather than to react blindly against them and risk replicating their hurts in our own lives. Turing the furor of our reactions into a reasonable quest for understanding is made easier when we are granted full access to our parents’ histories. Formal teachings, rites, and stories of religions provide an inexhaustible source of reflection on the mysteries of the soul. While listening to our mother or father, we might find ourselves standing in the powerful, streaming currents of time and fate. This may represent the stream of events and persons in which the individual finds one’s place. No one lives without making mistakes and incurring regrets, yet we all hope to be worthy of regard in the end. We learn from these formal sources how to understand and deal with the soul in special circumstances, and also how to understand similar images when they appear in dreams. We all hope that our parents survive into extended old age. Many cultures maintain that we each have a unique destiny to fulfill. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It is nice to have many generations in families being alive at the same time, leading to new opportunities for reworking and repairing relations between parents and children. This will also further the collective growth and maturation in the spirit realms. We are all children of parents, yet the ability to picture our parents as children can easily elude us. Like nothing else, such glimpses across generations permits us to comprehend those who shaped us and ultimately ourselves. We must find our soul’s purpose as an ethical and loving person. The ancestors are seen as allies in this process of remembering and a reservoir of power and backing to help us embody our potential in this lifetime. Conversely, when we have lost touch with a sense of greater purpose, if we are fortunate, the ancestors may bring about life changes aimed to guide us into greater contact with our soul’s longing and increased awareness of the agreements made before our birth. This may be an inspiring metaphor of the willingness to step courageously into the river of existence, instead of finding ways to remain safe, dry, and unaffected. The notion of reciprocity, of being helped and then helping in return, appeals to our basic requirement for balance and order. When children watch their parents take time out of their bust lives to help their parents, they learn that devotion can persist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Children should realize that if they regret the longevity of their parents, they will actually be regretting their own future longevity. As we get to know our parents better, we have new opportunities for correcting old misconceptions. One young man was shocked by something his father did. His father never let anyone near his checkbook. However, he got a really bad trimmer in his hand, but still insisted on paying all his bills himself. One day, out of the blue, he called his son up and asked him to come over to help him write out checks. The son could not believe it. He was incredibly nervous when he sat down next to him to do it. Although he handles million-dollar budgets for his company, his hand also started to shake because he was so honored to help his father with his precious checkbook, as it was a bonding experience. In a way, the father was allowing his son to participate in the ritual of becoming the man of the house. His father’s trust was sweeter to this son than his achievement in the corporate World. Also, the father had the opportunity to see how important he was in his son’s life, despite his son’s having garnered every external success. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Extending leniency to our parents gives us hope that someone will do the same for us when we reach this position of physical need and spiritual reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant reckoning. Even fumbled efforts at helpfulness and reconciliation are significant for the hope that they instill and the example they set. People feel blessed to have their parents live so long and that hope is the essence of the commandment to honor our parents, making the prospect of living a long life less frightening. Whatever helps us to become more ethical, on even kilt, and open-hearted is one of the most powerful and sincere offerings we can make to our ancestors. An individual must take time every day to remind oneself that we are also spirits, that we are one with God, and to try to being about a deep realization that there is a power greater than oneself sustaining us; a wise counselor guiding us; a generous provider who is ready and willing to meet the needs of everyday life. We do not deny either the body or the mind, but we do affirm the spirit as the supreme presence and the superior principle of all life. We do come from this thing that we call life, or God, and we are fundamentally spiritual beings even while in the flesh. Therefore, in order to be whole, we must establish a right relationship within this trinity of our being, which is thought, feeling and action. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Have Faith in the Future
Challenges are intended to be opportunities of growth. Developing a philosophy for motivation is a great way to learn to overcome hardships. One has to seek new interest within their remaining abilities. Living requires courage under all circumstances, but especially when old age or disability is something an individual is dealing with. We have to exert a deliberate effort daily to make life as good as the body allows. Our will to live a circumscribed life arises directly from our realizing the value of each ability we have retained and each new capacity we have required. It is like maintaining neatness in a household that is always on the verge of becoming unorganized: there can be no slackening of attention, or discouragement rushes in. People who find themselves in a state of decline feel like they are cut off from what was once a self. They face frustrating disruptions in their routines of writing, gardening, and seeing friends. Gradually, however, people start to look at things from another perspective. Ascension is