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There is Power in Being an Understander and Listener
Pure mind is in a state of harmony. We want to be encircled in the arms of our Heavenly Father’s love and guidance. At different times in our history we have denied soul to classes of beings we have wanted to control. Certain groups of people, at one time, had been deprived of having the ability to possess a soul. In our day, we assume that things have no soul, and thus we can do to them what we will. If we knew in our hearts that all beings and all things have a soul, we could not govern them as conscious subject over inert objects. Instead, we would have a mutual relationship of affection, respect, and care. We would be less lonely in a World that is alive with its own kind of soul than we are in a mechanical World we think we need to sustain with our technological efforts. Collectively we are like the burdened individual who thinks he or she has to get up early every morning in order to help sun rise. This is not all that uncommon a neurotic conception, and it reflects an attitude we all share, in part, as participants in the spirit of the times. If there is such a thing as mental healing it must be based on the supposition that all form is a manifestation of mind and that mind controls its manifestation. If God is all, there is nothing of which to be afraid, for perfect love casts out fear; where love is, fear cannot enter. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
There once was a boy who used to put all of his stuff animals on his bed in alphabetical order. Bear, cat, dog, elephant and so on. One day, his mother realized that they were in a different order and she asked why? The boy responded, “I put them in the order that I love them. Please do not tell them, I do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” In all of us there is a profound longing for friendship, a deep yearning for the satisfaction and security that close and lasting relationships can give. Much conspires against friendship in later life. Retirement removes the context from which work friendship may have drawn their momentum. Physical problems may interfere with the nature of our activities and the frequency of our contacts with others. Above all, the passing of old friends may rob us of the will for friendship. When new friends beckon, we are reluctant to put heart and the energy into making news ones. Many people will limit themselves to superficial friendships. They insist that nothing further is possible, staying within safe conversational topics, such as the doings of family members and the trivialities of work. They then point to these dull friendships as proof of their initial belief. Some believe that the new friendships have no place to grow together and that they have heard it all before, and there is nothing left to say. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Simple love, honestly expressed, gives hope and value to others. We tend to shun in others what we fear in ourselves. Yet mustering our willingness to look beneath the surface of other people’s dispositions if the only way to counter this fear with hope. If instead we keep averting our eyes and refusing to make accommodations, our intolerance will fill us with dread as our own surfaces deteriorates. We may leave ourselves stranded when we disallow soul to simple things around us because we lose that important source of soul for ourselves. Concretely, a tree can tell us much in the language of its form, texture, age, and colour and in the way in presents itself as an individual. However, in this expression of itself, it is also showing us the secretes of our own souls, for there is no absolute separation between the World’s soul and our own. We are truly the World, and the World is us. When we are satisfied that we know all that is worth knowing about ourselves, or when we accept that there is nothing more to day or to learn from others, we close off our curiosity. We tell ourselves, “I have had enough,” and we stay sad and exhausted. Some people would rather have dinner in complete silence instead of talking about the same problems over and over and so they push themselves to find new ideas and concepts to discuss to keep life interesting. Like the fact that we can clone or pets and buy land on the Moon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Perhaps our life in a loving premortal World set up our yearning for true, lasting love here on Earth. Taking an interest is half of inspiration. There is power in being an understander and listener. As life gets physically more difficult, we need commitments to others to bind us to life. Those who stay insular find that their spirit for life dwindles along with their physical powers. Gift have to move from one person or another, or they lose their values. Anything contained within a boundary must contain as well its own exhaustion. The gift that is not used will be lost, while the one that is passed along remains abundant. The gift of continuing to be alive, when passed on to others through friendship, makes the spirit abundant every as the body wanes. Many people surprise themselves with the quality of the friendships they are able to form, once they put aside their biases. Most people want sibling-like equality and reciprocity in their friendships. Individuals who are open to their needs and back up the relationships. We need to cultivate our relationships to the ensouled World through simple daily mindfulness and imaginative practices. We must carefully expose ourselves to art, architecture, food, landscapes, cultures, and climate. Life is rich in what it can offer the soul, but in order to receive that richness we must learn to enjoy things in moderation and use them with great discernment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
We are divinely designed to give love and be loved, and the deepest love comes when we are one with God. The soul straddles the eternal and the temporal and the full blend of these two dimensions gives life depth and vitality. The body of God is perfect, including every manifestation of itself. Humans are the body of God. Turn things into thoughts and heal the thought. Spiritual enlightenment in the mind heals the body because the body is mind in form and because spiritual enlightenment changes the form of thought in mind. Religion and theology show us the mysteries and the rites that inform every piece of ordinary modern life. To care for the soul we will need to give up our limited ideas of what psychology is, our attempts to gain rational control over our moods and emotions, our illusion that our consciousness is the only sign of soul in Universe, and our desire for dominance over nature and fabricated things. We will have to expose ourselves to beauty, risking the irrationality it stirs up and the interference it can pace in the way of our march toward technological progress. We may have to give up many projects that seem important to modern life, in the name of sacred nature and the need for beautiful things. And we may have to do these things both communally and individually, as part of our effort finally to care for the soul. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Healing emotional distance between each other will require our acceptance of God’s love, coupled with a sacrifice of our natural selfish and fearful tendencies. There is no necessary enmity between technology and beauty, or between care of the soul and development of culture. Science has as much capacity for soulfulness as do art and religion. However, in all these areas we have lived for a long time now as though soul were not a factor and consequently encounter soul only in intractable problems and deep-seated neuroses. For instance, we have amazingly efficient cars, but marriage is becoming impossible to sustain. We produce movies and television programs without end, but we have little imagination about living in a peaceful international community. We have many instruments for medicine, but we do not understand except on the most rudimentary ways the relationship between life and ailments. We do not have to lose pleasure and fun in order to give the soul what it needs, but we do have to give it attention and articulation. As long as we leave care of the soul out of our daily lives we will suffer the loneliness of living in a dead, cold, unrelated World. We can improve ourselves to the maximum, and yet we will still feel the alienation inherent in a divided existence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
We will continue to exploit nature and our capacity to invent new things, but both will continue to overpower us, if we do not approach them with enough depth and imagination. The way out of this neurosis is to leave our modern divisions behind and learn from other cultures, from art and religion, and from new movements in philosophy that there is another way to perceive the World. We can replace our modernist psychology with care of the soul, and we can begin building a culture that is sensitivity to matters of the heart. As the physical Universe has been linked to prayer to God, so our individual experiences may be linked to our spirituality. Spirituality forms our awareness, our realization—an inner feeling and conviction which transcends the experience taking place in an objective World. Take a definite time at least twice each day to be alone, sit down, compose your mind, and think about God. Try to arrive at a deep sense of peace and calm. Then assume an attitude of faith in a power greater than you are. We need to continually deepen our knowledge of and obedience to Heavenly Father. Our relationship with God is eternal. We are his beloved children, and that will not change. How are we going to wholeheartedly accept his invitation to draw near to God and this enjoy the blessing he longs to give us in this life and in the World to come? #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
We are here on this Earth to learn and grow, and the most important learning and growing will come from our covenant connection to Heavenly Father. From our faithful relationship with God comes superior knowledge, love, power, and capacity to serve. We are duty-bound to learn all that God has revealed about himself. We need to know that Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation is that we obey the laws and ordinances of the gospel and gain eternal life and thus become as God is. This is the true and lasting happiness Heavenly Father offers us. There is no other true and lasting happiness. Our challenges can pull us off this course of happiness. We can lose our trusting connection to God if trials drive us to distraction instead of sending us to our knees. A matter of lasting value to the Father is that we learn of him, humble ourselves, and grow in obedience to him through Earthly experiences. God wants us to change our selfishness into service, our fears into faith. These lasting matters can test us to our core. It is now, with our mortal limitations, that the Father asks us to love when loving is most difficult, to serve when serving is inconvenient, to forgive when forgiving is soul stretching. Sacrifice of our personal agendas is required to make room for the eternal plans of God. To live with high degree of prophetic counsel means attending to the small things that keep the soul engaged in whatever we are doing, and it is the very heart of soul-making. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Our Degree of Gratitude is a Means of Love for God