possible when all that has to be given up can be gladly given up—because other things have become more important. Slowing down and watching the light changing on the porch, rather than hastening to get things done, accords both with the rhythms of exhaustion and the need for repose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Faith and character are intimately related. Being thankful for the things we are still able to do allows individual to awaken and feel overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude; it is like a sixth sense, like waking to the scent of fresh laundry or to the sounds of a baby singing as the sunrises in the sky. It is a humbling feeling. It is impossible to leave God out of anything, for do we not realize that God means the very intelligence by which we understand this law, the very consciousness by which we it? God is not left out. The very inspiration which cases us to inquire into this law is the ever-present spirit of God forever seeking self-expression through us. Unless our use of this law is impulse by love and unity, we shall be automatically shut out from the most effective use of it. Let us once more remind ourselves that the Universe is foolproof and that the Holy of Holies is entered only through the sanctuary of the heart, purified by love, directed by reason. The more feeling we put into our conviction, and the more faith we have in divine givingness, the more perfectly we shall be complying with the law; hence we shall have greater power over it. Historically, legends and ritual are in tandem. A people tells its stories of creation and of its deities, and then it worships these deities and celebrates its creation in rites. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
While legends are a way of telling stories about felt experience of faith and culture, rituals are actions that speak to the mind and the heart. We should return, then, to our central theme with renewed hope and increased vigor, and most certainly with an exuberant enthusiasm; with something of the spirit of an adventurer or explorer who goes out to discover new countries. The untold good which the creative spirit has placed at our disposal awaits the magic touch of our consciousness to spring into expression for us, filling the cup of our desire with its manifold of gifts. Who does not wish to be well, happy, and prosperous? Is there any normal person who desires to be inactive, impoverished, and in pain? Of course not! And there is not a voice within each of us forever proclaiming and insisting upon this divine potentiality? This urge to express is natural. Feeling unexpressed is frustration, but energy converted into action is accomplished, and we can be certain that the eternal is with us and never against us when we are never against anyone else. Moreover, we can be certain that the prayer of faith will lift up the chalice of expectancy for the outpouring of the spirit, that one may receiver from it all that one’s soul can contain. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
In many respects, however, adult dignity makes us lonely. Children express their hurts and readily seek comfort from others, while we guard ourselves against our sorrows and pass the years with our most vulnerable feelings shielded from view. People know us by our defenses, by the social masks we wear when we expect to be scrutinized. As we mature, we cry less. We learn better and better how to inhibit our feelings, show self-control, how not to weep. However, many of us cry inside. That makes it harder. Our tears are dry. Tears that are not shed go away slowly and return frequently. Such suffering, many of us cannot adequately describe. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that many people in this World cry dry tears much of the time. Pain, psychological or physical, can pull us out of adult solitude, to our embarrassment and our relief. We each retain the sensitivity of a seasoned adult, but it takes a catastrophe—pain or sheer helplessness—for us to express ourselves directly as a youngster might. Many adults do not want the full extent of their suffering to be exposed. We eventually progress to a further kind of dignity, but not without first relinquishing several layers of privacy. Faith in the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to us in times of urgent need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Vulnerability evokes powerful feelings in both the susceptible and the strong. We do not have to understand these feelings as much as we need to respond to them. Through our responses, we learn about the aspects of ourselves and our relationships that may have been concealed for years. We return to the yearnings of our youth. Ritual maintains the World’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection, and care. In a life that is animated with ritual, there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and figures on their structures, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. Tradition is an important part of ritual because the soul is so much greater in scope than an individual’s consciousness. The body must be properly care for, and we should come to understand that body-mind relationships. We must also never forget that people are primarily spiritual beings with a mind and body. It is only wen these three are brought together that we can hope to have health, happiness, and success. Exercise in faith in true principles builds character; fortified character expands our capacity to exercise more faith. As a result, our capacity and confidence to conquer the trials of life is enhanced. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Intellectual acknowledgment of one’s ultimate fragility is no match for the yield of lived experience. We are always aware that we are vulnerable to illness, but we do not quite believe in its likelihood until it actually happens to us. If many of our physical troubles come from an inward sense of uncertainty and insecurity, it follows that we must find a security greater than that insecurity which comes from a sense of being isolated from the Universe, separated from the cause of our being, or apart from God. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. When faith is properly understood and used, it has dramatically far-reaching effects. Such faith can transform an individual’s life from maudlin, common everyday activities to a symphony of joy and happiness. The exercise of faith is vital to Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. We must have faith in the capacity to discover hidden characteristics and traits that can transform life. Truly, faith in the Savior is a principle of action and power. Faith is a foundation building block of creation. God created the most remote galaxies as well as composed quarks, and the smallest elements of matter we know today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Obligations Curtail Our Freedom to Waste Ourselves