Think of our physical sustenance. It is truly Heaven sent. We are at home here on Earth. So many people who come here seem lost and emotionally or spiritually homeless. They keep moving, but they never really live anywhere. To get to Heaven, we need to focus less on saving our own soul and more time loving all souls. Loyalty is a reward for remembered generosity. Community, friendship, and generosity are three aspects of life that we may squander until we fully admit to our dependence on one another. Throughout history we find certain schools of thought, such as the Renaissance Platonists and the Romantic poets, that have focused on the soul. It is interesting to note that these soul-minded writers have emphasized certain common themes. Relatedness, particularity, imagination, mortality, and pleasure are among them; another is beauty. In a World where soul is neglected, beauty is placed last on its list of priorities. There are moments in life when our true dependence on one another breaks through. Loyalty is the attribute we most value in our relatives and celebrate in our friends. If we conducted the middle of our lives with an eye to the end of our lives, we would choose a place to live and we would stay. Residing near others with whom we establish a history of reciprocity is the best hope for our future stability, whether we manage to live near blood relations or choose to develop family-like bonds with others. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
No amount of self-reliance can match the confidence derived from years of faithfulness and accumulated gratitude. The assumption that beauty is an accessory, and dispensable, show that some may not understand the importance of giving the soul what it needs. The soul is nurtured by beauty. Many people like to keep close contact with good people they have known since their youth. Some of our friends have been part of the landscape of our lives as far back as we can remember. Having someone to talk to at the end of the day does people a World of good, even just for a few minutes. They know someone is thinking of them, and they can say a thing or two about how their day was. Most people look forward to a short conversation at the end of the day. This is food to the body and pleasing to the soul. If we have lack of beauty in our lives, we will probably suffer familiar disturbances in the soul—depression, paranoia, meaninglessness, and addiction. The soul craves beauty and, in its absence, suffers beauty neurosis. Beauty neurosis is a hyperactive lifestyle that confuses intense activity for the ability to engage with the World. It is not the threat of death, illness, hardship, or poverty that crushes the human spirit; it is the fear of being alone and unloved in the Universe. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
The process that drives creativity has been so mysterious to us throughout human history. The problem with our modern networks is that they become useless once physical frailty catapults our mobility back into the nineteenth century. When our face-to-face contact is cut off, we may as well be three thousand miles away. Prior to reaching our time of frailty, we are wise to survey our lives for pockets of loyalty worth preserving. Starting over is strenuous at any age, but especially when we are emotionally vulnerable or physically fragile. Divine inspiration and reciprocation keeps relationships alive. Bonds with friends and neighbors may mean more than blood oaths, especially if a recent history of giving and receiving animates thee other relationship. Such discoveries contradict what we prefer to believe about the strength of family bonds and our ability to overcome the effects of geographical separation. Scattering across the country causes family members to become strangers to each other, no matter how often they write or call. Verbal contact is not the same as meshing the routines of daily life: going shopping together, exchanging help back and forth, and witnessing each other’s victories and sorrows first-hand. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Our bonds remain strongest when they are sustained by both proximity and mutual need. Beauty assists the soul in its own peculiar ways of being. For the soul, it is important to be taken out of the rush of practical life for the contemplation of timeless and eternal realities. Beauty is arresting. You may find yourself driving along a highway when you suddenly pass a vista that catches your breath. You stop the car, get out for just a few minutes, and behold the grandeur of nature. This is the arresting power of beauty and giving in to that sudden longing of the soul is a way of giving it what it needs. Discussion of beauty can sometimes sound ethereal and philosophical, but from the soul viewpoint, beauty is a necessary part of ordinary life. If only passing a store window and stopping for a second to notice a beautiful ring or amazing car, every day we will find moments when the soul glimpses an occasion for beauty. We know that the objective person, place, and condition are all effects following the causation, which is the mind. And we know that thought is the instrument of mind. The arrow of desire and attachment stops us in our tracks—we are taken by the beauty and feel its pleasure. The point of the momentary seizure is simply to feel the soul with its preferred diet—a sight that invites contemplation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
From this viewpoint, the word does not have to reach any objective place; it merely describes the place. Identifying itself in mind with the place, it is instantly at that place. For the soul, then, beauty is not defined as pleasantness of form but rather as the quality in things that invites absorption and contemplation. Beauty is something that unlimited gives scope to the imagination; beauty is a source of imagination, and it never dries up. A thing so attractive and absorbing may seize the soul in a special sense. Some of the ancients has reported that the truth is that whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. It will help us to have a complete conviction that our word will always reach the desired condition; it will never fail to objectify where it should, when it should, and in the right way. Nothing but the absolute faith in the Law of Cause and Effect can give us this confidence. If we are going to care for the soul, and if we know that the soul is nurtured by beauty, then we will have to understand beauty more deeply and give it more prominent place in life. It is self-evident that all things come from the invisible, are projected by it, and remain with it. Religion has always understood the value of beauty, as we can see in churches and temples, which are never built for purely practical considerations, but always for the imagination. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
A tall steeple or a rose window are not designed to allow additional seating or better light for reading. They speak to the soul’s need for beauty, for love of the building itself as well as its use, for a special opportunity for sacred imagination. Our thought is an activity of this invisible causation, and when we say, “This word shall manifest in this place,” we may be and we must be certain that it will do so. How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to him. Could we not learn from our churches and Victorian homes and temples, to give attention and funding to this same need in our modern homes, our commercial buildings, our highways, and our schools? An appreciation for beauty is simply an openness to the power of things to stir the soul. If we can be affected by beauty, then soul is alive and well in us, because the soul’s great talent is for being affected. The word passion means basically to be affected, and passion is the essential energy of the soul. Let us give thanks to God, for he does work righteousness forever. Our degree of gratitude is a means of love for him. God is the Father of our spirits. He has glorified, perfected body of flesh and bone. We have lived with him in Heaven before we were born. And when he created us physically, we were created in the image of God each with a personal body. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
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
God is the Most Dynamic Reality in the Universe
Some doors are heavier than others and the longings of the human heart is life everlasting. The chance to explore unlived life awaits us as long as we are alive, but only if we are willing to succumb to radical change. Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: “The shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that pass away.” (D&C 42.45.) When we lose a near and dear friend, upon whom we have set our hearts, it should be a caution unto us. Our affections should be placed upon God and his work, more intensely than upon our fellow beings. In many respects, once we recognize our mortality we open ourselves to the discoveries that incite growth of our nature. Long before we speak the words, we receive reminders that we have a finite amount of time on Earth. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on Earth; we fully flower in Heaven. Some people cling to physical powers, both as their chief tool for coping with life, and as the most important element in their self-definition. Since physical powers inevitably decline, such people tend to grow increasingly depressed, bitter, or otherwise unhappy as they grow older. When hardship heaps its heavy load upon us, good may still be gleaned because after much tribulation comes the blessings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
While we are still full of youthful vigor, we tend to feel cheated when mishaps interfere with our strivings. Physical incapacity reverses this stance: we expect some portion of our desires will be frustrated, and we are relieved when our preferences are satisfied. Physical and spiritual trials provide continuing challenges in life. Each of us can provide illustrations from personal experience. Many of us, for instance, are at the twilight of life and endure long and difficult days. We know well the meaning of that divine injunction to endure to the end. To varying degrees, unlived life is everyone’s plight. Our time is finite, our abilities are uneven, and we have to forsake some goals in order to attain others. These limitations are there all along, but erosion of independence finally forces us to reconcile ourselves to them. Everything here on Earth is in a continual flux which allows nothing to assume any constant form. All things change round about us, we ourselves change, and no one can be sure of loving tomorrow what one loves today. When it comes to us, let us make the most of peace of mind, taking care to do nothing to drive it away. Everyone knows that we can be deeply affected by the things of nature. A certain hill of mountain can offer a deep emotional focus to a person’s life or to a family or community. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Can anyone believe that the Great Creator would provide for life and growth and achievement only to snuff it all into oblivion? Reason says no. When my great-grandparents lived in New City, New York, they bought a large house on Strawtown Road. They planted and tended an orchard with great care. The house was graceful to look at from the outside, and inside it was filled with old paintings and photographs, beautiful furniture and plants, stained glass windows and gorgeous wood floors. There was a grand piano in the parlor, and a built in curved wooden bench in the foyer, along with a marvelous fireplace. In front of the house were several lush trees that offered privacy, shade, and beauty for the family and many other people who visited the house. The trees are like members of the family, bound to us as individuals of another species. Many things have a soul. We know these feelings of attachment to things, but we tend not to take them seriously and allow them to be part of our World view. What if we took more seriously this capacity of things to be close to us, to reveal their beauty and express their subjectivity? The result would be a soul-ecology, a responsibility to the things of the World based on appreciation and relatedness rather than on abstract principle. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
A real relationship with nature has to be fostered by spending time with it, observing it, and being open to its teachings. Any true relationship requires time, a certain vulnerability, and openness to being affected and changed. A deep ecological sensibility can come only from the deep soul, which thrives in community, in thing that it is not detached from the heart, and in relatedness to particulars. It is a simple idea: if we do not love things in particular, we cannot love the World, because the World does not exist expect in individual things. Really, this truth we have found marks but the beginning of a new day, a new experience, a new life—a life no longer disturbed by fear nor haunted by doubts or filled with regrets of the past or misgivings over the future—a life that can be lived in its fullness today, and a life that will extend through all our tomorrows in an ever-broadening arena of experience, an ever-deepening realization of a presence and a power and a peace that gives us complete security and an ever-greater vision of the more that is yet to come. Care of the World is a tending to the soul that resides in nature as well as in human beings. God is the only power and the only presence there is, and God is right where we are. We live and move and have in our being God. God’s being moves through us and manifests itself in what we are doing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
We cultivate a sense of home wherever we are, in whatever context. The things of the World are part of our home environment, ad so a soulful ecology is rooted in the feeling that this World is our home and that our responsibility to it comes not from obligation nor logic but from true affection. Without a felt connection to thins we become numb to the World and lose that important home and family. The penury we see on our city streets is a reflection of a deeper destitution we feel in our hearts. Care for our actual hoses, then, however humble or grand, is also a care of the soul. No matter how much money we have, we can be mindful of the importance of beauty in our homes. No matter where we live, we live in a neighborhood, and we can cultivate this wider piece of Earth, too, as our home, as a place that is integrally bound to the conditions of our hearts, as a noble instrument in the hands of God. We thank God our Eternal Father for a more tolerant day and greater understanding. The sunshine of goodwill is upon our people. As long as the heart is involved, care of the place will follow. Perseverance is vital to success in any endeavor, whether spiritual our temporal, large or small, public or private. Think seriously of how important perseverance, or the lack of it have been in your own endeavors. Essentially all significant achievement results largely from perseverance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Did you ever stop to think that you are a spiritual and mental broadcasting station, and that the messages are going out from you in all directions, perhaps even while you are asleep—messages which have an influence on your environment and the people around you? And since everything moves in circles, the messages you broadcast will come back to you. Gather miraculous inner strength and be grateful for the effect of love upon you. We each have trials and challenges to overcome as we strive to keep on the right course. Often the most important trials are those we must face and subdue privately within our own hearts. We are told that the mental atmosphere of a home can influence a dog, cat, or canary to the extent that they become neurotic when surrounded by unhappiness or criticism. There is a place where our physical bodies begin and leave off, but the mind has no such limitations, and our thoughts penetrate everything around us. Perseverance is essential to us in learning and living the principles of the gospel and that will determine our progress as we strive to each exaltation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