People who are kind, generous, and compassionate give others a striking affirmation of the intrinsic worth and importance of human beings. After being reduced to bodily terms, we are never the same. For the rest of our lives, we are unable to forget how much it is possible t be in need of others. We approach our relationships differently from then on, emphasizing those bonds which seem likely to withstand the tests of time and strain, and putting less effort into bonds of convenience. The nature of our aspirations changes along with the style of our relationships. We start asking different things of life. Considering how common impairments are, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, it becomes clear that each has our own special demons and divine figures, our own other-World landscapes and struggles. As a result of these changes, people suffering from detriment or restriction can often tell in a glance whether someone they meet has every had the experience of being helpless. They notice that a gap separates them from those who continue to be beguiled by good health. They watch as friends and relatives go on living from day to day as if they are invincible, dwelling inside a privileged deception. People suffering from ailments are not star athlete’s, who can take a hit and keep on ticking, and sometimes unnecessary psychological stress can make their condition worse, as it can amplify the pain they are experiencing or cause other conditions to flare up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Healthy people often find themselves distracted by the crude exterior of affliction, bypassing much of the complexity going on beneath the surface. Knowing what to say and do in the presence of a person who is incapacitated requires an awareness of what it is like to have time on one’s hands and to be at the mercy of others, but also knowledge of the range of emotions that arise in reaction to helplessness itself. A man spent several weeks confined to his bed. He was seriously ill and was unable to get out of bed, or move at all, even if it was only to go from laying on one side to laying on the other side. It was in that state of extreme helplessness that he saw how much a person can be in need of others. He was in need not only of his doctors, nurses, and medical staff, but also of God and spiritual help. Not only for medical care, but for comforting words or gestures. The problem of impairment raises two fundamental questions…Why me? (the questions of bafflement), and What can be done? (The question of order and control). We oppose the lessons of helplessness, hardening ourselves against the indignities and rejecting the forced revisions of our priorities. We hope only for recovery and for a return to self-sufficiency. Anything less invokes bitterness. We want to see more clearly and hear more sharply the themes that are special to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The important thing is to realize that, although life seems to be a matter of literal causes and effects, in fact we are living our deep stories, often unconsciously. We are condemned to live out what we cannot imagine. People suffering from an aliment or disability first blame the condition. One says, “If only I was not elderly or disabled or pregnant, life for be better for me.” Then they blame other people, saying, “Life would be better if people did not treat me like I football player.” Then, we finally realize it is what we put out there is what determines how our life is and how people treat us. We make our life good—it does not just happen. There are countless pitfalls on the way our of misery. Focusing relentlessly on what has been lost, comparing oneself to others, aspiring for things that are out of reach, and placing blame on others are only some of the most common snares. Each personal variation is uniquely painful. Soul work involves an effort toward increasing awareness of these situations that form the foundations of our lives, for if we become familiar with the characters and themes that are central to our conditions, we can be free from their compulsions and the blindness that comes upon us when we are caught up in them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When culture and language fail to acknowledge the difficulty of receiving, the dependent person is left doubly burdened, in disliking the help that cannot be repaid and in feeling guilty about the dislike. People know that when someone visits them, that they are simply being visited. They know that one is in receipt of a charitable act and that there is no true relationship. One knows they have nothing in common with the individuals coming to see them, they know all too well. We have often heard people who are elderly or disabled say, “Look at my life—all I do is eat and sleep. What kind of life is this?” They equate their lack of productivity activity with worthlessness. Some people take their mind off of their pain by thinking about what does work right. The most important thing to do is to keep the spirit supple. When we return to our central thought that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and God shall rise the individual up, we must remember that the prayer of faith is definite—it is faith in something and about something. This type of prayer is not generalized, but specific. It is conscious and definite. The prayer of faith is a prayer which expresses faith about some particular thing. What is included is a specific want, or definite need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
If one was praying for a home, one would not be asking for an automobile. If one were praying that his or her neighbor be healed, one would not be asking for money with which to take a trip. In order to enjoy the soulfulness of mythic life, we need a deep inner faith that allows us to know and visit our own deep strata where meaning and values truly are formed. Ritual is an action that speaks to the mind and heart, but it may not make sense in a literal context. In church, people do not eat bread in order to feed their bodies, but to nourish their souls. It is a higher symbolic act. If we could grasp this simple idea, that some actions may not have an effect on actual life, but speak instead to the soul, and if we could let go of the dominant role of function in so many things we do, then we might give more to the soul every day. Frail people try to conceal their needs as much as they can and they like to keep their conditions private. Social workers have been admitted to many apartments where it is more like people are living in private cells, concealing the evidence of their incapacities and averting their eyes from each others’ problems. Usually their presence is only accepted because something had necessitated their help. It was discovered in one such instance that a client had been sitting in the dark for weeks. The light bulbs had burned out in the ceiling fixtures, and he had no floor or table lamps. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Rather than ask one of his neighbors to help, he had been reading by daylight and going to bed when it became too dark to see. His back was hurting and he could barely move without experiencing a great deal of pain, as if his spine was going to snap. Therefore, keep in mind, the one who gives help is more powerful than the one who receives it. Knowing what to do for a person suffering from an impairment and what to cease doing begins with understanding what life is like from that person’s perspective. Without this comprehension, there is a tendency to worry about the wrong things and to give assistance in the wrong ways. Learning all that we can about being dependent allows us to fall short of the ideal to the right extent. Sometimes fear can strike a disabled or elderly person like a malignancy, sapping every and power and attention from their daily lives. They are afraid of the process of their ailment, they are afraid of increasing loss of control, they are afraid of the outcome, and they are afraid of dying. They fear how their families and friends see them, how they feel about them and how their condition affects their lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
However, what can be even more difficult is when people do not know or cannot see that you are disabled or have a diminished capacity and they force you to work, harass you, physically attack you, use you for money, and threaten you because they know they can get away with it. For young people who are physically disabled, it is like experiencing one’s old age prematurely. They are locked into a parallel isolation, shamed by feelings they do not dare confess. These individuals are frightened because they are young and still have a lot of life to live and are deteriorating much sooner than they are supposed to. They do not have a professor of whatever to understand them and how they feel, and their economy of friends tends to shrink. People do not know how to behave toward them, and it is easy to lose heart for coping. Sometimes they have no spirit for anything, like their heart finally dropped out of them. Theses youngster even get bullied and attacked by people who are much older than them, but have not yet experienced what it is like to have fractured vertebrae in their spine, or whatever. However, they have courage. Courage that comes for their belief in God. The Word courage comes from the Latin cor for heart. We give ourselves fresh heart by pulling our attention away from what has been lost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
It is not that fear and disheartenment can be willed away, but we have to turn our focus in a direction most favorable to their alleviation. The consciousness that heals is definite and deliberate; it is a specializing of the Universal Law. In this law we may have absolute and implicit confidence, but we must also remember that the law can do for us only what it does through us. Its energy and creativeness must be interpreted through our belief and imagination. This is but another way of saying that if we want the principle of electricity to light our living room we must provide a fixture which makes it possible for the electricity to become a light. When we pray in faith we receive what things we pray for. If we believe that we shall receive them, we shall receive them. There is a specific, definite thing we are to receive, but we are to receive it as we believe. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both of these blessings are founded. God wants each of his children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation for happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not adequately understood or followed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8 
Our Memories of the Family are a Significant Part of the Mythology
We have lost a certain depth in the way we understand our experiences, using language that is often doubletalk and shallow in order to describe complex and profound aspects of life. Resentment is a reliable gauge of when assistants are doing more than they should. The problem with heeding this measure is that there are ongoing pressures to deny its validity. Dedicated assistants insist that they are doing fine. At all costs, they want to avoid evoking in the person that they are assisting fear of abandonment and to keep from revealing that the care has become taxing. They conceal their feelings and strive to maintain a contented exterior. Eventually, their pretense isolates them from the person who needs their assistance, and any previous intimacy become veiled by this effort to hide the truth. A myth is a sacred story set in a time and place outside history, describing in fictional form the fundamental truths of nature and human life. Mythology gives to the invisible and eternal factors that are always part of life but do not appear in a literal, factual story. Most of the time, when we tell a story about our lives, we couch it in purely human terms. When was the last time you talked about monsters, angels, or demons when you were describing some strongly felt experience? Myth reaches beyond the personal to express an imagery reflective of archetypal issues that shape every human life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