The pursuit of excellence should be major work of our lives. Many people, however, give little thought to it. Perhaps they feel that it is not possible for anyone to reach perfection in this life, and so they let the immediate pressures dominate their actions. While it is true that we cannot attain perfection in a total sense in this life, it is also true that we can attain perfection in many specific areas of activity. We are all broadcasting stations, whether or not we know it. Our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, our faiths and fears, tend to make an imprint on our environment. We are also receiving sets, but it does not follow that we must tune in to every program being broadcast. When we want to listen to a certain program we tune our radios to its wavelength. The program already is within the ether in the room, but it does not affect our instrument until we tune in to it. It is fascinating to think that we are both mental broadcasting stations and receiving sets. And it will be even more wonderful when we learn to broadcast only the kind of messages that we wish to have return. Furthermore, if we fail to do what we can and should do in this life, we may deprive ourselves forever of the opportunity to do those things later on and thus lose great eternal blessings. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
Heaven is not reached at a single bound, but we build the skyscraper by which we rise from the lowly Earth to the vaulted skies, and we mount to its summit round by round. If a person’s mind is filled with animosity and resentment people will feel it, whether or not one says a word. This animosity arouses within others who have resentment and animosity a feeling like one’s own. One’s thoughts tune in to theirs, and theirs immediately respond by following back into the receptive individual. One accentuates the other. One the other hand, if we are surrounded by people who have resentment and animosity, but we have none, we will not tune in. Their vibrations bypass us, and their antagonism does not arouse an equal antagonism in us because we are not broadcasting on the same mental wavelength. It is the same with everything in life. A person whose thought is filled with the fear of failure tunes in to and picks up vibrations of failure wherever that individual contact them; to one’s own negative thought there is added a great mass of negative thoughts, until finally it seems that the only thing one can think about is failure. In a way, this individual’s will and imagination become hypnotized, because one is tuning in to so much negation. When a person’s mind is upset, disturbed, and unhappy, all one mentally hears is discord because one’s inner ear is listening to a continuous turmoil. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Conversely, a person whose thought is filled with the idea of success, who has faith and confidence in oneself and what one is doing, will tune in to the successful thoughts around one, the thoughts of faith and optimism and happy expectancy. When you get into bed at night, rehearse the things you have accomplished during the day. Allow yourself to feel the satisfaction that comes of work completed or even partially completed. A person who confidently expects good things to happen, expects to be respected, and who expects to find happiness in life where one foes, will not only be broadcasting these thoughts which will make other people happy; one will be receiving them in return. Because one feels friendly, people will respond with friendliness. We all wish to be like this. We not only want to be whole ourselves, because no one can be happy unless he or she is whole, but we want to help others. We not only wish to broadcast good news; good news is what we want to receive. We may not see it now, but everything we do, every day we live is for a purpose. And we have a Heavenly Father who will always be there to life us up and cheer us on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
We care so much about one another as we walk together on our journey. I know Heavenly Father will bless each of us as we pray, work hard and give time a chance. We should decide to think on the affirmative side of life, or accentuate the optimistic and eliminate the pessimistic. In doing this we must make up our minds that we are not going to receive the criticism nor the negative state nor the animosity of anyone. And let us not forget the importance of keeping our minds in a state of good-natured flexibility. If a tree did not bend with the breeze, it would break under a strong wind. We have to be flexible and tolerant as well as optimistic and affirmative. Remember that for everyone who passes out of this World someone else comes in life. Life is a river always flowing, and life itself never get tired, worn out, nor exhausted; it never depletes itself. Also, we do not have to morbidly scan all the accidents any more than we have to listen to the negative conversation. More and more we are coming to see what it means to accentuate the beneficial and eliminate the negative. God is still the supreme power, and the divine spirit is still present with us no matter where we are. We must learn to tune in to the mind of God, for when we do we are tuning in to the most dynamic reality in the Universe. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
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
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
Randolph Harris II International 