When we are trying to understand our problems and our suffering, we look for a story that will be revealing. Our surface explanations usually show their shortcomings; they do not satisfy. And so we turn to family themes. Unacknowledged weariness puts a barrier between the ill people and those who assist them. However, the feelings leak through in subtle ways. My son says he likes fixing me dinner every night, but he looks so tense when he is here. He comes right over from work, and his wife holds dinner at their house until he gets home. He smiles, makes chitchat, but I know he is racing against times. Sometimes he looks like he is going to explode, his face is so tight, but he keeps on smiling. I wish he could just say it is too much for him. I would be disappointed, do not get me wrong, but TV dinners would not kill me. People can see beneath cheerful demeanor that their child is suffering, but do not want to initiate their release from the obligation. Many are afraid, not of TV dinners, but of the loneliness that would await them on a nightly basis if they spoke up and urged their child to only visit them on weekends. The worst consequence of silence, however, is the gap it leaves between them. When you notice your child can no longer speak to you beyond chitchat, it is clear that one has become an unmentionable problem in their life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Our memories of the family are a significant part of the mythology by which we live. We can learn things like the notion of exchange. For example, trading frequency for quality, guilty silence for relieving honesty. Dependent people and their helpers can release each other from guilt, but gestures must be mutual if they are to be effective. The reward for recognizing resentment as a limit is enjoying the elderly or disabled person’s company again. To feel that one can give pleasure and to receive small acts of sweetness is a fair exchange for new hours’ wait. A spiral of good feeling is set in motion between parent and child, which will replace the negative snowball that has been evolving between family members as the child becomes more and more weary of the care. If given the chance, few people would choose being waited on over being enjoyed. When we analyze what the prayer of faith means we discover that it is a statement of belief in some power which is able, ready, and willing to do the healing. At first, this may seem like a rather cold-blooded analysis, for to pick a prayer of faith apart seems to rob it of its sentimentality. Nevertheless, if we would arrive at a state of consciousness that heals we must be willing to analyze some of those things which seem so intimate and so holy that we that we dislike even to mention them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Some of those who are calling out for help are the honest in heart who are earnestly seeking the truth, but they do not know where to find it. The prayer of faith may be thought of as a petition, as a beseeching, or as an agonizing cry of the soul for deliverance, but whatever we term it and from whatever viewpoint we look at it, we discover that it still is an attitude of thought, a way of thinking, a movement in consciousness. If the prayer is one of faith, then this mental movement is one of acceptance, for faith is an acceptance unqualified by denial. Complete faith is absolute and beneficial. Faith is the attitude of one who makes a complete mental surrender. It can arise only through a consciousness of complete abandonment. To the consciousness of faith there are no longer any arguments against its conviction. Faith has no opposites; it is an uncompromising mental attitude, and this is exactly what the prayer of faith is. It is a prayer, a petition, or a beseeching stated in come form of mental acceptance, unqualified belief, unquestioned trust. While the burden of petition and the necessity of faith rests on the one making the petition or having the faith, the response to this petition and this faith is made by some creative agency which has the power and the willingness to perform the act. It is God who raises us up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
We make some strong claims in faith. We do not apologize for that. We have that responsibility. We have the truth. We are proclaiming the truth. When we consider how we help others, give it careful, prayerful thought. Some of those who are calling out for help are confused and disturbed by this complex, somewhat contradictory World in which we live, a World that has many crosswinds and crosscurrents, and even some whirlpools that can entrap and destroy. Let us remember that. Many of these people are yearning for the inner peace and joy that really can come only through love of God and love of family and from keeping God’s commandments. If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek hum with all they heart and with all thy soul, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. That implies that there is a truth which, known, automatically becomes demonstrated. Civilizations may come and go, empires may flourish and decay, time may pass, and change may deface all previous experience, but law is eternal. Thus, the scientist learns to depend on law. As we are able to perfect our lives, the blessings we have become more meaningful, and we experience that inner joy and peace for which there is no substitute. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International 